Transforming Grounds

On my desk I have for a while had two books that both offer toolkits for design and design thinking. One is aimed at supporting "growths" in terms of business and revenue and one is aimed at developing products and services for communities in need in Africa, Asia and Latin America. With such different purposes, it is interesting to note that what they present as design thinking and the design process is so similar (at least on the surface). The two books are " Designing for growth -- a design thinking tool kit for managers " by Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Ogilvie, and " Human Centered Design Toolkit " by IDEO. When looking at the table of content for the two books the similarities becomes even more obvious. For instance, it is maybe surprising to learn that the chapter "Develop a sustainable revenue model"is to be found in the IDEO book while "Journey Mapping" is found in the Liedtka & Ogilvie book. Several other topics can be foun...

After a long break with it, I just resumed my reading of  Peter-Paul Verbeek 's "Moralizing technology--understanding and designing the morality of things" and I realized even more than before how excellent the book is!. Today's observation from the readings is that, I think for the first time, I have read a treatment of Foucault's understanding of ethics that make sense to me. And not just that, for the first time I really  think I have to read some of Foucault. Another observation is that the way Verrbeek treats the notion of 'subject' is, to me, really useful and much richer and productive than most of the investigations I have seen before. The relation between a subject and technology is outlined in a way that makes sense and is highly convincing to me. Will review the book later!

During these last few years the notion of design thinking has evolved into a concept that is attracting enormous attention both in academia and business. However, some have argued that design thinking is only a hype, some that design thinking is already dead, and some have already moved on to the next big thing, whatever that is. However, while design has gotten some serious attention from design researchers (such as, Schon, Rittel, Cross, Krippendorff, Nelson & Stolterman), it has also received attention from the world of business and practice. A recent book that brings together reflections with a focus on the business world is  " Design Thinking: Integrating Innovation, Customer Experience, and Brand Value " (2010) edited by Thomas Lockwood. Lockwood is the president of the Design Management Institute (DMI), which is an institute that is aimed at the advancement of design in management and business. The book contains about 24 short essays by writers...

As some of you may know, together with Ron Wakkary, I have been the Editor-in-Chief now for the  ACM Interactions  magazine for more than two years. It has been a great experience in so many ways. We have tried to give newcomers to the field, from both academia and industry, an opportunity to share their experiences, knowledge and insights, while also bring in the most distinguished names in the field to share their expertise. ACM has also been instrumental in developing a new website for the magazine , that is now slowly becoming a core part of Interactions. After having worked with Interactions for a while, it is clear to me that there is need for this form intermediary type of publication between research publications and trade journals. First of all, Interactions is not peer reviewed. This means we can publish new perspectives and ideas that would be almost impossible to get published in traditional conferences and journals. If you take a look at ACM Interactions ov...