Midsummer is just around the corner and like everyone else I am super thrilled to enjoy the long hours of sunshine in Helsinki! Who am I kidding here, it’s Finland so probably to expect more cloudy and rainy days down the road, like today. This newsletter is for one of these days when you can’t enjoy the sun outside. Sharing with you two nice pieces from my recent learning journey around the topic of business design and one article I recently read dealing with the hot topic of AI. Enjoy!
Meet our curator of the month
Lenastarted her journey as a Service Designer in Munich and recently fulfilled her dream of living and working abroad by relocating to Helsinki. Her core skills and interests lay in user research, facilitation and ecosystem thinking. She loves to try out new things and recently entered the realms of strategic and business design, trying to not get too confused understanding all the numbers. Besides her professional pursuits, she enjoys meeting friends, any kind of dancing and has recently taken up skateboarding as a new hobby.
I personally think creating a joyful work environment is important and supports the process along a project journey. I found this book after seeing the TED talk from Jennifer and Naomi and am currently halfway through reading it. Normally in a working situation, things are serious and people don’t expect any humor or fun (especially in Germany, trust me). So this book is very enlightening by emphasizing that humor is a tool that can be used to enhance competence, confidence, creativity, and resilience. This book is a valuable resource to reclaim the lost art of humor in the workplace setting and beyond. “It’s time to take humor seriously!”
Last year I had this amazing learning journey with the d.MBAcourse, to get started with building up my business design skills (thanks again to Alen and Franz for the great learning experience). Since then I have also been following their video podcast where they interview experts from various backgrounds to discuss different topics. In this newsletter, I want to share with you their latest episode that I was listening to, where they interviewed Tom from Lululemon. It’s a nice episode where they discuss the topics of market challenges, revenue and growth, strategic differentiators, and biggest threats, taking Lululemon as a use case. A nice way to show how the theory is applied in practice and to understand how the business aspects of such a brand work.
As probably most of you, I am also following the latest trends and developments when it comes to artificial intelligence. I just stumbled over this article a few days ago, published by The New Yorker, comparing AI with McKinsey as a metaphor. Ted Chiang raises questions and statements about the rise of AI technologies in the business world and how it could reshape the way companies seek strategic advice and make decisions. It is a fascinating article to read bringing in different perspectives and which triggers your imaginations and thought process around the topic. Dive into this thought-provoking read, discussing the evolving role of AI and its impact on us.
I always wanted to do something creative when growing up. After school, I was looking into architecture, marketing, and graphic design for my studies and decided, in the end, to focus on media and communication design which started my journey to where I am now.
Name one superpower that makes you different from the others.
Humor! Bringing fun and joy into project work and everyday interactions with my colleagues, in order to create a nice atmosphere for collaboration is important for me.
Something you feel very grateful for when looking back on your career.
The amazing people I met along the way and the friendships I gained. There are so many great people with diverse backgrounds I was able to work with.
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