My friends from BusinessWeek -- and those folks at the Harvard Business Review and Fast Company -- would have us believe that they do, or at least that a business magazine editor can be considered an authority on the topic.
Like many of today's business journalists, BusinessWeek's Bruce Nussbaum and Helen Walters are enamored with design thinking, and in my first post, I linked to one of Helen's recent articles, "Inside the Design Thinking Process"in which she discusses an experience on a multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary team on a design thinking project.
Given the narrative of her story, it does seem that Helen brings something to the table -- at the very least a dissenting viewpoint that drives the conversation and process forward.
So, aside from that argumentative ability, what makes journalists a friend to the field of design, and to design thinking as a practice? This won't be an exhaustive list, but for one, journalists are good at winnowing a topic down to its rawest storyline and delivering it to the reader in the way they can best digest. Journalists are also good at seeking out the new, or at least mashing up old topics to make something more or less new. And perhaps above all, journalists are used to conducting interviews and are often talented at connecting with people in a way that solicits novel insights.
Of course, this last item is a double-edged sword. From my experience, being skilled at the art of the interview can get journalists into trouble sometimes. All too often we've preemptively decided on the arc of the story we're trying to tell, and THEN seek out sources that validate us. Furthermore, for us, the interview can often trump the importance of observation, as it relates to individual behavior. We're good at observing and remarking on trends in the world. But observing people doing what people do? Perhaps less so...
Peter Merholz, "a founding partner and president of Adaptive Path, and"... "internationally recognized thought leader on user experience," in this recent blog post on HarvardBusiness.org, seems to agree that journalists are well-suited to design thinking. In fact, he reveals that two of his firms' cofounders are journalists.
Merholz adds: "And much of our company's success has been in utilizing journalistic approaches to gathering information, winnowing it down, finding the core narrative, and telling it concisely. So business can definitely benefit from such 'journalism thinking'".
Of course, this is all a thinly-veiled meditation on my own peculiar predicament. Why, as a writer and a businessperson, do I feel drawn to design and creativity? Probably because my training, predispositions, and general positive attitudes toward novelty and art deem it so. I just feel more useful and valuable in the world when I'm helping give birth to something new, whether that be a piece of journalism, or a PowerPoint deck, or an alabaster sculpture.
It makes me wonder what other fields make good designers? We have a lot of evidence that anthropologists, engineers with open minds, and architects are valued in the field. Merholz further confides to the reader that, aside from journlists, his firm also employs "librarians, and historians, and fine artists."
If you're counting at home, we've already compiled a list of at least seven occupational backgrounds that often make for good designers, or at least good additions to a design thinking team. In last year's "Creative Design for Affordability" class at Cornell, we also encouraged students of sociology, public affairs, education, law, and others to join -- anyone willing to give it a shot.
Who else would you add to the list? I'm sure there are huge numbers of strategy people, product managers, and others both inside and outside the business school world whose unique sets of skills and abilities would also make them an asset to any design team.
Next up, I'll further examine some elements of my own creativity and encourage you to do the same.
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