Design is all about hybridizing — borrowing from other disciplines, cross-referencing and re-thinking constantly.
Therefore, the final panel at the Fresh Thinking conference was of great interest to me.
Tim Brown, President and CEO of IDEA (and author of Change by Design)
David Kelley, Head, Standord Design School, Founder IDEO
Mickey McManus, CEO and Principal, MAYA Design
Sara Beckman, Professor, Haas School of Business
Vijay Vaitheeswaran, Correspondent, The Economist (Moderator)
Highlights:
- Design thinking is about: customer focus, asking “why”, experimentation, exploring new alternatives and new choices, being human centred, tackling large complex problems, taking an anthropological approach.
- It is not about asking “what users want” because it Henry Ford had asked that people would have said: “a faster horse”.
- Design thinking can be taught. It is about the culture of innovation and giving people confidence in their creative abilities.
- Design thinking using both sides of the brain.
- The d-school at Stanford avoids “sage-on-the-stage”, puts faculty members together who disagree — and it puts business in a different format.
- The d-school uses “project-based learning” [MQ — which is common in engineering schools — and of course is the basis of most design education]
- Problem finding and defining is an important piece — helpful to bring together convergent and divergent thinkers.
- It is about adding design thinking to the already existing tool kit of critical thinking.
The last “event” of the Fresh Thinking conference was an “Innovation Court” (similar to “open space” technique) where teams were tasked at developing new solutions to current problems using diverse methodologies and disruptive thinking. Themes decided in advance were: Energy/Environment; Healthcare; Finance; and Rethinking your business model. People were invited to add themes and then promote their sessions over lunch.
I’m not sure how this turned out because I had a plane to catch.
I have promised Vijay a comparative critique of the two conferences — the Fresh Thinking: Innovation conference in Berkeley and the Redesigning Business conference in London. Will blog the results.
Next blogs — back to finishing up the Big Rethink reporting.