Wednesday, February 29 – Happy Leap Day! Attended a great 3-hour workshop on Innovation (I know, you couldn’t tell from my exuberance at dinner that night…). Called Design Thinking w/ Laura Deisley from The Lovett School in GA, Christian Long from Cannon Design / The Third Teacher Plus in OH and Jeff Sharpe from Playful Design in TX. I can tell you which one Laura was but the other 2…. i’m going to guess w/o checking them out online that Jeff was from Be Playful Design in TX cuz he had cowboy boots on. The guys both work for companies that design school but looks like they work for another company together (RE/DO?).
When I first glanced in the room, I saw rows and rows of theater seating chairs – the kind that all link together. You know which ones cuz you sat on them too. I thought, “Are you kidding me? For 3 hours? Why didn’t I go to INMAX with Rhonda instead?” But the seating was all part of the plan and part of our second activity.
Schools need to fail in order to succeed. They echo the words of Terri Wolff – not “Yea, but”, it’s “Yea, and”. It was a very interactive 3 hours w/ 3 group activties.
Some thoughts from the session:
We are trapped in fear of failure;
Ideas are scalable; Build on ideas (instead of going straight for the solution);
Suspend what u think u know;
“Yea, but” kills innovation;
Dissolve boundaries;
Make as many mistakes as fast as possible (heart of design);
Have fun.
In the process they recommend setting ground rules (like not solving the problem). Think about who the user (client) is and build empathy (in other words, don’t just dream to dream).
Design is a verb. The process is not about agree or disagree but what is that something you want people to remember tomorrow. What is the one thing the next day that will make you say, “I don’t know what I think about it but I can’t unthink it”. Take people where they wouldn’t have gone. The goal is not to be right.
When asking questions about the proposed idea or design, the “Yea, but” culture asks questions from the mindset of why this idea won’t work – poke holes in it. The “Yea, and” culture asks questions that will take the idea to the next level – what other considerations are thee for this idea to work? Frame questions positively rather than critically. Be flexible for what we know and what we don’t know. The design process is an evolving (and involving) process. This is harder than you think because we’ve been programmed to critique an idea rather than build on it.
Listen Imagine Make
We broke up into 8 or 9 groups. There were 5 people in my group including me. We were all to design a room that we would like to work in that would inspaire us to design. Some observations from the larger group after report out:
Intensive collaboration is delightfully ambiguous;
Playfulneess, no politics, gleefulness, fun, not competitive;
What cd we innovate if we didn’t have to worry about politics, approval, how to fund?
Reminds me of an innovation workshop at SHRM, remind me to tell you about that one one day…. (or not)
Imagine is not about answer but the possibilities. What is the possibility of what you heard? We tend to look for answer rather than where things collide.
Saw a video of students talking about their experience in D.school at Stanford. Google and look for free things for educators. Video of students “possibilities are everywhere”.
The theme of the video was about making failure work. Failure doesn’t stop them, it propels them forward. Who assigns “failure” anyway?
Fail
Fail again
Fail better
– Sam Bennett
Schools don’t celebrate failure, people don’t create, publish their failures.
Some resources: Riverdale school using design thinking. IDEO, frog design.
Iterative design is churning thru ideas as fast as u can (fail as fast as u can). Ideas are only as good as the risk you take w your group.
What’s ur creative competency? We teach children to be more structured, fear of failure.
Language matters
Make is ability to mock up to start w something. Prototype, don’t have to be right and perfect. Again Don’t solve the problem.
So what do I remember the day after? Connection and reflection is part of the design process. Kids are naturally fearless and we teach them fear – one of facilitators shared a story of his 5 year old drawing a storyboard wo fear and now he’s 8 and he can already see his fear of failure in his process and work. Failure is a on the continuum of learning. Ask questions that take the idea to the next level, not about how it won’t work. This one is hard one for me. I want to solve the the problem but want to embrace the process of design thinking to get to a better solution. I’m sure I will fail and fail again as I evolve. You all har permission to kick me under the table when I fail to ask a question that takes an idea to the next level!
