Who do you want your customer to become? Who do you want your coworkers, your organization, your employees, your children, your community, your country, the world to become? What gifts do you have? What gifts do they (those you are designing for) have? To answer these questions well is to discover your own dream. To answer these questions well is to uncover the dreams of those you are designing for. Who do I want you to become? Someone who dreams beautiful dreams. Someone who helps others dream beautiful dreams. Someone who designs for dreams. For it is through beautiful dreams that we will create more beautiful organizations, communities, and the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.

1. design for
dreams

2. Laura Drake Enberg FLICKR
once upon a time I dreamed of...

3. climbing mountains to lose myself in in a world apart
from people
crafting stories to discover what I think, what I see,
what I want, and what it means
Plunging hands into dirt to shape gardens into
possibility spaces that invite in
the wild things
Mike Beales Flickr

4. travelling to strange places to disrupt my comfortable ways
of seeing the world
Designing impossibly wonderful things to magic
more beauty into the world
living in a community to forge relationships with the baker,
the butcher, and the 90 year old cat lady
Yasin Hassan Flickr

5. but then life happened

6. I went to school where I mastered the important arts of
sitting,
memorizing facts,
and following the rules
in university I learned to check my imagination at the door and
parrot the thoughts of the great men of history
Bekah FLICKR

7. in quick succession I Met a boy,
got a job, had kids,
accumulated appliances,
furniture, a car,
a series of electronic gadgets…...
and a house big enough to fit all that stuff
Roiz Roiz FLICKR

8. I became a good consumer

9. which meant I needed a credit card (or two or three),
loans for the car and house,
and easy payment plans
so that I could buy even more things to meet
my ever expanding needs
Wimena Kane FLICKR

10. to better fulfill my need to pay for the things I needed
(including the need to eventually
retire and
become a full time consumer),
I also needed...

11. a stable job with a good salary, benefits,
and a pension plan and a boss
to tell me that I had a whole other set of
needs to worry about...
like a 9-5 schedule, policies and procedures to tell me what
to do, processes to make me more efficient
Alexander Burghardt FLICKR

12. apps to increase my productivity, help me collaborate, and
game me into compliance
but there was more (employees are very needy after all)
I needed a performance plan so that I could learn that I
needed To become more organized, speak up in meetings…, play
better with others...

13. but Most of all I learned that – no matter what I did –
I would never be good enough... never become a key employee
because
only <insert rank here>
would ever be considered a key employee
But I needed to continue to make the payments on all those
needs I had been satisfying, so I stuck with the job...
Derrick Tyson FLICKR

14. which meant I needed ways to distract myself like
blasting villains in video games,
binge-watching tv,
shopping,,,
all inclusive vacations to eat and drink my way into
forgetfulness

15. All this busyness left me with no time to cook so I
needed Fast food,
frozen dinners, and
other processed delights
plus Milkshakes with smaller straws to pass the
time on long boring commutes

16. But wait, there’s more, for my needs keep expanding as I age
anti-depressants to keep unhappiness at bay,
Anti-aging wrinkle creams,
body shapers,
a tuck or two,
and An app to monitor the diabetes caused from all that
processed food and sitting

17. Perhaps one day A walker to keep me safe from falls,
Pills of every description for ailments
that may not have been invented yet and that
I won’t understand
and eventually An old age home where they will feed me, clean
my room, and safely warehouse me

18. oh, the needs that I have…...

19. I have become one of the needy

20. the needy

21. The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you
treat them is what they become.
Goethe

22. Is that who you want to become?

23. Is that who you want your customers, employees, patients,
students, citizens, family to become?

24. We frame commerce and society—even our
relationships—in terms of needs, but that kind of
framework is limited. People are much more
complicated than a list of needs; we need food and
housing and shelter, sure, but what makes humanity
unique are the dreams and longings that are much
deeper and more complicated than mere necessity.
Bruce Nussbaum

25. we are so busy seeing needs, seeing neediness

26. we fail to see
their hopes
their dreams
their gifts
the greatness inside them
the love they have to give
the beauty of their true selves..… their soul

27. their possibilities

28. a thought
experiment
II

29. What innovations have you said yes to?
Thanks Michael Schrage for this question!
at home

30. What innovations have you said yes to?
at work

31. What innovations have you said yes to?
in your community

32. how have they changed
who you are?
be honest, check with friends, family, coworkers, neighbours..…….

33. how have they changed
who your organization is?
be honest, check with employees, customers, suppliers...

34. how have they changed
who your community is?

35. Preteens and teenagers have a strong need to go exploring, to have
adventures, and to establish an identity via interactions with peers
that reference this exploration and adventure.
In past times, this happened in the actual outdoors...
Today... when every bit of land is fenced and marked with no-trespassing
signs, when society is obsessed with safety, and when children are
over-scheduled and driven to perform. Technology and culture have robbed
children of something they deeply need-and then, in the form of video games,
sold it back to them.
Charles Eisenstein

36. The innovations you adopt shape the
person you will become
your customers, employees, patients, students, citizens

37. The stories you adopt shape the
person you will become
your customers, employees, patients, students, citizens

38. but there is hope

39. Another world is not only possible, she is on her
way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
Arundhati Roy

40. It’s time to wake up to a world where everyone has
an equal right to Dream
and every Dream has
an equal opportunity to get realised.
A little bit of imagination is all it
takes to free up possibilities.
Sonia Manchanda, Dream:in

41. When I see people coming to the farm stand ...
I feel encouraged.
I feel like I am giving them a gift –
a healthier, longer, better,
more delicious
lifeRobin Emmons, sowmuchgood.org

42. We don’t just want to feed you. We want to make our customers the
heroes of the food movement, connecting them intimately to the
producers that grow, butcher, bake and bring the local foods that
heal and grow local economies.
We want to make our customers
heroes at home,
as they are more able to
give their family healthy foods
affordably. This is as fun as it is
impossibly challenging. I love it.
heroes of the food movement

43. In the early days of the American-led invasion,
Afghans were perceived as being preoccupied
with the simple concerns of shelter and food...
What Roshan saw was a country
brimful of the same
innate human desire that
governs us all:
the desire to connect
Kareem Khoja, CEO, Roshan

44. a world dreamed into being

45. by thousands, tens of thousands, millions of
imaginations

46. A dream is human possibility
that we wish to realize.
To make real;
to bring forth;
to forge from the very fabric of life.
Umair Haque

47. A dream is human possibility
that we wish to realize.
To make real;
to bring forth;
to forge from the very fabric of life.
Umair Haque

48. We are all inventors,
each sailing out on a voyage of discovery.
guided each by a private chart,
of which there is no duplicate.
The world is all gates, all opportunities
Ralph Waldo Emerson
dreamers
possibilities
Phil Dolby, flickr

49. We can all see another person’s body directly. We see the lips
moving, the eyes opening and shutting, the lines of the mouth and
face changing, and the body expressing itself as a whole in action…
If the invisible side of people were discerned as easily as the
visible side, we would live in a new humanity. As we are, we live
in visible humanity, a humanity of appearances..…
All our thoughts, emotions, feelings, imaginations, reveries,
dreams, fantasies,
are invisible...

50. It is an extremely difficult thing to grasp… We do not grasp that
we are invisible. We do not realize that we are in a world of
invisible people. We do not understand that life, before all other
definitions of it, is a
drama of the visible and
the invisibleMaurice Nicoll

52. 75% or more of writer’s labor goes into designing story.
Who are these characters?
What do they want?
Why do they want it?
How do they go about getting it?
What stops them?
What are the consequences?
Finding the answers to these grand questions
and shaping them into story is our overwhelming creative task.
Robert Mckee
designer’s

53. magic if……………...become your customers, employees, patients, students, citizens

54. a thought
experiment
II

55. Imagine that you are a…...
disabled vet old woman living alone prisoner

56. what are my needs?
Close your eyes and become that person, then ask yourself..…

57. what brings me joy?
Close your eyes and become that person, then ask yourself..…

58. what legacy do I dream of leaving behind?
Close your eyes and become that person, then ask yourself..…

59. can you feel the difference?

61. Imagine if we were born
to be needed
instead of needy

62. can you see the dream thing within them?

63. Ask people about needs and they will give you a long list,
one that varies from time of day to day of the week.
Ask people about their dreams and they’ll give you just
one answer, maybe two.
It’s not a list but a revealing look into what
is truly meaningful in their lives
sonia manchanda

64. Ask people about needs and they will give you a long list,
one that varies from time of day to day of the week.
Ask people about their dreams and they’ll give you just
one answer, maybe two.
It’s not a list but a revealing look into what
is truly meaningful in their lives
sonia manchanda

65. instead of
needy users
who appear in your current script as
passive victims needing things because they
suffer from problems, deficiencies, disabilities
see heroes

66. instead of
needy users
who appear in your current script as
passive victims needing products, services and other solutions because they
suffer from deficiencies, disabilities, problems
see heroes with dreams

67. Heroes take journeys, confront dragons,
and discover the treasure of their true selves.
Carol Pearson

68. they quest

69. in pursuit of provocative questions

70. who Am I?
what’s my story?

71. What are my gifts?

72. why am I here?

73. Why am I here?
“To win what I have been conditioned to crave!”
the ego cries. And so the self never reaches fulfillment.
Umair Haque

74. You are not merely your ego. You are not merely a set of wants,
a consumer trapped inside a human spirit, a warehouse of desire,
a receptacle. You are something greater. You are a being with
the possibility to live an extraordinary life.
But to do so you must dream a truly great dream. A dream so
vast, enduring, and impossible, that it is concerned with the
fulfillment of all life.
Umair Haque

75. Why am I here?
“To cause fulfillment in every life” the dreamer whispers. A
new self opens its eyes. The ego has been surrendered.
Umair Haque

76. and once you find the dream thing within them,
can you help dream them onward?

77. reinvent
character

78. from needy victim to courageous hero

79. My view of the Karamojong has totally changed
At the end of the first day, I asked my translator if she
was impressed by anything... She said that as a born
again Christian, she had previously spent a lot of time
preaching to the Karamojong, but had never before
taken time to listen to them or learn from them. She
said she used to think..…. that they had nothing of value
in their heads and that they were only looking for handouts…
…she now knew how much wisdom they had, and how much they had to share.
What can the poor teach you?

80. If the writer reinvents character, he must
reinvent story. A changed character must make
new choices, take different actions,
and live another story –
[their] story.
Robert McKee

81. heroes

82. Everybody has a dream. Everybody has the need to create a
legacy. Once you help people move past the fears and anxieties
that bury those dreams, their imagination is stirred. They begin
to ask themselves,
“What would I want for my children, for my society, for my
country?”
and that hidden seed of a dream is uncovered.
Sonia Manchanda

83. instead of a needs analysis,
what if you performed a dream analysis?

84. instead of analysts,
what if you worked with dream collectors

85. instead of a meeting room,
what if you designed a dreamscape?

86. instead of mapping the customer journey,
what if you imagined a dream journey?

87. What if you became a dream weaver
weaving dreamers and their gifts into communities and tribes

88. a thought
experiment
II

89. The last time you binge watched a series on Netflix 8 hours straight
Perhaps while eating a bag of chips, carton of ice cream, or plate of cookies.
Close your eyes. then remember…...
how did you feel?

90. The last time you a feeling of pure joy enveloped you.
what were you doing?
Close your eyes a second time. remember…...

91. can you feel the difference?

92. one of the biggest joys of making something is for people to appreciate it.
it’s the music that’s being played, that’s being played well, and it’s
your instrument that’s doing it. I think that’s a tremendous pleasure.
it’s joy to suddenly discover something and say hey,
you know, this is something I never thought of, and
there’s joy in that too.

93. We have only scratched the surface of needs…
we need beautiful cities,
advice and psychological support,
manage our emotions,
sustain strong families,
cultivate our minds,
live in societies in which it’s normal to be wise, kind
and self-possessed
what is good business, the school of life

94. explore, play, create, learn, wonder

95. and perhaps most important of all
the need to offer our gifts to the world

96. The meaning of life is to find your gift;
the purpose of life is to
give it awayPicasso

97. Gifts are the currency through which
joyis exchanged.Charles Eisenstein

98. One's only rival is one's own potentialities.
One's only failure is failing to live up to one's own
possibilities. In this sense,
every man can be a king,
and must therefore
be treated like a kingMaslow

99. Businesses must view people not as resources but as sources. A resource is like
a lump of coal; you use it and it’s gone.
A source is like the sun—virtually
inexhaustible and continually
generating energy, light,
and warmth. There is
no more powerful source
of creative energy in
the world than a
turned-on, empowered human being
Conscious Capitalism

100. can you see the possibilities simmering
within the people you serve?

101. How might you feed the fuel that ignites
those possibilities?

102. how might you help those you serve
become heroes on a dream quest?

103. The world we dream of is
the world we want to live in
the future we hope to have
the life we want to live
the way we want things to be
Paul Hudson

104. The world we dream of is
the world we want to live in
the future we hope to have
the life we want to live
the way we want things to be
Paul Hudson

105. Another world is not only possible, she is on her
way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
Arundhati Roy

106. I love those who
DREAM the
impossible.Goethe

107. I love those who yearn for the
impossibleGoethe
Laura Drake Enberg FLICKR

108. We will not survive as a species through more of the same:
better breeds of corn, better pesticides, the extension of control to the
genetic and molecular level.
We need to enter a fundamentally different story
That is why an activist will inevitably find herself working
on the level of story.
She will find that in addition to addressing immediate needs,
even the most practical, hands-on actions are telling a story
Charles Eisenstein

109. choose the story you will act in

110. for we become the stories we tell with our actions

111. If your actions inspire others to
dream more,
learn more,
do more and
become more,
you are a leader.
John Quincy Adams

112. business needs more dreamers

113. the world needs more dreamers

114. A single
dream
is more powerful than
a thousand realities.Tolkien
theilr FLICKR

115. [We] ourselves are characters
within a huge story that is visibly
unfolding all around us, participants
within the vast imagination, or
Dreaming, of the World.David Abram

116. There are so many
unsung heroines and heroes
at this broken moment in our collective story, so many
courageous persons who, unbeknownst to themselves, are
holding together the world by their
resolute love or contagious joy...

117. Although I do not know your names,
I can feel you
out thereDavid Abram

118. become

119. a dreamer
a dream collector
a dream weaver

120. design for dreams

121. in designing for dreams you transform
your self

122. in designing for dreams you transform
your organization

123. in designing for dreams you transform
your community

124. in designing for dreams you transform
the world

125. You may say I’m a
dreamer, but I’m not
the only one. I hope
some day you’ll
join us, and the
world can
live as one.
John Lennon
Hafiz Issadeen FLICKR