“I don’t know,” might be three of the hardest words to say, especially for a teacher. The teacher is the one who’s supposed to know. And yet, not knowing creates space for the unexpected to emerge…

The best creators are constantly learning. There’s immense value in doing something you’re not good at, specifically for the sake of seeing from a fresh perspective.

Legendary Stanford professor Bob McKim used to give design students a simple assignment: keep a bug list. This was decades before computer programming gave the term the meaning it has today.

It’s a grave mistake to assume that a spectacular outcome started out spectacularly. As Ed Catmull, Founder and CEO of Pixar says, “Our job is to take movies from suck to not suck.”

Author, teacher, and artist Gary Zamchick writes, “In a time of rapid disruption, it’s more important than ever to live in the liquid space between building and dreaming — a place where conceptual, innovative, and transformational leaps drive innovation and change.”

Gavin Guidry, Creative Director at R/GA, says, “If my experience has taught me one thing, it’s this: to get the results clients are looking for, they need to forget about cultural relevance, and focus on community relevance.”

Whenever a student asked legendary Stanford Professor Bob McKim for feedback on a new design concept, he consistently gave the same response: “Show me three.” Those three words contain a remarkable depth of wisdom.

“Would anyone be interested in staying after class tomorrow to brainstorm experiments?” This simple post is one of the most-engaged-with in all of LaunchPad12’s Slack messages. It illustrates a profound source of wisdom.

We crave for our processes to buttoned up all nice and neat. But the creative process is rarely nice and neat. It is, as folks like to say, “non-linear.” I’ve realized how I’m guilty of eliminating all the messy bits that actually lead to the interesting outcomes.

In "Add Subtraction", the author explains how we tend to change the world by adding new things, but subtracting can lead to better results.

What do you do when your work is being publicly attacked? Few have grappled with the question as deeply as Becky Margiotta, co-founder and champion of the 100,000 Homes campaign.

When we think of innovation, and the quantity required to break through, we think in terms of “different” ideas. Iterations are every bit as much viable alternatives, according to James Clear and Mr. Beast.

A vibrant, productive creative practice is comprised of equal parts inspiration and effort. Knowing when you need which is an essential capability.

Ownership is an exceptional innovation diagnostic. Who came up with the good idea? A dysfunctional team will have a very clear memory of a very straightforward process.

Some problems can be hard to see from different perspectives. William Hardaway, a design leader in higher education recommends taking a light-hearted approach to exposing unexplored angles.

Gathering likeminded learners (aka lunatics) exponentially reduces the ramp of a new pursuit, normalizing courage in the face of intimidation. YouTube sensation Mr. Beast breaks it down here.

Spectacular entrepreneurs craft clever experiments. But a robust experimentation practice demands a rigorous ideation ritual. In Stanford’s LaunchPad, we tell aspiring founders to do this.

One of the simplest ways to measure your creative capacity is to count how many solutions you can imagine for any given problem. World-class creators actually, literally, count their ideas.

Where does the authority to lead transformation comes from? Innovation leader and Stanford d.school coach Bill Pacheco shares insights from a recent engagement.

For all the talk about overcoming creative blocks and getting unstuck, we can neglect an important reality: A block is essential to a breakthrough! We need to learn to cherish them, and seek them, too…