Aptonym Blog: New Ideas for Old Schools

decision process
David Thiel

Decisions: A Bi-Modal Spectrum of Decision Types

Decision-making is the most important “system” in your organization. Design that system carefully. In this multipart series of posts, we’ll cover the key elements of good decision-making, including decision types, roles, and methods. While these guidelines

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creative direction
David Thiel

Three Secrets of Design Feedback

Use these tips to find openness, objectivity, and greater trust in talent. Anyone who has ever done design work for pay will tell you that there are two universal truths, always in play: 1) Everyone agrees that

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design thinking
David Thiel

The Right Question

The first step in strategic decision-making is to focus on the right task. Early in my career I was lucky to have clients who taught me a lot. Here’s a recollection of one lesson. It was 1998

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brand
David Thiel

Quicken the Pace of Planning at Schools and Colleges

A Unified Planning Framework for Culture, Strategy, and Brand At many non-profit institutions, particularly educational institutions, strategic plans show a preference for addition over consolidation—for expansion over alignment. This programmatic and operational accretion drives steady increases in

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agility
David Thiel

Five Books for Developing Systems Thinking

See horizontal connections across operations, and learn how human factors contribute to success or failure. Systems Thinking is critical for effective strategy, communications, and creative planning. But what makes a good systems thinker? Most talented systems thinkers

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internal communications
David Thiel

All Hail the Memorandum

Purpose-built document formats in office communication can aid organizational alignment. In olden times, the Memorandum was the mainstay of organizational communication. It was a way to document something that needed to be shared and remembered; its

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