design studies forum › Rethinking Design Thinking: Part I This article originally appeared in Design and Culture, Volume 3, Number 3, November 2011 Abstract The term design thinking has gained considerable attention over the past decade in a wide range of organizations and contexts beyond the traditional preoccupations of designers. The main idea is that the ways professional designers problem solve is of value to firms trying to innovate and to societies trying to make change happen. Introduction Professional design is now operating within an expanded and increasingly complex field. For design firms working for global clients in relentless pursuit of new markets, new offerings and new kinds of value creation, design itself is being remade (Tonkinwise 2010). While much of this critical discussion is beginning to take shape outside design circles, this article will examine design thinking from within. Asking What If: The Designer as Cultural Interpreter In just the last five years, the term is more and more ubiquitous. Design and Its Problems
Home : The Table Group: A Patrick Lencioni Company The Company Crayon Remote collaborative sketching, brainstorming and design studio techniques I’ve been facilitating design studios with collocated teams for years. Many, including me, have covered the benefits of collaboratively sketching new ideas and concepts with a cross-functional team. Recently though, I was tasked with bringing this exercise to a distributed team. We gave the teams a brief heads up of what was going to happen and asked everyone to come to their individual conference rooms with their own laptops. We prepared a very brief (~10 slides) setup presentation that explained the problem statement we were going to try and solve, customer testimonials and data illustrating that this problem was indeed real, the constraints of the solution space and a very brief recap of our customers’ needs. Priming the pump with affinity mapping Since this was their first collaborative sketching session, we didn’t want to jump right into drawing. Local Affinity Mapping In this case we used a shared Google Doc spreadsheet to conduct the exercise. Blank brainstorming spreadsheet [Jeff]
Creative Collaborations | Facilitating and Marketing Your Potential Software for Visualizing and Managing Information What does an innovation strategist do? The opportunity to become an “Innovation Strategist” catches people’s attention. Since our initial posting for the role in Toronto, we’ve received over 120 resumes from dynamic, brilliant young individuals all interested in joining the Idea Couture team. From the outside looking in, innovation strategy sounds incredibly sexy (and it certainly looks good on a business card). None of those are good answers. There’s nothing worse than expecting one thing and getting another. So here are a few of the tasks, activities, and responsibilities of your typical innovation strategist. Project DesignInnovation strategist as the planner Work with the client to articulate project outcomesHelp design the structure of what innovation projects look likeSet up the project’s research activities, and collaborate to select methodsBuild a multidisciplinary team based on available resources Business Strategy Innovation strategist as the box builder Design Research Innovation strategist as design researcher Workshop
Gamestorming Thinking With Diagrams Assorted Pointers Semantic Networks There have been several groups studying Semantic Networks. I have been affiliated with the SemNet Research Group (developers of SemNet software) at San Diego State University. Home page for SemNet software. View some sem nets on Biology Topics There are several other software efforts, some almost commercial, that are in similar or neighboring territory. Diagrammatic Reasoning Thinking with Diagrams is a topic of research studies. Diagrammatic Reasoning : Cognitive and Computational Perspectives by Janice Glasgow (Editor), N. "Diagrammatic reasoning refers to the understanding of concepts and ideas by the use of diagrams and imagery as opposed to linguistic or algebraic representations. Gateway to the Diagrammatic Reasoning Site Thinking-With-Diagrams in Design Professions Use of diagrams for thinking and communicating in design work of many kinds is well established, of course. Robert Horn's Trove of Diagrammatic Treasures Author/professor Robert E. Go to:
MISC Magazine | The Future of Design Education Design schools have built up an expectation that they can equip students to tackle complex problems through the power of creativity alone. They can’t. They don’t. And they continue to fool themselves with four big myths about creativity. Myth 1: Creativity and design are inseparable. Myth 2: Analytical people are generally not creative people. Myth 3: is that, when it comes to design, creativity must be unbound from the laws, structures and processes of the day-to-day world. Myth 4: is that which surrounds the recent and very popular theme of ‘design for social change’. This article appears in MISC Winter 2014, The Balance Issue An Introduction to Gamestorming Throughout my career, I have constantly been amazed that people believe brainstorming is a serendipitous process. Get a dozen people in a room, bring some post-it notes, and you’re guaranteed to leave with an industry-shattering idea. Brainstorming is easy. And so is coming up with really bad ideas. Brainstorming well is much, much harder. The technique of brainstorming, first penned by ad executive Alex F. Looking for Shortcuts In many of the brainstorming cultures I have seen, the ideation process stops after first ideas. In a past life, I watched a client accuse an agency of not pitching a new idea in five years. While most of the folks at Idea Couture can draw on their renaissance interests and learning based discovery through future scanning and ethnography, we can’t all be so lucky. In order to accomplish that, you need lateral stimuli. Power Dynamics The hippo effect (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) is unfortunately a major influencer of the brainstorming process.
Information Mapping Strategic Design MBA Course Descriptions Download the course schedule forJanuary 2013 - June 2015Cohort 1, Cohort 2, and Cohort 3 Course 1: Innovative Leadership Compare to traditional MBA courses: Leadership, Organizational Behavior This course addresses the skills, concepts, and mind-set that support leadership in complex, innovative organizations. Course 2: Design Research for Business Compare to traditional MBA courses: Market Research, Statistics This course provides students with the qualitative and quantitative tools they need to find and frame opportunities, construct successful project briefs, and apply the design research method to products, services and experiences by exploring and documenting new research techniques. Course 3: Business Model Development PROJECT COURSE Compare to traditional MBA courses: Strategy, Organizational Structure, Business Planning, Marketing, IT Management In this course students explore a customer-centric approach to business models. Course 4: Metrics I: Financial Reporting and Analysis
MHReviewsCommnts Reviews and Comments About Mapping Hypertext by Robert E. Horn "a tour de force" "Mapping Hypertext by Robert E. Mapping Hypertext was a finalist for the 1991 Outstanding Instructional Communication Award, and for good reason. CARL BINDER, Performance and Instruction, October 1991 "will change the way people think about their current information" "This book will change the way people think about their current information and the hypertext revolution." KEN BLANCHARD, co-author of the best selling The One Minute Manager "antidote for the problem of disorientation" "Bob Horn suggests an antidote for the problem of disorientation that often comes with navigating through hypertext..." PATRICIA SEYBOLD, founder of Patricia Seybold's Office Computing Group and sponsor of the Seybold Office Computing Conferences. "most thorough survey of solutions thus far" "Boy, do I wish we'd had this book when we were designing the CD-ROM Electronic Whole Earth Catalog. ROBERT F. "a notable step" R.