sunnuntai 4. maaliskuuta 2012

From Social Intranet to Design Thinking

In my last blog I sketched a framework for the perfect social intranet solution. I belive that organizations that improve their internal online working culture by sharing knowledge and experiences with co-workers are going to be the winners in the future. Sharing information including experiences makes the organization culture more open.

An open organization culture is a great opportunity to increase effectiveness, but it's also an opportunity to change working culture more creative. The creativity is needed in renewing processess to find new innovative solutions in this continuously chancing world. The creative working culture is based on open leadership and positive thinking, both of which are starting points for collaboration. The positive thinking makes us happy and that is needed both in private and working life. We also need design thinking in creative working organizations. There are great examples within educators who have used design thinking to improve their school organizations. 


What is Design Thinking?

Firstly, design thinking is a mindset with the following features of working culture: 1) human-centered, 2) collaborative, 3) experimental and 4) optimistic. Design thinking mindset needs also a design process that puts design thinking into action. The design process has five phases: 1) discovery (I have a challenge. How do I approach it?), 2) interpretation (I learnt something. How do I interpret it?), 3) ideation (I see an opportunity. What do I create?), 4) experimentation (I have an idea. How do I build it?) and 5) evolution (I tried something new. How do I evolve it?).

Design thinking process sounds simple as a mindset and a process. Is there really anything new? I'm sure there aren't any new aspects for artists in different fields. But, I'm also quite sure, that there are many learning opportunities for the service sector (e.g. education, social and heath care, hotel, catering and tourism), that could find and develope new solutions to be more proactive organizations.