Our University motto for 2015 |
I haven't written a post in a while because I've been rethinking my purpose of writing about Design Thinking and also because I'm truly busy at work. My work? I struggle everyday to apply Design Thinking principles in university management. My challenges as a designer/creative director working in university settings are: Design our way to become a fully student-centered University and detect, understand and share the value we, as university, we are creating for our students, and also the value we are capable of creating according to the actual context we all live in: The world, our society, its problems and future needs.
Are my challenges as Design Thinker the same challenges as other collegue working in diferent business settings? Similar, but not totally the same. The ultimate goal of all of us is shared (working toward a human-centered world), but the micro challenges and the strategies needed to solve the problems and the "making sense" required are not the same and either are the contexts in which we itinerate.
More design thinking conversations based in practices in different settings.
I agree that in the past two years, Design is expanding its role throughout the business because our unique combination of user-centric skills and processes help businesses understand and engage consumers in a more holistic way.
What business are we talking about?
What I'm missing in most of the conversations going on about design thinking and designers is…Categorizing our design practice (just as business do) : I acknowledge that the Design Thinking process (see IDEO) is the skeleton of a practice that must be adapted according to the context the practice is going to take place, and its very concrete problems and situation that need to be resolved.
I'm moving on.
From now on, I'm moving my conversation in social media from Design Thinking in a broad sense, in no particular settings, to my everyday reality, my expertise as a designer working in a particular field since 2007:
(Applying) Design Thinking in University Management.
And everything that implies: Needs, possibilities, insights, contexts, constraints, definitions, personal vision.