Designer's Most Significant Ability Is Context Definition

Expanding the notion of what it means to be a designer.

Designers most significant ability is to understand multiple contexts and, therefore, identify constraints. 

Designers are strategics that translate strategy into action. Design thinking-in-action.

The most important skill needed in most design fields is context understanding.
In a problem-solving oriented practice as design,it is vital understanding the context to identifying the constraints and limitations: It is a MUST if the final goal is to take an idea and make it real. So businesses are turning to designers when they want to find something new.

"Great designers bring ideas to life that will align the right solution to the concrete problem: To come up with the adequate solution, first you need to framed the context and its constraints..."

What is a failed design? The one that doesn't  work to solve the problem or request. It might be beautiful, espectacular, super-innovative... but if it's not the right solution for this particular situation, it is a failed design.

"The realization of a mature designer is that the act of making does not matter unless it is considered within the context that it exists". John Maeda  

Design With No Constraints Is Not Design. Identifying the right constraints that would provide the right strategy is vital.  What is design with no constraints? Is art.

I would say that mature designers, as Maeda pointed, are problem solving experts in multiple contexts: To take a more holistic view of how designers work, beyond the focus on the craft and the aesthetics, it's meaningful to point out how designers think -design thinking- and methodology which helps them cope with being THROWN into a situation/context as OUTSIDERS, understand what's the problem and their capacity to catalyzed the insights gathered into creative outcomes.

Design is one of the most empathic professions by necessity, because its own practice and its sucess is about understanding other professional practices and their intrinsic problems. (And their professionals and their particular idiosincracy).


"People who know a lot about a field seldom think to question the fundamentals of their knowledge". It is by questioning the obvious that we make great progress. This is where breakthroughs come from. We need to question the obvious, to reformulate our beliefs, and to redefine existing solutions, approaches, and beliefs. That is design thinking". Don Norman  

Designers are strategists able to translate strategy into action:
So businesses are turning to designers when they want to find something new. 

Design thinking is an essential business strategy. When deciding where to play and how to win, it's totally necessary to have framed and understood the context and the constraints...therefore, its opportunities.
Designers use data, metrics, product flows, and conversion funnels to understand contexts, observe behaviors and empathize with users... and art and aesthethics...and altogether is a great help to opening up new markets, reconfiguring existing ones and envision what would come next.

[Image: "Indonesia" film poster]

Design Thinking Insights | University Marketing

Experiencing and Embedding Design Thinking in Organizations

*Fostering MacroEmpathy in organizations and professional practice

When did Marketing become something else?

The American Marketing Association AMA, gives us a hint with its new 2007 definition of Marketing: Quite revealing because includes the "role and responsibility of marketing in society" and "offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large".

There is a significant difference from  1985 official definition:

"Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of idea, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals".

...versus the new 2007 AMA official definition that considers the role and responsibility of marketing in society:

"Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large". (Approved October 2007)

In other words, the new rol of Marketing in society includes to "create value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large" instead of  1985' "planning and executing the conception, pricing [...]  and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals".

I couldn't agree more.

The reality is that the new human-centered business models are asking for embedding Design Thinking professionals in the new breed of Marketing teams.

University Marketing requires more than an exceptional marketing team.
University Marketing professionals need "to do work that matters to you", and they need to have a personal commitment to education,  awareness of the social value of education  and its positive impact on this generation and next.

And develop empathic skills towards the students: Their illusions, passions, fears, commitment, quests....

University Marketing requires professionals that care for the students and also are willing to seek formulas that balance business goals and the institutional commitment to the customer-students best interests.

I have developed my career in the field of Marketing and Advertising as a designer, creative director and strategist for over 25 years. I have worked on projects of varying complexity, which have enricheded me by being in contact with different sectors of society, organizations and corporations and  different customers, audiences, potential clients, targets ... After 6 years working in the education sector, I perceive the practice of my profession diferently. For instance, I don't feel that students are customers at all...They are just students.

My definition of University Marketing is:

"University Marketing is the professional activity that provides planning, strategy, communication and development of creative concepts that aim to give value to the student in the first place,  to the educational institutions and to society in general."

And my job, as a Design Thinking Strategist embedded in a Marketing team, is to create, define and manage the above ... and make it work as a sole Strategy Plan:

• The Strategy must be adequate according to the business goal and the student
• The Plannification must benefit the organization as a whole and the student
• The Communication must be transparent, effective and consistent
• The conceptualization of ideas must enable us to move forward in providing value to the student, the institution and society

The great challenge is tuning it all as a great orquestra with the sole purpose of telling the story of the student and the university.

PHOTO How NASA sees the sun: http://risd.cc/WwCPOe 

Design Thinking Insights | Marketing Universitario

Incorporación del Design Thinking en las Organizaciones

*Fomentando la MacroEmpatía en las organizaciones y en la práctica profesional

Desde cuándo el Marketing ha dejado de ser lo que era? 
Desde 2007 por lo menos.

La American Marketing Association AMA, nos da claves en la propia evolución de la nueva definición oficial. Es muy interesante: incluye "la responsabilidad del Marketing en la sociedad y en la creación de ofertas que tengan valor para los clientes, socios y la sociedad en general."

Es significativo que la definición de Marketing en 1985 fuera:

"Marketing es el proceso de planear y ejecutar la concepción, precio, promoción y distribución de ideas, bienes y servicios para crear intercambios que satisfagan objetivos individuales y organizacionales."

Y haya evolucionado a esta última definición oficial de Marketing de 2007  y de su "papel y la responsabilidad del Marketing en la sociedad":

"El marketing es la actividad, conjunto de instituciones y procesos para crear, comunicar, entregar e intercambiar ofertas que tienen valor para los clientes, socios y la sociedad en general. (Aprobado en octubre de 2007)

Es decir, que el nuevo papel del Marketing en la sociedad incluye la "creación de valor para clientes y sociedad en general" y no tanto "planear y ejecutar la concepción, precio, promoción y distribución de ideas, bienes y servicios" de 1985. 

No podría estar más de acuerdo.

Esa nueva necesidad de crear valor para clientes y sociedad en general es lo que está permitiendo que nuevos perfiles profesionales se vayan incorporando a los equipos de Marketing. Necesariamente. Los nuevos modelos de gestión necesitan orientar su práctica a las personas y el desarrollo de la empatía, como el Design Thinking.

El Marketing Universitario requiere algo más que una práctica profesional excepcional. 
El Marketing Universitario necesita profesionales que aporten el valor añadido de la vocación y compromiso con la educación. Necesita profesionales conscientes del valor social de la educación y la importancia del impacto positivo que tendrá en esta generación de jóvenes y las que vengan. 

El Marketing Universitario necesita personas que tengan presente al cliente-estudiante  en cada detalle de su práctica y personas con la vocación de buscar fórmulas que equilibren los business goals con el compromiso adquirido con el cliente-estudiante: Han depositado su confianza en la institución educativa que representas y esperan recibir la mejor educación posible y comprometida.

He desarrollado mi carrera profesional en el sector del Marketing y la Publicidad como diseñadora, directora creativa y estratégica durante más de 20 años. He trabajado en proyectos más o menos complejos, que me han permitido estar en contacto con diferentes sectores de la sociedad, así como con diferentes públicos objetivos, clientes potenciales, targets...hace 6 años que trabajo en el sector de educación, y ya no me gusta llamarles target, potenciales ...: les llamo sencillamente, estudiantes. 

Mi definición de Marketing Universitario sería:

"El Marketing Universitario es la actividad profesional que aporta planificación, estrategia, comunicación y desarrollo de conceptos creativos que tienen como objetivo darle valor al estudiante en primer lugar, a la institución educativa y a la sociedad en general".

Y mi trabajo, del que pocas veces hablo, consiste en crear, definir y gestionar lo anterior...y hacer que todo lo dicho ocurra, que funcione:
La estrategia sea la adecuada de acuerdo a los objetivos establecidos
La planificación beneficie a la organización en su conjunto y al estudiante
La comunicación se transparente, efectiva y coherente
La conceptualización de las ideas nos permitan seguir avanzando en la aportación de valor al estudiante, a la sociedad y la institución.

Mi reto profesional más complejo es conseguir que todo lo anterior funcione como una gran orquesta perfectamente afinada con el único objetivo de contar la historia del estudiante y la universidad.

FOTO: Twitter Art Exhibit: Los Angeles

MacroEmpathy Definition As A Branch Of Design

As MacroEconomics is a branch of Economics...(In my opinion, totally fair, since designers foster empathy in their every day professional practice)

Did you know that Macroempathy doesn't exist in the dictionary?. Here is my definition!

Macroempathy: 

(from the Greek prefix makro- meaning "large" and empathy, MacroEmpathy is a branch of Design, fostering empathic performances, behaviors and decision-making  as a whole, rather than individually. This includes national, regional, and global initiatives).

Macroempathy is the global awareness of empathy at the highest levels of leadership and commitment, that leads to
a truly empathic and human-centered world.
World's empathy as a whole.  
Macroempathy is the next worldwide challenge to foster human understanding, wellness and justice.


See Macroeconomics

My conclusion: We need to elevate EMPATHY to the highest levels of global commitment and awareness: MACROEMPATHY. 

My thoughts about MacroEmpathy as a Design Thinker:


DT-in-action: Building Empathy
How Designers Foster Empathy
Thinking about Empathy
Design Thinking Attitude
Definition of Design Thinking

--We can do much better--

VIDEO: "Future by Design" explores Jacque Fresco’s world of the future.

Does Macroeconomy need Macroempathy and viceversa?

Design Thinking-in-action 2013: Building Empathy

Look at the BIG PICTURE...What do you see?

 

A beautiful, overwhelming, never-ending scenario full of...dots. And you share one of those dots with millions of others like you. Are you feeling a little overwhelmed?. Who are you? Who is with you? What do you want to accomplish? Billions of people feel just the same.

The BIG PICTURE above holds together because of known and unknown connections among dots...

What if the so called "flow" is about stepping from one dot to another? A never ending effort to connect and let the world connect back to you? A Design Thinking Attitude:

(Check out My "Thrownness Theory" applied to Design Thinking:  Think-in-order-to-act  versus think to Think-some-more)

So this year, Why don't you think about re-designing your life by building empathy from within and finding ways of connecting with others?

"As a style of thinking, Design Thinking is generally considered the ability to combine empathy for the context of a problem, creativity in the generation of insights and solutions, and rationality to analyze and fit solutions to the context". (Wikipedia definition)

Conquer this year the feeling of creation: When was the last time you created anything? 

Step out of your box and let yourself be inspired by people: Build on others ideas and let other build on yours. ...Creating is awesome, but doing it with others is even better.

Build empathy by connecting dots and create community:

"The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better designs we will have.” – Steve Jobs

Design your life!

Inspiration to write this post:

VIDEO:

"How to design breakthrough inventions"

Global firm IDEO incorporates human behavior into product design by David Kelley.

Toolkit for Designers Working in Business Contexts

Smile. You've got plenty of reasons to be happy!

My personal Design Thinking toolkit as a designer working as a manager in a business context, includes sense of humor and happiness and a positive attitude.  As Richard Branson, Virgin CEO, in his recent post , I believe too that happiness is a great measurement of success.

First inconvenient is that some colleagues believe that being happy is just the opposite of being "professional" because  they associate value creation and professionality with being serious and arrogant: I believe just the opposite (and thank God my boss thinks the same). Being happy and smile means that you are confident about what you do and the responsibility that you are assuming. It means that you care and respect  your audience. It means that you are focus in what you are doing. It means that you are going to accept errors and unexpected situations nicely. It means that you are stating that it's ok to make mistakes, we'll solve them. I'll go further: 

I don't know of any inspiring, visionary leader with no sense of humor...Think about it.

Being transparent about your emotions isn't a weakness, quite the opposite: Emotional intelligence is widely recognized as a leadership quality, and being confident about your emotions is part of it, but leaders are expected to maintain a poker face. I rather laugh and try to make sense through laughter. 

An a piece of advise: Don't mess with a happy person...don't get it wrong...It's a very common misunderstanding believing that "happys" are weak...no, no, very wrong! Acting appropriately at the appropriate time...


Designers and innovators need mental peace (and space), time, pace and a crystal clear state of mind to look upon our world, as Proust would say, with fresh eyes and develop new ideas  and insights... But creativity is a live learning, an exhausting and arduous process and it can be a long and sometimes dangerous journey if you have gone through learning the trial and error lessons! 
I'm not going to focus this post in the difficulties but in the joy of overcoming the obstacles that gave designers the opportunity to design their way out of them and learn some valuable lessons in return. 

These are My Top Tens reasons to be happy and have a positive Design Thinking Attitude:

#1 reason to be a happy designer:  
The first and best victory is to conquer self. –Plato. 
This is a hard one but totally possible. It needs perseverance, will, empathy, modesty, forgiveness, acceptance, thrownness... This knowledge gained extends to everything you'd do. A creativity driven life needs a clear mind, free from past regrets so new ideas and insights would have space to grow.
(Ha,ha,ha...but this part was soooo difficult)

#2 reason to be a happy designer: 
Learning not letting yourself get frustrated by people. Sometimes don't fitting in a common stereotype can be so much fun! (Ha,ha,ha)

#3 reason to be a happy designer: 
Having achieve the ability to function in a hierarchy organitization while being a heterarchy at heart! (Ha,ha,ha) Haven't they noticed?

#4 reason to be a happy designer: 
Perseverance in following your intuition and imaginatively thinking and take the risk of predicting a solution. (Ha,ha,ha)

#5 reason to be a happy designer: 
Be human, be empathic. Liking and trusting people, no matter what!!!! (Ha,ha,ha)


#6 reason to be a happy designer: 
Learning the difference between being nice and being weak...and leaning to confront the great amount of people that haven't yet learned the difference. Being tough or elegant when needed (Ha,ha,ha)

#7 reason to be a happy designer: 

Cultivating patience: Learning to wait the right time, the right moment is an art. (Ha,ha,ha)

#8 reason to be a happy designer: 
Courage to fight for your ideas, your believes, yourself...Yes! (Ha,ha,ha)

#9 reason to be a happy designer:
Deep beliefs and a smiling Know-How...why not? Making sense through laughter is not weird, isn't it? (Ha,ha,ha)

#10 reason to be a happy designer:
Taking risks, failing, even making a fool out of yourself is ok...so what???? Let's try one more time...(Ha,ha,ha)


And the happiest AHA moment: 

YES!  "I made it and I'm still ME ! Isn't it amazing?" (Ha,ha,ha, ha,ha)

Let them think you are a fool and laugh! 

Happy New Year!

My inspirations:

Richard Branson: happiness is a great measurement of success 
Ranjan Malik: the fool and his kind of innovation
Reena Jana writing about John Maeda & The Art of Leadership

Jerry Seinfeld: How to Write a Joke

GK VanPatter Data Analytics meets Scrooge?

Maria Popova Brain Pickings Simone de Beauvoir on Ambiguity, Vitality, and Freedom

“The drama of original choice is that it goes on moment by moment for an entire lifetime.” by Brain Pickings

A Design Thinking Attitude

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) philosopher 

My favourite definition of Design Thinking it's got to do with finding the insight among chaos.My favorite insight  about Design Thinking is Martin Heidegger's THROWNNESS concept.

Design Thinking requires a set of professional skills grounded in operating in unstable contexts. Design Thinking mindset it's got to do with being able to coop with wildly different people from yourself and dealing with situations that are radically new... It's got to do with feeling comfortable with unexpected, unstructured and unpredictable; Design Thinking is about finding meaning and understanding out of human attitudes and mindsets that an unstable situation brings up.

Design-Thinking-Thrownnes is got to do with developing a survival intelligence applied to a constant evolving enviroment, totally focus on "think in order to act" versus think to "think some more"

Design Thinking it's got to do with THROWNNESS (German: Geworfenheit): It is a concept introduced by German philosopher Martin Heidegger to describe the interactions of the subject with its surroundings in the everyday life, that causes it to act upon instincts, immediate reactions to other people's language and actions, "flow with the situation," and immediate interpretations.
Once one accepts that not to act is also an action, Heidegger notes that one is 'thrown' into situations without being able to reflect on them first, for to reflect on them (not act) is also something that can be interpreted as an action. One therefore must rely on instinctual interpretations, and go with the flow.

Design Thinking is got to do with assuming that you are THROWN into a situation where you haven't been invited in most of the cases: It's about being ALWAYS AN OUTSIDER and feeling comfortable with it.

Design Thinking is about staying calm and focus under pressure: It's about listening to your instincts among the chaos and saying YES and NO clearly to you and the rest of the world.

Design Thinking is about finding synchronicity and serendipity. It's part of that Thrownness Mindset that needs to be on constant "alert mood", because it knows that sooner or later that knowledge is going to be needed: It is another kind of survival instinct.

Design Thinkers is about empathy: They know that they need to gain their audience trust in every single situation, therefore they need to figure out how to connect with people and creating meaningful connections.

Design Thinking is got to do with honesty. Experienced Design Thinkers know very well how to do their jobs...and one of them is understanding people and their social and emotional relationships in order to manipulate...but totally focus on an honest goal (Maybe this could be a nice definition of empathy: Being able to truly understanding other people's insights and weakness, and being respectful and honest about the use of that knowledge)


Design Thinking attitude is got to do with all written above. It's also the impossible search of understanding the DNA of millions of people...and  secretly say to oneself "I told you!"

This is a great video by Fred Collopy (Case Western Reserve University) and their project "Managing as Designing"

Mi Yo Virtual (Españoles Por El Mundo... De Las Ideas II)

Mi Yo Virtual ha tardado algunos años en decidirse a salir ahí fuera. En primer lugar porque yo no estaba segura acerca de la conveniencia de hacerlo (exceso de exposición, falta de privacidad, bla, bla, bla). Después porque estaba tratando de encontrar una estrategia que se ajustara a mi modo de pensar ... Cuando me quedé sin argumentos, tuve que reconocer la realidad: sencillamente me daba miedo dejar por escrito -con luz y taquígrafos- al alcance de todo el mundo -literalmente- qué me gusta, qué me mueve, cómo y qué pienso.

¿Por qué no hacerlo? ¿Mi Yo Virtual va a ser diferente a lo que soy en mi vida real?, ¿Acaso va a tener vida propia y va a decidir qué cuenta de mi sin consultarme?, ¿Va a opinar de forma diferente a cómo pienso yo?, ¿Va a ser alguien que no soy yo?

Me tranquilizó pensar en estas preguntas tan simples, porque claramente la respuesta es NO. 

Luego, ¿cuál es el autentico freno para no desarrollar El Yo Virtual? (si uno quiere hacerlo)

Mi Yo Virtual es una declaración pública de lo que soy, aceptando claramente que no deseo el anonimato y que he aceptado completamente mis peculidaridades, mi ideas y mis teorías propias. 

Mi Yo Virtual es un compromiso público conmigo misma y mis intenciones. Es un acto de valentía de alguna manera. Es también un alivio.

Mi Yo Virtual me complementa y me impulsa a profundizar un poco más cada día en el conocimiento que me interesa. Mi Yo Virtual está moviéndose por el mundo de las ideas en mi nombre, con los límites que elige, recogiendo lo que le gusta, opinando cuando quiere, conectando con las personas que la inspiran  y teniendo la oportunidad de estar en contacto con profesionales de gran talento.

A Mi Yo Virtual le gusta expresarse a veces en español (lengua materna) y a veces en inglés (no soy nativa): me ayuda a ampliar la conexión practicamente con todo el mundo. (Por cierto, me gustaría dar las gracias a mis seguidores de habla inglesa por su paciencia y generosidad).

Mi Yo Virtual me ha enseñado que, 

dirigiéndome a mis interlocutores (el resto del mundo) con autenticidad, respeto y empatía, recibo exactamente lo mismo que doy.

Estoy reconociendo en mi que necesito comunicarme (antes yo veía esto como una debilidad) y mi necesidad de intercambio no es particular, es universal.

Y por último compruebo en mi misma y en los demás la tolerancia ante lo distinto y que la necesidad de entender crea vínculos invisibles con personas desconocidas difíciles de describir. Creo que me hace más humana.

En definitiva: Mi Yo Virtual me ha enriquecido personalmente de tantas formas distintas, que todavía lo estoy procesando...

Os lo recomiendo.

My inspirations to write this post:


What are you doing when you feel more beautiful? by Jacqueline Novogratz
Grupo: NextDesign Leadership Network
"A Brief pause" by Ethan Kaplan
Mindfulness and Stammering

University Presidents Will Soon Find Social Media Presence a Must

Delivering Unsolicited Meaning: First They Ignore You...And Then You Win

First they ignore you...by Mahatma Gandhi

What does usually happen when a design thinker delivers unsolicited meaning to an audience that is not prepared to understand nor listen to anything out of their system of knowledge?

First they ignore you, 

You'd probably find silence when sharing new ways of thinking about a situation and giving existing things new meaning.

Let's face it: Most of the innovations happen because mad designers and innovators are so stubborn! 

As a Design Thinking practitioner, I believe it's necessary to master a kind of passionate excitement about the "finding" of the idea or meaning, and the "fighting" for make it happen. It's a kind of "design thinking CORE" that, together with some others, make you say with security: 

“This is going to work”.This is the way to go. I know it.

Designers don't take a NO for an answer: It might seems at first they do, but it's just another designer's trick. It's a step back to reconsider a new strategy to try again, and again to make an idea HAPPEN. 

...Then they laugh at you, 

Too many professional still don´t know how to adapt to an ever-evolving business environment.

I understand that challenging the COMMON conceptual structure used in constructing theories is hard for both parts:

• As the "challenger", you better be ready to a "your analysis has no rigor", and a few pity faces feeling sorry for you.
• As the "challenged", please consider that rationality is necessary when analyzing any situation, but it's a part of the process of understanding, especially when trying to innovate and find meaning in a fuzzy problem.

This is why Design Thinkers are undergirded with hard-core analytical and a broader data gathering, that includes observation and sense making of society in general, people, technology, emotions and developing of insights. 

  

Most senior managers and CEOs would trust in strategic concepts and logical deductions based on their "logical data gathering": They use tools such as benchmarking, analytical data, etc., to arrive to solid conclusions. Executives construct theories using their rationality and their conceptual structure and culture. They come to conclusions that make a lot of sense for them because the sense they find is soooo similar of what they found last year, and the year before... only reinforces current knowledge and produces small improvements to the status quo. 

...Then they fight you, 

A Design Thinking approach challenges the 100% rational methods...and that is... scary?
For some analytical thinking professionals I guess it is. But it won't go away: It's a fact that there are experts (innovator, design thinkers, scientists) who are able to identify industry trends and important big ideas way ahead of the rest of the professionals and, even more important, designers know how to network with other "interpreters" – customers, suppliers, intermediaries, designers, artists - who understand and shape the markets they work in.

A new approach means redesign the business as they know it. I guess that is scary too.

...Then you win. 

The “This is going to work” is a fact...two years later, the average time leaders need to understand unsolicited meaning delivered by one of those mad designers two years before...the problem is that, sometimes, it's too late.

And just for the record: 

1. Labelling people doesn't work anymore
2. Better listen the “This is never going to work” 
3. Some leaders just never get it....
4. Any business can commit to successful design thinking

My inspirations to write this post:

Changing the Rules of Competition by  Radically Innovating What Things Mean, by Roberto Vergant
The Generation M Manifesto by Umair Haque
THE END OF BLAH BLAH BLAH – END THOSE USELESS MEETINGS FULL OF TALK By Alexander Osterwalder

Be irrationally optimistic Jeff Haden
A new era of meaning By Tim Leberecht 

Design Thinking starts at the top 

BY JOHN MIZIOLEK