Noodleplay » design school

Are You an Integrated Thinker?

aperez — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 21:37:29 +0000

Are you a D School Thinker, are you a B-School thinker, or are you a combination of the two?

There are two very different approaches to thinking- left brain thinking and right brain thinking. Left brain thinkers are visual and process information in an analytical and sequential way, first looking at individual pieces and then combining them together to form a collective whole. Right brain thinkers however, are visual, intuitive, and often see the ‘big picture’ first. We all have a natural inclination towards either left or right brain thinking, while some people have a combination of both. Which of these characteristics dominate your personality?

Idea Couture has the answers- take This Quiz and find out if you are an integrated thinker.

Our resident scientists and anthropologists have spent months designing this quiz which was originally used as part of Idea Couture’s recruitment process. At Idea Couture, we pride ourselves as being D-School and B-School thinkers and that’s how we come up with innovative solutions to clients’ wicked problems. We have now decided to share the test…so post your results on Facebook and send the quiz to ALL your friends.

And so there it is- an Idea Couture quiz is born, a new addition to the ever expanding IC family

Engineer Desirability That They Don’t Teach You In Design Schools

Idris Mootee — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 19:37:59 +0000

Being the dean of a design school is no easy job today. Design schools are struggling to serve three masters: the student, the industry and society. The last one is a new one as generally designers have now come to a consensus that designs for social change is a part of the design agenda. With limited time and resources, design educators need to define a strategy for the D-schools’ future. Is it to teach the person/artist to create? Or about training craftsmen (both traditionally and with software tools) to supply to the industry? Or to develop thinkers to be able to solve wicked problems?

Three Things They Don’t Teach You In Design Schools

Design education is becoming so broad that educators are finding it difficult to balance breath and depth, not deep enough in some areas and not general enough to cover the ever-expanding design practices. I am afraid we have not come to a conclusion as to what design education should be like and are simply continuing to train the design thinkers of tomorrow in the techniques and tools from the past.

Here are three lessons from industrial design on engineering desirability that are borrowed from sociology. After all, industrial design is about getting humans to buy, use and love products. If you sent your ID designers to talk to the dating experts (generally not free), here’s what you’ll get:

1/ A few mmms here and there can make a big difference. According to the Journal of Psychopharmacology, when we’re drunk, guys look cuter because we don’t notice the asymmetry of their face. The biological explanation: A symmetric guy is less likely to have genetic defects and makes a better mate. Male or female, the sex appeal lies mainly in face shape. One example according to paleontologists, the dimensions of the region between the mouth and the eyebrows are crucial in determining how attractive a man’s face appears to the opposite sex. For product design, there is specific asymmetry that determines the attractiveness of a product, and they may not comply with human factors or ergonomic principles, but what’s more important? An attractive boyfriend or an ergonomic boyfriend? Not sure if people know it, your nose should be part of foreplay, not only in sex but also in product design and marketing.

2/ The power of smell. Smell is a relatively new element outside of the personal care and cosmetic industry. Here’s an example from the work of the Smell and Taste Research Foundation based out of Chicago, the blend of lavender and pumpkin turns guys on. Do you remember the smell of leather (real leather) in a new car, it didn’t last very long but it felt so good. My favorite is the smell from an Abercrombie store. Every time I bought something, the smell is there and that reminds me of my fun college days. I wonder why my iTouch, MacBook, Blackberry or Canon Powershot don’t have any smells on them; particularly because it is something I carry all the time. Wouldn’t it be great if my Blackberry had a unique smell that corresponded to and changed according to who was on the other end of the line? Another million-dollar idea here.

3/ Colours are always sexy. Why aren’t your products colourful? According to research, men are attractive to women who wear a particular colour and find them more desirable. Pantone can make us more desirable to the opposite sex (email me and I will design your personal colour mood board). These are cultural specific naturally. Why red for Valentine’s Day? That’s a colour associate with romance and the primal instincts that links the color to sex. That’s also the reason why the butts of some animals turn red when they are ready to mate. Look at the red colour interior of Bugatti Veyron! It is not just about using colours, but using it strategically.

Here’s a simple test, have your girlfriend or boyfriend try on different colours of sweaters from J.Crew and you will see why he/she looks particular attractive in certain colours. There is research to show which colours work better when creating desirability. But 90% of products out there were not designed with that in mind. More often than not, someone randomly decides on what colour should be used. If you want your product to be sexy, spend more time with the Pantone guide and your customers. Colours can always add magic.

So all the innovation people don’t work for your company.

Idris Mootee — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:06:33 +0000

“All the innovation people don’t work for your company.” – Rich Friedrich of HP. I often use this quote to kick-off workshops, as it is an interesting one with no simple answer. According to a McKinsey survey, a company’s main challenge with innovation today is finding enough talented people. In the survey, top managers agree that identifying the right people and aligning them for innovation is their single-greatest struggle and that the most important drivers of innovation are the organization’s culture and people. The survey further suggests, however, that companies discourage talented staff from pursuing innovation by offering limited incentives, being risk averse, and having no plan for dealing with failure.

The findings show that executives have very different perceptions of the struggles related to finding and aligning their people. In short, there is still a lack of common understanding despite its importance. Innovation is not in the core curriculum of MBA schools. Another interesting data point is 40% of top managers say that they do not have enough of the right kind of employees. Among respondents who do say enough people are available, however, nearly 50% say the right employees are in place, motivated, and protected by senior leadership, and only 22% say the organization’s culture inhibits them from making progress. The question that immediately comes to my mind when they say they do not have enough of the right kind of employees, I wonder if they have a definition of what are the “right” kinds of employees. That would be an interesting question to add to the survey.

I don’t think you will get answers such as “we need more senior executives with design thinking” or “we need more corporate misfits” etc. People who are trained in various disciplines of design are particularly good at using their instincts more than other individuals. Any innovation strategist must develop a keen interest in what works in marketplaces and what are the desirability factors as well as usability factors. Designers have an advantage and a key role to play in this innovation movement and that’s why I was saying MFA is the new MBA. The innovation field, per se, needs to use many different forms of design, crossover, jammed and integrated, to get beyond some threshold level of activity–enough to get commercially produced and, to be strategic. The great news for designers, about the rise of a corporate interest in innovation, is that it recognizes, more than ever before, the strategic contribution of “design thinking” to products, services, information, and corporate level business strategy. I think this as a long-term trend that will likely persist for at least another decade. I am not saying any designer should be given the decision making power for important business projects. I think we are talking about new capability. I don’t think we can simply put designers together with spreadsheet crawlers and expect innovation to happen.

Design thinking is not only about design. Design thinking is inherently an imagination management and prototyping process. Once you have the idea, you start to play with it. People ask me what is a “concept”, it is an idea that is ready for prototyping. The prototype is a visualization, working model, or even a small book or short film that describes a product, system, or service. Design thinking is about applying their mental models, languages and tools to complex business decision-making. I’d like to see practitioners, design schools, business schools and engineering schools coming together to create broad new cross-functional capabilities and professionalism that will actually meet the underlying need for objects, places, human-centered concepts, and distinctive experiences supported by sustainable business models that human beings crave–and enterprises must increasingly learn to deliver to thrive and prosper.

Original posted in Innovation Playground July 2007