

Creative Confidence Podcast
IDEO U
IDEO’s Creative Confidence Podcast shares candid conversations with creative leaders, changemakers, and innovators navigating today’s most pressing challenges. Through real-world stories and insights, we explore how to lead with creativity, build resilient teams, and drive innovation. Grounded in IDEO’s 40 years of expertise in design thinking and innovation, each episode offers inspiration and practical tools for audacious leaders at every stage of their careers. Hosted by Mina Seetharaman, Head of New Ventures at IDEO, the podcast brings a human-centered lens to the complexities of making more courageous futures.
Discover more at IDEOU.com.
Discover more at IDEOU.com.
Episodes
Mentioned books

May 7, 2019 • 5min
Jake Knapp Takeover #2: Block your calendar
In this podcast takeover series, Jake Knapp, designer and author of Make Time and the New York Times bestseller Sprint, shares quick tips to help you optimize your energy, focus, and time. Part 2 covers tips for using your calendar to your advantage.
Check out our page to listen to the full interview with Jake and hear more about how he started his journey toward productivity and mindfulness and lessons from his experience designing products at Google.
Download the free Make Time poster we created with Jake to put these tips into action: ideo.to/knapp

12 snips
May 4, 2019 • 45min
Why Everyone Should Prototype (Not Just Designers): Chris Nyffeler
In this episode of our Creative Confidence Series, IDEO Executive Design Director Chris Nyffeler chats with IDEO U Managing Director Coe Leta Stafford about the value of prototyping, how to create low-fidelity prototypes for digital products and services, and the role of technology in design. Chris is also the instructor in our online class, Prototyping for Digital Experiences: https://ideo.to/WMHQFx

Apr 26, 2019 • 4min
Jake Knapp Takeover #1: Choose Your Highlight
In this podcast takeover series, Jake Knapp, designer and author of Make Time and the New York Times bestseller Sprint, shares quick tips to help you optimize your energy, focus, and time. Part 1 covers how to choose a highlight for your day.
Check out our page to listen to the full interview with Jake and hear more about how he started his journey toward productivity and mindfulness and lessons from his experience designing products at Google.
Download the free Make Time poster we created with Jake to put these tips into action: ideo.to/knapp

9 snips
Apr 5, 2019 • 39min
How Great Teams Leverage Tension as a Source for Innovation: Daniel Coyle
Daniel Coyle chats with IDEO U Managing Director Coe Leta Stafford about his newest book, The Culture Code, three skills that the most successful teams have in common, and how high performing teams react to tension differently.
Get tips and techniques for guiding teams through creative collaboration by embracing diverse perspectives and tension in our 5-week online course Cultivating Creative Collaboration: https://ideo.to/faNcXN

Mar 29, 2019 • 12min
Office Hours: Empathy Exercises with Jane Fulton Suri
[Bonus Episode] In this Office Hours edition of our Creative Confidence Series, Jane Fulton Suri, IDEO Partner Emeritus and Executive Design Director, chats with IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard and answers questions from our community on design research, empathy, and observation. Check out their full conversation at ideou.com/podcast to hear more about Jane’s experience over her 30-year career at IDEO and in design research.

Mar 15, 2019 • 32min
Making Time for Creative Work: Jake Knapp
Jake Knapp has spent years figuring out how to prioritize the things that matter in an increasingly distracting world. In this episode of our Creative Confidence Podcast, Jake, the author of Make Time and the New York Times bestseller Sprint, shares the methods he has developed to find focus in daily life, opening up the opportunity to have more impact at work and at home. He shares how he started his journey toward productivity and mindfulness, lessons from his experience designing products at Google, and how by focusing on fewer things, you can actually do more as an individual and a team.
Download the free Make Time Interactive poster we created with Jake: https://ideo.to/ENpPlm

9 snips
Mar 4, 2019 • 43min
Tapping into the Power of Questions: Warren Berger
“If you’re human, you’re creative.”
—Warren Berger, Innovation Expert & Author
Innovation expert and author Warren Berger has spent years studying how questions can transform our business and personal lives and tap into our creative potential. In this episode of our Creative Confidence Series, he shares insights from his new book, The Book of Beautiful Questions, featuring hundreds of big and small questions that harness the magic of inquiry to tackle challenges we all face—at work, in our relationships, and beyond.
To learn more about using questions to guide and motivate others, check out our 5-week online course Leading for Creativity, part of our Foundations in Creative Leadership Certificate: https://ideo.to/j3NdeD

Feb 15, 2019 • 41min
How a Museum Uses Creativity & Collaboration to Reach 200M Annually
Chris Flink, executive director of the Exploratorium, former IDEO partner, and a founding faculty member of Stanford University’s d.school talks to IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard about the evolution of the museum over 50 years, how they’ve expanded their reach globally, and how they cultivate creativity with their visitors, the broader community, and within their own organization.
Want to learn more about fostering a creative culture and inspiring others? Check out our Leading for Creativity online course, part of the Foundations in Creative Leadership Certificate, to see a case study from the Exploratorium: https://ideo.to/vklw0w

14 snips
Feb 8, 2019 • 41min
The Art of the Insight: Learnings from 30 Years of Curiosity and Empathy
In this episode of our Creative Confidence Series, Jane Fulton Suri, IDEO Partner Emeritus and Executive Design Director, and Dean of IDEO U Suzanne Gibbs Howard reflect on the evolution of empathy in design during Jane’s 30-year career at IDEO and why bringing curiosity into your work takes courage. To learn more about human-centered design and methods for surfacing insights, check out Jane’s online course Insights for Innovation: https://ideo.to/drQaya

8 snips
Feb 6, 2019 • 43min
David Kelley on the Design Abilities of Creative Problem Solvers
In our most recent Creative Confidence Series chat, David Kelley, founder of IDEO and the Stanford d.school, and IDEO U Dean Suzanne Gibbs Howard sat down to discuss the core abilities of the most successful design thinking practitioners and personal stories and learnings from David’s friendships with several of today’s most innovative CEOs and leaders. Hear from more innovative leaders on the IDEO U podcast.
Learn more about building the skills and abilities to deepen your design thinking practice with our Advanced Design Thinking Certificate: ideo.to/y4EyDx