innovation

Innovation, Design Thinking and the Folly of Fads

design, innovation, psychology / By

Is it time to move on or shall we try to invigorate the discussion of concepts like innovation and design thinking with dialogue, evidence and (self-referentially) some innovation and design thinking to advance not only the discourse on these topics, but also their adoption, study and adaptation to help us tackle the complex, wicked and pervasive problems that seem to be growing in our world each day.

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Social Media and Health: Leaders(hip) and Followers(hip)

education & learning, health, innovation, psychology, systems thinking / By

Systems thinking, design thinking, developmental evaluation, creativity, networks and innovation: these are the keywords for health in the coming years. They are as author Eric Topol calls the dawning of the creative destruction of medicine. The public is already using social media for health and now the time has come for health (care, promotion and protection) systems to get on board and make the changes necessary to join them.

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Turning Thinking Talk to Action Walk (and a Trip to the Moon)

education & learning, evaluation, health, systems thinking / By

We got the moon and back three times in the span of ten years from the call to action from President Kennedy. An entire country rallied around a very simple and challenging task of putting humans on the moon.

Could the time be now for us to do the same with social innovation for health?

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Disruption by Design

design, education & learning, innovation / By

If we are to expect that the fields most connected to social action and the promotion of wellbeing are to contribute to our betterment in the future, they need to change. Disruptive design for programs, services and the ways we fund such things is what is necessary if these fields are to have benefit beyond themselves. Long past are the days when doing good was something that belonged to those with a title (e.g., doctor, health promoter, social worker) or that what we called ourselves (e.g., teacher) meant we did something else unequivocally (e.g., educate). Now we are all teachers, all health promoters, all designers, and all entrepreneurs if we want to be. Some will be better than others and some will be more effective than others, but by disrupting these ideas we can design a better future.

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(Un)Building a Mystery: Peeking Behind the Curtain in the Academic Land of Oz

education & learning, evaluation / By

The gap between what academics do and what those outside of the academy think they do is enormous. The mysteriousness and elite status that universities enjoy may actually serve to undermine the very values of inquiry and education that it seeks to promote. In this second in series of posts on academic life, I take

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Quid nunc cogitat? In search of a definition of design thinking

design, systems thinking / By

Design thinking is a concept that has gained much purchase in the creative industries and beyond, but what does it mean and does it matter?  Determining an answer to this question might mean the difference between advancing it further or ending the concept’s use altogether. The Latin form of the question of “what is design

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Extra-Sensory Knowledge Translation and Design

psychology / By

What if we could cultivate the means to be intimate with these methods in the service of better design and communication? What kind of design would that look like? Could we engage a much broader range of people into the discussion? Right now, we privilege those who can write and speak well, those who are forward (i.e., extroverted) and verbal, at the expense of those who might have as much to offer, but for whom writing, reading or oral communication might not be their strongest method of communication, yet that is all they are given.

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Innovation and Academic Science

evaluation, health, systems thinking / By

Universities haven’t survived hundreds of years by being risky, they have because they were safe (in spite of the occasional radical shift here and there). With complex social problems and the challenges posed by things like cancer, something risky is needed. Academics just aren’t positioned to embrace this risk unless the system changes — with them helping drive that change — to support innovation and not just talk about it.

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