Know More. Grow More.

Actionable Insights Aren’t Discovered—They’re Designed

Too often, I see teams treat actionable insights as a final deliverable. Like it’s something to be handed off at the end of a...

Brianna Sylver· 2025

Featured in Forbes: A Milestone Moment for Leading Through Free Fall

This is a powerful affirmation of the work Sylver Consulting has been committed to for over two decades: helping leaders and...

“Leading Through Free Fall”, An Innovation Playbook by Brianna Sylver

Brianna Sylver’s new book, Leading Through Free Fall: How Innovators Turn Turbulence into Trust, shows how those moments of...

The Power of Co-Creation: Building Community Through Mobility

That question sparked the creation of the Twin Cities Electric Vehicle Mobility Network, now known as the EV Spot Network and...

STOP Blindly Trusting Your Stakeholders! Their assumptions could be derailing your projects...

Assumptions shape every aspect of a research initiative, from study scope and methods to data analysis and how findings are...

What NASA Overlooked—And How Asking the Right Questions Changed Everything

Okay, so we know that sounds a little clickbait-y, but it happened… right in front of us.

The Day My Client Said “You Ruined Me...”

But that’s exactly what one of my best clients said to me the other day. Luckily, they went on to explain it was a compliment,...

Brianna Sylver· 2025

Brianna Sylver and Santana Wright· 2025

Your Insights Aren’t the Problem — Your Scoping Is.

But the real issue often starts before the work even begins — in the scoping and kickoff conversations that fail to surface the...

Decision-Making Ecosystems and B2B Sales and Marketing

Effective B2B sales and marketing require understanding that these “decision-making ecosystems” are MUCH MORE than just...

Santana Wright· 2024

Brianna Sylver and Santana Wright· 2024

Farm to Fame: How PineMelon Grew From a Sylver Survey to the Silver Screen

Pinemelon is a mission-based online grocer. They partner with local vendors and farmers, serving as a sustainable distributor...

How Sylver Consulting Helped PineMelon Level Up Their Go-to-Market Strategy

Our journey with PineMelon began with a deep dive into consumers of the Denver market. Our Design Research team connected with...

Robyn Minor· 2024

Out of My Comfort Zone (& My Home Country): Experiencing Chicago, Sylver Consulting, and the Global Leadership Summit

It was just another Monday morning Zoom meeting on May 20th, when Brianna came with the news that Sylver Consulting would...

ES Enya Silveira· 2024

Brianna Sylver and Peter Bürgi· 2024

From Playroom to Boardroom: The Power of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® in Business

Today’s super dynamic business landscape is full of unpredictable challenges and blink-and-they’re-gone opportunities. In this...

Three often overlooked considerations when designing the sample plan for an online survey

Three considerations related to survey sampling are often overlooked:

Robert Maihofer· 2023

Practicing "Power With" Leadership at Sylver Consulting

The book "Power of Collective Wisdom" describes how Power With is a relational and collective approach to power that creates new...

PH Paige Hendersen· 2023

Take the Guesswork Out of Your Market Positioning with Symbolics™

We are proud to share our webinar on Sylver’s proprietary methodology, Symbolics™, featuring Brianna Sylver, President and...

Do You Know the Difference Between "Power Over" vs. "Power With" Leadership?

Power Over leadership follows an authoritarian approach, exerting control and power over its team members with very little true...

Using Mural to support your Qualitative Design Research

I will admit - the sentiment underpinning the phrase “Sylver’s magic” makes me smile. But I’m going to let you in on a little...

PH Paige Hendersen· 2023

What is LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and How Can It Help Tune Your Strategy?

Heard this before? Sound like something you’ve said about your own company’s strategy?

Brianna Sylver· 2023

Unlocking New Vision with LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®: A Journey with Arity

Our mission is to empower leaders to courageously embrace change and future-proof their offerings. To do that effectively, we...

Brianna Sylver· 2023

The Plague of “Should-ing”: Are you sabotaging your own market growth?

“Should” can be a perfectly wonderful word in many contexts, calling attention to important standards or expectations. But when...

Peter Bürgi· 2023

Test-and-Learn: An Approach to New Product Development

Do you have a product idea or solution forming in your head, but you’re not sure what to do next? Sylver Consulting can be your...

Setting the Stage for Success - Workshop Highlight

Sylver Consulting’s “Setting the Stage for Success” Workshop is a key differentiator. It fuels the strategic partnership that so...

Micaela Shoemaker, Brianna Sylver, and Peter Bürgi· 2023

How Collaborative Sensemaking Supports Strategic Innovation in Business

However, traditionally, this has been a key workshop that we do exclusively internally within Sylver. We have not invited...

5 Ways to Cultivate "Power With" Energy

#PowerWith leadership aligns with Sylver’s three core values of shared appreciation, collaboration, and personal responsibility....

Stokes: A Key Ingredient to Energizing and Engaging Teams in Virtual Workshops

The key question of any good facilitator’s mind is, "How can I keep the team engaged and energized throughout the entire...

KU Katie Ulrich· 2022

SH Sabrina Hallongren· 2022

Virtual Co-Creation Workshops: Designing Remotely with (and for) Consumers or End Users

In co-creation workshops, consumers or end users come together with key internal stakeholders to shape the next steps of a...

JW Jacqueline Walker· 2022

4 Ways that Covid has Helped Sylver to Up Its Game on Participant Recruitment

To maintain (and elevate) the quality of our research participants throughout the pandemic, we’ve had to reflect and refine with...

MS Micaela Shoemaker· 2022

Strategic Market Research Recruitment: 4 Best Practices to Ensure You’ve Got the Right Participants for Your Next Study

There are many pressing issues facing market research recruitment that organizations often struggle to address. Concerns around...

Mashups and Metaphors: The Secret to Successful Ideation

At Sylver Consulting, we use “mashups” frequently in ideation workshops. But we’re sometimes met with outright puzzlement and...

Peter Bürgi· 2022

Interested in an Innovation Career?

First, you need a degree in design, communications, business, engineering, psychology, marketing, anthropology or sociology....

Adriano Galvão· 2022

5 Accessibility Factors to Consider when Designing Digital User Experiences

With the continuously growing dependency on technology in both professional and personal capacities, it is more important than...

Jason Taft· 2022

25 Quotes to Inspire UX Designers

– Jakob Nielsen, User Advocate and Principal of the Nielsen Norman Group

EM Eric Moran· 2021

4 Ways to Mitigate Risk in Product Development Research

Rather, what I will say, is that assumptions are all too often the big elephant in the room when the conversation turns to new...

Brianna Sylver· 2021

EM Brianna Sylver and Eric Moran· 2021

The Backstory on Sylver Consulting

Brianna cites September 10th, 2003 as the official start day of Sylver Consulting. It was this day that she closed her first...

Unlock the Innovation Power of Customer Insight

Many people say: “Put your customer truly at the center of your development,” but that phrase is overused these days and often...

Brianna Sylver· 2021

Sylver Consulting Presents: Empathy in Design Thinking and Human Centered Design

Robyn Minor· 2021

Sylver Consulting 2021 Year in Review Video

We wanted to take a moment before we dive head first into 2022 to look back on 2021 and highlight our successes, additions and...

Robyn Minor· 2021

Lead with Purpose: How to Implement Design into Your Organization

Recent market reports make the business case for design. Yet, each falls short in defining the steps required to scale design...

EM Emma McLane· 2021

Are You Seeking to Implement Design into Your Organization?

Kick 2021 off with a throwback presentation from Brianna Sylver at the Advancing Research 2020 Conference

EM Emma McLane· 2020

Today at Sylver Consulting, We Celebrate the Power of CIVIC INNOVATION!

Last year, Brianna Sylver worked as an Innovation Coach for three of the 35 Champion Cities selected by Bloomberg for the 2018...

CG Carrie Graham· 2019

Storytelling is an Essential Tool for Enabling Transformative Growth and Change

Today I celebrate the power of STORYTELLING! At Sylver Consulting, a big chunk of our work efforts go towards aligning diverse...

Brianna Sylver· 2019

Challenging the Insight Status Quo with Doritos at IIEX 2019

When the Doritos team wanted to get outside of their insight comfort zone, they came to Sylver Consulting for our pure System-1,...

CG Carrie Graham· 2019

UNESCO Report: How to Think About the Future

What are the opportunities and potential obstacles for companies in a growing economy? UNESCO published Adriano Galvao’s...

CG Carrie Graham· 2019

Brianna was Accepted to Speak at the 2018 Corporate Researchers Conference

We’re excited to announce that Brianna was accepted, in partnership with Novantas, to speak at the 2018 Corporate Researchers...

Brianna Sylver· 2018

Are You a Qualitative Researcher Wondering What Design Thinking Is and How It’s Different from What You’ve Always Done?

If this describes you and your work in the market research field, then an upcoming virtual training series that I am...

Brianna Sylver· 2018

Celebrating the POWER of INTENTION on Nick Wagner’s Full Potential Podcast

Just a few weeks ago I said, “Gosh, I’d like to have the opportunity to be part of more podcasts. I love engaging in that...

Brianna Sylver· 2018

Brianna Sylver Interviewed by Female Insight Zone

The Female Insight Zone Podcast interviews inspiring female business leaders to reveal insights into their successes, failures,...

CG Carrie Graham· 2018

At the Convergence of Market Research, UX and Strategy…and Yet Not There at the Same Time

Sylver Consulting “the business” has existed at the nexus of Market Research (MR), User Experience (UX) and Strategy (STR) for...

MY Matthew Yapchaian

Designers Didn’t Mix that Much with Engineers. That Got Me Thinking

A lot of people talk about the need for establishing more connections between design and other disciplines, such as engineering...

Adriano Galvão

Five Reasons Why Innovation Processes Fail

I’ve been working in innovation for 15 years now. I’ve supported many different organizations (small, medium and large) to...

Sylver Consulting: Intern Insights

“Office culture” is a term often bounced around and intriguing to company leaders. And when reflecting on what this looks like...

PV Paula Ventrell

Online Moderation: Engaging with People, Not Sea-Monkeys

Sylver Consulting has been moderating online communities for seven years now. In that time, we’ve learned a thing or two about...

MY Matthew Yapchaian

What Does Authenticity Really Mean to Millennials?

Authenticity has become the “it” word for marketers attempting to connect with Millennial consumers. Hundreds of thousands of...

JM Jean McDonnell

Why Brand, Product and Company Transformation Often Fails

Transformation is not an artifact. It’s a change in mindset, a shift in perspective. And, yet, when the challenge of...

Discussing the Differences Between Market Research and User Research on the Aurelius Podcast

I’m beyond excited to share the most recent Aurelius podcast, for which yours truly was the guest!

Challenging the Status Quo with Method Development: An Iterative and Intentional Process

Sylver Consulting organizes a unique suite of qualitative and/or quantitative methodologies for each project, always allowing...

MY Matthew Yapchaian

Diffusing the War Between Market Researchers and User Experience Researchers

In preparation for this month’s edition of Sylver’s newsletter, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the nature and evolution...

End of Year Spend: What Mindset are You Engaging?

I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m guessing that the constant rally cry for “better, faster, cheaper” research is finally...

Partnership is the “Secret Sauce” of Sylver’s Process

Sylver is uniquely positioned in the innovation industry at the intersection of User Experience, Market Research and Strategy....

The “Better, Faster, Cheaper” Dilemma — How Sylver’s Approach is a Solve

I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m guessing that the constant rally cry for “better, faster, cheaper” research is finally...

JM Jean McDonnell

Upping the Ante on Hybrid Methodologies Brings a Holistic View to Positioning

In preparation for this month’s edition of Sylver’s newsletter, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the nature and evolution...

JM Jean McDonnell

What Type of Market Research Community is Right for You?

As Sylver’s Senior Quantitative Market Research Analyst, I find myself often in conversations with clients about communities....

Robert Maihofer