Selena Shannon

I think that it is not only very easy for us as business students to find the space in a project to dream big. All those ever present toolbox lessons from our first two years of bcomm weigh heavily: questioning feasibility, productivity, relevance, practicality and revenue streams. While I have to of course admit that all those things are important, I just don’t think that holding on to those things will actually allow us to be good business people.

I think the focus of a bcomm instead should be to develop top notch dreamers. Students who can envision projects in great scope, push boundaries and create amazing, innovative ideas and companies that will change the world. I think in this dream alone, teaching design thinking to every commerce student is of utmost importance, however, it goes beyond just teaching it. I really believe that we should be forced to apply the rules of it to come up with projects that hold great vision and importance in idea in every class we take.

Of course I don’t know the answer to how we can create this idealized academic setting, but I think having conversations to push the way we learn at Sauder need to happen. There are so many smart and innovative thinkers in commerce, but eventually ideas and innovation get squashed between endless midterms, lengthy group projects, and time consuming assignments. Somehow a balance needs to be struck between measuring students’ ability and fostering an environment in which they can actually learn.

For me, DStudio has started this conversation and I think that there is great opportunity to continue it.

Our Coast Capital project is dealing with membership, and how we can best leverage it to add value to the credit union. We have learned quickly that membership = community, but in order to get people to participate in building a community, we need to learn the fine art of motivating them to do so.

Enter Daniel Pink, one TED talk later and I have a few new ideas to bring to the project:

I just LOVE a good TED talk and this is especially a gem – the candle test is quite a surprising insight, that also provides great support for the D-Studio program at UBC.

Design Thinking is creating clarity from the confusion, allowing us to develop simplicity from the complicated. Our ever clever Prof Ron, reminded us of this a few weeks ago, and I took the lesson and placed in somewhere in the back of my mind and forgot about it.

However, today in about hour two of our four hour Coast project pow wow, it came clear that this is a good message to focus on in design thinking, because yes, these projects are complicated, and it is really easy to get caught up on the details of the confusion. However, as soon as we stepped back and asked ourselves as a group how to create simplicity in telling our story – bam. A great idea hit.

Our whole team was energized by our concept that was derived from this conversation, and I can’t wait to formalize our content as we head towards presentation day. This project has certainly been overwhelming on such a short timeline, but I’m really proud of how well our group has worked through this tough problem using the tools we have learned in class.

As a passionate follower all things Coupland, I swooned when I came across this Globe and Mail article.

This article tells of how Coupland has created and maintained an incredible personal brand through all of innumerable projects (which cross many mediums). However, what I found the most interesting about this article, was how the author argued that Coupland has been able to brand his own form of creativity. Whaa. How cool is that. I never really thought of Doug’s work like that in the past, but it is totally true, he has used an innate business sense and been able to translate it into a unique form of brand, that has thousands of passionate followers.

DCoup (as we call him), has an incredible ability to tap into the culture around him (something my group is currently dealing with on our Coast Capital project). In the article, Ms. Hanna, a business professor noted: “If culture and commerce aren’t really closed closely linked, that’s how businesses end up becoming dinosaurs,” she says. “Because they’re not keeping in touch with the zeitgeist – they’re not keeping in touch with the world around them and the values of the communities they’re involved with.”

Douglas Coupland has done exactly this to develop and maintain an incredible brand, and that is one big truth bomb I will be carrying into our project with Coast.

Sometimes I tend to shy away from failures and focus only on building on successes. This week however I had a huge reminder that failure needs to be embraced, and sometimes we all need to learn from what went wrong, just as much as we learn from what went right.

My reminder came in the form of a 60 page reading for my dramaturgy class. In short, it was the diary a dramaturg wrote of the production of what was supposed to be an innovative, form altering, statement on how Shakespeare wrote about dreams. Everything was in place; a world famous director, an incredible crew, talented designers, an experienced cast, and an innovative concept.

What followed was six months of chaos resulting in a big fat fail of a play. The critics panned it, very few like it, and it was written up as a disaster.

Why?

Well it was simple. One person didn’t do their job. One person didn’t ask how the process of the production would work. That one person who was responsible for asking along the way if the goals were being met. That one person was supposed to facilitate discussion among all those participating in the production. But it never happened.

Instead, all these world class professionals stepped on each others toes, got in heated conflict, most abandoned their original visions, and no one ended up happy.

I sort of wondered why my prof. put us through this arduous reading, just to come to this sad end, and then I realized the lesson was right in front of me. This failure needed to be learned from, we needed to see how that one person not doing their job caused such a huge failure. Now, while that person had a specific role to fill, it’s a good reminder: constantly evaluate process, check on the progress of goals, and step away from the project as much as necessary to ensure that these things happen.

So, although I am not wishing failure on anyone, I wish that everyone can learn from their failures, because by assessing what caused them, we get potent reminders of how we can improve.

Sometimes what we all need is to step away from the classes and coursework and take in a big dose of the outside world. By getting out and seeing what is going on in this fantastic city of ours, we are only bound to become inspired and excited. I think inspiration is a key factor in being successful in design thinking, because it gives you reference points to pull ideas from, when working on developing innovative solutions.

This week I got a whole whack of inspiration, followed by boundless excitement, after getting to attend all these great events:

TUESDAY: Douglas Coupland, Hour One of the 2010 Massey Lecture, Chan Center

Holy Cow. Well I’ll start off by saying that Douglas Coupland is not only my favorite author, but I tend to get a little too excited by any project he gets involved with. His ability to observe blows me away. He understands society so well and can communicate his thoughts through print, sculpture, painting and new media in a way that compares to very few others.

This week I got to finally meet him(!) as he launched his first hour of the Massey Lecture PlayerOne – What Is to Become of Us. Check it out when it plays on CBC’s Ideas during November, or pick up the book which is the written version ASAP – it is an amazing read!

FRIDAY: WE DAY 2010 Vancouver, Rogers Arena (I’m still calling it GM Place. Oops.)

Ever heard 18000 young people yelling “freedom!” at the top of their lungs. Well now I have an let me tell you, it is something I will never forget.

This magical one day event brought together the best speakers (for example Al Gore, seeing him was definitely a dream come true!), artists (Colbie Callait, Barenaked Lades) and 18000 students and educators from across BC. The goal: start an action movement that will last until next WE Day, to raise funds and awareness for Free The Children, a non-profit started by the AMAZING Craig and Marc Kielburger. I would love to write an essay on the incredible story and work of this organization, but it will probably be better for you to check out their website!

PS Like WE Day them on Facebook and contribute to the fundraising of a million dollars for Free The Children!

SATURDAY: Interior Design Show West, Vancouver Convention Centre

For as long as I can remember, every fall my grandmother and I have attended the Vancouver Home Show. The home show was usually held at BC Place, had an overwhelming amount of booths, and suffered from a few too many concepts being worked in at once. However, we attended every year as passionate followers of everything interior design. Well let me tell you, there is a new show in town and this one is sleek, cool and fed my appetite for learning about great design.

It is on until tomorrow, but if you miss out this year, make sure to attend next. In addition to the great booths and displays, we also got to attend a lecture by Sarah Richardson of HGTV. I have watched Sarah’s various shows for years, and love her mix of comfortable living and great design. As she shared updates on her current projects, I couldn’t help but be overcome with the desire to redo any room I can get my hands on.

I have to say, this has been a fantastic week, where taking a little time away from homework has paid off ten fold! While I now bury my nose in my textbooks to catch-up, I will remember to reference some of the great lessons I learned this week in future projects.

Yesterday in d-studio, we got to present our projects in front of a panel of experts. While this caused a minor bit of panic, as the three minute presentations were subjected to a fifteen minute critique, it actually turned out to be an excellent opportunity to learn how we can sharpen our ideas and tell our stories better.

I wanted to share my fav lil’ tidbits from the discussion that happened during the critique:

1) Keep it Simple/Stupid

This is an age old saying that people love to throw around, but oh my it is so true. So many projects falter when they have too many concepts in either the content or the delivery. Daniel and Nestor did an incredible job at this in their presentation.

2) “Design studio is about simplifying the complex”

This is something that I sometimes forget during the d-studio process. The projects are going to be complicated, they are going to have a lot of facets and information, but the real skill as a design thinker is to reshape the content so it becomes usable, understandable and digestible for the audience.

3) Ping Pong Balls

As our one of our very clever panelists noted, if you throw 10 ping pong balls at someone, how many will they catch? Maybe 2. Well if you throw 2 ping pong balls at someone, how many will they catch? 2. So pair it down to 2 great concepts and share those in a way that your audience will catch.

4) Use an Analogy

This same lesson came from the panelist who shared the ping pong story (practice what you preach I tell ya!). Sometimes concepts are hard to contextualize, so create an analogy that will allow your concept to be easily understood. This will not only make the audience understand your pitch better – but easily remember it!

Another week of d-studio is over, and wow, I have to say I am learning so much! I am so super excited about the next project, where we will actually be able to dig really deep and come up with some solutions that will be potentially implemented by companies. Such a unique opportunity in the Bcom program!

This past week in class we participated in a three hour design thinking simulation called Design Thinker. Now, since everyone else is writing about it too, I wont go into much detail and just share my feelings on the experience. As I am a fan of good news first, I will start with The Great:

The Great

1) It was fantastic to break down what design thinking is into little morsels that fit into a bigger picture, it gave a great big picture of what design thinking is and the process we are all engaging in as part of d-studio.

2) It was great to work with a team (woohoo Team Fabulous!) and compete against other teams (this is probably my competitive side that really only emerges during boardgames talking). While design thinking isn’t really a competition, it gave us the ability to quickly see if what we were working on was effective compared to what others in the class were doing.

3) It was fun. It allowed us to put all our design thinking skills we have amassed so far into a little project that moved quickly and let us know if we were succeeding at the process, without losing grades, or getting caught up in a massive project.

4) I finally felt a more firm grasp on what we are learning in the course. I was able to take the skills I practiced during Design Thinker and easily apply them to our third assignment, which I thought was really great.

The Okay

1) It was nice that it was only three-ish hours, but even that seemed a little long near the end. Especially since there was a lot of time dealing with introduction concepts we had covered in class.

2) For something that encourages creative thought, it certainly pigeonholed you in terms of how that creative process occurs. Normally, this would have really bothered me, but since it was overall a good teaching tool to grasp design thinking, I was willing to pretty much overlook this short sight.

The Ugly-ish

1) I did not at all think the first hour was structured well. It had way too many discussion points and intro. concepts, and not enough necessary content. It felt like we spent a really long time discussing views on information that they probably could have just handed us off the bat.

2) I noticed people getting pretty tired and start to disengage with proceess (myself included), as it ran on for quite a while without a break. If this is done in d-studio again, it think it would have been better to just add a little time to class and have everyone know in advance, so that there is time to go through the whole thing properly, with breaks.
All in all, I thought Designer Thinker was a really fun, efficent way to look at the whole process of design thinking. I think it would be a great tool for any group about to embark on a large project, or for any student or faculty to experience during their time at UBC, as there are a lot of great takeaways!

To pick up on that last post, some of Vancouver’s best storytellers come together every few months for an event called Pecha Kucha. My friend Eunice (a fellow d-studioer) and I attended the last one and it was completely mind blowing and inspiring.

The concept is simple, share your story (be it a business success, design innovation, or just flat out cool project) with 20 slides x 20 seconds.

Last time we heard about Bing Thom’s latest concert hall, Stephanie Corker-Irwins’ dream to make people Mo’ Happy and Martha Sturdy’s oh-so-incredible retirement project.

Check it out and I guarantee you will not only leave blissed out and excited about the fanatastic city we live in, but with a few new killer ideas of how to tell a story.

Today one of our d-studio classmates claimed he didn’t know how to draw. However, he followed up that claim by saying “but I know how to tell a story.” This came after my  realization that the way I had presented my assignment 2 material had clearly not measured up to the bar set by the class.

My assignment partner and I rationalized that it was okay, because we had good content for our assignment. However, I then realized that content is only a small part of the picture, you can have as much great content as you want, but communicating the story is much more important, for if you can’t share it, how will anyone know it is great?

As I go forward in d-studio, this will be my goal, learn to not only develop great content though a design perspective, but to be able to share it with an audience so they too can appreciate it.

So here’s to developing those story telling skills – so that all great ideas can be shared.