Rasmus Thomsen: Partner and Design Director of IS IT A BIRD & speaker at Anthropology+Technology Conference 2020, Smart Cities stream

The Human Show: Innovation through Social Science

Rasmus Thomsen is Partner and Design Director of IS IT A BIRD - a strategic innovation agency that combines methods from social science, behavioral economics and design thinking. Rasmus has a foot in both social science and design. He is an innovation geek, with a mind tuned to design thinking. He works at the forefront of development, with a critical understanding of the forces behind disruption, connecting technology, trends and human insights. Rasmus has been deeply involved in hundreds of strategy and innovation projects, as executive, leader and adviser in a wide range of industries (media, transportation, pharma, food and beverage, unions and NGOs, public service, city development and 3D printing) and helped strengthen their capacity at a strategic and tactical level. His clients include NIKE, Mærsk, Novo Nordisk and Henkel among many. With over 100 workshops under his belt, Rasmus holds a unique ability to engage people in culture change.

Today we talk to Rasmus about his mission of bridging the gap between technology builders, and the problem spaces technology can play a role in solving. This process – believes Rasmus - entails curiosity, creativity and multidisciplinary. But how to help see the real problems that are worth solving and how can insightful design create technology that adds social value and does not completely remove friction? Our reality is full of contradictions and a good design leaves space for friction in order to support truly human experiences. Rasmus brings in unexpected concepts of masculine and feminine energies to explain the processes in which his work evolves. Lastly, we ask him to give a sneak preview of his talk at the conference on smart cities.

Mentioned in Podcast:

Anthropology + Technology Conference 2020, 9th October, https://www.anthtechconf.co.uk/

IS IT A BIRD, https://isitabird.dk/

Design Thinking Bootcamp at Stanford University. https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/exec-ed/programs/design-thinking-bootcamp

Social media:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rasmusgrthomsen/