Author Archives: Eugene Ivanov

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About Eugene Ivanov

I help mission-driven organizations, including nonprofits, solve persistent strategic, operational, and organizational challenges through AI-supported problem solving. As founder of INSILICONOVATION, I build and apply AI tools that think with you, not for you—helping uncover root causes, surface assumptions, and turn ambiguity into clear paths forward.

A Sector Under Pressure (On nonprofits, rising need, and a widening gap)

Posted on May 12, 2026 by Eugene Ivanov

In April 2026, the Providers’ Council, a Massachusetts human services membership association, and the UMass Donahue Institute published a white paper. It is titled Stretched to Capacity: The Workforce Crisis in Human Services. The title is not a metaphor. It … Continue reading →

Posted in Health Care, Nonprofits, Problem-solving | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

In Defence of AI

Posted on April 30, 2026 by Eugene Ivanov

There is a well-known framework for understanding how people respond to loss. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross identified five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It was meant to describe how individuals cope with death and dying. It turns out … Continue reading →

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From Process to Practice: Who Runs It and How

Posted on April 27, 2026 by Eugene Ivanov

This is the fifth and final post in the series “Problem First: AI-Assisted Problem Solving for Organizations That Can’t Afford to Get It Wrong.” After I published the second post in this series, the one laying out a five-stage problem-solving … Continue reading →

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AI as Problem-Solving Partner: Doing It Right

Posted on April 22, 2026 by Eugene Ivanov

This is the fourth post in the series “Problem First: AI-Assisted Problem Solving for Organizations That Can’t Afford to Get It Wrong.” I ended the previous post with a claim that deserves scrutiny: that the real value of AI for … Continue reading →

Posted in AI, Creativity, Innovation, Nonprofits, Problem-solving | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Organizations That Need Problem Solving Most Are the Ones Doing It Least

Posted on April 13, 2026 by Eugene Ivanov

This is the third post in the series “Problem First: AI-Assisted Problem Solving for Organizations That Can’t Afford to Get It Wrong.” The first two posts in this series made a general case. Organizations are bad at defining problems. They … Continue reading →

Posted in AI, Creativity, Innovation, Nonprofits, Problem-solving | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The Problem-Solving Manifesto

Posted on April 1, 2026 by Eugene Ivanov

(What the Problem-Solving Process Actually Looks Like) This is the second post in the series “Problem First: AI-Assisted Problem Solving for Organizations That Can’t Afford to Get It Wrong.” In the first post in this series, I argued that organizations … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, Problem-solving | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Why We’re So Bad at Solving Problems (And Why It Matters More Than Ever)

Posted on March 22, 2026 by Eugene Ivanov

This is the first post in the series “Problem First: AI-Assisted Problem Solving for Organizations That Can’t Afford to Get It Wrong.” Clients always come to me knowing what they want. Very often, however, they don’t do enough due diligence … Continue reading →

Posted in AI, Innovation | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Don’t Bring Me Chickens or Eggs — Build Me a Farm

Posted on February 13, 2026 by Eugene Ivanov

Innovation managers love to hate the line “Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions.” They’ll lecture you about root cause analysis. They’ll quote Einstein: “If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining … Continue reading →

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What If Failing Fast Is Just Failing Wrong?

Posted on February 7, 2026 by Eugene Ivanov

As Lewis Carroll once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” I think of this wisdom every time I hear the gospelers of the “fail-fast-fail-often” creed. I suspect that their easy acceptance … Continue reading →

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Don’t Blame the Black Box: Why We Avoid AI Explanations

Posted on January 6, 2026 by Eugene Ivanov

There’s a Russian proverb that cuts straight to the heart of human nature: Having an ugly face, don’t blame the mirror (На зеркало неча пенять, коли рожа крива). We like to blame LLM models for their lack of transparency. Calls … Continue reading →

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