Warren Berger  
author & speaker

I'm continuing to do speaking engagements about design and innovation—geared to businesses (but everyone, actually)—sharing how we can be more creative if we learn to think like designers. In 2011, I traveled to Microsoft in Seattle, TEDx in Portland, OR, Barcelona, Rome, and Venice to speak about creativity, innovation, and the importance of asking Beautiful Questions.

Some of the core ideas from my presentations form the basis of a new book idea I'm noodling with. It covers the key steps that innovators follow as they develop breakthrough ideas, with the emphasis on the first step: asking the right kind of questions. The book would be filled with anecdotes about the role of questions in the start-up and success of many well-known ventures. To learn more about this topic, check out my Harvard Business Review essay and my latest website A More Beautiful Question.com

Have been collaborating on two interesting book projects in 2011. The first is with Scott Goodson of the StrawberryFrog global advertising agency. It's an exciting look at the relationship between business and cultural movements. The other is with Alan Siegel of Siegel+Gale brand strategy and design fame, on a book about Alan’s pet topic: simplicity.

In 2010 I co-founded a writers’ group in Westchester, New York, with 12 other book authors (we were recently named “2011 Best Writers Group” by Westchester Magazine). We're calling it the Marmaduke Writing Factory since our writing and event space is housed in the historic Marmaduke Forster mansion in Pleasantville, NY. Check out the website; it has some fun features.

Wrote the long introduction for a really interesting design book called Imagine Design Create, edited by Tom Wujec and sponsored by the leading design software company, Autodesk. The book made its debut at the February 2011 TED conference.