A brand new episode of Google Firestarters is now up. This episode is with the brilliant Rachel Mercer, co-founder of innovation consultancy Proto and ex VP, Head of Strategy at R/GA New York. Rachel was a designer in her early career and talks eloquently about what strategists can learn from how designers work, including the idea of the '20ft view' (the initial thing that draws people in) and the '5ft view' (the details that people focus on). There's some great thoughts as well about process (like putting work up on the wall in a kind-of braintrust approach), and trends – how as trends accelerate they are becoming increasingly meaningless as the reporting cycle gets faster, and how the internet is pushing the cultural edge further and faster as the lifecycle of trends becomes compressed. Some excellent insights and much to like in Rachel's answers. You can watch / listen to it here.
The full playlist of Google Firestarters episodes is available to watch here.
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