I finally have started on designing for the new executive program for the Harvard Graduate School of Design - Design Thinking for Creativity and Business Innovation. I have been getting a lot of request to speak on this topic and beyond curiosity, many are interested to see how they can apply these concepts not in product development or design but in complex problem solving. After three years of practive devopment and finally put them all together in one seminar. Plan to take this to Europe and Asia later in the year. This is what powers a Senior Designer/Desigh Thinker/Creative Professional to gain a seat in board level stragetic discussions.
The seminar allows participants to learn how to apply the framework and cognitive processes of Design Thinking to connect with your own creativity, frame specific problems, generate innovative ideas, and convert those ideas into tangible business opportunities. In terms of pedagogy, Design Thinking is a lot more than just a human-centered, rapid prototyping design methods, in fact Design Thinking should be less about design, more about thinking.
The program is designed to show how Design Thinking are used by a remarkably diverse range of global organizations across all industry sectors in creating tangibility in insights, foresights, meanings and strategies. Design Thinking is gaining popularity for many reasons. Mainly corporations are facing crises on several fronts and not only from the obvious such as low cost competition, disruptive technologies, economic sustainability, and social development.
Business executives,non-profit and government leaders are also experiencing a profound crisis of trust and legitimacy and all these factors have triggered a loss of confidence in traditional ways of planning and doing things. The very core of many management theories are being questioned and “management” is close to a point of failure. These leaders are looking to find something new to grasp onto in order to make sense of what’s going on and are looking to organize for a future of unprecedented uncertainties. Large established institutions have been battered by system level economic failure, extreme uncertainties, and the failure of traditional forms of leadership and management. These wounds have left businesses gazing hopefully towards design thinking as a new management wonder drug that will help them make sense of what is going on and secure their next big bonus or promotion.
Design Thinking comes just-in-time. Design thinking is bringing a refreshed, revitalized, and rejuvenated approach to management and strategic thinking- however, design thinking is far from a cure-all. You can register here for The Design Thinking for Creativity and Business Innovation Program, please make sure you check if you qualify for affiliate discount. It will held at the Harvard Club in Newe York City third week of May.
This is for executives (both creative and management professionals) who wish to learn how to apply Design Thinking methods beyond the noise and cliché and many of which are myths that are simply not true. It is my pleasure to have Dr. Scott Robiner (Assistant Professor at the School of Design Strategies at Parsons and holds a Doctorate and Master Degree in Design from Harvard Graduate School of Design) as a guest speaker. He brings his perspectives of Design Thinking from a cross-discipline designer perspective and will faciliate an interesting dialogue among participants.
More next few days. Need to board a plane to Frankfurt.
