For organizations that need long-term volunteers, the overwhelming desire to make a positive impact to a cause that’s meaningful is generally the primary driver for a volunteer. But does the organization make it easy and enjoyable to participate or are there a lot of barriers that can frustrate volunteers?

Over the last several years companies have invested a significant number of dollars in big data projects. Depending on the organization the projects are started in a variety of ways. Some companies want to become more innovative and provide a wide-reaching goal, some want to adopt artificial intelligence and see big data as a foundational element, and some just want to better understand their business and customers.

Over the last few years, the business environment has changed. Businesses are adopting new technologies, processes, and ideas faster than ever before. In order to stay competitive, leaders must keep up with their customer expectations and the latest innovations within the market.

As an industry, healthcare is committed to providing expert care with as much certainty in outcomes as humanly possible. Millions of dollars are invested each year to create “zero-error” environments, precision medicine, and other equitable practice measures. Yet, how does an organization in an industry that relies on certainty and precision, navigate uncertainty and instability in the marketplace? The answer is seemingly simple: Precision in Decision.

The Stonehill strategic communications team sat down with Teddi Barber to discuss the disruption in healthcare and how leveraging Design Thinking can establish a sustainable and thought-provoking dialog on its impacts on mature industries.

Joe Smiley is a respected design leader, team-builder, and innovative technologist with over 20 years of experience designing and developing experiences for many Fortune 500 brands – including E*TRADE, PwC, Marriott, AOL, Disney, FedEx, Strayer University, and Sysco Food – as well as numerous government agencies and non-profits.

Bob Johnston is the CEO and chairman of the board of directors for Front Burner, a franchise management company headquartered in Tampa, Florida. In this interview, Johnston discusses what it takes to run a successful restaurant franchise and how to reinvent it in a competitive market.

Growing up in the 80s was an incredible experience. I spent countless hours watching movies on HBO and the VCR. I recently had the chance to reflect on these movies and how fundamental they were in preparing me for my business career. Here are seven business lessons I learned from 80s classics while I rocked acid wash jeans, a coca-cola rugby shirt, and a swatch watch.

In this interview, Dr. Beers discusses her experience first working on the consumer side of Wells Fargo and now on the business-to-business division. There she leads a team that develops user-centered digital solutions and design thinking processes. Her team facilitates design thinking workshops that help navigate the complexity of business and align business strategies with customers’ true needs and perceptions. She is a frequent presenter at customer experience, customer insight, and service–design conferences.  

If there’s one way to explain human behavior, look at mice. In the book ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’, Spencer Johnson describes the world of mice who vie for a block of cheese. People aren’t mice, but we suffer from the same resistance to doing things differently, says Pace. This is why the principles of change management are so important for a company. Simply put, change management is a term for preparing and supporting individuals, teams, and organizations to make organizational change. And it’s not an easy task.

Design Thinking is a problem-solving framework that has been steadily gaining popularity in the last decade as organizations strive to become more human-centric. The hallmarks of design thinking–empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing - influence major companies like PepsiCo, Charles Schwab, and Walgreens to solve problems for a better customer experience. We sat down with Troy Atlas to discuss insights from the conference, trends in this field, and what’s in store for the future use of Design Thinking.

For many manufacturing industries, the Internet of Things is already here, and the race has already started. The following are Stonehill’s analysis and findings, based on what we have seen, on how to win this new arm’s race.

Design Thinking is a central tenant of our philosophy at Stonehill, and we love to share the benefits of this mindset. We use workshops and organizational consultations to help bring Design Thinking principles to a wide range of industries. We recently had an opportunity to help a client strategize plans for customer retention and longevity. This client works in an industry that provides both short-term and long-term services, so together we discussed innovative ways to transition short-term clients into longer-term customers.

At Stonehill, we have the privilege of working across industries to help innovate and implement process improvement strategies. We are seeing increasing trends toward business-to-business partnerships in standardizing pricing structures and ensuring quality services. In the insurance industry, this translates to preferred provider networks. These have a proven track record in the auto and health insurance industries, but very little presence in other insurance sectors. This missed opportunity for many insurers is poised to radically change the insurance landscape.

Like all doctors, her office has a reception desk and waiting room, so recently, while I was waiting to see her, I began to process how Design Thinking could improve a visit to the doctor’s office. As a Design Thinking consultant, someone who helps businesses grow by focusing on customer empathy and prototyping innovative concepts, I couldn’t help but envision changes. We've become an experience-centric society, and what could be more human-focused than a visit to the doctor?

Healthcare is complicated. The Affordable Care Act alone is 600 pages (at 400 substantive words per page) with over 20,000 pages of supporting regulations. Healthcare is big. There are some 800-pound gorillas in the room. Or more specifically, there are some $208-billion-McKesson, $200-billion-UnitedHealth, $185-billion-CVS, and $130-billion-Cardinal-Health gorillas in the industry. Healthcare is dynamic. Every day, companies try out disruptive innovative delivery systems, business models, and technologies.

RPA is becoming a popular term. It’s entering our business consciousness, showing up in speeches, articles, blogs, and online searches. As RPA enters our business lexicon, business leaders should know what RPA is and what it’s good for.

Over the last few weeks, we have been asked to facilitate multiple sessions for corporate innovation. Our clients end the session filled with excitement about Design Thinking and ask us for a few tools that they can use once we leave. We are dedicated to making others successful compiled some of our favorite innovation concepts below. We encourage everyone to explore each of these concepts to see if they have a place in their organization.

One of the most interesting books written in the last few years is Team of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal. The book explores organizational dynamics in the military and how they can best be applied to corporations. The main concept within the book is that a small, well-trained team, with a clear mission, superior communication, and mutual trust can defeat a larger force that is less agile.

Over the past few months, many people have asked why we named the company Stonehill. They comment that it seems to be a very boring name for a company that is involved in such exciting projects. With the work that we do in data analytics, customer experience, automation, and growth they would have expected something a little cooler. Everyone is surprised when we explain the story.