HumanCentered ascribes to a fundamental optimism captured in this statement by grandmaster and World Chess Champion, Garry Kasparov:"In chess, politics, tech, & in life in general, only optimism makes sense to me. Making things better requires the belief that it can be so. Advanced design is fundamentally an expression of such optimism. 

Because business is far from an exact science and the stakes can be high, advantage goes to the player having better information. Unfortunately in practice, decisions get made every day–brands get developed, products get launched, complex environments get built–based on incomplete or erroneous information. That's risky. Whether the business decision is strategic or tactical, the best answers are not always obvious, but take some savvy digging. The best place to “dig” is not in databases, survey or focus group data, but out in the field, face-to-face among your network of customers and prospects.

This process is reflexive, often unpredictable and best not left to the last minute. But it pays dividends. Suddenly your target customer is no longer an abstraction. She has a face, a name, a story and a multi-dimensional personality with values, likes and dislikes, anxieties and aspirations. Now we can get somewhere. The path is clear how and where to breathe new life into staid offerings – now remade: integrated, purposeful, meaningful.