Thinknado
Season 2: Episode 4
We sit down with our friends John Bielenberg and Brandt Williams, creators of Thinknado, to explore how creativity, AI, and a willingness to “think wrong” can unlock more innovative solutions in taking climate action. Together, they discuss why AI shouldn’t replace human creativity, but instead challenge our default thinking, generate unexpected ideas, and spark entirely new possibilities.
John and Brant discuss the power of small bets, or low-risk experiments that build momentum for bigger change. They share practical strategies for helping designers navigate organizational roadblocks, gain buy-in, and make climate-forward decisions the norm instead of the exception.
If you’ve ever felt like your best ideas get shut down before they have a chance, this conversation is for you. Solving the climate crisis won’t come from doing what we’ve always done. We must question assumptions, embrace curiosity, and have the courage to think differently. The best way forward is to think wrong.
Listen on Spotify and Apple.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.
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.
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The Doom & Bloom Team
Marc O’Brien (Host)
Camille Graham (Producer)
Jacquelyn Demshick (Designer)
Holden Hardcastle (Editor)
Drew Wilkinson
Season 2: Episode 3
In episode two, we talk to Drew Wilkinson, former Microsoft employee who turned a two-person sustainability group into a ten-thousand-person climate movement inside the company. We get into why sustainability dies the second it becomes a checkbox at the end of a project and where the real creative decisions happen.
Drew breaks down his “buffet” approach to getting a whole company on board, not just the one person who cares. Why that person (the designer who feels like the only one) is really never alone. And why courage might be the best trait we need in changing the culture within our work places.
Listen on Spotify and Apple.About our guest
Drew Wilkinson is a sustainability consultant, community organizer, and climate activist who on a mission to make sustainability part of everybody’s job. He co‑founded Microsoft’s 10,000‑member employee sustainability community and now leads the Climate Leadership Collective, helping organizations pair top‑down strategy with bottom‑up momentum. By blending change management, leadership development, and green‑skilling, he turns sustainability from a checklist owned by one team into a shared cultural value that every department is equipped and motivated to advance.
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Come to our monthly Recap Hangouts and discuss them with others!
The Doom & Bloom Team
Marc O’Brien (Host)
Camille Graham (Producer)
Jacquelyn Demshick (Designer)
Holden Hardcastle (Editor)
Dr. Renee Lertzman
Season 2: Episode 2
In season two of Doom & Bloom we’re focusing on how designers can shift the culture within the design industry to prioritize climate-forward design decisions.
We kicked off the new season during San Francisco Climate Week, interviewing Dr. Renee Lertzman, climate psychologist and strategist.
Listen to Renee and Marc discuss the gap between how much designers care about climate and how little they're actually able to integrate it into their work and why the usual moves (educating, persuading, making the case harder) don’t work. They also explored how shifting from “yell, tell, sell” to attunement and guiding can help designers actually move culture inside their organizations.
Listen on Spotify and Apple.About our guest
Dr. Renee Lertzmen is a psychologist, researcher, and strategist who has spent three decades investigating why people struggle to act on what they care most deeply about—and what it actually takes to change that. Renee has advised leaders at Google, IKEA, the White House, and WWF, and her TED “Talk How to Turn Climate Anxiety into Action” has over two million views. She's the author of Environmental Melancholia, founder of Project InsideOut, and her forthcoming book “So You Want to Change the World?” is out from Viking in 2027.
Got ideas from this episode?
Come to our monthly Recap Hangouts and discuss them with others!
The Doom & Bloom Team
Marc O’Brien (Host)
Camille Graham (Producer)
Jacquelyn Demshick (Designer)
Holden Hardcastle (Editor)