Intersection Of Science & Design Thinking. We Can Design The Future (v2)

Innovative ideas spread like the flu. We are more predictable than we think we are.

My 2013 professional network visualized by Linkedin Maps

We live our lives in multiple networks, and ALL networks have a particular kind of structure. We are more predictable than we think we are.


Harvard professor Nicholas Christakis has found that "innovative ideas spread like the flu". Network Science reveals that depending on the place that you occupy in a network, you might be able to predict the future, meaning that people located at the central places in that network (pattern), would be aware of information before it gets to people situated at the edges of that network. Therefore people located at a central position and with a pattern recognition capacity, could

Predict the future of the edges (the rest of the community).
Therefore, the challenge is to recognize the edge or central position of the network you are interested in. Having the capacity to predict what might happen next also gives you the possibility to alter the future. Redesign it.

How would we do that?.

The are a set of core skills that would help, such as design thinking... and there's one foundational skill a little harder to describe (I agree with John Reaves): "I think of it as "navigation" but it might be "searching" or "sensing" or "filtering" or "critical thinking" ... basically how to make your way through today's incredibly rich, constantly increasing torrent of information, messages, sources, experiences, possibilities, opportunities, and choices to find what you want, where you'd like to go, and what is useful to you".
I dare to name this "foundational skill" as Gut instinct.

Gut instinct: A trained instinct and a pattern recognition capacity it will position you at the center of the network you are interested in to connect dots, interpret how the world will evolve in the near and distant future, and project new scenarios.

Designing the future.

Pattern recognition, pattern creation and the application of ideas to systems or viceversa are the core set of skills of a design thinker. Exploring the intersection between design thinking and systems thinking could add a new Design Thinking process : A "Design-the- future-process" to solve problems that doesn't exist yet.



I recommend you:

Nicholas Christakis’  TALK and

Design Thinking + Systems Thinking / Education by John Reaves

Article originally posted in 2013 in Design Thinking-in-action

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CEOs are Designers

The profile of a great CEO and a great DESIGNER are almost identical. 

Keith Yamashita describes it wonderfully in his interview below and I completly subscribe it: 


"Managers are defined by the knowledge they know: Leaders are defined by the questions they are willing to ask. Great leadership is about exploring things, exploring areas you don't know; Great companies depend on being constantly curious about things you don't know and being willing to challenge status quo. what it is interesting about what we do as a living, what great designer and great ceos have in common,  is that you have to inquired about the status quo,  push things, and this requires that you think: thinkings is the greatest gift we have but as leaders we  use so little in our day to day, because the 
pace of the world has become so quick, so fast, that it is devalued what thinking is about.
We are about reconnecting people to the thoughtful work of who are you (as a company) , what is you indream character and how  you need to to live up to that character to be a great company.
[...]One thing I've been exploring is the relationship between great CEOS and great designers: It turns out that CEOS are the best DESIGNERS. What do I mean by that?
[...]CEOS have to deal with ambiguity, change a path forward, help imaging something it doesn´t exist, and yet, they need to be grounded in reality and take things step by step. If you look at this 5 traits, the job of the CEOS and the job of the designers is almost identical.
So What i've been studing is: What is the mindset of a CEO? and how can  he/she be the shepard of the future of the organization?
[...]When you pair a CEOS with a designer, what they can do together, very few other pairs can do.
[...]Design thinking, as a great term, it is a very  human act: Imagining something that doesn't exist yet  and using the power of design to ensable all the thing and all resources you need to make it a reality.
[...]When finding that great design is equal parts courage, equal parts challenging the status quo, and equal parts imagination, and when you get these 3 parts right as a leader is when you make remarcable things as a leader in this planet"


View complete video here: https://youtu.be/Eb9ELj8VMGU

Design-Thinking-in-Action Book in Amazon

64 Thoughts about Marketing, Design Thinking & Life

Design Thinking-in-action Book is available in Amazon 

As Edwin Schlossberg, I believe that writing creates a context in which other people can think. I hope that my journey of learning inspires you to share your own thoughts about the relevant role of Design Thinking and designers in our always evolving world.

My book Design Thinking in Action is the sum of articles that I've posted in the blog Design-Thinking-in-Action since May 2012 as a diary of a design thinker practitioner, communicator and marketing lead working in an international higher education organization in Madrid, Spain.

Design Thinking in Action. 64 Thoughts about Marketing, Design & Life is available in AMAZON

Thank you all for your support!

Pilar Saura

Lost & Found Engagement

I'm back.

Elia Mervi. Self portrait.

I haven't written a post in a while. 

What I've missed the most these past months is the sense of connection that I felt while sharing my thoughts. 

I like networks.
Need to foster conversations. Mere exchange of information bores me...too much.

Showing up nurtures me in many ways. The wildest, the better. But I have to practice.

Where is this attitude leading me?

I found my new writing purpose. 

I'm engaged again.

Connecting Beauty And Business. New Mindsets For New Challenges

A sustainable and successful business now requires much more than there is. What if considering new possibilities and competencies directly related to human kind, such as philosophy and art? 

What if "Beauty" as transformative agent of change?

Mark Rothko (1903–1970)

Pursuing beauty is a powerful human purpose. 
Here are some insights for you to consider beauty in your strategic thinking that I have connected after reading the article "Rothko on Beauty, Friendship, and How the Emotional Exaltation of Art Mirrors Human Relationships" by Maria Popova

Beauty is a powerful experience
Beauty is one of the most effective mode of communication.

"The perception of beauty is an emotional experience that involves a set of sensations that go straight to the heart".

Rothko considers the function of beauty not only as a deeply emotional experience but as a bonding agent that creates deep resonance between those beholding it.

The more people you touch, the more beautiful it is.The more beauty you create, the deeper you resonate between those beholding it. The more beautifully you resonate, the more possibilities you create.

Figuring out the formula to touch people hearts with a practical intention and live to do it again is a beautiful purpose and also a beautiful challenge that points directly to a human-centered, Design Thinking methodology. 

Whatever form it takes

"Beauty has traditionally been counted among the ultimate values, with goodness, truth, and justice".Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Beauty is a type of emotional exaltation which is stimulated by certain qualities such as transparency, coherence, honesty, humanity, collaboration and generosity. These are also qualities that define great strategies -communication, business- and deliver beautiful outcomes and results.

Beautiful strategies, beautiful outcomes
It is a great challenge designing a purposeful experience of beauty for a predefined group of people, mainly because beauty cannot be faked: The beauty equation works only if you create real beauty.
A beautiful professional practice leads to beautiful outcomes.

"When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty, but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong"-B. Fuller 

Actions of beauty

Pursuing the beauty equation in a professional context is a rare competence related to a strategic thinking and the creation of practical actions that build possibilities and solutions despite complexity. 

Concepts and actions related:

• Making sense of complexity
• Find a new solution to a difficult problem 
• Create opportunities when there was nothing apparently 
• Make an idea real
• Spot something before it's obvious to everyone else 
• Deliver conceptual creativity to your organization 
• Providing qualitative value for your clients 
• Build the steps to connect innovation to reality 
• Design a strategy that works 
• Collaborate the more the better 

Is it not the purpose and ultimate goal of any brand, business or innovation to reach out the more people the better…and the deeper also?

Want To Unlock The Value of Your Organization?. Unlock The Potential Of Your Resources

"Knowledge drives action as it does clarity, focus, purpose and passion"_ Pilar Saura

 Buckminster Fuller and Chuck Byrne, Building Construction/Geodesic Dome

Where is the value in a corporation? 

How can an organization unlock its potential if it doesn't understand the potential value of its resources?. If you don't understand your resources, you cannot strategize your actions. 
Organizations are systems of collaborating individuals who share a purpose, standardized processes and a common culture: That is the actual and potential value of the system. What if an organization needs to evolve or adapt its system to a new context? What resources do you have and need within your organization to to tackle the disruption?. The answer is common sense: Those who know how the system works in relation with the actual and potential value of its resources, would be the ones with the right answers.

The rearrangement of resources is a strategic action

Bucky Fuller, one of the preeminent design scientists and philosophers of the last century, defined design as "the intentional rearrangement of resources".  

I totally relate to this definition. 

Before summarizing what knowledge and actions are involved in the rearrangement of resources, let's redefine what a resource is for an strategic designer.

A resource is everything. For a designer, a resource is a tool to accomplish a challenge and it is also a mean to understand the problem and the context, because any rearrangement implies recognizing resources, create resources, activate resources and make sense of their value as a single source and as a part of a bigger picture.

Design Thinking involved in the rearrangement of resources

Previous to a "rearrangement", a designer analyzes the situation and makes sense of the challenge in relation to reality/context/resources/ before going any further. These questions wrap it up:

• What is going on here?
• Why this challenge? Any other hidden challenges? 
• What do you have? (Resources as tools)
• What do you need? What do you have to create/redesign to accomplish the goal?
• Is it viable, scalable. Is it possible?
• Who are my partners in this challenge? Can I trust them?

Design Actions involved in the rearrangement of resources

Knowledge drives action, as it does clarity, focus, purpose and passion: 

1. Redefine resources in relation to the context and the challenge: This action means that you have to be also an expert in defining contexts and also an expert in defining problems.
2. Resources are tools to accomplish a challenge, therefore:
1. Allocate and summarize what you've got
2. Summarize what you need and assign it a value
3. Understand its actual use of each resource in relation to the rest of the context/resources and envision and designing its potential use of each resource as a unit and as a network. Connect it all.
3. Redesign functions of the resources so that they deliver the results you need.

While itinerating, you may envision a new potential value/opportunity and need to reconfigure the whole to obtain and alternative result.


(I'll further my thinking shortly)

Categorizing The Practice Of Design Thinking

What if I want to share best practices with experts like me in applying design thinking in university management? I cannot, because there is not a clear categorization in the practice of design thinking regarding a concrete field of action.

Experience is the best companion to itinerate fast.

More design thinking conversations based in its practice in different settings. I believe we need to categorize the design thinking practice and move to design-thinking-context-experts, because each field of action has its concrete problems. I acknowledge that design thinking processes (see IDEO) are the skeleton of the practice, but my point is that the processes and blended thinking involved to solve those problems, need be adapted according to the context the practice is going to take place. 

The ultimate goal of all design thinkers is shared: A human-centered world

 Are the challenges I deal with as a Design Thinker working in university settings, the same as if I were working in different business settings? Similar, but not the same. The micro challenges, sense making  and the strategies needed to solve the problems and challenges that come up are not the same, and neither are the contexts in which we operate.

"You have to feed forward if you want feedback“_ Matt Kahn.

Applying Design Thinking in University Management. I'm moving my conversation about design thinking in social media from a holistic approach, to my everyday reality-grounded practice: My expertise as a design thinker working in a University context. 

These is the roadmap of my practice:

1. Detection, understanding and creation of value for students and the university--> Society
2. Define a proposal of shared value from both perspectives (students and university --> Intersection of shared value.
3. Design the strategy to make it happen
4. Conversation starter (intentional whisperer): Spread insights and solutions. Everywhere, like I'm doing now :)

21st century universities are startup organizations. As their mission is to provide NOW to students and societies, what they both will need in the future, universities need to foster creativity and experimentation more effectively, learn to manage uncertainty and move fast.  Embracing a Design Thinking, human-centered design approach is the way to go.

2015: It is an urgency for Higher Education organizations to focus on understanding and acting on the intersection of value for students and Education, INTERSECTION OF SHARED VALUE: Universities need to provide now to students and societies, what they both will need in the future. For the shake of all.

#activatedesign

@pilarsaura_