Markus Ahlberg

Background

About Markus Ahlberg

Herbert Simon once elegantly phrased it that to design is to devise courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. This requires curiosity, empathy and lateral thinking. All of which are skills to be practised, not gifts to be wished for. I love design because it facilitates my love for learning, allowing me to become a life-long student. I'd say design thinking is an attempt to structurally apply genuine curiosity to a given context and iteratively work towards products which are relevant, meaningful and desirable. Why I find lateral thinking rewarding is because of the energy surrounding creative work. I would like to attribute that to the close ties between lateral thinking and humour. Both violates conventional expectations and are rewarded with a hit of endorphins; it’s just that instead of “haha” it’s a “aha” when it comes to lateral thinking. In essence, curiosity keeps asking questions to get to the root cause of something, empathy keeps you responsive to the answers and lateral thinking keeps rearranging old elements in search of favorable combinations.