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Option Cards for Testing a Business Model
This week I’ve been to a very interesting event about testing aspects of a business model. Salim Virani introduced us to his ideas about using low-tech option cards. This it how it works: The Business Model Canvas Alex Osterwalder’s business model canvas is the most popular tool for prototyping business models and visualising them. If [...]
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Responsible Business Week
Thanks to Richard, I became aware of this year’s Responsible Business Week in London and managed to get a free (how amazing) ticket to a workshop called ‘Social Impact for Business: Thoughts, tools and techniques‘ led by Uscreates. Uscreates are a group of positive social impact experts, with a big focus on integrating sustainability and [...]
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Applied Design Thinking for a Social Project
At our Master of Design (MDes) course, we recently had the opportunity to work with a live project to learn and practice design thinking skills. The project we worked with is called The Shift and is about bringing NEETs, which is an abbreviation for 16 to 19 year olds that are Not in Education, Employment [...]
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Analysing the Characteristics of a Business Model
For Unit 6 at my Master’s in Design Management at Ravensbourne College I chose the enterprise option with the aim of learning more about startups and business modelling. I am working with two student mates on a live startup idea that will act as a case study for me to experiment with different business models and [...]
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The Impact of Designed Products on Sustainability
The question of how to tackle environmental sustainability issues of designed products is a tough one. Hardly any manufactured product meets a strict definition of being environmental friendly. Most products will fail such standards simply due to the fact that in the process of manufacturing and production natural capital is turned into man-made capital. For [...]
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Design Thinking Is Dead
As I completed my first semester at a Design School, it is time to sort things out .. and declare design thinking dead. When I started my master degree in Design Management I knew that I would like to explore how creativity and design could mix up with business. It was an intuitive feeling [...]
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Management as Iteration
Looking back on our course unit about Managing Design in the Global Society and Economy I still got this one simple exercise in my mind which I learned a lot from. It is called the Marshmallow Challenge. Have a look at this brilliant TED talk.
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Imagination
The Chromebook Pixel I just watched the introduction video to the newest Google ‘innovation’ on the market: The Chromebook Pixel I find it rather surprising to see how Google can release such a product. The Chromebook Pixel somehow proves that resources like the world’s smartest engineers, big budgets and a multinational corporation infrastructure and its [...]
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Abductive Reasoning
>> What Is Design Thinking Anyway? << This is the name of a chapter in Roger Martin’s book The Design of Business. Martin explores and explains different methods for reasoning, namely deduction, induction and abduction. Whereas he claims ‘deduction and induction hold privileged places in the classroom and, inevitably, the boardroom as the preeminent [...]
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Perspectives on Social and Sustainable Business
At uni we recently had a lecture on social and sustainable business given by Paul Sternberg. The angle of the course was really interesting. In the past I looked at the social business phenomenom from a rather legal as well as economic perspective and in how far this concept differs from existing organisations such as charities [...]
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Can China Innovate?
Do you think China is innovative? Recognition for ancient China’s inventions such as the compass and paper is very common. Contemporary China however, is popular for producing things designed in the West. And for copying these products in a poor and cheap manner. Whereas this leeds us to think China is an offender to innovation, my personal [...]
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Design Thinking Exercise
The Master of Design at Ravensbourne includes a unit on design thinking in its curriculum. It is very practical oriented as I noticed right at our first lecture. After a short introduction to the term design thinking and what it means in theory, we straight jumped into practice. Therefore we ran through Stanford’s Hasso Plattner [...]
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Management Between Decision and Design Attitude
Traditional management theory is primarily about decision making. Business is defined as a socio-technical system that operates within its environment and according to the laws of supply and demand. Business management relies on a narrow path of analytical thinking. Data from the past gets extrapolated in order to make assumptions about the future. Managers find themselves [...]
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Sustainability Jam London
From 02-04 November 2012 the Sustainability Jam took off globally. I was lucky to be invited to the jam in London to shoot some photos of the action. The jam was located at the Westminster Hub. I really enjoyed this location, where usually changemakers and social entrepreneurs meet up and collaborate, invent and create. The [...]
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Systems Theory for Design Thinkers
Have you ever experienced a theory completely changing the way you see and perceive the world? This does not happen each and every day. Only a handful theories and concepts spring to my mind when I think about it. The most recent idea and theory that largely influenced me however was systems theory by Niklas Luhmann, [...]
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Design Management and China #1
There are many prejudices towards China, especially when we think of creativity and innovation. China is known for its lack of intellectual property right (IPR) protection, as briefly touched upon in my recent blog post, paired with their weak spot for copying products and even services. Hence, most would conclude China’s rapid growth and economic importance [...]
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Literature Review #2: Sustainability & Design Thinking
What drives design management? During our design research unit at college we did a brief brainstorming on the history of design management and important influences in thinking throughout the journey.
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The Streets of London
I am a cyclist in London. This way I see a lot more of the city as I would when travelling underground. Cycling helps me to keep fit and I get my daily workout for free. Also, riding my bike instead of using the tube or other public transport saves me 1,200 quid a year [...]
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Of Good and Bad Design #1
The nature of design, and what makes it different from science in particular, is that it is not measurable. To a certain extent, design is subjective and everyone will decide on his own if he considers an object, service or product to be well or poorly designed. However, as a professional within the design industry, [...]
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Intellectual Property Rights
Intellectual property rights (IPR) are a hot topic. Whether it is about the absurdity of patents on rounded corners of their products (Apple vs. Samsung), counterfeited products from China, or the obstinate fight of Kim DotCom, CEO of Megaupload, against the US government. (Source: Youtube, 2012)
