Sensemaking, Design and Innovation
We can’t change what we don’t understand and can’t understand what we can’t make sense of. Design is the discipline
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wicked problems
Frogs, Pots, Blogs and Social Media
Our information landscape has been compared with our diets providing an ample opportunity to compare what we ‘consume’ with how
Read moreKindness Confusion in Collaboration and Co-creation
An emerging look at evolutionary behaviour is suggesting that we are better suited for survival by working together than in competition. This cooperation imperative has been called “survival of the kindness” which risks lumping affective social generosity and goodwill with effectiveness and desirability and, in doing so, risks the entire enterprise of collaboration-based efforts.
Read moreDesign Space in Public Health
If design is everywhere humans are and shapes our interactions in the built environment, which dictates how we interact with
Read moreDesigning for Empathy and Health
When does common sense make little sense? How do we sense-make evidence when it seems to make little sense? The
Read moreHandbook of Systems and Complexity in Health
A brilliant and comprehensive new book has been launched that brings together the best scholars working in the area of
Read moreThe Hyberbole and Exaggerated Demise of Design Thinking
It is time to pull design thinking from the embers of hyperbole and placed under the microscope and macroscope of reflective practice and research. Once there, we might better comment on what this idea means for business, social innovation, human services and our overall wellbeing by pointing to something other than an exclamation mark to make our point.
Read moreInnovation, Design Thinking and the Folly of Fads
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.
Read moreThe Wicked Problem of Wicked Problems
At issue is that wicked problems are made more so by having both complex and non-complex elements working together, requiring a level of strategy development that is far more sophisticated than many first thought. Even a review of the better management texts using complexity give short shrift to the relationship between the complex, the simple and the complicated working simultaneously in environments and how we plan for that.
Until we recognize this complexity — no pun intended — in the way we plan, there is great risk of replicating the hype cycle when our sole use complexity-based models yield poor results of a different nature than the poor results we are seeing from traditional linear, reductionist thinking models applied to many of the problems we deem as wicked today.
Read moreWomen and Leadership in Times of Complexity
Women are no longer satisfied (nor should they be) with the roles assigned to them by men, but are shaping and crafting new ones for themselves and reclaiming and challenging outdated, sexist ones. As societies, we will (and do) need leaders and innovators who know how to manage complexity well and design solutions and women may be the first place to look because they are doing it already.
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