A genius is someone who can tolerate the discomfort of uncertainty while generating as many ideas as possible.

Designful companies are those that weave design thinking into the fabric of the company. In a designful company, innovation is rewarded instead of punished. Risk taking is the norm instead of the exception. Some companies have already embraced this type of culture change with impressive results.

Without design thinking, the only sane response to a problem is to make a smaller, "safer" move. Smaller moves don't get you very far. They key is to let out the leash on imagination, but not take it off the leash. Imagination is the only path to innovation. It's a good example of something that humans do better than machines.

The central problem of brand-building is getting a complex organization to execute a simple idea.

I see "demand creation" as a 20th-century construct that's bound up with advertising. It's an outmoded view of marketing that says, "First, we build a product or service, then we advertise it into people's lives." Embedded this view is the belief that companies control brands. This is a myth. My message all along has been that brands are actually created by customers, not companies. Companies only provide the raw materials - the products, messaging, behaviors - that people use these to create brands.

When enough individuals arrive at the same gut feeling, a company can be said to have a brand.

Design is the underlying skill that activates innovation. If you want to innovate, you've got to design.