Ryan's Marketing Blog

As I think about how to start this reflection assignment, I realized that as I try to think of something, ideas don’t normally come instantly. I find it really hard to just sit down in a room and start thinking. Whenever I try to generate ideas for an assignment, I normally wander around my environment first and try not to think of anything. Most of the time, I talk and gather information from my peers and learn from their ideas. I find collaborating with friends very useful and effective. I realize new things i couldn’t have thought of by myself and this allows me to build up on their ideas or combine them with my own. Another useful tool is the internet, sometimes I spend time just surfing the internet observing all the random things i can find from company websites or things people share through social media. Another environment I personally enjoy reflecting upon things is the public transit. Listening to music while in the train or bus takes me away to a place where I can focus on myself and ideas come freely. My thinking process works in a way that ideas eventually come as I do things. I learn from my environment, from the things i see, the people i meet, the conversations I make and how I react to certain situations. As I gather information, I write things down on paper and reflect on each one and try to put all my ideas together. By mixing and matching ideas, I generate new, stronger ideas and solutions to tackle problems I encounter.

In Thomas Lockwood’s book, Design Thinking, he defines design thinking as, “a human centered innovation process that emphasizes observation, collaboration, fast learning, and a visualization of ideas..”. He describes it as involving consumers, designers, businesspeople and all the stake holders in an integrative product. Lockwood’s beliefs in approaching design is very interesting, in which design is to get out in the real world, where we can learn through open minded collaboration and observational research by watching, listening, discussing, and seeking to understand. We are learners and we learn from our everyday experiences, from the things we see, from other’s mistakes . Through exploration, we see different ways in approaching a problem. To me, failure is the tuition fee to succeed. When approaching a problem, we must try and fail before we realize the right thing to do to succeed in the future. There should be a plan but we should also be willing to get our hands dirty. Nothing can ever be perfected if you do not realize what is wrong.

The idea generation process can be very difficult for some. It is a task that can be very time consuming and stressful if you do not take the correct steps to approach a problem. Everybody has their own way of approaching their idea generation process that is effective to them. To me, the world is my playground, I learn from what I see. In the end, we all have our own way of approaching problems and generating ideas. We create our own personal definition of “design thinking”.