If I ever start to feel a little discouraged about the possibility of companies embracing whole-brained thinking, it is always cheering to peek at what folk in the design world are doing. Good design is a right-left brain marriage, coupling a creative, intuitive and human-centered perspective with hard-nosed practicality and eagerness for measurable impact.
“Designers are blessed or cursed with empathy” according to Colin Raney, Business Designer at IDEO. To me, it’s a true blessing, and the benefits of empathic design were amply showcased at a recent conference, Design Means Business on October 7, 2010, sponsored by DIGMA (Design Industry Group of Massachusetts).
In the next few posts I’ll share some highlights from the conference about instances where focusing on real people and their experiences helped create new business opportunities or improve existing ones.
The Design Means Business conference didn’t only make an excellent case for design thinking. It also presented compelling evidence that Massachusetts is the go-to place for innovative design. New York and San Francisco: watch out!
