The Mindset View of Everything

Over 6 years ago, I wrote about how Web 2.0 was better thought of as a philosophy, not a technology. (And then I wrote about it again.)

A couple years ago, I wrote about how UX is best approached as a mindset (not a process).

Internally at Adaptive Path, we’ve been talking a lot about service design, and I agree with my colleague Todd Wilkens that what’s most important in designing for service is to have a service mindset.

Pretty much everything I wrote about the Connected Age is one of mindset.

Clearly, I keep coming back to this idea. That mindset, perspective, and orientation is what is most important, most crucial, most fundamental in business. (And possibly all other parts of life.)

But it’s weird, because we’re never really taught how to think about mindsets. Even the word “mindset” (or “philosophy” or “perspective”) seems esoteric and abstract. Yet its application is what often separates success from failure.

How can we bring in to focus that which seems so ephemeral?