cerrs_WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? 7 Design Thinking Meets The Corporation, or Zeaching To Fab @ The New Social Contract, or We're Allin Vata Together © Design Activism, or Inzpiring Solutions With Global Petentiat 20 Designing Tomorrow—Teday the power of design thinking Practically everyone who has vsted England has experienced the Great Wetezn Railway; the crowning acheverneat of the greet Victorian engineer Isumbard Kingdom Brnel.I grew up vwthin eashot of the GWR, and asa child in rural Oxdord- shire I often bicycled alongside the Tine and walted forthe great express tains t ror past at more than one hundred miles a hour, The tain ride is moce comnfortable today (the cariages now sport springs and cushioned seat) and the scenery has certainly changed, but a century and a half after it was built the GWR stil stands ean icon ofthe industca revoution— and as an exazile of the power of design to shape the word sound us ‘Alchough he was che engineer’ engines, Brunel was not soley interested in the techsology behind his cations While ‘considering the design ofthe sete, he sisted upon the fat- tert posible gradient because he wanted passengers to have the sense of Mating across the countesiie” He constructed bridges, viaducts, cxttings, and tunnels alin the cause ofcret™ ing ot just ficient teasporation but ube bes pose expe-rience, He even imagined an integrated transport system that ‘would allow the traveler to board a tsin st London's Padding ton Station and disembark from a steamship in New York. Tu ‘everyone of his great projects Brunel displayed a remaskable-— an ernazkably prescint—tlen for balancing techies, com ‘mercial, and human considerations He was not just greten- ince ora gifted designer, namband Kingdom Branel was one ofthe ealest examples of design shinker Since the completion ofthe Great Westen Railway in 1841, industrialiation has wrought incredible change. Techaology tna helped lift millions ovt of poverty and as improved he sandr of living of 4 considerble portion of humanity. As we enter the twenty-first century, however we are increasingly seat ofthe under of the revohiton that has tansformed the way we live, work and play, Te sooty cloud of smoke chat, ‘once dened the skies aver Manchester and Birmingham have changed the climate ofthe planet, The torent of cheap good that began to low from thes factories and wodkshops bas fed ino acultare of excess consumption and prodigious wast. The industrializaton of agriculture as left us vulnerable to natural ‘nd man-made catastrophes. The innovative breakthroughs of the past have become the routine procedures of today as busi nests in Shenshen and Bangalore tap ins the same menage ‘ent theories as chose i Silicon Valley and Detroit and face ‘he same downward spit of commoditnstion. “Teeaoogy sillhas not runs cous, The communications fev Juson spake by the Inmet has bought people closer together and given them the oppaccunity to share perspectives and crete ; ewideas 1 never before. The since of balogy, emis and yscs have merged in the orn of botechnalogy and naneech- ology 0 eeate the promise of itaving medicines and wondrous ew mates, But chese spectacular achievements are unlikely © Irelpu ever cur ominous course Just the opposite A purely technocentric view of innovation is less sustainable sow than ever and a euanagement philosophy based only on cect fom exiting trates ily tobe overwheed by new Gevlopmens st home or abroad. What we aed a choles —new product that bance the need finials tnd of ect ar whe news that tackle the gob chal eager of health poverty, and edueaton; new regis tht result in difrences tat mutter and a senee of purpoe that engages everyone afeced by them, is ard imigine atime shen the challenger we fced w vay execded the cee "aourer we have brought to bear on them. Aging nar tov rny have attended “besnstorming” vein or earned fe gimmicks and ticks, bt aly do thes temporary plce- Indes a tthe ode wodd inthe form of new prod eserves, een "What we need isan appotch ts innovation that power tec and bony scsi ta can be ingen it all tupect of buns nd ciety and hands and ere tan ve wo generat breainough iden tht are implemented tnd that therefore have an impac. Design inking the rect. ofthis book, offers just ach an approach,‘Design thinking begins with oils designers have learned ‘ver many decades in eels quest to match human needs with rill techoieal esoures within the practical constrains of Dusiness. By integrating wht is deirable fom a huran point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically Viable, designers have been able eo create che product we enjoy today. Desig thinking ales the next step, which sto put these tools int the hands of people who may have never thought of themselves es designers and ppl them toa vastly geaterrange of problems ‘Design thinking taps into capsctes we all have but that are ‘overooked by mare conventional problem-solving practices. It is uot only human-centered tis deply human in and ofits ‘Design thinking relies on our ability ro be intuitive to re ognize parteres, 9 construct ides that ave emotional mean~ fg as wells fonctionaliy, to express ourselves in media other than words or symbols. Nobody wants ro run a business based on feling, intuition, and inspiration, but an overeliance on the eational and the analyicl en be just a= dangerous. The Jntegmted approsch the core ofthe dasign process guests ied way? swimming upstream ‘vw trsined ar an industrial designer, butit took mes long time to realize the diffzence between bring a designer and sinking ikea designer Seven years of undergraduate and graduate edux cation and fifteen years of professional practice went by before had any seal inkling that what I was doing was more chan simply link in a chain that connected a client’ engineering cause goed Seas ary cose on schedule and may wither and Gi in the interdesbetwoen wesley mectings stant met ‘aging, blogs, and wikis all allow tears to public and hace insights and ides in new waye—wvith the sdvantage that an ‘expensive IT support tem i ot necessary slong at someone con the tu bas a fry member in junior high schoo. After al one of tee toolset a deeade ago (he Ieee sell, ‘the technovsionary Kevin Kelly bas remade fever than five thoasand days od). All are leading 0 new experiment in collaboration and hence tne insights it the intentions of sexs. Anyone who it eis about desig thinking acoss onganiation wil encourage them ‘cultures of innovation Google has slides, pink Bamingos, and fll-size inflatable di- oisus, Pitas has beach huts. IDEO will erupt ito a pitched FingesSaster war onthe lights provocationshard aot trip over the evidence ofthe creative cules for which each of thete companies is frou, but these em ‘lems of innovation ae just that-—erblems. To be creative, a place doesnot have tobe ery, kooky, and located in northern California. What ia prerequisite isan exvionment—socal ‘ut also aptial—in which people know they can experiment, take sks, and explore the fll range of cei culties, It does lie good to identify the brightest Tshaped people around, assemble them in intedsciplinaey teams, and netwode them 19 other tear if they ae forced to woe a an environment that loonas their effrts from the start. Th physical and peycho~ logical spaces of an organization workin tandem to define che flectiveness ofthe people within it ‘A culture chat ebives that i is beter to ask forgiveness sPerward rather than pexsson Age, that rewards people fr muons bu ves them permission to fl, has removed one of the main obstices tothe formation of new ideas. If Gary Hamel is corte in arguing that the vent fest century wil favor adapablty and continuous ianovaton ijust makes sense tha organizations whose “product” is creativity should foster ‘environments that reflect and reinforce it. Relaxing the rile is not about letting peopl be silly co euch as letting them be whole people—a step many companies seem reluctant to tke. Tindeed, the fragmentation of individual employes is often just a reflection of the fiagmensatin of the organization itself. Ihave observed enanysicaations in whieh the supposedly “ere- ative” designers ae sequestered from the rest of the company. Although they may havea mezry time offin ther sudios this ‘isolation quarantine them and undermines the creative efforts ‘ofthe onguniztion Fim opposie angles: the designers ae cut cn etntennneninnninnnmbiniiiiriSrtissl ff form other sources of knowledge and expertise, while ‘exyone else given the demoralizing metsge that cei the nine-to-five world of busines atize and a sober busines ethic ‘Would the US. auto industry have reacted faster to changes in the madlerif designer, marketers, and engineers had been t+ ting around the same table? Perhaps "The concept of esis play" as along, ih history within [American social science, but nobody understands it fa more practical tems than ley Ross. As senior VP of design for gi! ‘product st Mate, Roe realized that Mate had made i dif fcuk for the vzious dicplines axos the company t9 com _municae and collaborate To adres this she created Platypus, the code name for « twelve-week experiment in which par ‘cipante from acros the organization eee invited to relocate ‘tm an alternative spave with the objective of exeating sew and ‘outof-the-box product idess. “Other companies have skunk works” Ros old Pat Company. "We have platypus. I ooked up the definition, and i sad, ‘an uncommon mix of diferent spose” Tdeed, the species at Mate could hardly have been more