What is Thinknado?

Season 1: Episode 1

In the first episode of Doom and Bloom, Marc O’Brien sits down with John Bielenberg and Brandt Williams, the masterminds behind Thinknado, to dismantle the predictable thinking that’s keeping us stuck. It’s time to flip the script and ask the hard questions: Is our way of thinking broken? Why do we settle for the status-quo? And most importantly, how do we unleash the creative potential we all have but rarely tap into?

Listen to this episode on: Spotify, Apple, and other apps

We’re going to use Thinknado during certain Doom & Bloom episodes. Listen in as John and Brandt walk us through their framework, a no-nonsense, four-step process to blow apart conventional thinking and generate radical new ideas

“Wait, Why?” – Question everything like a relentless toddler. Challenge the status quo.

“Maybe...” – Explore the wild possibilities beyond what's familiar and embrace the discomfort of being wrong.

“What If?” – Expand your imagination with unexpected connections.

“Try This.” – Prototype your ideas with minimal resources and see what gains traction.

But, this isn’t just about creativity, it’s about survival. Our climate emergency is the ultimate design challenge, and the Thinknado process equips designers to break free from destructive patterns and imagine regenerative, world-changing solutions and approaches.

About our guests

John Bielenberg is a designer, entrepreneur, and imaginative advocate for a better world. He is the founder of Project M, and co-founder of Future, Common, and Thinknado.

John has won more than 250 design awards in his career, including the 2013 AIGA Gold Medal for leadership in the design for good movement. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art staged a solo exhibition of his work in 2000. In 2003, John Bielenberg created Project M, an immersive program designed to inspire and educate young designers, writers, photographers, and filmmakers by proving that their work—especially their “wrongest” thinking—can have significant impact on communities. Project M has developed projects in Alabama, Baltimore, Connecticut, Costa Rica, Detroit, Germany, Ghana, Iceland, Maine, Minneapolis, Montana and New Orleans.

In 2016, John co-wrote a book called Think Wrong that inspires people to conquer the status quo and do work that matters and in 2025 will launch Thinknado, an app that makes Ai think wrong to help generate creative solutions to big challenges.

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Brandt Williams is co-Founder Thinknado, entrepreneur, connector of dots and people. Brandt is a strategist and has a knack for transforming ideas into successful ventures. As a serial entrepreneur, Brandt has served as founder/co-founder/CEO for early stage ventures and well as an intrapreneur and CMO for Fortune 500 companies. Brandt cares most about mentoring people and teams to find their true purpose. Deeply invested in building a better future, Brandt strives to find new paths for creativity, sustainable livelihoods, and fulfillment.