Here's some recent advice from a physician on the radio that is refreshingly simple—and spot-on for strategic-minded designers:

"Treat the child, not the number."

The physician stressed the importance of considering context and multiple factors rather than overemphasizing one data point—body temperature—when a child is ill. 

Is the child still eating and drinking? Are they energetic and in good spirits? These things matter just as much (if not more!) than the fever. 

Design, at its best, creates, amplifies, and extends moments that matter to customers and audiences. 

But if you get caught up in the data—and "treat the number"—you miss the bigger picture.

Think about it: the moments that really matter forge an emotional connection to an organization's products and services. When customers are emotionally invested, they're more likely to buy more, pay more, follow your advice, and recommend you to others.

But here's the thing: data-driven marketing strategies often reduce context and complexities down to a narrow range of scores and demographics. That might seem helpful at first, but it limits your perspective and causes you to miss out on the context.

If you want to create, amplify, or extend these crucial moments for your customers, you've got to look beyond the data. Get out and observe, have conversations, and aim to truly understand why people are interested in a business's products or services. 

You will invest more effort in the diagnosis. But your remedy or solution will be tailored to the needs of the situation, creating rapid results.

As a child, I spent a lot of time on my grandparents' 240-acre farm in southern Illinois—often in and around the old barns and chicken houses. 

I have always thought "starting from scratch" meant making something out of little or nothing, like chickens scratching in the yard searching for food or my grandparents cooking a meal from a few basic ingredients.

However, the phrase actually dates back to the late 1700s and refers to a line or mark drawn as a boundary or starting point. Like in a race or a boxing match, the scratch line marked the start of the competition.

As creatives, we often pride ourselves on our ability to create something from nothing.

However, just as successful athletes train long before the starting line, we create innovative and successful ideas based on what we bring to the starting point. 

So, what are the essential ingredients for a strong start?

1. Curiosity.

As a designer, each client and industry presents a new challenge.

The key to success is to approach each project with a curious mind. Observing carefully, asking insightful questions, and immersing yourself in the subject at hand will lead to better results.

In fact, not having deep expertise in a topic can be an advantage, as it allows you to identify what others may miss due to their familiarity.

2. Broad interests.

Creativity is seeing the world in new ways and making connections between seemingly disparate ideas. To do this, we must have a wealth of knowledge and experience to draw from. 

The more you immerse yourself in a wide range of subjects and disciplines, the more valuable and effective your work will be. 

A recent study comparing all Nobel Prize winners in science to typical scientists of the same era showed scientists with broad hobbies and interests were significantly more like to win the prize. An active interest in music correlated with a 2x greater chance. An active interest in art increased the odds by 7x while performing had a 22x effect. 

For creative people, starting from scratch isn't making do with what you have but rather what you bring to the starting line.

Recently, at the end of a class critique, a student asked: “How many variations should we make?”

It's a common question but speaks to a larger point.

The simple answer is the more ideas you create, the easier it is be creative.

One day a week, I teach graduate and undergraduate design students at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and I'm constantly reminded of the importance of this lesson.

When asked to develop three ideas at the beginning of a project, most students will create three subtle variations of the same idea.

But when asked to generate 15 ideas, the first 3 are usually the most conventional. The next 3 are variations.  Only after we have ruled out the obvious do most people feel free to consider—and struggle with—unconventional possibilities.

It's okay if many ideas on your list won’t work. Some will be dead ends. However, your 15th idea will have moved you a long way from your first idea. And that's the valuable part.

When it comes to ideas, quantity is the most predictable path to creativity.

Designers often wish they could simply present one idea to their clients. Some do.

On the other hand, there was Bob Gill—the influential NY designer and teacher.

Over the years, there have been many versions of a story that Bob presented 1,000 ideas that didn't sell. When I was a design student in England, I read about a professional English designer who watched Bob Gill flip through slide after slide of rejected concepts. That designer decided to leave the design profession, feeling that every one of Bob Gill's rejected ideas was significantly better than any he could have ever come up with.

While the story may have evolved into legend over time, Bob Gill was onto something fundamental.

For 4 simple reasons:

1) Quantity is the most predictable path to quality because quantity forces you to expand your range of thinking. Many designers fail to create original and compelling ideas because they generate so few ideas and then obsess about refining those few to "perfection."

2) By showing a broad range of possibilities, you can prime your audience for creativity—setting them up to focus on what's possible rather than critiquing and narrowing the focus.

3) With choice, we eliminate ideas that don't fit or work. Creativity flourishes when there is criticism. Dissenting options help people choose with confidence.

4) By showing process, you inherently interweave familiar and comfortable ideas with divergent or challenging opinions. Starting with something unexpected and adding something familiar increases the likelihood of groups choosing more creative and original ideas.

Designers who show their process and share many ideas easily let go of individual solutions because they are confident in the process rather than a specific answer.

As Bob Gill once said, "No matter how many times your amazing, absolutely brilliant work is rejected by the client for whatever dopey, arbitrary reason, there is often another amazing, absolutely brilliant solution possible... Sometimes it's even better."

In 1974, the gray wolf was listed as endangered.

Yet for most of the last century, the United States government actively encouraged the killing of wolves as part of a larger effort to eradicate the species across the country. Wolves were widely seen as a threat to livestock and a nuisance to ranchers and hunters.

In Yellowstone National Park, the Park Service offered $20 bounties for each dead wolf. By the mid-1930s, the wolf population in the park dwindled. The Park Service then hired Frank Heath, a federal trapper, to kill the remaining 21 wolves.

In 1995, the park service—changed course and reintroduced the grey wolf to Yellowstone National Park. Several surprising things happened:

The elk population tripled. Then, the willow, aspen, and cottonwood trees the elk forage on rebounded. Why? Wolves keep elk on the move, so they don’t have time to feed on the trees as intensely.

With more trees, beaver populations grew—from one lone colony to nine. Counterintuitively, beavers increase the growth and health of trees as well. Also, as beavers built new dams and ponds that pool more water, they created more shaded water for fish and more habitat for songbirds.

Scavengers now have a more dependable food source in the remains of wolf-killed elk. This more reliable food source benefits beetles, lynxes, ravens, eagles, magpies, coyotes, and bears, to name just a few.

The cascading effects—direct and indirect—of reintroducing wolves are as astonishing as they are beneficial.

How can we use this to be better problem solvers? We need to think more in systems. Think about patterns, relationships, and interactions between different parts of a system rather than individual or siloed parts. Thinking in systems gives you a comprehensive, complex, and nuanced understanding of complex phenomena. 

You'll make better decisions and solve complex problems—rather than create them.

In 1937, Pablo Picasso finished one of his greatest and best-known works—Guernica. The massive black-and-white painting is over 11 feet tall and 25 feet wide. 

The story behind Guernica is well known—it was commissioned for the World's Fair in Spain and inspired by the Nazi's complete and horrifying annihilation (at Spain's ruling party's request) of a town that was not only a center of Basque culture but also a stronghold of the Republican resistance movement. 

What sets Guernica apart is how well-documented Picasso's creative process was. 

He meticulously dated drawings and paintings—hundreds of sketches and studies. In addition, with Guernica, Picasso invited observers to watch, believing it would raise awareness for the resistance.

One of the observers was Dora Maar, who captured twenty-eight photographs of the painting as it developed and changed between May and June. 

Academic studies of Picasso's process reveal what many of us would suspect: the creative process does not move deliberately to a final solution in a linear direction. It does not necessarily get better and better at each step.

Instead, we witness how Picasso changed directions frequently. Many of the elements he incorporated into his final painting were iterations dismissed early on and brought back later.

Creative processes are messy—full of false starts, dead-ends, direction changes, circling back to past variations, and incorporating unexpected connections.

What does Picasso's process show us?

The biggest challenge to achieving originality is not inspiration or generating ideas—but choosing wisely.

To do this, you must be willing to move forward rapidly. And to compare versions ruthlessly without becoming too attached to any particular idea. 

If you master that skill—comparing and contrasting before choosing—you can find truly meaningful and effective solutions.

When the Brooklyn Bridge was unveiled in 1883, it was already a marvel of engineering—the longest suspension bridge in the world with enormous cables spanning nearly 1,600 feet with a bustling roadway and train lines suspended 11 stories above the East River.

How did this suspension bridge—designed by John A. Roebling and built by his son—become such a success?

Especially when most other suspension bridges were suspect and feared—because many had collapsed in use, taking hundreds of people down with them?

Roebling did what no European engineer had—he spent his 97-day voyage emigrating from Germany to the United States learning.

Already a promising and well-educated engineer, Roebling was curious about the ship he traveled in. He asked a lot of questions: How was the ship designed? Why did the sails work the way they did? How did the rigging hold fast in high winds?

Later, what he saw and learned—from hull construction to rigging—he applied to bridge building in innovative ways:

Rather than chains, Roebling used “wire ropes” made from thousands of individual wires braided together. These 16-inch diameter “ropes” were lighter, stronger, and more durable. For stability, he mimicked the system of stays, tiebacks, and counterweights used to stabilize sails against weight and wind forces.

He saw—counter to the prevailing view—that a suspension bridge’s strength came from a highly rigid and sturdy deck structure, like a ship, and used an interlocking truss system to make it even sturdier.

Roebling succeeded where others didn’t because he applied his understanding from one industry to another.

Approach the world with a curious and questioning mind. Who knows what you could create by connecting ideas from different spheres?

To my knowledge, I was the only person in my junior high school to receive 32 back-to-back half-hour detentions in a single class period. (Long story short: 32 detentions for 32 notes I wrote to my friends inside textbooks we shared during class.)

In any case, my parents might have taken some comfort in this study:

In the study, researchers asked elementary school teachers to list their most and least favorite students and rate both groups on various characteristics. Their least favorite students were the non-conformists. Teachers labeled them "troublemakers." 

It turns out these students were also rated as highly creative.

Creatives/troublemakers challenge the status quo, push back on rules (sometimes making up their own), question authority, and resist following the crowd.

However, to create something new or original, we need precisely these characteristics.

As a consultant and business co-founder, I have led creative strategy and design for 25+ years for clients in dozens of industries. Here's one fascinating thing I've noticed: 

Corporations are a lot like schools. They tend to encourage conformity—to peer groups, industry expectations, and norms.

But this keeps teams from taking calculated—and necessary—creative risks.

So how do you champion creative thinking when that requires people to diverge from "the rules"? 

Reframe conformity. 

In a world that moves fast, you are surrounded by nimble and creative competitors. Being a troublemaker is your least risky option.

A lot of people are wondering how AI will change what we do.

When thinking about the future, I find it helpful to look back in time.

Before 1800, complex fabric patterns were woven by hand. This required a great deal of skill and labor, which made beautiful patterned fabric extremely expensive. 

But in 1804, a patent for the "Jacquard loom" changed everything.

This loom used a series of punch cards to simplify and automate the process of weaving intricate patterns. Unskilled laborers replaced skilled handloom weavers, and mass production of complex fabrics took off. 

This marked a turning point in manufacturing.

Many who had been practicing their craft for generations suddenly found themselves unable to compete with the increased efficiency of the machine. They had to find creative ways to apply their skills to a different task, maybe in a different industry. Or learn entirely new skills—like how to run a loom.

Today, AI seems poised to have a similar impact on white-collar professions.

Some workers will become more productive, others will lose jobs to automation, and many jobs that didn't exist will be created.

Creatives will not be immune to the effects of AI. A recent Brookings Institution study predicts AI automation will have the greatest impact on marketing specialists, financial advisers, and computer programmers.

Why? Because AI technology is particularly good at automating time-consuming tasks that follow routine steps using predictable inputs and outputs. There is a part of design—specifically, production—that fits this description.

So how do you advance your career as a designer in a world with AI? Do what a computer can't do—focus on creativity and strategic thinking.

Designers who connect the dots between trends, history, predictions, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats create valuable strategies and tactics. 

Those who uncover profitable insights, create exceptional experiences, simplify processes, differentiate products and services, and think divergently will shape the future.

One interesting twist on the Jacquard loom: its impact reached far beyond manufacturing to inspire English mathematician Charles Babbage to create the first computer. In the same way, we might anticipate the impact of AI is not limited to the industries it appears to directly affect today. 

Opportunity is everywhere, and it's up to us to take advantage of it, even if the patterns aren't always clear.

To succeed as a designer, you must be "creative on demand."

I'm a consultant and business co-founder, leading creative strategy and design for 25+ years. I also teach graduate and undergrad design students at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago one day a week. 

I see 7 blocks that limit students and young designers from being creative on demand. Do you recognize these traits in yourself? 

1. Perfectionist 

Perfectionists have a hard time starting. They often put off developing ideas and prefer to wait for pressure to build or thoughts to emerge. They often critique ideas in their head before putting them down on paper. Perfectionists usually don't finish on time.

2. Production-oriented

These designers think about technical details, software tools, process hacks, style, and details before digging into strategy, content, and ideas. Production keeps them from thinking and seeing.

3. Articulate but not visual

Articulate designers think clearly, outline processes and direction, connect ideas, and provide valuable insights and suggestions. But when putting ideas down on paper, they falter, second guess, and don't translate valuable insights into vibrant and engaging visual artifacts. These designers frequently change direction and often don't realize the potential of their good ideas.

4. Visual but not articulate 

Some designers have a gift for creating. They are good mimics and have a voracious appetite for visual form and style. Solutions are often dynamic and visually engaging, but they struggle with articulating their thought process, shaping content, and supporting ideas with logic and reasoning.

5. One idea only

One-idea designers create multiple versions of the same idea with subtle variations in style, composition, color, form, image, or typeface. Their vision narrows because they haven't immersed themselves in the subject at hand and haven't learned habits and techniques to expand their range.

6. "No" instead of "yes, and..."

These designers cut off options early in the creative process because of how they feel and what they like. As clients often do, they put constraints on each project at every step along the way. They don't recognize that these constraints continually shrink the space they work in—leaving them stuck in a very narrow box in which to create solutions.

7. Indecisive 

These designers may have created several ideas but have trouble choosing a direction or picking out good ideas from bad ones. They haven't developed the analytical skill or experience to break down a problem and establish criteria—to know how to eliminate options and choose the best direction.

Did I miss anything? 

Leading up to the anniversary of his Michelin-starred restaurant in Chicago, Chef Charlie Trotter had a compelling idea.

Having published 14 cookbooks over his career, the newest one would do something different: faithfully recreate all the recipes from his first cookbook—but with a twist.

Using exactly the same ingredients as each original recipe in his first cookbook, Chef Trotter would create something entirely new. What would be interesting, he explained as we talked about the project, was that we could create a book to compare the results side by side.

By comparing the originals with the modern versions, you could see how his thinking—and the restaurant—had evolved.

To think differently about the same elements—for years—is a foundation of inspired creativity.

Like chefs, designers work with familiar elements—words, images, color, typography, and form—to create something new each time. Over 25 years, a designer or chef will have transformed the same basic elements into thousands of different ideas.

We often think we need to start with a whole set of "ingredients," but exceptional creatives are not doing that. They use the same form in new ways.

What separates the outliers is their inexhaustible desire to ask, "what's next?"

To be creative, you aren't doing something new as much as seeing something new—finding a pattern, making a connection, or flipping to a different vantage.

We started—but never finished—Charlie Trotter's cookbook.

A few years later, for health reasons that he did not publicly disclose at the time, Chef Trotter closed his legendary restaurant on his terms. Yet, for over 25 years—each day and at each seating—Charlie Trotter and his restaurant achieved something remarkable: they never served the same dish twice.

Every day, consider the creativity you might express if you never stopped asking, "what's next?"

In 1912 in the village of Piltdown, on the south coast of England, Charles Dawson discovered a skull in the local gravel beds. 

The skull, later named Piltdown Man, revolutionized archeology as the "missing link" between apes and man. Little did the world know this was the start of a great deception.

It took 40 years for the truth to emerge: Piltdown Man was a hoax. The "missing link" was an orangutan's jaw bone combined with a portion of a modern man's head. The teeth had been filed down, cracks filled with dentist putty, and the bones stained to match local rocks.

Competent paleontologists at the time should have dismissed this "discovery" outright. But they didn't. Why?

Confirmation bias—a tendency to favor information that confirms existing beliefs and hypotheses—was at work.

1) Dawson tapped into a competitive spirit.

With an earlier discovery of an ancient jawbone in 1907 near Heidelberg, Britain was looking for a way to reclaim its place at the forefront of science. The discovery "fit."

Principle: Confirmation bias is strongest for desired outcomes, emotionally charged issues, and deeply entrenched beliefs.

Lesson: When "everyone agrees," look more closely, curiously, and skeptically.

2) Charles Dawson showed people what they wanted to see.

Long before, scientists predicted a missing link between apes and man, and they were waiting to find the evidence. 

Principle: We search for, favor, and recall information that supports our beliefs—even interpreting ambiguous information as supporting the view and ignoring contrary information or evidence. 

Lesson: If your information is limited, extend your research, ask more questions, and head out "into the field" to look for yourself. 

Peter Drucker, a renowned and influential management consultant and author, was famous for many things, including predicting the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In the 1990s, based on his work with non-profit organizations like Girl Scouts, Drucker looked into the future and saw a revolution in non-profits.

Why? Baby boomers were the largest generation of people with education, work experience, long life expectancy, and wealth in history. And they were about to retire.

He reasoned that when this generation transitioned from working life, they would apply their education, experience, wealth, and talent to volunteering. This enormous shift of talent and resources would lead to the explosive growth of the non-profit sector.

This time Drucker was wrong. And he was one of the first to say so.

What did he overlook? If people did not volunteer during their working years, they were unlikely to volunteer when they retired.

Their behavior did not change because they had more time.

Time, resources, demographics, or other logical factors didn't matter. An underlying motivation, interest, and passion for an area or subject mattered most.

As a consultant and business co-founder, I have led creative strategy and design for 25+ years. Many of my clients are non-profits. A primary goal for non-profits today: convert new (and younger) audiences to the cause.

Most efforts to attract new audiences, like Drucker's baby boomers, seem promising but fail for the same reason.

Rather than converting new audiences, grow your organization by building deeper connections with your motivated base. It may seem counterintuitive, but it's through this base that you reach (and retain) new audiences.

Ed Catmull of Pixar tells an interesting story about the making of Toy Story. While creating the film, his team resisted the advice of Disney executives who—based on their success with musicals—pushed them to fill the movie with songs.

"We put our faith in a simple idea: If we made something we wanted to see, others would want to see it too."

Great leaders—in any industry—emotionally understand experience because they are often the "first customer." They make what they know they would love. No surveys, focus groups, or data sets are needed. As a result, leaders build what other people love too.

As a consultant and business co-founder, I have led creative strategy and design for 25+ years for hundreds of clients in dozens of industries. Over the years, I have seen companies with a "first customer" perspective have a competitive advantage. Here's why:

1) Leaders who are customers emotionally understand the experience. 

A data sample of one—if emotionally invested—is far more valuable than any broad customer segments or statically significant data samples. 

Making, building, and championing something you love provides the emotional filter—intuition—to sort out the essential strategy, elements, and tactics. 

2) Leaders who experienced the problem they are solving or felt the need for the opportunity they are building think about the business, product, or service in ways professional managers don't. 

They care deeply about the details, see the connection across business skills and functions, and, most importantly, stay focused on the vital motivations.

Leaders who care deeply stay focused on asking fundamental questions like "why"—not just "what" or "how."

3) Leaders who are the "first customer" go out of their way for the product or service. 

In any creative process, doubt creeps in. Someone raises a concern, questions a choice, or adds another thing to consider. Too many opinions get averaged together to serve the "average" customer found in data—who does not exist in the real world. 

When business ideas try to be everything to everyone—they reach no one in particular.

Leadership—and success—is clearing a path and protecting ideas.