Omar Yacoubi

With the right #culture and #strategy, there is nothing your #business can’t achieve

Let’s make it happen, together
calendly.com/omykco/meet

Where it comes to humans, purpose-driven, self-regulating systems perform best

We humans actually have had this in common with robots, even before the AI trend began:

bsky.app/profile/omyk...

#teamsfirst

People may not think of people as belonging to systems, but a #teamsfirst approach to your #business that uses this thinking will help it win in the broader marketplace (which is also a system!)

#strategy #orgdesign

America and Its Universities Need a New Social Contract Fifty dollars for STEM, five cents for citizenship—that’s how America apportions its education dollars. Our beleaguered universities must redress the balance—helping the country and themselves.

We need “a new social contract between universities and society in order to keep providing the innovations in medicine and technology we urgently need—and to start building the civic strength we need even more,” Danielle Allen writes:

#latecapitalism #inequalitycrisis

Emotional intelligence and behavioral advice are one way to navigate conflict; having a moral compass is another

Morals can come from ethics, religion or other principles. Design principles align teams in corporate land; maybe it can work at the societal level too

Both helped me build #resilience

9 Simple Habits for High Emotional Intelligence, According to a Yale Expert 'Your feelings at work aren't a liability. They're your superpower.'

People have been talking about #resilience as if it is separate from emotional intelligence, or an upgrade. Maybe it was one of the lesser-known aspects, but it’s (part of) the same picture:

www.inc.com/bill-murphy-...

Whether we are talking about #business, a company #culture, corporate culture or America’s culture in general, a more vigorous discourse can solve our problems, professional and political

#disagreebetter

bsky.app/profile/omar...

9 Simple Habits for High Emotional Intelligence, According to a Yale Expert 'Your feelings at work aren't a liability. They're your superpower.'

People have been talking about #resilience as if it is separate from emotional intelligence, or an upgrade. Maybe it was one of the lesser-known aspects, but it’s (part of) the same picture:

www.inc.com/bill-murphy-...

America and Its Universities Need a New Social Contract Fifty dollars for STEM, five cents for citizenship—that’s how America apportions its education dollars. Our beleaguered universities must redress the balance—helping the country and themselves.

My ethos lately consists of #resilience: having the temerity, intellectual curiosity and humility to inquire other points of view —and have a sense of humor too!

Practicing debates in #politics is one way to learn that skill, and it’s never too late to learn

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Pushback is not the best thing for job security, but it can be necessary to improve product quality. The best thing for the #business is not always the most pleasant word to hear—as much as we try to keep our clients happy

“Get rid of the shit” —blunt advice from Steve Jobs to Nike’s CEO at the time when asked how to improve their smart watch. Put more politely, “innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.” And in a society with fewer labor rights, it’s harder to say no

#latecapitalism

#fascism always appeals to a non-existent past

Schools Are Failing To Develop Students With Moral Identities The pressures of national academic standards have pushed character education out of the classroom.

“Capitalism with a soul” is what reformers had been proposing to deal with the problems (and economic costs!) of record #inequality, #stratification, and perverse incentives

But you can’t legislate morality, and ethics aren’t taught in US schools

www.theatlantic.com/education/ar...

“Economics are the method; the object is to change the soul,” Margaret Thatcher once said about capitalism. #latecapitalism is about how we change too much, too fast toward no clear end, except a larger number on a piece of paper

#beyondGDP was an attempt to avert this crisis, too little too late

Every Startup Needs a Designated Hater Someone who rips bad ideas before they escape into the world.

A good cure for groupthink in new product efforts #strategy #culture

www.thisisuncharted.co/p/designated...

Meeting technology with human needs was always the underlying goal of #ux, behind the pretty pixels (UI, or visual design). Aesthetics will draw a customer to a product initially, but the usability will keep them there and generate referrals.

… Style, and substance:

bsky.app/profile/omyk...

AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity Despite a surge in generative AI use across workplaces, most companies are seeing little measurable ROI. One possible reason is because AI tools are being used to produce “workslop”—content that appea...

In the age of AI, workflows look more like conversations, but the principle is the same. Clearly worded OKRs & “Micro UIs” with clear affordances can offer a more guided experience for the team—and your customers—to get to #clarity sooner

hbr.org/2025/09/ai-g...

futurism.com/the-byte/ai-...

The Design Sprint — GV The sprint is a 5-day process for answering critical business questions through design, prototyping, and testing with customers. Learn to run your own sprints, and read about our book on sprints.

For larger efforts like a brand-new product, it can make sense to adopt Google Ventures’ design sprint method, which gets the team together for multiple days for shared learning and collaboration. #innovation doesn’t have to be a shot in the dark or endless iterative loops

www.gv.com/sprint

“Choice mapping” is the modern way to put it, and teams benefit from the same analysis. A workshop time boxes brainstorming, firmly establishes a sprint’s scope, and allows for structured co-creation with the same inputs for better alignment

#strategy

execed.business.columbia.edu/programs/thi...

'Design thinking' is on its deathbed (and that's okay) The term "design thinking," once ubiquitous in corporate America, is disappearing from job listings, a recent "Fast Company" analysis shows.

#designthinking may seem passé, outdated, but it uses the same methods executives use to plan their efforts in the C suite. It “doesn’t get you to the end,” and skills matter, but communication is still a thing

www.fastcompany.com/91362308/des...

www.fastcompany.com/90143505/8-d...

Conventional brainstorming doesn't work. Try this method instead When groups work together, they tend to converge in the way they are thinking about things. This can limit creative thought.

A client of mine skipped a #design workshop because he didn’t see it as necessary to align the team. “We are at war,” he said. “Yes, against your own team,” I thought —communication was poor, and predictably efforts disjointed

www.fastcompany.com/90682223/con...

www.fastcompany.com/3062292/brai...

AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity Despite a surge in generative AI use across workplaces, most companies are seeing little measurable ROI. One possible reason is because AI tools are being used to produce “workslop”—content that appea...

Makes it harder to get good work done too—AI reinforces bias, and the output can be mediocre, or as it was on a recent project of mine, erroneous. Spent a lot of needless time unpacking what was behind the pixels in people’s heads

hbr.org/2025/09/ai-g...

Where Does ‘Rigmarole’ Come From? It dates back to the 13th century, and may have been a dirty court game.

“Rigmarole” is a good word I hadn’t heard in a while.
“Complicated, bothersome nonsense”—I was using the word to refer to the daily rigor & logistics of a commute, but it’s also what we strive to remove from software in #ux

www.mentalfloss.com/article/7835...
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/r...

^ That music video ended up being banned on MTV, and may have ended Robbie’s US career (despite the pro-US songs he penned)

An interesting story of censorship before our modern #fascist times, and a good metaphor for how the economy uses every last part of the artist—we give our all

YouTube video by robbiewilliamsvevo Robbie Williams - Rock DJ

“Pimpin’ ain’t easy, but if you’re sellin’ it, it’s all right” —Robbie Williams

On the market for #ux roles this week, and other business / strategy consulting (business process / #orgdesign)

(trigger warning: graphic CGI violence at 2:54, but a fun satirical artistic concept)
youtu.be/BnO3nijfYmU

The aura of care in UX www.doc.cc/articles/the...

… for our 15 minutes of fame, or perhaps a day in the sun

Please no, don’t make Europe like America

If all the wealthy nations got together and had similar startup rules, then that could be a way to do it. Countries competing for the bottom of the barrel has not led to good things in other parts of the economy —how we ended up with Trump