The Seven Deadly Sins That Choke Out Innovation In most companies, there's a profound tension between the right-brainers (for lack of a better term) espousing design, design thinking and user-centered approaches to innovation and the left-brained, more spreadsheet-minded among us. Most C-suites are dominated by the latter, all of whom are big fans of nice neat processes and who pay good money to get them implemented rigorously. So often, the innovation process is treated as a simple, neat little machine. Put in a little cash and install the right process, and six months later, out pops your new game-changing innovation -- just like toast, right from the toaster. But that, of course, is wrong. Last night, Ryan Jacoby, the heads of IDEO's New York practice, gave a talk at NYU/Poly with just that tension in mind, titled Leading Innovation: Process Is No Substitute. 1: Thinking the answer is in here, rather than out there "We all get chained to our desks and caught up in email," he said. 2: Talking about it rather than building it
Hollywood Tragedy or Healthy Parenting? | Danoah Unleashed with Dan Pearce Booze. Parties. Sex. When you string those powerful words together, it sounds like the dastardly headline of yet another Hollywood tragedy. I’m guessing you wouldn’t conjure up any of those words while thinking of everyday moms and dads who work ceaselessly to be good moms and dads. I know I didn’t used to. But what if booze, parties, and sex actually help a lot of parents be better parents? But before you string me up by my ankles for defacing the sanctity of parenthood, read the following paragraphs and let’s have an interesting discussion about it. 1) Tanya, a single mother of two, really enjoys any chance she can find for booze, parties, and sex. And… 2) Tanya, a single mother of two amazing girls, works two jobs to make ends meet. These are obviously two very different paragraphs, yet essentially they both say the same thing, don’t they? As outsiders, we tend to watch other parents, and we scrutinize their every action.
One guy on Yelp WhatIsCognitiveDesign What is Cognitive Design? Cognitive Design is an instructional design process that focuses on cognitive principles of learning. It augments the traditional instructional system design (ISD), which is a procedural-workflow model, with a principle-based methodology. The cognitive design process provides a rational framework for the instructional development lifecycle. Performance Improvement Environments: Knowledge Management, E-Learning, and Performance Support Four Key Design Elements: Information, Instruction, Media and Delivery System Principles of Cognitive Learning: Multimedia Learning, Management of Cognitive Load, Interactive Engagement and Performance-based Instruction. Principle-based Instructional Design This section will focus on the application of the model in design process — reviewing the practical issues of principle-based instructional design: Additional information is also available in the section entitled "The Cognitive Design Model." What are the Benefits? Conclusion
Iterative Design: Towards the Perfect Paper Plane Iterative design isn’t design by trial and error. Iterative design is a process of continually improving not just the design, but also the problem your design is trying to solve. Coming up with a solution is often the most straightforward part of the design process. That isn’t to say that creating the solution is easy, or doesn’t require a deep knowledge and honed skill set. It’s just to say that when you have a set of requirements and a well defined problem, you know where you stand and where you have to get to. It’s mostly straightforward. A good problem statement gives a tight set of constraints within which to work. Marissa Mayer, the Google VP for User Experience, said it well: “When people think about creativity, they think about artistic work — unbridled, unguided effort that leads to beautiful effect. I’ve been on a quest for the last 16 years. But my quest didn’t start with the duration as its goal. Design Goal: Make a paper-plane These two requirements led to a new design goal.
Make Space Make Space (John Wiley & Sons, 2012) is a new book based on the work at the Stanford University d.school and its Environments Collaborative Initiative. It is a tool for helping people intentionally manipulate space to ignite creativity. Appropriate for designers charged with creating new spaces or anyone interested in revamping an existing space, this guide offers novel and non-obvious strategies for changing surroundings specifically to enhance the ways in which teams and individuals communicate, work, play—and innovate. This work is based on years of classes and programs at the d.school including countless prototypes and iterations with d.school students and spaces. CLICK BELOW TO DOWNLOAD THREE HOW TO SPREADS FROM THE BOOKZ-RackT-WallFoam CubesHiding Place Make Space breaks down content into 5 buckets: Tools—tips on how to build everything from furniture, to wall-treatments, and rigging Situations—scenarios, and layouts for sparking creative activities
Design Thinking: Lessons for the Classroom The Design Thinking Process While design thinking has its roots in the innovation/design sector, the process itself can be used anywhere. Indeed, it is a great tool for teaching 21st century skills, as participants must solve problems by finding and sorting through information, collaborating with others, and iterating their solutions based on real world, authentic experience and feedback. (It is also a great tool to develop and run a school, but that's a different post for a different day.) I had the good fortune to participate in a collaborative workshop at the Big Ideas Fest, where we practiced design thinking with about 12 other educators over a three-day period. The idea was to give us a first-hand experience with design thinking, and to demonstrate how the model could work within the classroom. Practitioners of design thinking have different steps depending on their needs. 1) Identify Opportunity 2) Design 3) Prototype 4) Get Feedback 5) Scale and Spread 6) Present Step 4: Feedback
Design Thinking: Creative Ways to Solve Problems Tinkering Hands: Students at a suburban San Francisco school work on redesigning a preschool room. Designers see the world differently than the rest of us. They're constantly deconstructing and rebuilding objects and ideas that most of us accept as static and fixed. The progression of the first behemoth portable computer to Apple's glossy little iPhone is evidence of the enormous impact designers have on our lives. What if the same were true for the learning process? By applying the techniques of product design to education, they want to loosen the narrow, rigid process of traditional learning and show teachers how to tap into students' deep wells of creativity, encourage them to see nuanced problems from inside the very core of an issue, and make critical thinking essential to solving any problem. The k12 Lab has distilled the design process down to the following steps: Understand, Observe, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. PDF [4.1 mb] Download: k12 Lab's Design Challenge tool kit
Stanford Design Thinking Workbook A little background on the project The project you’re holding in your hands is an iteration on the d.school’s iconic “Wallet Project.” The original wallet project was created as an introduction to designthinking or the d.school’s inaugural Boot Camp class in the Winter o 2006. ci pants observe their partners intheir homes previous to the beginning o the workshop. e able or participants. Why project-based, team-facilitated learning? Having created learning experiences or students o all cultures, ages, disciplines, and industries, we have ound that engaging in projects provides a much richerlearning experience than listening to a “talking head” does. do , and then to acilitatea refection that invites the participants themselves to extract the meaningul learning opportunities rom the experience. lead (concentrating on communicating the instructions, logistics, and timing), andthe other person to provide color (communicating the nuances, oering encouragement, and providing helpul tips).
Innovation 101: Stanford's d.school Teaches Students to Be Creative Community Network Blogs What is happening during a sunny Saturday on the SAP Labs Palo Alto campus and its vicinities? Only a flip chart sign in the lobby building 3 that says “Design Thinking workshop go to fourth floor”, some empty pizza boxes and about 15 heads full of ideas for future playground designs are left. What happened? Is there anything else left? Three women were on a mission, on a mission to spread the word of Design Thinking within SAP and beyond. Elena Hartlieb, a Senior Quality Specialist from Walldorf, with 10 years of SAP experience in various areas and absolutely passionate to learn about Design Thinking and d.school during her first stay in the Silicon Valley.Venu Nadella, Development Manager in SAP Sales on Demand, passionate about her non-profit cause Janyaa.org – introducing DT concepts to under-privileged children in India through Janyaa program.And myself, Heike van Geel, Service Innovation Program Manager in SAP’s Global Service Portfolio Management Group, based in Palo Alto.
What Schools Can Learn From Google, IDEO, and Pixar | Co. Design A community about to build or rehab a school often creates checklists of best practices, looks for furniture that matches its mascot, and orders shiny new lockers to line its corridors. These are all fine steps, but the process of planning and designing a new school requires both looking outward (to the future, to the community, to innovative corporate powerhouses) as well as inward (to the playfulness and creativity that are at the core of learning). In many ways, what makes the Googles of the world exceptional begins in the childhood classroom -- an embrace of creativity, play, and collaboration. It was just one year ago that 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the number-one leadership competency in our complex global marketplace. We can no longer afford to teach our kids or design their schoolhouses the way we used to if we’re to maintain a competitive edge. [Photos by Steve Hall] The Blue Valley Schools Center for Advanced Professional Studies (BVCAPS) takes a similar approach.
Napkin Labs Turns IDEO's Innovation Process Into Web Apps For All | Co. Design Somewhere in between the work we're paid to do and the work we want to do lies what Riley Gibson calls a "creative surplus." People have a need to explore, make, photograph, draw, and collaborate on ideas that are important to them, including the products and services they're passionate about. The key for a brand, he says, is to give those people better direction to end up with insight they can actually use. Gibson and his business partner began their careers as consultants for creative agencies, working with teams to generate new product ideas and conduct market research. While a Facebook page or Twitter stream provides a company plenty of opportunities to gather quick, casual feedback, Gibson quickly saw that it wasn't the right kind of insight -- the kind of thoughtful ideas that lead to new products and better service. As a video demonstrates, a company can create a challenge and invite customers to contribute.