So, I’m starting the planning process for another Business + Design class at the Stanford d.school for Spring 2007.
My big question is: what kind of class would you want to be a part of?
One choice would be to teach Creating Infectious Action again. We learned a lot teaching it last year, both in terms of how to structure the class as well the content which was developed in the class by staff and students alike. It certainly caught people’s attention, as in here, and here, and here. So that’s one choice.
The other is to teach something new. I have some ideas about content and form but I’d like to hear what you have to say. What kind of a class would you want to take if you were a graduate student at Stanford interested in learning more about design thinking? Drop me an email, post a comment below, or (best of all), write something on your own blog and send a trackback back over here.
Innovation and Persuasion?
Diego asks for ideas for the next course he might teach (co-creation anyone?). If youve got ideas, add em here or at his site (see previous link). Id like to see a class about innovation and persuasion. As Roger Martin talks about …
Dream Class?
One of my favorite blogs, metacool, is written by Diego Rodriguez, a professor at Stanford and a designer at IDEO. (I should note that I met Diego at a drum circle on a beach in Monterey. I can’t, for the
This blog posting is dated, but I found it comment-worthy in light of a recent experience. A course that I think would have great value, especially during this nascent period of the d.School’s life, would address winning over skeptics to the advantages of design thinking in the business world. I was challenged by one such skeptic this week when I had the privilege of interviewing for admission to the GSB. My interviewer recalled a conversation that he had had with David Kelley over the summer and speculated that the d.School would not last as an experiment in business thinking. Let me assure you, making a case for Business + Design to someone who couldn’t be won over already by one of its pioneers is somewhat daunting.
So how do you convince business-as-usual to try out business-by-design? You can’t reap the rewards of design thinking if management isn’t willing to give it a chance. Perhaps you are already fortunate enough to work at an “enlightened” company, but what if you find yourself mired in an inflexible, anachronistic corporate culture? Do you flee to find someplace more sympathetic or can you employ design thinking to turn skeptics into advocates? How could you apply design thinking to a process oriented function in a way that produces quantifiable results? Can you sell design thinking to individuals concerned with ROI? This blog referred to an article from Fast Company Oct 2006 that acknowledged the challenges out there, but how do you answer those challenges? I’m sure IDEO’s experiences have yielded some lessons.
Maybe this is too much or too little to tackle in a class; maybe it could be just an extension of something on Innovation and Persuasion or folded into Tools for Experience Design. Whatever the case, should the Fates shine benevolently on me, these are all questions I would be interested in exploring.