 My name is Sam Gordon and I'm a program officer here at the U.S. Department of State where I work on designing educational, cultural, and technological workshops. I'm coming to you live from Washington DC at our lovely State Department studios where we're thrilled to have our second installment in our YSEALY Tech Tuesday series today. Every Tuesday this month we will have a Tech Tuesday Facebook live chat with a tech expert on a different topic and today I have the privilege of speaking with Adriel Lewis about design thinking. Adriel is a digital and emerging media curator at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center and today he's got a chat with us about why design thinking is important and how it can apply to basically anything you do online or offline. Please ask your questions for Adriel in the comment section below or on Twitter using the hashtag Tech Tuesday. Please also let us know where you're watching from. All right Adriel before I get into the topic of design thinking I want to do a quick speed around of questions to help our audience get to know you and our topic a little bit better. So first off what type of work do you do for the Smithsonian Institution? My name is Adriel Lewis and I am a curator at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. Awesome and what does a curator do exactly? So a curator uses art, history, science, culture to help people understand topics better and I focus on community groups and community development and so all my work is about bringing people together. Fantastic, sounds very rewarding. Where can people go if they want to learn a little bit more about the Asian Pacific American Center and where is this Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center located? Yeah so the Smithsonian is kind of like a Hogwarts campus with a bunch of different museums you know art museum science museums history museums the Asian Pacific American Center doesn't have a traditional museum and so we actually create pop-up experiences in different parts of the United States and eventually pop-ups all throughout the world. Fantastic so you're here to talk to us today about design thinking what is design thinking? So design thinking is a way of problem-solving that is focused more on a grand solution as opposed to a problem so a lot of people are familiar with a scientific method where you think like a scientist to solve a problem so with design thinking you think like a designer you use creativity and imagination really to kind of think outside the box and solve large problems. Fantastic and what kind of inspired you to get into the fields of design and technology? So my mom is a graphic designer and my dad is a computer engineer so you know but I so I basically grew up with a computer in my living room but also a lot of really beautiful things I'm really well organized kinds of design and so I think having that all around me just inspired me to kind of merge those two concepts. Very cool. Okay so now that we know more about you and a little bit more about design thinking let us kind of dive into so why is this an important subject for people to kind of get to know about? Yeah so I mean we're surrounded by design all the time I think a lot of times people think about design as just like really pretty things but actually good design is all about making a point and so for example a well-designed exit sign is something that would be easy to see and also really bold and direct and understandable and then a great design would be also if it's a really beautiful exit sign right and so I think for us to understand good design is for us to understand how to make a point in a really clear and succinct way. Awesome I love the distinction kind of between just design and design thinking I know that for our audience that's definitely something that we will kind of want to delve into a little bit more. Yeah I mean I think even as a designer the word the terminology of design thinking is relatively new to me and so you know with just design I think a lot of that is again using aesthetic whether that's graphics or sound towards making a point with design thinking you don't necessarily have to be thinking about design so you don't have to only use design thinking to think about building a website or making a poster or a flyer it's also about thinking about problems that I think normally we wouldn't naturally be inclined to use our imagination we realize that we can actually address topics as serious as poverty or hunger or crime by really thinking outside the box. Fantastic and now I kind of want to ask the audience a direct question this is a part where we make it a little bit more interactive and you can tune in so what brands inspire you and why and again that question is what brands inspire you in particular and why please write your answers in the comment sections below and we'll read off some of your answers later in the program. Adriel same question are there any particular brands that kind of inspire you? Yeah so there's a company that I think a lot of folks are familiar with especially in Asia that's called Muji and it is you know place that sells sort of like housewares and clothing and things like that but it uses a really minimalist approach which I think is really great for reflecting a lot of the design sensibilities of Japan so it not only represents its own self but also kind of the culture that it comes from. I'm also really inspired by the Marvel branding I think for a company that's been around for a really long time and also a company that you know has kind of transformed from focusing mostly on comic books to also doing films and and even having amusement parks and things like that it's really found its way to keep a tone that I think is familiar even if you kind of like grew up with Spider-Man comic books when you watch X-Men films you feel that same kind of feel and then I think the Barack Obama logo and branding was also really inspiring for me I think as someone who wasn't compelled by politics you know seeing seeing a campaign that focused a lot on design and aesthetic you know has really switched the game so now a lot of candidates a lot of people in government are using logos as well. Yeah no it's definitely been a game changer especially on the last point in the way that political campaigns are running how it is. So I heard that you have a secret five basic step toolkit when it comes to design thinking can you tell us a little bit about the approach and method. Sure it's not so secret and it's not something that I necessarily came up with and so I just want to put it out there that this is you know like these are really basic takes on design thinking sometimes people will list three steps sometimes people will list 12 but I kind of see five major steps that you can apply towards kind of any problem-solving using design thinking. So the first is really important and its empathy and that is something that I think often times especially with social issues we think about a bigger picture large communities or nations but to really empathize means understanding where someone is coming from in on an individual basis and then to understand the situation means that now that you've put yourself in someone else's shoes how do you actually get a sense of what it is that people are needing or longing for or you know what is it that needs to be solved and then the third step is is how do we solve that right and so a lot of times people think about that as kind of coming up with concepts or solutions I like to actually take it a step further and think about dreaming big right and so from the background as an artist when you see a piece of canvas you don't just think about a painting you really think about a vision and it's kind of the same thing with dreaming big and fourth is then then you make stuff you know like I guess the proper terminology would be like prototyping but you take your ideas and then you manifest it in physical or digital form basically in a way that becomes shareable and then the last step is actually then sharing it so once you've created your prototype you share it with either a small group of people or with your community and then you get feedback and then you take that feedback and then you prototype again and then you get feedback again and then so the the last kind of three to three four and five those steps you really kind of do it over and over again until you land on the solution that you're happy with definitely a very user-centric and I love the kind of built-in feedback model to it yeah way to kind of iterate I'm very curious how do you kind of apply these five steps into your everyday work yeah so like I said the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center is not a traditional museum and also the community that we outreach to is not a traditional community in a sense of how the Smithsonian envisioned audiences when it first opened in the late 1800s and so a lot of our community you know our folks who are immigrants or children of immigrants they're folks who come from cultures that don't necessarily have museum going embedded in in their backgrounds and so how do we talk about stories in ways that that that really appeal to them right and so kind of following those five steps by empathizing we took a look at the Asian Pacific American community and thought about the fact that well if these are folks that don't necessarily have great grandparents who have a tradition of going to the Smithsonian then how do we kind of meet them from another perspective right understanding the situation meant that we then looked at well where are the places that our community does get art and culture so like block parties flea markets you know barbecues things like that and then dreaming big was thinking about well now how do we actually shift the way that people experienced museums in ways that immigrant groups Asian Pacific Americans and communities of color can can resonate with and so that was about not just kind of creating a one-off kind of a model but actually something that other museums and organizations can be inspired by and then the fourth is making stuff and so we actually started popping up our cultural labs we've done three so far one in DC and then New York and then Honolulu Hawaii and all of those are basically like these big experiments that we you know work on with about 50 artists we share with the public for a couple of days and then we go back and kind of think about how we can do the next one even better and so that's kind of the fifth one where you know after after we pop up the show we really ask folks we ask the artists we ask the audience how their experience was how we can make things better and then in less than a year we pop up another one to kind of and so so the the next one that we're working on will be in the fall in Philadelphia great you know it's such a great range of like exhibits and projects that you're working on I'm kind of curious where do you get the inspiration when it comes to designing new projects yeah I'm into it really weird kinds of like music and and films and I think that sometimes you know the best kinds of design are ones that that are new and fresh and unique but at the same time can resonate with people from a massive scale and so you know after I listen to like all my really weird vinyl then I also try to you know like pop in like some Katy Perry or you know like just just just get a sense of a balance right I think really great design will show itself and as something that people feel like they can recognize even though they've never seen it before and so I try to you know watch blockbuster films listen to pop music you know go to really popular museums and then and then balance that with kind of all the other maybe less known things that I think that people would really enjoy if they knew more about it great and you know how might people different people approach design thinking for their own purposes and goals you kind of apply to art what are ways that other people can kind of apply it to their their general work so I think that when when you're thinking with design thinking it's all about kind of zooming out and getting a sense of what are major problems that you could solve and so with most projects you could zoom out far enough where you're like I'm trying to save the universe but sometimes you're really just trying to you know open a cupcake factory or something right and so I recommend that when you're applying design thinking you kind of zoom out you know just like a couple of notches right so that you're looking at like a little bit of a bigger picture than what you're normally looking at and so a great example is oftentimes someone will approach me saying that they want their website redesigned and then so my first question will be like well what's the purpose of your website redesign let's let's look back and think about what you're trying to accomplish with this redesign and then so then when we look at the the the bigger picture sometimes we might realize that actually what you're needing isn't necessarily a website redesign but you know just to just to make more cupcakes or different flavors or or maybe enhance your social media or find other ways of outreach and so you know but I think oftentimes when people don't apply design thinking into into a project they get really narrow into the specificity of whatever it is that they're working on and sometimes I can kind of almost you work a bunch on a project and when you don't contextualize it with something bigger it can kind of feel like like throwing a hotdog down a hallway right and so you really want to figure out ways that whatever you're working on you can actually make a bigger impact than than than just you satisfying the goal of completing a project all right so Adriel before we get to a couple more questions about yourself I'm interested in kind of hearing back from our viewers I want to read off the results of the question that we asked a little bit earlier in the program about what brands inspire you and why so we have a couple examples now we have a grad bike in the Philippines which is you know a great kind of like uber on the go service that you can kind of use we have Google that's you know top top tech company in the world definitely a great choice William says that we have Facebook because it has brought the world a little bit closer together we're using it right now and okay and with that let's get a couple more questions from our viewers so they're asking you know you've been to Indonesia and various other places throughout Southeast Asia including the Philippines Thailand Cambodia Vietnam and Singapore and I know very recently you were actually in Jakarta Indonesia for a tech camp program that we helped put on mm-hmm what was your favorite thing about your trip to Jakarta I I really love the global South in general I think as someone who was born and raised in the US there's a lot of there are a lot of aesthetic things that I never really questioned because they come from a Western point of view and so being somewhere especially in Southeast Asia really really kind of changes the dial in terms of understanding you know what people are into aesthetically you know that that cultures can come from places that are that are have been around for much much longer than than the United States and so when we go to our American History Museum you know it kind of begins in like 1776 and then when we went to the National Museum in Indonesia it like began with the start of humans right and so it was like I think I really love going to places where you can really track a culture all the way from like the beginning of the beginning of the beginning fantastic yeah no the museums were definitely a big big amazing cultural experience in Jakarta for sure we have a couple more of our favorite brands from viewers so Tech Start is another company that is really kind of inspirational and then we also have individuals talking about Rolls Royce the brand for you know the classic car kind of going off that question I'm a little bit curious do you have any favorite museums or artists in Southeast Asia that really resonate with you yeah so like I mentioned the National Museum in Jakarta was really awesome I actually also when I was in Manila I ended up well I went to a museum that was inside of a bank and it was raining really hard and we were basically trying to figure out where to go and a security guard just kind of pointed to a bank and said I think that there's a museum in there and we went in and there was like maybe two other people in the museum it wasn't a huge museum but it basically traced the history of the Philippines using currency so starting with gold pieces and like Chinese coins and things that were traded throughout Southeast Asia and Asia and then all the way through like Spanish currency and Japanese currency American currency and then and then now the currency that they have today and so it was a really interesting way to take something that I'm familiar with not that familiar with but kind of familiar with currency and helping me understand a history that I'm not very familiar with so yeah I really appreciate that museum for that and also in general I tend to go to art museums and so stumbling into a museum that was not at all an art museum but learning so much out of it I thought was was an amazing experience that's great you know with museums it's often a balance between aesthetics and information I'm very curious kind of about the balance in your own work and then how does that kind of shape what you want to convey yeah so from for me personally as you may be able to tell audience I ramble and so I am always practicing how I can make a point across and you know the most straightforward way possible which is really what design is about to and so when you see a poster as as an audience member oftentimes you'll notice the things that attract you you know the shapes and the colors and the fonts that are pretty and so again that can make someone feel like design is all about just making stuff pretty but really it's it's about clarity and so if you're designing a poster you know the fonts are chosen not just because of how nice they look but also because of how easy they may be to read if you're thinking about someone seeing a poster or assigned from far away then you want to make it big if you want you know if you want to be something that you don't need people to read sometimes like a copyright or something like that then you'll make it really small you know people will choose bright colors or muted colors depending on the kind of emotion they want to convey and so it really is about intentionality and I think that that kind of design thinking can be applied towards you know pretty much any aspect of life and so in my every day I almost think of my days as days that I can design I think about what I would like to accomplish each day what would make me fulfilled and then I kind of plot out my schedule based on that. Perfect definitely a great way to kind of approach an everyday life I know that we're getting a couple more responses and questions from our viewers across across the globe and in Southeast Asia in particular I know Crystal Eunice is saying that she uses design thinking processes to kind of come up and with you know ideal prototypes for local governments I'm kind of curious Adriel how do you think design thinking can kind of be used in local government or national government? Yeah so there there was a curator that once told me that her job was a series of turning nose into yeses and I thought that that was a great way to make navigating a bureaucracy sound almost like a game and so I know for me working at the Smithsonian that's my first kind of really formal position before that I was you know freelance and a full-time artist and so I think with government in general anywhere you are bureaucracy is a major issue and so this is where design thinking really helps you think about the bigger picture right and so not only does it help remind you that you know I'm doing all this paperwork because it's for a good cause but also it helps you understand kind of how to prioritize different things right so if you if you understand what the big problem is that you're trying to solve then when you are looking at five different tasks you have to accomplish and there are different levels of difficulty you kind of know which ones are a bit more urgent or a bit or what even which ones might help make other other tasks easier to do. It's fantastic we are getting in more and more of your questions so the Santaner Chandra asked how do you teach children design thinking? Yeah so I think not just children but people in general like even though we're surrounded by design oftentimes it can feel very abstract I think there are a lot of incredible apps that help you understand you know not just design thinking but also how to design I think I think that actually learning how to design is a great way to then learn design thinking I know that Adobe puts out a lot of great apps for mobile phones that are either free or not too expensive and you can kind of just doodle around with it learn how to how to make a meme or make a graphic or a flyer and then and then think about how that way of thinking may be applied towards other things you do in your life. Noonan Chandra asked you know is there a kind of a best prototype that you've done before is there an example that you could kind of give that could be you know kind of inspirational to our audience abroad? Sure so I know that when I was designing a lot of websites I would skip prototypes because I would be like oh I'm you know so talented I could just like knock it on the first draft and then and then I would show the client and they'd be like no this looks nothing like I want right and so that's where I learned really the value of prototyping taking that that step of leading people through a process and I think that that actually becomes a strength is for example if I'm designing a website for someone who doesn't even know how websites work showing them kind of you know a wireframe which is basically like a bunch of boxes that show you where the different sections and graphics and text will go that helps people understand what the skeleton of a website looks like and then you show them a template and then you show them a demo and then so all those different stages for someone who's never been through that process becomes an educational experience and so for me as a graphic designer I learned that not only was my job to actually end up with the result of a great design but also lead someone through them understanding sometimes their first experience of how to actually intentionally move with design. That's great kind of intentionally moving with design kind of leads into the next next question pretty smoothly. Jara Brillant's ask is design thinking for everyone you know I must say that he's they've been trying to train their staff but it's been a little bit difficult. You know I think that design thinking is it's not meant to be a science right and so with I think with a scientific method there you know there's a particular way of going about experimentation that's been kind of tried and proven and that's why in the field of science they go about that but with design it's always about thinking about new pathways and forging your own ground and so my explanation of design thinking might vary from the way someone else would explain design thinking and it's really about you know the context of the situation in which you're working with design and then also what it is that you're trying to solve and so I think the basic understanding of design thinking is in situations where you're looking to solve a problem where and you look around and it seems like no one else is applying creativity or imagination that's your opportunity to then think like a designer apply some creativity and imagination and and really even think aspirationally sometimes even optimistically about about the problem you're trying to solve and then that's a great way to know that you're at least beginning to apply design thinking. It's great and I'm kind of curious so Huidic my ask you know design thinking is obviously an awesome tool but in your opinion kind of what are the limitations of it. I think that that's a really great question I think that you know in the beginning with design thinking a lot of times you know if you haven't really exercised a creative muscle in your job for example then it can it can take a while to get used to for an individual and then if you're trying to then apply design thinking towards an entire staff of people let's say like in a government agency that hardly ever uses the concept or term creativity then that also becomes a challenge and so I think taking those small steps learning how to get comfortable with how your team might be able to apply creativity and imagination in what they do is is a great way to kind of you know dip your toe in the water see how it works and then and then kind of navigate from there so you can actually use design thinking as a method of trying to bring design thinking into it right and so like you create a prototype for how your team might use design thinking see how how they react to that and then try again and try again. Alright Jane as asking us right now how can you kind of apply design thinking to you know maybe designing new school curriculum. So I think that design thinking is actually an awesome tool for not just schools in Asia but also just like a lot of places where education is something that can be applied through non-western ways right and so a lot of our global understanding of education what makes people intelligent or smart are through these western frameworks of learning and knowing through standardized tests SATs and things like that but when we look at places where education and learning has been around long before the education system as we know it they're actually really cool and creative ways of of knowing right and so a good way to apply design thinking is to not just look at a traditional curriculum as your school might currently frame it but also dig deep into the history of your own country or of your region or or even look at look at ways that education in untraditional ways have worked in countries far outside of where you're from and then seeing how you can take crumbs from those different kinds of methods to create your own kind of approach towards education. Fantastic. So Athena is asking us what are the kind of the different main skill sets that people need when approaching design thinking? I think that you know more than skills it's really about certain values and I think that you know so for example learning not to be too scared to make mistakes or fail I think is a great thing to learn I think also being able to take criticism and feedback oftentimes you know if you're creating a prototype and you send it out into the world and then and then people are pointing out things that they might not like about it you know oftentimes I know for me I feel compelled to just be like okay fine if you don't like it I'm just gonna take it home and enjoy it myself right but but actually what's you know when you think about the bigger picture then you're like okay well let me take that feedback and actually think about the fact that what I was making wasn't just for me but also for a larger community so if this community is telling me something then then let me let me actually like apply the skill of of taking feedback well and and then create something new out of that. It's great. Learning to take feedback is always kind of useful for designing great programs. Jane is asking us what's a good way of rolling out or introducing design thinking kind of in larger organizations maybe one that already kind of has its own way of doing things so again I think this kind of parkens back to the idea of you know thinking about design thinking maybe in a bureaucracy or kind of a large corporation and how you can be nimble on that. Yeah that's a great question I mean working at the Smithsonian we've been around as an institution since the late 1800s so well over a hundred years there are definitely a lot of things that the Smithsonian believes that you know it's defined by these certain aesthetics or these certain approaches and so as someone new coming in and wanting to bring something maybe unfamiliar to an old institution that can be really challenging. I think for me because I came in doing things like social media you know responsive web design meaning making websites for mobile phones and different devices those are things that like even if your organization or company has been around for a super long time they can't have been doing social media for that long because social media hasn't been around for that long right or they couldn't have really been making mobile friendly websites for that long because you know we all haven't been making it for that long and so kind of finding entry points where a concept is not just new to your organization but also just new to the world in general that can be a great place to suggest like hey you know like here's a place where you know there's really room for us to innovate and again with design thinking it's like you know if we create something great it's not just going to improve our organization it's also going to improve the ways that other organizations can can go about you know like their social media or their responsive design or whatever it is. Something that's been coming up more and more is you know how design thinking can kind of work in entrepreneurship so I'm kind of curious how do you pitch ideas to different leaders you know potential funders angel investors areas like that. Great that's that's another great question and again I would go back to like the five steps of design thinking and the first one meaning to empathize and so you know when we think about empathy and problem solving we normally think about like victims or people who are kind of like quote in need but empathy can can also work in you know like across the board so not just with people in need or not just with audiences but also with you know you know potential funders right and so for example when I'm applying for funding or for support from an organization I'll go on their website read about their history get a sense of you know what are projects that they seem really excited about and how my project can help with whatever it is that they're working on and so there might be an organization that is really really interested in gender equity right and and it shows kind of in the way that they've been hiring it shows in the kinds of projects that they've been funding or even in their about statement and so if I'm working on a project I think about well you know like maybe my project might not have included those particular aspects originally but maybe my project could be improved if I think about this kind of equity or if I think about also incorporating this kind of problem solving into what I do and then that way I get to do the project that I think would be really great it also helps the organization that I'm seeking support for and it also kind of expands the scope of the project into something that maybe in the beginning I wasn't thinking about it's great I'm kind of curious it's a little bit of a segue but what are what are kind of some of your favorite apps and platforms when designing different products yeah so I think that you know I definitely like to use the Adobe suite and so I'm on Photoshop and Illustrator and InDesign all the time I think I think Instagram especially like Instagram and Snapchat with their stories are also kind of a great you know way that a lot of folks are using to think about design right and so with that it's very easy to like come up with different colored text or make a different sizes or decorate using emojis and and again you're trying to make a point you're trying to tell a story and so really interesting and amazing design aesthetics have come out of Instagram stories even though it's a very simple platform I think more and more like companies are just kind of using Instagram really kind of even launch new campaigns and I'm very kind of curious what tips do you have for launching new products and programs like that I think that you know again like with with with design I guess switching from design thinking into just kind of graphic design in general aesthetics can be a great way to kind of wake up an audience right and so whenever a company these days whenever a really well-known company like changes logo or something it like sparks a controversy and everybody wants to talk about it online it almost becomes its own kind of publicity stunt and that that wasn't always the case that used to be a point where when a company would change its logo only kind of like design nerds would care but now you know like people really feel a sense of ownership of a brand and so it's actually a good thing when people kind of debate whether or not your logo should have changed and things like that and so I think that you know for an organization that's looking to kind of like show that's moving in a new direction philosophically or value-wise a great way to kind of indicate that is to maybe like you know start an Instagram account if you don't already have one or you know like start tweeting more often than you were before or start creating some really compelling graphics if like if before you were mostly just posting text updates on Facebook now start posting videos and graphics and things like that that's a great way to indicate that now you know to your audience and now you're thinking in a different way perfect we have a couple more audience questions Reynath is asking us what kind of methodology works when you're trying to propose you know solutions to diverse communities or maybe maybe a multi a multicultural community yeah that's that's a great question especially because a lot of the work that we do at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center is dealing with a really diverse community of Asian Pacific Americans you know we have folks East Asians we have Southeast Asians South Asian Middle Eastern and then also folks who are based in a bunch of different regions throughout the country and then on top of that we don't only work with Asian Pacific Americans and so we're working with large communities in general and so the way that we did a cultural lab in Honolulu was very different than the way that we're going to do a cultural lab in Philadelphia right so Honolulu has a bunch of Asians and Pacific Islanders Philadelphia has a largely black community and so again going back to the first step of design thinking it's really thinking about empathy right so understanding where is this community coming from and how can it best be served and then the second step is understanding kind of what is it that that's lacking right so in Honolulu there aren't a lot of art museums and so creating a massive art event is a very different situation than Philadelphia where there are quite a lot of museums and galleries and so the way that we're thinking about Philadelphia is okay well you know if there's already a lot of support from galleries then what what kind of support can we give to communities that maybe don't exist in Philly kind of scaling back to kind of larger communities Jane is asking us on a global scale if there are any industries which are already kind of actively applying design thinking you know on that day-to-day basis yeah I think that you know there are many I think like one of the more obvious ones are the web-based platforms and so you know something like like Facebook for example you've really seen how it started off as a social networking platform for college students to you know like send messages to each other and communicate and I think through design thinking through understanding the scope of what it's trying to accomplish it's now become a communications platform and it's not just a place where people are sending each other messages and poking each other I don't know if people even poke each other anymore you know like but but now it's also a news network it's a place where people are learning design thinking on Facebook live you know like there's all these different ways that Facebook has transformed itself because of following those steps of design thinking I think Apple as well is a great example of something a company that has brought technology literally to the fingertips of people who in the past you know felt that it was inaccessible so my grandma never had a computer in her entire life but she has an iPad and I think that that's a great example of a situation where someone was afraid of technology and then someone else designed a piece of technology that could then seem welcoming and I like my dad loves to spend so much time on his iPad just kind of learning new languages and reading up on the news and catching up with that yeah we know that okay so we have a couple more questions coming from our audience Jenelle says should a person enroll in data sciences IT or community computer sciences to be able to kind of create effective design I think that there are a bunch of different ways to learn design and I think that that that would be a more formal way of going about learning but I think that if you're just kind of experimenting and just introducing yourself to it you know like honestly you could like go on YouTube and search design thinking and there's some great talks about that there's also you know a great website called Linda comm LYNDA comm and that's a great platform where I think you can do even like a trial period where you can take any kind of design or multimedia class anything from graphic design to film editing and and and there may even be courses around kind of like the principles of design thinking so I would start off with online courses and things like that just because it's a relatively new concept and so the things that you find online the education for that is probably just as good as any kind of formalized institution might might have design thinking right now those are all great resources it will definitely come back to that a little bit more I'm curious to pick your brain on that but we have a couple more questions Tony is asking us how can we apply design thinking to kind of maybe existing projects where it's not currently being utilized I think that that's you know design thinking is best used in places where it's not currently being utilized right and I think that something that is kind of you know can can kind of be like difficult to wrap one's head around are like really I mean if you spend a day and just look at look at all the things that you've gotten used to even though they're not ideal those are all situations where they could be design thinking right and so a great example might be like let's say that in your living room you have a coffee table that you're always bumping your shin against right and then you just like you just do it all the time to the point where you've gotten used to it you know like you could then take a look at that and not just say okay well let me just move the table so I don't you know hurt hurt my leg anymore but then you actually look at the entire room and think about well if this is a room that I'm constantly navigating in and out of how can I make it so that so that this is the most conducive space for that kind of transportation right and that's a really simple way to apply it in your own living room and then you can then think about okay well how can I go about that way of thinking in my next meeting right so maybe you you go to staff meetings and they're always super duper boring there can be you know like an opportunity to to say hey I'm going to lead the design lead the staff meeting this time around and then completely restructure it in a way where you get all the things accomplished that you normally get accomplished but maybe everybody leaves feeling energized and feeling like they had fun absolutely that I mean that's great and you know I'm kind of dealing with that team approach and meetings and things like that I'm curious when we're working on design how do you and working in the team how do you kind of approach different conflicts what you do when you have differences of opinion I think that the first step of design thinking of empathy is really important there because you know I think when we all care about a project but we have different opinions I think that's where things get really heated and it's a great opportunity to step back and just say okay well you know I know that we all you know have different opinions right now but the reason is because we all commonly care about the same thing right and then so sometimes at that point you know I think even you know at the tech camp that we were at we were all working towards you know ways of of solving you know human trafficking right and and we had these different approaches and everybody was really passionate and so we just kind of stepped back and took a ten minute break and then we came back and then everybody went around and just talked about what is it that they care really deeply about that they want to make sure that they accomplish with this session and then it ended up that all those different things that everyone cared deeply about could actually could actually coordinate in a really nice and smooth way but you know we were focusing so much on the on the problem that we weren't focused on the solution. The balance of opinion is too very very crucial I'm kind of curious how do you balance you know aesthetics with information to get to kind of a area where you can you have a result or you know plan that you want to convey. Yeah I think that you know one thing that that design is really good for helping us understand is that it doesn't matter how good your information is if nobody wants to to look at it or listen to it right and so you know so for example oftentimes we'll spend a whole bunch of time researching something and then put out a really long document with a bunch of small words without without any kind of you know grabber for for the public to engage with it and then we put it out there into the universe because we did the work and then we wonder why nobody read it right and I think that this is where aesthetic comes in you know sometimes it can be about editing looking at how we can say things with less words and then if once we get to a point where we're like okay well these are all the words we have to use then how can we make it something that's a bit more compelling for people right so think about how is it easier for people to get to is it easier for people to read if it's being printed and published or is it easier for people to read online you know and sometimes it's different with different situations if someone's reading it on the phone how do we make sure that it's not something that people have to keep on pinching and zooming to read well how do we actually make it something that someone has a pleasant experience by scrolling through it or flipping through pages or tabs and things like that and so you know people may have heard the terminology of user experience and and that's applied for websites and apps but it can also be applied for for even something like a written report it's great we have been blowing through a lot of questions from the audience we're gonna leave with one last question so do you have any leadership tips or design thinking tips in general for our YCLE members yeah so I think that as a leader it's really important to you know really really be steadfast in in one's beliefs I think especially because sometimes being a leader means having unpopular opinions that said I think being a leader also means finding success in your team also finding success and so I feel the most fulfilled when everybody in my team feels like they're fulfilled too and yeah and so as a leader I'm constantly asking people how they're doing how they're feeling about the project and then if everybody is is great with it then I know I'm doing a good job it's fantastic advice unfortunately that's all the time we have today to talk about design thinking but please come back next Tuesday September 19th at the same time for our next Tech Tuesday Facebook live we're gonna be talking about digital marketing with Anantia who's the director of girls and tech in Indonesia you can stay up to date on Tech Tuesday and a lot of other programs by liking the YCLE Facebook page you can also connect by visiting the YCLE website at YCLE.state.gov where you can sign up for email newsletter also be sure to follow us on Twitter which is very simple at YCLE I want to give a big thank you to Adriel Luce of the Smithsonian Institution for joining us today I know that I learned a lot about design thinking and I hope that you did too I really want to give a big thank you to you our audience for participating in this and asking such great questions this year we're celebrating the 40th anniversary of US ASEAN Relations and the 50th anniversary of ASEAN Altogether and we really appreciate everyone especially the YCLE community joining us in that celebration so good night to everyone and I hope to see you all next week