You have a world in which the brief is not written clearly for you. Nobody tells you what to design .. (e.g.) I want a chair. In fact, designers are trying to play those roles ... they want to write their own briefs. They want to participate in the definition of the problem.
- Scott Pobiner, Assistant Professor, Parsons the New School for Design at the (d) design symposium, IUCA+D 4/10/13
- Scott Pobiner, Assistant Professor, Parsons the New School for Design at the (d) design symposium, IUCA+D 4/10/13
Architecture students exploring Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook and casting aluminum site model. (from Critical [Tactical] Viscosity by Jon Yoder, (d) design symposium
The first (d) design symposium was held on April 9th and April 10th 2013 at Indiana University Bloomington, Kelley School of Business and the Indiana University Center for Art + Design in Columbus, IN. The event was organized by IUCA+D, the Kelley School of Business, IUPUC MBA Program and the Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce. Panelists included a diverse range of innovators, designers, engineers, and entrepreneurs. The mission of the event was to explore ways in which design sensibilities and methods are a catalyst for innovation and can build innovation capacity in a community, organization or individual. Design professionals and those considered typically outside the easily recognized boundaries engaged in open discussion in which threads emerged across divergent explorations, practices, and disciplines. Jon Yoder presented on the manner in which solutions emerge out of the process. The question is how do we improve our capacity to generate opportunities?
We had these cardboard tubes and again, they had nothing inherently to do with the architecture of Neil Denari, but it was a resource that was free. We started experimenting with them… we saw what we could make of them. These tubes had nothing to do with the building at the start but they grew to have something to do with the building (of Neil Denari).
- Jon Yoder, Assistant Professor Syracuse School of Architecture 4/10/13.
Children are natural explorer, as long as we don’t get in the way. They don’t enter into a situation with an outcome in mind ; instead it is a true process of discovery as they learn about their world. Eventually, we know what we want. As adults we focus on things like predictability, accountability and expertise. Innovation is celebrated as an outcome but not as a process. Declaring we need to rediscover our entrepreneurial spirit has become fashionable as if society is now a child refusing to open a lemonade stand to stave off summer boredom. But just as we have constrained our children’s opportunities for unstructured play , we struggle to foster innovation in our organizations, communities and individuals. How do we do the serious work of play? How do we invest in unknown outcomes? How do we generate opportunities? At the (d) design symposium, Scott Pobiner articulated some of the ways designers are engaging in practice differently. However, it all hinges on designers and non-designers collaborating to define what the problems and opportunities are and a willingness on the part of all stakeholders to focus on the process of discovery.
If you are focused on one phase of design then you are not seeing design. Anyone hired to play a role today really needs to see the broader complexity of that role. And it has nothing to do with their job, it goes back to that if I am an innovator…defined as somebody who is going to do things for other people …I have got to be thinking much more about those people than the other 2.4% of people (innovators) that are like me.
- Scott Pobiner, Assistant Professor, Parsons the New School for Design 4/10/13
(d) design was constructed to explore different kinds of connections, associations, patterns and processes that exist outside convenient and familiar categories. Exploring alternative ways of understanding a situation greatly defines innovation and the “designerly” approach. The definition of innovation is seeking for the novel way forward to create value in people’s lives. The term “design thinking” is a way of branding design’s critical role in reframing the problems and opportunities before us. Therefore, it is a collaborative process that requires stewards in academia, industry and communities. The goals of the first (d) design symposium was to be a seed for increased discourse into the potential of design as a catalyst for innovation and foster more active, engaged and passionate stewards in the process of optimizing transformative innovative methods, initiatives, and projects.
Collaboration is much more than just a spirit it is a process. And when that process is actually missing in the community as we have seen so many times , we tend to just get a bunch of really smart people in a room and we hope a creative miracle actually happens. But there is a better way and design thinking is part of that better way. But because it is invisible to the senses it takes stewards.
- Jack Hess, Director of the Institute of Coalition Building at (d) design symposium, 4/10/13
The next state of (d) design is building our consortium for the continued advancement of the (d) design symposium as a dynamic forum. The primary mission of the consortium will be to stewards, supporters and underwriters for (d) design symposia at diverse locations throughout the US. We are seeking organizations and individuals who are invested in building innovation capacity in their communities and businesses. We believe organizations that identify innovation, leadership and future building enterprises as imperative to their work are ideal members of the consortium. Innovation resides within design and entrepreneurship and increasingly in the potential of their intersection. We believe this reflects the opportunity for the (d) design to build an expanding network.
Wander
Work with great people
Connect the Dots
-Brad Baer
