Thomas Fundneider

In urban planning, we tend to focus on the built: offices, houses, retail, infrastructure, sort of what is addressable on Google Maps. Everything else is either invisible or treated as a development opportunity by real estate companies. I believe this is a profound planning error. A special kind of space, the so-called in-between space, eludes … Read more

The end of planning as we knew it Over the past two decades, European organizations have become remarkably good at developing strategies. The toolkits are sophisticated, the offsite formats are polished, the slide decks are impressive. And yet, something has shifted. Not in the methods, but in the ground beneath them. Germany’s economy contracted in … Read more

We live in a world where billion-dollar budgets are lavished on sci-fi fantasies—flying cars, conscious AI, off-world colonies. Yet the idea of redesigning something as simple as the school day or the work week still feels wildly unrealistic. Somehow, it’s easier to imagine life on Mars than a better Monday here on Earth. This strange … Read more

A functioning workplace isn’t automatically a great one. Sure, a desk, ergonomic chair, solid Wi-Fi, and meeting rooms tick the basic boxes, but do they inspire people to think, collaborate, and create at their best? Generally, we tend to think that what makes a space is simply what’s in it and how it’s used. But … Read more

Have you ever wondered why it’s so hard to innovate? Most activities in our work environments are highly standardized, we have to follow rules and processes, and we have established agreed-upon routines to accomplish certain tasks. These processes create the expectation that if you have certain competencies, there are certain methods that must be applied … Read more

Put yourself in the following situation for a moment. You have arrived at the end of an innovation process or a design thinking workshop, you clap your hands, and the smile on your face shows the other participants the success of this creative process. But ask yourself, how often has an unspoken feeling crept up … Read more

We have been witnessing a major shift in our learning landscapes, especially in higher education. The importance of the generalist has declined and that of experts has increased. We are faced with exponential knowledge growth, and the accumulated knowledge is more accessible to us than ever before, through digitization. You could also say we are … Read more

How to develop a strategy? Come on, I know how to develop strategies, you might say. There are related questions which are not trivial, such as how to put strategy into action or how to design the process both bottom-up and top-down, nevertheless strategy development is an established process. So, why to deal with strategy … Read more

A few weeks ago, I was asked in an interview about how to get employees back to the office. How should we motivate them? What should we add to the workplace? I think this question is wrong at its core. Why would we need to motivate employees to get into the office at all? What … Read more