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I am pretty convinced this whole interview is sarcasm and in that light, it is hilarious. It is a clever combination of obvious statements, silly semi-rhetorica

I am pretty convinced this whole interview is sarcasm and in that light, it is hilarious. It is a clever combination of obvious statements, silly semi-rhetorical questions and mis-attributed quotes. Below are some quotes from the interview that I think argue my point: - "when you say design thinking, maybe your mind goes straight to the people who make art and designers. But [...] Design thinking is for everyone and you can think of it as critical thinking." - "Is it OK for a developer to innovate? [...] or a 4th grader in school? Is it OK for them to innovate?" - "I love this quote by Albert Einstein who said, 'Innovation is everyone’s responsibility.'" -- as far as I can tell this is NOT by Einstein, but a meme quote mis-attributed to him. (Sources welcome). Also, Einstein was most definitely NOT what we would call an engineer today as they say in the next sentence. - "Innovation actually takes work. [...] it’s not just waking up in the morning and having a great idea and there is your $1 million idea." - "We try to use design thinking when we are deciding on what vacation we want to take." Some useful point they say: - "We say there are no bad ideas, every idea is going to be a step on the road to that winning good idea. And the more the better." - "That’s one way that we’ve been thinking about design thinking here and how to bake it into our culture is that we are requiring things that are not going to work."

davee5 7y ago
Oh no, this is dead serious. Even 2 minutes of listening to the recording makes that clear. Consider that an enormous and often unheralded component of successful design [thinking] projects is cultural: are you working around people who share your process and ideation style? Is your team able to co-navigate an abductive process because there is a shared process, language, and disposition? Also consider most designers are hired to be (a) intuitive and (b) visual. The practical implications being they are usually not (A) explicit or analytical thinker nor (B) articulate. So what you have here is someone who is not especially skilled with words earnestly repeating the core dogmas of his industry, but only able to offer a mediocre "translation" of core working assumptions, process, and lingo to outsiders. In many ways this podcast/article is exceedingly standard fare, you just may not have been exposed to much of the design sphere's publication. There are a handful of thoughtfully articulate, erudite designers out there, but they are the exceptions and not the rule.

davee5 7y ago

Oh no, this is dead serious. Even 2 minutes of listening to the recording makes that clear. Consider that an enormous and often unheralded component of successful design [thinking] projects is cultural: are you working around people who share your process and ideation style? Is your team able to co-navigate an abductive process because there is a shared process, language, and disposition? Also consider most designers are hired to be (a) intuitive and (b) visual. The practical implications being they are usually not (A) explicit or analytical thinker nor (B) articulate. So what you have here is someone who is not especially skilled with words earnestly repeating the core dogmas of his industry, but only able to offer a mediocre "translation" of core working assumptions, process, and lingo to outsiders. In many ways this podcast/article is exceedingly standard fare, you just may not have been exposed to much of the design sphere's publication. There are a handful of thoughtfully articulate, erudite designers out there, but they are the exceptions and not the rule.