Shine Advisor - Ideas on Packaging, Design and Possibility

There's been a ton of social media attention on vulnerability lately, probably stemming from the compelling and very popular work of Brené Brown. She talks about vulnerability as a way to create authentic relationships and connection. What's significant to me is that vulnerability creates openness and give us some freedom and courage to be curious . Curiosity requires vulnerability. To be curious we have to be willing to enter the space of "I don’t know" or "I don’t understand." We have to be okay with not knowing. Actually, we have to be more than okay; we have to welcome that feeling of unknowing, even pursue it.  When we're curious we're not trying to predict what the answers are; we are completely available for learning, whether we personally agree with what we learn or not.  A bridge I love the idea of curiosity as the bridge to understanding. My daughter recently experienced some intense anxiety about a friendship and whether th...

Plastic is on the forefront of a passionate debate about our planet and how we use it’s resources. The UN is pushing change , and the EU is driving new thinking on single-use plastic (think forks, straws, etc) in an effort to tackle persistent ocean debris. This is sparking some excellent work around material solutions that are creative, surprising, and aspire to shift packaging more completely into the circular economy. I admit to having felt a bit numb on this topic; a bit overwhelmed and perhaps even defeated. But the more I research it, the more I appreciate the possibility for innovation to solve for these environmental challenges. There are some cool developments on the horizon that bring me hope and inspire me to more deeply consider possibilities. I hope they do the same for you. So, in this challenge there are two lanes of attention needed: 1) Get much better at recycling, and 2) Get better at using materials that degrade quickly and easily after their useful life...

It strikes me that there isn’t a lack of ideas in industry. Talk with any team and there’s a thick binder of concepts tucked on a shelf, a love-list of technologies scrawled on an engineer’s white board, or an archive of winning brainstorm ideas in marketing’s Dropbox.  Start-ups are exciting and garner the glow of “fresh and new,” but established industry leaders, with decades of success under their belts looking to mirror the start-up mentality, don’t need to spend precious time or resources coming up with ideas.  The ideas are there. What they need is execution. In my experience, the toughest work is pulling the ideas into the light and sorting through them, selecting the right ones, evolving them with the right insights, and building a business case around them. From Idea to Business Case: That bridge is long. The chasm is deep. Risk abounds. You need a courageous heart, a clear view to the market you’re looking to serve, and you need expertise to help sort through ...

What does a closet creative do with 20+ years of technical experience, an addiction to innovation, and a fearless spirit? Become an entrepreneur! I learned the corporate ropes as a Packaging Engineer at  Schering-Plough Healthcare Products .  Expanding my scope as a leader and innovator at  Merck Consumer Care  and then  Bayer Consumer Health ,  I found my groove as an advocate for rich understanding of consumer behavior. Not just how consumers  feel about brands or messaging, but how they deal with everyday healthcare issues. I coached my teams on the technical aspects of designing, developing, and validating a new package structure,  and  made sure we were focused on how product delivery formats can transform mundane or unpleasant tasks. Why? Because that's how we could best help our brand teams differentiate our products on crowded shelves, and that is how we could honor the consumer experience. We were champions of use...