Why You Should Be Thinking About Design Thinking

Don't Take A Technology Sabbatical Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #263

Why You Should Be Thinking About Design Thinking

Where are you/where is your business when it comes to design thinking?

I have been spending a lot of time thinking about design thinking. What does it mean to Mirum? What does it means to business? What does it mean to the personal work that I do with my words? What does it mean to our clients? What does it mean to the future of business? A lot of thinking. A lot of "what does it mean"? Currently, I am in the middle of reading the book, The Designful Company by Marty Neumeier. I am loving it. Much like Marty's other books (The Brand Gap, Zag and others), they are short, written in an easy-to-understand way, and beautifully designed (typography matters!). It's not the first book that I've tackled on the subject of design thinking, and it is inching me closer to seeing how the focus on design thinking matters in - literally - everything that we do. Currently wrapping up is the Aspen Ideas Festival. A conference that takes leaders out of their standard day to focus - in-depth - on the challenges and opportunities that our world is creating. During this past week's sessions, Roger Martin (the Martin Prosperity Institute out of Rotman University in Toronto) and Tim Brown (CEO of IDEO and bestselling business book author) sat down with moderator Alexis Madrigal to tackle new approaches of design thinking to improve democratic capitalism. What pragmatic steps might we take to make progress on complex challenges? How can design thinking unlock new ways to drive towards massive change? In this fascinating hour-long conversation (which is well-worth your time), Brown says that design thinking allow you to "be intentional about what we create." This is a very powerful space. I have seen too many business leaders think that design thinking is just new jargon for "creative types." It is not.