DESIGN THINKING
In an increasingly competitive job market, students need to stand out in a sea of qualified individuals.
The world and its challenges demand a new breed of professional—those who are trained to drive innovation, no matter the situation, industry, or problem. Design Thinking is a process pioneered at the IDEO and the Stanford d.school. This process draws on methods from engineering and design, and combines them with ideas from the arts, tools from the social sciences, and insights from the business world. Our students learn this process together, and then personalize it, internalize it, and apply it to their own challenges.
We don’t just ask our students to solve a problem; we ask them to start by defining the problem. Students start in the field, where they develop empathy for people they design for, uncovering real human needs they want to address. They then iterate to develop an unexpected range of possible solutions, and create rough prototypes to take back out into the field and test with real people. Our bias is toward action, followed by reflection on personal discoveries about process. Experience is measured by iteration: students run through as many cycles as they possibly can on any project. Each cycle brings stronger insights and more unexpected solutions.
Applications of Design Thinking:
In large existing businesses
Procter and Gamble:
Procter & Gamble is using design thinking across the company to spur the level of its innovation. And 10 years ago, it was selling Olay face cream for $3.99 a bottle. And it was often referred to sarcastically as oil for old ladies. But they’ve thought lots more about the user experience, and how to meet the customer needs, rebranded and reformulated and now have a product that sell in drug and grocery stores around the world, some of it now, $60.00 a bottle.
GE
Elevating design has boosted innovation and the bottom line at companies like GE. According to a 2003 report by the Danish Design Center, increasing design activity such as design-related employee training boosted a company's revenue on average by 40% more than other companies over a five-year period.
http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2009-11-03/how-business-is-adopting-design-thinkingbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice
As a Leader
IBM recently surveyed over 1500 CEOs and the consensus was that Creativity is the single most important thing for CEOs to successfully navigate the complex world that we face today:
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/31670.wss
In launching Start-ups
Here are a couple of examples of ventures that were launched using the design process:
Pulse
Mr. Kothari and his partner, Mr. Gupta, and an idea for a unique product that would filter information from news sources. They created a prototype and hit the Palo Alto coffee shops to test the zeitgeist. They found that people hated having to sift through the constant flow of news and information they received from many sources. Five weeks later they launched an app called Pulse, which allowed people to customize their news feeds.
This was just before the 2010 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. Kothari and Gupta couldn’t get in to see Jobs’s keynote speech. So they were watching it outside when Jobs praised the Pulse app as “wonderful”. Last year LinkedIn bought their company for $US90 million.
Embrace
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Embrace Global (http://embraceglobal.org/)
d.light
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d.light design (http://www.dlightdesign.com/)
Employer interest in Design Thinking:
“If students had formal training in Innovation I would definitely be more likely to hire them.”
- CEO of Zayo Group
“The design thinking program enabled me to see the students in action so when I hired them I knew what I was getting.”
- David Wolf, BSW