Update April 2014: At Humantific we are always adapting around a core set of skills that remain central to how we help our clients facing continuous change in their industries.

Humantific’s 2014 mission: To continue developing and applying next generation innovation capacity that combines advanced innovation leadership skills with visual sensemaking of data/information/ideas. We work with organizational leaders from business and social entrepreneurship to apply and build that adaptive capacity. We are particularly interested in helping to build next generation innovation leadership skills and cultures.

We do 3 things:

1. We help cross-disciplinary leaders untangle, frame and tackle fuzzy, complex challenges.

2. We help build cross-disciplinary innovation leadership capacity.

3. We help visualize data/information/ideas as fuel for cross-disciplinary innovation and changemaking.

Begin Anywhere:

Our clients come from many different backgrounds, describe their needs in many different ways and have many different starting points in mind. Here are 25 things that Humantific has been asked to help with recently:

Upskill internal change-maker consulting groups.
Build cross-disciplinary innovation capacity.
Tackle complex fuzzy organizational challenges.
Teach strategic design thinking.
Visualize complex data/information.
Align leadership teams.
CoCreate new strategies.
Teach visual sensemaking skills.
Explain complex strategic stories.
Accelerate team-based innovation performance.
Teach advanced innovation facilitation skills.
Assess innovation ecosystems.
Rethink & redesign innovation learning programs.
Increase upstream challenge framing skills.
Make complex subjects understandable to multiple audiences.
Build adaptable “jedi-master” innovation leadership teams.
Create future product & service envisioning experiences.
CoDesign leadership offsite strategy experiences.
Convert data/information/insights into innovation fuel.
Rethink & redesign internal orientation programs.
Organize & visualize future-oriented research.
Decode what innovation & sensemaking actually are.
Design reuseable future-made visible tools.
Teach inclusive innovation culture-building skills.
Create new Innovation Acceleration Lab capacity.

The Humantific Way / ThinkBlending

Integral to how we do what we do at Humantific is the active blending of knowledge and thinking orientations from numerous professional fields including Design Thinking, Applied Creativity Thinking, Leadership Thinking, Open Innovation Thinking, Visual SenseMaking Thinking, Innovation Acceleration Thinking, Learning Design Thinking, Team Dynamics Thinking, Organizational Behavior Thinking, Culture Construction Thinking, Business Thinking and ChangeMaking Thinking. That unique combination of agile ThinkBlending is at the center of how we are able to help leaders with their many innovation related challenges today.

Humantific Background / Innovation Acceleration 

Formerly the Founders of the Innovation Acceleration Labs at Scient, Elizabeth Pastor and GK VanPatter cofounded Humantific in New York City in 2001. Humantific has since evolved into a leading SenseMaking and ChangeMaking consultancy. For more than 15 years we have been working closely with organizations large and small on innovation related challenges: visual sensemaking, advanced problem solving, innovation acceleration, skill-building, culture-building. We have already learned a lot! We share a lot!

MarketPlace View / Information as Innovation Fuel

Today, in the emerging social media/social economy era, we are seeing tremendous rising interest in the power of both Visual SenseMaking and CoCreated ChangeMaking. We see leaders in every country, in every industry, seeking to tap into and make sense of the tsunami of data/information that is crashing on their shores, as well as make sense of complex situations where no data exists. We see many leadership teams facing the need to design and then drive meaningful future-forward change in their organizations as the world around them is in continuous motion.

While others in the marketplace are using Big Data to drive eye-balls to web sites, and to sell more cornflakes, Humantific has since 2001 been focused on using Data and Information to solve real problems in organizations and in societies. We see data and information as FUEL for innovation. Helping leaders create innovative solutions to complex challenges is the real promise of Big Data from our perspective. That means we are not just using information to enhance decision-making (convergent thinking) but also to fuel idea-making (divergent thinking). Without both in orchestration no innovation occurs.

Emerging Future View / The New Adaptability

In the big picture sense as well as where the rubber hits the road, we believe a new form of organizational adaptability is rapidly emerging with effective use of information visualization combined with advanced problem-solving at its core. The new adaptability involves effectively connecting DataMaking to SenseMaking and ChangeMaking.

It is no secret that to do all of that involves significant cultural shifts for most organizations in order to be able to participate in the emerging, much more transparent, information sharing – changemaking revolution. Culture shift challenges, innovation capacity building challenges remain central to how we help our clients.

Humantific Academy
Accelerating Team-Based Innovation Performance

Many of our clients ask for knowledge transfer. In response Humantific created Humantific Academy with an entire innovation leadership oriented learning program inside. The program is modular and customizable. It’s three arms encompass these 21st century leadership skills: Mastering Strategic CoCreation, Mastering Design Research and Mastering Visual SenseMaking. For more information send us an email: kickitup (at) humantific (dot) com

Humantific R&D

Integral to our work with organizational leaders Humantific conducts several streams of ongoing applied research that informs how we do what we do. Subjects include:  Visual SenseMaking (data/info/ideas), Design for Thinking, Innovation Dialogue Mapping, NetBehaviors, Integrative Thinking, Cognitive Bias, Thinking Made Visible, Team Dynamics, Think-Balance, Design Thinking Geographies, Systems Thinking, Experiencial Learning, Innovation Methods Mapping, History of Innovation, Creative Intelligence (1950-2013),  Open Innovation (1950-2013), Distributed Cognition Systems, Enabling CoCreation in Organizations, Systemic Design and Inclusive Innovation Culture Building. As an example of how we output and share our research see our virtual books: Design Thinking Made Visible & Innovation Methods Mapping.

Questions? Where to Begin? See The Innovation Bakery Model in Hire Us

Humantific has the privilege of working with leading companies in numerous industries. Much of our work is strategically sensitive and highly confidential. We respect our clients’ wishes to keep it that way. For more information on Humantific services drop us a line: engage (at) humantific (dot) com.