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Showing posts from February 20, 2014

The city without a soul

Recently I did listen to a podcast about the growing power of cities. As most people are living in cities now, existing cities are growing beyond their limits and new cities are being established. An example of such a new city is   Songdo in Korea, a $ 40 billion project. The reporter did share her experience being there. She was not planning on living there, as it appears to be a “city without a soul”. Again, this is an example where technology and business goals are taking precedence over human needs. But what is a city without people? There are also many companies without a soul. The core mission of those organizations is to produce results and humans are not part of the design, they are just part of the resources. But what is a company without people? Humans are the main users of companies and of cities. You could even call them the most important customers. Design Thinking principles are being used to put the user at the heart of the process, of everything.