Tag: Design Thinking

Categories
Design France

Asking Out Loud @ Cannes Lions

Last week I was with colleagues from The New School Open Campus at Cannes Lions in France. We recorded a live podcast there called “Asking Out Loud.” I appeared in episode 3 to talk about design thinking and the creative process.

In Cannes Lions’ newest podcast series, academics, industry experts and visionary creative spirits unpack questions that make creative minds tick.

Collaboration brings visions to life and teaches us how to work with others to reach a common goal. This powerful process pollinates the world with more creativity while teaching skills of focus, cooperation, innovation, and compromise.

A dynamic podcast panel explore and discuss common challenges to productive teamwork and cover best practices for helping you and your teams to accomplish what may otherwise seem impossible.

This podcast is hosted by The New School’s Open Campus, and produced in partnership with Somethin’ Else.

Check out all five episodes of “Asking Out Loud” below:

I also shared some of my personal highlights from Cannes Lions on Medium.

Categories
Design Foossa Technology

How Human Creativity Will Win The War Against Robots

May 11, 2017 marks the 20th anniversary of supercomputer Deep Blue’s victory over world champion chess player Garry Kasparov. Deep Blue’s victory was the first time a computer beat a human chess master in a standard match format.

Technology has advanced dramatically since 1997,  and so have anxieties about artificial intelligence and the possibility of automated bots taking over human jobs. Some estimate that by 2025, up to 40% of jobs could go to robots. If machines can do our jobs better, what does our future at work look like?

Workers in almost every field will be affected in some way by automation. Machines are better than humans at repetitive, brute force tasks, and can now even beat humans in well-defined games like chess and Go. They could replace workers in service industries and administrative positions, and even have some management capabilities. But for innovators who are tasked with problem solving and imagining the future, human curiosity and playfulness will always have the advantage.

Robots cannot kill human ingenuity

Take this recent scene at a Fortune 500 company where I worked. Senior level executives gathered on the floor of a cleared out conference room like preschoolers at recess. Recycled cardboard boxes, colorful shards of construction paper, gnarled pipe-cleaners, scented markers, and hot glue were peppered around the room. The participants huddled with their teammates around their prototypes and put the pieces in place, building thoughtfully as they work together.

In the non-profit and public sector,  design thinking—which often looks like structured, open-ended play—has become a popular vehicle for creative problem solving and innovation.

Major corporations like Procter & Gamble have used design thinking to create new product lines that have turned around struggling brands like Mr. Clean. Design thinking is no longer considered just a marketing tool. The United Nations has also used it to redesign informal sustainable development settlements, like remaking a football pitch in Kenya. Design thinking is now taught in places like the business school at Cornell, and it even has its own department at Stanford. It allows for real-time improvisation and engagement that makes things work.

In the real-life training session I described, an internal knowledge management software project was running late and over-budget. It was not clear if the work in progress really addressed the needs of the employees who would be using the tool.

The executives hit “pause” and “reset” on the project. They started from the beginning, using empathy as a tool. Through interviews and observations, they tried to understand their colleagues’ knowledge management needs. From there, they formulated a problem statement, reframing the original problem as needed.

A playful prototype for a new corporate knowledge management system

If you look beyond the low-fidelity arts and craft aesthetics, the methodology that we teach is not that different from the scientific method: understand, hypothesize, test, rinse, and repeat until we get it right. Our approach goes beyond problem-solving and also works to cultivate a creative culture through a designer’s mindset.

This mindset begins with empathy for the needs of our fellow humans. It is open to a diversity of viewpoints and professional disciplines. It withholds judgement when it is time to ideate, and relies on evidence to make decisions about what works. This requires skilled facilitators who have built intuition through experience. This intuition helps us determine when to foster open-ended play, and when to switch to a more analytical, critical mode of thinking.

While computer artificial intelligence can help us optimize systems and processes, and even replace humans in many job functions, machines cannot yet have that intuition, nor the ability to empathize, reframe problems and truly innovate.

Technological innovation is attempting to bridge this gap.  Last year, researchers reported that Google Translate had developed its own meta language to translate between languages it had not previously been trained to engage. In other words, in a vaguely frightening, sci-fi-like development, computers can now at-least partially program themselves, and their human masters don’t fully understand what is happening. But optimization is not the same as innovation. While Google Translate can make it easier to communicate in different languages, communicating beyond the language barrier is still distinctly human. Humans will always win on gestures, making mistakes, humor, and how that all feeds into human connection.

There may be a day when robots learn to brainstorm, play, and innovate, and therefore deliver an unfair advantage to human beings. But for now, humans corner the market on playful and divergent thinking—the kind that breaks through barriers and sparks new ideas.  The robots may be coming for our jobs, but it is too early to call checkmate on human ingenuity.

Lee-Sean Huang is a designer, educator, and futurist based in New York City. He is a co-founder of Foossa, a service design and storytelling consultancy and a participant of the Allies Reaching for Community Health Equity (ARCHE) Public Voices Fellowship with The OpEd Project. He also teaches design and futures thinking at the Parsons School of Design.

The article was original published in the HuffPost.

Categories
Education

Last Call for Cornell Design Thinking Innovation Lab

Register for Cornell Executive Business Education’s first 2-day Intensive Innovation Lab in New York City, May 7-8. People only associate Stanford with Design Thinking, the 5-step innovation methodology that helps companies create new products, services and redesign processes (an $11,500 investment).

Now, Cornell​ will be offering executive classes teaching the methodology in NYC. A 10% discount off the $3990 fee is available for 2 or more people from a corporation and the fee is reduced to $2500 startups and nonprofits. The April 17th deadline is nearly here. I will be there as a coach and mentor.

Learn more & register

unnamed

Categories
Design Education

Learn Design Thinking @ Cornell NYC

CornellFlyerFixed001

Learn to be a Design Thinker at Cornell. Design Thinking, is the practice pioneered by top innovation firm IDEO, taught at Stanford University and used by some of the worlds’ most innovative companies. Cornell Executive Business Education has built upon this design and added an increased element of applicability to your everyday business life as well as an element of how do you lead innovation back on the job which is vital in the current market. It allows organizations to innovate & solve problems quickly around the needs of key stakeholders. This innovation methodology helps organizations to unlock hidden customer needs and build customer ideas into breakthrough solutions. It works for business to consumer, business to business and for nonprofits.

What is it?

This intensive, two-day skill-building workshop in New York City on May 7-8, 2015 is designed to introduce business leaders to this innovation methodology. It is part of the Cornell Executive Business Education delivered by the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University.

Led by a team of Cornell experts, Tracy Brandenburg and Toddi Gutner, you will learn a new way to generate innovative ideas, how to get to know your customers better, and design an innovative solution to a complex, real-world business problem.

You will hear from, Claudia Kotchka, Senior Executive and Change Agent who successfully led an innovation culture transformation at Procter & Gamble. A pioneer in innovation practices, she led the integration of design, innovation, and strategy while globalizing the design capability of P&G and currently advises Fortune 500 Companies on Innovation and Design.

You will introduced to practical tools and techniques that you can implement in your workplace to generate fresh ideas that improve business performance. New York City will be your “classroom” as you develop consumer insight strategies and learn world-class best practices in the competitive environment.

What Can You Expect to Learn?

Multi-disciplinary teams learn the process to solve challenges quickly and cheaply. Participants can expect to learn:

  • Techniques for building empathy in order to understand human needs and desires
  • How to generate a compelling a design vision based on deep insights gleaned from fieldwork
  • Effective brainstorming techniques to generate and select innovative ideas
  • How to do rapid, low-resolution prototyping and understand its importance in the innovation process
  • How to test prototypes with real users and make multiple iterations based on user feedback
  • The ability to implement the Design Thinking process in any organization

Throughout, you will benefit from Cornell’s extensive connections, Ivy League faculty expertise, and an immersive learning process. At the end of the program, successful graduates will receive a Cornell Executive Business Education certificate of completion.

Who Should Attend?

The program is designed for middle to senior managers and business owners who want to strengthen their skills as innovation leaders.

Building on the idea that all managers and leaders can be innovative in their roles and organizations, the program focuses on developing skills, tools, and practices that can be applied immediately to transform ideas into action.

When and Where is it?

When:
Thursday, May 7th; workshop 8am-5pm; cocktails and dinner 6-9pm
Friday, May 8th; workshop 8am-5pm

Where:
Cornell Financial Engineering Manhattan
55 Broad Street
New York, NY

Cost:
$3,990.00 per person for two-day intensive, including meals, cocktails.
Organizations that send multiple participants will receive discount.

Registration Link:
https://wdbcs.secure.force.com/ExecEd?program=Design_Thinking_Innovation_Lab_5/7/2015-5/8/2015
Note: Enrollment is limited to a first-come, first-serve basis to the first 40 registrants.

If you would like additional information about this program, please contact Toddi Gutner at tlg86@cornell.edu.
If you would like additional information about our Individual Executive Education programs, please contact Devin Bigoness (Executive Director for Cornell Executive Business Education) at dbigoness@cornell.edu.