In today’s environment, human-centred design, biomimicry, and AI are shaping the future. We bring formal credentials and practitioner expertise in all three - knowing when to use them individually, and when their convergence sparks breakthrough solutions.
Every challenge is different. These three disciplines serve as building blocks—each with distinct strengths. Expand any card below for deeper detail.
The Convergence of Three Disciplines
Human Intelligence
(Design Thinking)
Understanding what drives human behaviour. Solutions grounded in actual customer needs, not assumptions.​​
Best for: Market adoption, customer experience, transformational process, brand development, and stakeholder alignment. Why it works: Keeps empathy and feasibility at the heart of innovation. ​ 6th Sense experience: Close to 20yrs of practice.
Nature's Intelligence
(Biomimicry)
Brings nature’s wisdom - evolved and tested over 3.8 billion years - into business strategy.
Best for: Efficiency optimisation, sustainability imperatives, systems resilience, and organisational design. We use biomimicry when challenges require proven strategies from nature—or when combining it with human-centred design reveals solutions neither approach would find alone. Why it works: Applies proven models nature perfected - now inspiring global breakthroughs in many industries including tech, architecture, textiles, and pharma. 6th Sense experience: Nine years applying biological strategies to innovation work—one of the first Biomimicry certified business professionals in Australia to apply this commercially. Creator of proprietary methodologies: The Octopus Method The Spider Web Method
Artificial Intelligence
(AI)
AI as creative and strategic partner. Integrated throughout human-centred and biomimicry work—pattern recognition, creative stimulus, research, concept development — every stage.
Best for: Including in projects with needing advanced pattern recognition, research acceleration, creative stimulus, and scalable innovation. Why it works: AI rapidly analyses vast, complex data and uncovers patterns and opportunities that would take humans weeks or months to spot - speeding up research, revealing new insights, and fuelling creative leaps for innovation. 6th Sense experience: Formal training in applying AI across business functions.
6th Sense Triple Helix Method: Synergy at Every Step
What makes our Triple Helix Method so potent isn’t just the combination of human, nature, and artificial intelligences — it’s how each discipline actively strengthens the others along the way.
Innovation isn’t linear. In our work, every stage is informed and amplified by its neighbours:
Human-centred insights uncovered through immersion shape our direction — and clarify which biological strategies from nature we’ll look to for inspiration.
Nature’s blueprints for resilience and breakthrough feed back into our understanding of what people need, want, and will embrace.
AI connects patterns and accelerates learning - keeping the process adaptive and robust.
At each step, one discipline informs and strengthens the next, aligning people, purpose, and possibility. Insights from each stream guide the process, producing solutions that are human, sustainable, and future-proof.
This isn’t a toolkit;
it’s a living, adaptive system.
The Triple Helix approach allows us to:
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Align teams and stakeholders upfront around both human and ecological imperatives.
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Use human insights to guide which patterns and functions to look for in nature.
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Continually strengthen and validate ideas with the rigour and reach of AI.
This integration of nature’s genius, human-centred design, and AI is uncommon in Australia. With formal credentials and commercial expertise across all three, 6th Sense is uniquely positioned to deliver innovation that’s as practical as it is future-ready.
Biomimicry in Practice
We don't just use biomimicry for client work—we apply nature's strategies to improve our own processes and tools, demonstrating the convergence of biological thinking with human-centred design:
The Octopus Method
(Immersion)
Our proprietary research framework inspired by octopus neurobiology. An octopus doesn't just divide tasks - two-thirds of its neurons are distributed through its arms, allowing each to sense, process, and respond independently while the central brain coordinates. We apply this: specialised research streams (emotional, behavioural, contextual) run autonomously with their own sensing methods, then converge for synthesis. This creates richer, more dimensional insights than linear research or parallel workstreams that simply divide the same approach. We use this on complex projects and offer it as advanced training for teams already fluent in human-centred design.
The Spider Web Method
(Strat Planning)
A strategic planning methodology inspired by orb spiders' approach to web construction. Spiders don't build once and hope - they continuously monitor for damage, repair strategically (reinforcing high-stress points), and rebuild sections as conditions change, all while maintaining the structural integrity of the whole web. We apply this: your strategy becomes a living, visual network where core capabilities anchor throughout (like radial threads), teams can identify and repair weak connections in real-time, and the structure adapts to market changes without total reconstruction. This creates resilient strategy that evolves with your organisation, not static documents that go stale.
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We're currently seeking partners interested in beta testing this approach.
This website
(Biomimicry-optimised)
Being rebuilt using biomimicry principles from navigation structure to user journey design. We're applying design patterns from multiple organisms and natural systems to deliver functionality that's intuitive, adaptive, and efficient - a live demonstration of our methodology in action.