Serve by Design

Like me, some of you may be fascinated by numbers. My love of math goes back to sixth grade and a before-school tutoring session with my teacher/principal, Mrs. Martha Ortegren. For several weeks, she gave up her prep-time to “catch me up” on some math skills so I could join the advanced group in our class. I will never forget her patience, encouragement, and how this built up my confidence as a student. Mrs. Ortegren believed in me and knew that I could do the work! Image: vecteezy.com While I never became a mathematician, I do think I passed some of my love of numbers off to one of our daughters, who is a math teacher today. Our eldest son, who is a public policy “wonk” also has an aptitude for math and recently took two challenging seminars in statistics from Harvard. A few years ago, one of our grandsons blew us away with a near perfect grade in his high school statistics class! Do you have a favorite math fact? I still love to recite 8 lines of Chaucer in old English, especially...

I have often written about the impact of ideation on one of my favorite beverages – Dr Pepper! It wasn’t too long ago that I was snookered into buying Dr Pepper: Dark Berry Zero Sugar! I hated it and couldn’t give it away! This new attempt at ideation is another one I will be quickly sending off to the idea-garbage heap! This latest one was inspired by a TikTok campaign aided by the likes of Sonic Drive-In’s who are adding dill pickles to the sacred Dr Pepper formula! This is just wrong! What is this world coming to?? Static Media: shutterstock.getty.com The slogan “new and improved” may be the motto for product ideation, but I vigorously resist any attempts to cater to a sour-pickle-cult-following of social media “noodle heads” who want to mess with my Dr Pepper! Surely there are better ways to generate new ideas and at the same time protect the integrity of a product without going crazy! Now, I have no problem with ideation when it comes to Blue Bell Ice Cream choosing to add a new...