Where These Ideas Travel
Once an idea leaves your head, you don't get to control what happens to it.
Sometimes it gets challenged.
Sometimes it gets reframed.
Sometimes it turns up somewhere you didn't expect.
Whether an idea is borrowed, independently discovered, or simply arrives at the same place from a different direction, I find that kind of convergence fascinating. I rather like that!
The Problem with Being Right
An idea that echoes the underlying pattern explored in my talk, The Problem with Solutions.
Monkey & River:
Established in 2015 · 44 employees · 4,500+ LinkedIn followers · clients including WeBuyCars, MoyaApp, Momentum, Fedhealth, SANParks and the City of Tshwane.
My connection with Monkey and River goes back to 2024, when I spoke to their team about why behavioural science belongs at the heart of design, and why good design should always start with how people actually think and behave.
In 2026, we arrived at a similar question from different directions. In August, I gave my keynote The Problem with Solutions at the Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF) Pretoria, exploring how well-designed fixes ripple through a system and create the next problem. Two months later, the Monkey and River team presented The Problem with Being Right, asking what happens when we solve everything except the actual problem.
Two talks, two angles, one shared conviction: being good at solving problems is not the same as solving the right ones.
