 Let me welcome everybody welcome to this week's Future Trends forum. My name is Brian Alexander I'm the forum's host of its creator I'm your chief cat herder for the next hour and we're really delighted to see you all here We have a fantastic guest on a great topic, and I'm really looking forward to our conversation I'm absolutely delighted on a professional and a personal level to welcome a colleague and friend DeWon Stanford is one of the most extraordinary thinkers and practitioners of design thinking in higher education in the world He is the founding president of fluid hive, which is a great consultancy He's my colleague at Georgetown University where he teaches a design studio class among other things He's also a leader at Ohio State University and at Elon University where he helps them rethink higher education for the 21st century So without any further ado, let me just welcome DeWon Stanford Here I am Excellent. Excellent. Welcome. Welcome and thank you for coming Yeah, thank you for thank you for having me one one update is I was the founder of the Center for designing at Elon and then I rolled out of that role and post-pandemic became the interim director of design innovation at Ohio State reporting to the provost in the provost office Very good. You have a lot of hats and I have to make sure I keep track of them. Me too DeWon We like to have people introduce themselves in the forum with a particular way We ask people not to speak of their past, but of where they're going in the next year So what are the big topics and ideas that are top of mind for you? And also what what projects what what form of your work will be will your work be taking? So the big things on on my mind and it's and it's largely been Due to the unique position that I've been occupying at at Ohio State Is is looking at the potential for human-centered design? Really at the highest level of the academic enterprise so I I report to report the provost at Ohio State and In doing so I work with senior vice provosts and Emerging projects and in injecting here and there bits of design thinking bits of innovation I get to ask questions that either people don't want to ask or are just I get to be the weird one and Also think about What's the what's happening three years out five years out? And and in some ways my my role is explicitly to help people do today. Well While while thinking and playing in tomorrow enough to invest energy there and so I'm a Gracefully borrow from lots of people like yourself who are accomplished futurists To help people nudge people into the future, but I'm also looking at At a very high level the range of questions That that serve us well when we're thinking about design design thinking and my my approach is is I'm deeply interested in questions And I have questions that people get tired of me asking And I know that when I like start to see the eye roll. I'm like, oh good I'm doing my job. Well makes people are finally getting tired of hearing me bring up this question again But one of those questions is what problem are we trying to solve? Yes? and It's it's funny how we will get into doing things And we'll start to talk about systems and programs and how we can stand things up And but we've lose track of that wait a minute What problem are we really trying to solve here? And and how do we focus our attentions and energies that way? and so I'm I'm often in the role of of helping people come back to that question and Suppressing a lot of groups haven't really refined that question. So when I when I think about My work in the coming six months, I'm looking at systems and System aware design so that people are designing with systems in mind connected to that is thinking in in cycles And so instead of the okay, what is the the next moment and the next moment? I'm Pulling into okay. What are the what's this set? What's a complete set of of moments in this endeavor? Whether it's in relation to leadership or in a program or a series of conversations with academic leaders What is this and then how can we design the set so that we're connecting it to? To strategy to our values to what we need to do to serve students well I'm also thinking about on the on the tactical side Because there is the interim in my title How how am I? building toolkits and systems that will outlive my time at at the University and part of that is recruiting the director of Design and innovation so we have an open search for for that currently And that that posting is is out there and I and I wrote in Somewhere and one of the things that I sent out to to some colleagues I really feel like this is the most exciting job in higher ed because I get to work at the highest level of the academic institution and Really run my experiments at scale and and have the the latitude to to propose experiments to do things and The as long as I'm connecting it to our strategies our values. I have I have been given a lot of yeses That's excellent. That's excellent. And that's a huge amount of work, too And one of one of the many things I admire about you to want is your ability to engage Work with a network with so many people to really mobilize a lot of folks on the right folks on the problem Friends I'm gonna ask to want a couple of questions to drive him crazy But the the forum here is for all of you the forum is for your questions in your comments So as we start the ball rolling, please think about what you'd like to put to do on What and remember you all come from different backgrounds Some of you have different professional backgrounds geographical locations Institutional types so all of your questions are welcome And if you'd like to learn more by the way about the one on the bottom left of the screen You should see a one or two kind of mustard colored buttons One of them is for fluid hive which is his consultancy and the other is design thinking 101 a really nice Instruction and design thinking that I strongly recommend So I guess to one the Design thinking has been out for for a while now in higher education in the world Right now in 2022. What do you think are the major benefits? The major positive uses of design thinking within the Academy It's helping people ask questions that pull them out of the whirlwind You know, there there's the the intensity of the of the day-to-day of the Sudden like emerging challenges opportunities all of that and then being able to pull back into that question about What problem are we trying to solve and then? Staying flexible as you do that One of the one of the things I I help people do is to say, okay Here's the problem that we're trying to solve as we understand it today And then we go into that basically okay playing with how we think we know what we know so approaching it with a slightly deeper humility then Then it can happen from time to time And and I and I have to you know use that humility constantly in my work because I'm working with Experts in different areas of the Office of Academic Affairs or with higher education leaders When I do not understand the entirety of Their expertise and what they do my job is to Help direct that expertise via conversation toward The right kinds of problems right kinds of questions and then maintain the space on iterating on that and on developing those And so it's the finding that that problem creates an anchor and we can play in that space But if we're doing our work well, it will change as we move move through things one One shift. I mean some some people will are kind of anchored on the What I would call the Stanford model for design thinking Where it's all about empathy is I go so empathy and you like, you know the rest and you go you go through that pattern and It it's served a it served a purpose it it got a lot of people thinking about other people who weren't Especially in the tech sector where it was more like focused on like features and User on this and this is not you know, no, no, let's let's actually like think about how people are going to Experience I'm having 45 updates rolled out The windows experience. Yes, I wasn't gonna name names. I was I was just talking about that so I'm deeply interested in the framing piece and and reframing Because that skill around around remaining Remaining adaptive and and I and I have called it taking a provisional stance toward the world Such as this is the world as I understand it until I have better information Some people call that critical thinking But I noticed that a lot of times people would anchor on a problem then sort of do all of this empathy research and my issues of that that are different and And then go into sort of prototyping and making without revisiting do we really understand that that problem? and so making a focus on on framing and reframing and the empathy part becomes part of being a good researcher and Tapping into those Quantitative quantitative skills And then moving through the design process and for me from From framing it goes to exploring like right How do we know what we know? What is really happening in the in the context of this problem and we're thinking about not only the people we serve But the people who will make the people who will maintain people will deliver those They should all be involved those voices should all be involved from the beginning and we don't do that often in higher ed because of the way silos function and and From there moving into now we can start to see what sort of holds together where the ideas are and One of the reasons people don't like brainstorming is we jump to that too often without doing those preliminary pieces And I heard someone talking about it's like well you you do that early work to earn the right to create To earn that Moment of collaboration And then from there it's it's the kind of the fun parts that people talk about like oh, okay Then we see how these ideas hold together and we'll come up with some some prototypes And and one of the challenges of what you might call design thinking 1.0 is Often it would sort of stop it the prototype And there is this dramatic handoff of right over to you other people to go and do maybe possibly And so I look at you know, how do you do that last phase? And I think of that as cultivation, you know where you're choosing a prototype and designing its pathway into kind of a stable orbit in in the world But to do that well, you have to have had at least some of the conversations with the people who will be doing that at the beginning So that's why I talked about like who is who is there both the people who will serve people will develop and maintain And those people don't have to be like in there on the team going to every meeting doing everything But have to be part of the conversation So that you're bringing those So that the guides for what a good solution how a good solution might look in early And you don't need to know sort of oh We don't need the the pieces of those solutions But getting those guides down before you start generating ideas is really what helps you do the work well and So yeah, but I I'm I want to hear so how how other people are thinking about Design and and innovation I have I have particular thoughts due to Just particular You know the path that I've I've taken and And the challenges that I face a bunch of thoughts and questions have come in and I just want to relay these to you the Lisa Durf point out that design thinking sounds like good thinking and John Hollenbeck compares it to To learning framing the question is important, but then John had a quick question a distinction question which was How to whoops excuse me What's the difference between design thinking and problem-based thinking that is the role the learner the same John I'd have to I'd have to hear a little bit more about most of how you're how you're defining problem-based thinking and One thing I will say about design thinking is that good designers steal And so it's pulling I pull from everywhere All all kinds of tools and and sometimes I do it slobberly So I take things from the the futurist toolkit the interviewing and Listening methods I use are pulled from are pulled from ethnography a bit from social work a bit from here a bit from there and so I Get less hung up on the on the definition and More focused on what tools do I need to bring to bear in a particular context? Hey, John good Yeah, so problem-based learning come moment of connecting. Oh, are we still connecting? No, you should be able to see each other. Yep. So I paid good money for this internet connection Problem-based learning to me goes back like Brunner even Dewey talking about instead of setting up learning environments as places of Prescribed answers that you regurgitate that you have real working problems. And so when I hear Design thinking I want to put it into that camp. I guess is what I was getting out of the question, but Yet there seems to be a need may need for something called design thinking a need for something called Problem-based learning. So I was just wondering what your thoughts are on where that difference is I mean if I had to had to think about the the difference based on what I understand I would I Mean I would situate Problem-based learning as like in a pedagogical concept context as a Approach to approach to learning and design think is as could be one piece that contributes to that environment, but design thinking in itself as You know as its own pedagogy and approach that approach to learning, I think there's a just a lot that's missing and you can I mean you can use it that way, but I think there would just be a lot of a lot of filling it Because I would I would I would approach it my my question would be like oh well like how might we design a learning environment that accomplishes X Whereas There's a much deeper and richer history Around problem-based learning and how you would structure that particularly so that the learners are encountering the the context and receiving the receiving the coaching receiving the feedback and So and and design thinking really isn't isn't set up for that because it the way I practice I'm Often surrounded by subject matter experts And I'm bringing Sort of my area of expertise You know into into contact with theirs and seeing what that mash-up is like as opposed to When I'm looking in a training context or teaching context and helping people make the tools their own Is that was that I think helpful? It's getting there There's really an interesting chat going on that I can't keep up with and listen to you as Fully as I want, but yeah, it does I think it sounds to me and this may sound a little catty, but it sounds like design thinking plays better with the structure of the institution Whereas problem-based learning probably wants a different institution than traditional school. That's interesting Yeah, I would say it depends on who the practitioner is. Yeah, yeah, if you're I mean that I think that the tool doesn't really care about the structure of the institution the the person or people Employing it, you know, if the the intent is to question the structures and How we are defining learner and the learner environment There are tools in the design thinking toolkit that can help you do that but it's you know and Where the way I'm playing right now is I'm I'm floating across Kind of different different regions in the university, so it's it's a It's it's a merge is kind of like this connective tissue Whereas like oh wait a minute I talked to this person over here and technology and then I talked to this person over here You know with students and and I'm seeing this connection over here Then I get to talk about my connections and other people see that whereas often a lot of the senior roles happen independently Okay That sounds good. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you John. I think enough of me here. Goodbye. That's okay Friends if you're new to the forum That's an example of two things that began as an example of a text-based question You know we type that in and then as a video question where we brought them up So if you're new to the forum or if you're not new to the forum Please use whichever or both as you feel comfortable and as I say that there are any questions lined up and to one Thank you for that really direct and and and thoughtful answer We have a another kind of conceptual question that comes from Tom Hames Who asks would you distinguish your approach to design thinking with the concept of emergent design from Pendleton, Julian Brown? Do you think education needs open-ended design or is that asking too much? um Put that on the screen again, so that's a that's a cheery question and actually Tom Maybe you can drop in and just talk a little bit about How you're thinking about emergent design? Um, because that might that might help give everyone some context. I'll do that And in fact, I'll actually give you guys the the splashy Format. How's that? Oh splash. Oh, no. I've been splashed. Yes Hey, Doan. Um, so no, I mean the um if you look at the Design Unbound books by Ann Pendleton, Julian and John Sealy Brown They come up with a thing called emergent design and to me I see the distinction between traditional design thinking at the stanford school that you you referenced a few minutes ago traditional it's kind of funny to talk about traditional design thinking but between the more common Practicing a practice of design thinking and emergent design is that design thinking as practice You know the stanford model is is a closed loop in a sense It is it is iterative, but it's still Operating in that in that and the idea that there's an actual endpoint to it at some point Whereas emergent design is kind of what john questions the What john questioned about you know the point he made about you know Is the problem that we need to fix something in school or that we need to fix school? um, and um, you know moving institutions in that direction And I know that's a that's a that's a really tough order um, because you know, you're asking people to question the legitimacy of their institutions At a very deep level at that point and then we you know have the courage to look at that Honestly and solidly and then move forward from there. That doesn't mean we get rid of the institutions But there's a lot of fundamental stuff about our institutions of both k12 and higher ed That are anachronistic in the extreme Um legacies of the industrial age, so um, but I was wondering in terms of you know, I don't know how much you know about the design and bound books, which I highly recommend to anybody who's interested in this Is uh Again that the distinction between where do you draw the lines right? How far are you willing to go in these discussions? Are you fixing problems as a kind of Kind of tongue-in-cheek setting are you fixing problems you can see or are you trying to? Uh, I can't remember what I said exactly anymore Are you fixing the problems you can see or are you trying to find the problems you can't see? Yeah, and for for me it's um, it's both um, you know, I have the you know, there's the um Being responsive to the client Uh in terms of like oh like well here's like here's here's why you've invited me here, but um, and I always Okay, we can explore that as opposed to we will do that um because I want to understand why And digging with those questions and I'm looking to like okay. Well What is this ladder up to where does this take us 10 or 15 years? Um, and and you know in in our context around around higher ed um How is learning changing and our as we're doing this are we um being open to capturing some of those opportunities or running some of those experiments or um creating the the flexibility so one of the things I think about and you know at the tail end of the design process is How do you make your solutions speak? And people talk about metrics and measures and like okay, but um That often leaves out how will you make the solution speak to whether it's solving the problem That you intended to solve because sometimes like those are vanity measures. Um, and How do you um set up that solution so it's Giving you some signal as to what are that problems even relevant anymore? um, because I think that that's one of the like the the mechanisms or or I don't know whether it's a leadership technology or an innovation technology. Um around um How do we know when solutions To problems are no longer serving us That's either the you know the solution no longer works or the problem no more because in in higher ed you can go to any university and Find a huge stack of stuff that People don't know how to stop doing um or the things that people are doing that no longer um Are no longer accomplishing their the stated goals for students And so I think when when you talk about sort of how far am I pushing things? Um, I'm I'm pushing into that space of orchestrating graceful endings um, and that's that's the way that I've phrased it and I'm I'm I'm saying that to like senior leaders um everywhere, um everywhere Everywhere I work is like if we can find a way to do graceful endings Some of your resource problems go away. Um because it's We're no longer fun funneling budget into things that are are no longer serving us. Um So that's that's how I think about that in um in in my practice, um So I I if I just do this the stuff for today and um Respond directly to the client ask. I'm not doing my job as a designer in um and saying, okay Well, what is like one of the ways I've been phrasing it? um In Ohio State and and this is one of the things where I say like all of all of all of my comments and ideas are my own freakish creations and um are in no way speak same here in the uh institutional voice But I ask what can we do that is uniquely possible here? um And I remind people to think about that because the Sort of rushing to duplicate the like things of aspirants and peers like oh well this worked over here And I worked over there and they got great results like things to learn from but we still need to Focus on what's uniquely possible here with our assets histories values, etc um, so those are are things that play into um my practice Do you do you get into the idea of antifragility at all? In your in in the work that you're doing with them and how does that you know because one of the other things well, I'm kind of mixing Nicholas 11 and and And the design unbound a little bit here, but design unbound talks about white water world That things are happening so fast everything we understand is being buffeted by External winds of change. I see uh patricia just let's set off a bunch of them in the chat um, and uh, you know, how do we make our institutions resilient not just resilient but thriving under those kind of big circumstances that's um And and that's that's the antifragile part. So i'm kind of that's the telep part the the design unbound part But do you talk about that in terms of you know, what do you do for the next covet? I mean or the the covet like event that you don't expect right the black swan I I talk about that, but i'm uh, i'm careful because people aren't expecting that from me Okay, and and so I I bring it up. Uh, very deferentially Um, and it's it's one of those things i'm i'm very clear with The the people I I work with um, I'm entering into a context where I don't know what I don't know And I'm relying on everyone to To help me like oh, yeah, no not so much. Oh, we don't call that this here. Like yes. Yes, we've done that we have this um, and so And and doing the work in that regard on people have been extremely gracious of you know, it's That that approach has served me well. So when I think about the The the shocks to the systems we're designing One point is I think about oh well, how what is our principle for quickly framing up challenges that we face Um, how do we practice that when the stakes are low so that when the stakes are high We're okay. So um secretly in the background by nudging people. Okay. Well, what problem are we trying to solve here? Sometimes that will reframe things as a how might we question It's like it's like I think right really talking about here is how might we do this? Is that what where everyone is or my misunderstanding? um, and so there's there's a piece of That um in developing some of the the system and team robustness um, I think the the other piece is um around the instilling certain habits and rituals around how we how we Grapple with like, okay one is the challenge we're facing and where are we in the process of responding to it Uh, and those are open questions for me. Um, and and I'm experimenting with that now In terms of like, okay. Well, how how might I Experiment with these rituals practices, whatever you want to call them But also what is the self-propagating mechanism? um, right or for example, there are 1800 people inside the office of academic affairs at at ohioste um, and so, you know, we're looking at um Like what is the right amount of uh of change and uh and leadership who does that? um What um What propagates? Yeah adaptive adaptive systems john um, you know, that's one of the one of the things i'm i'm Thinking about and also think about that within the sort of mix of the sort of like the cadence of the university um, and so how can I use my role to create space for those uh conversations for those ecosystems to To connect and adapt To and and and using the natural moments What are there in sort of meetings and one-on-one interactions communications? All of those small pieces to to ladder up To into an ecosystem that has Design, um, just woven into its its dna And that's that's explicitly part of my job description you know to Find ways to support uh innovation culture Um at at the university Let me let me pause this right now because this is fantastic and both of you are triggering a whole slew of chat questions back and forth I'll make sure that you get a chance to to see this Um, but we also have other questions that have come in. I want to make sure everyone gets a a chance to ask them Tom as as usual you you're tired of me saying this, but you always ask really good deep questions. Thank you. Thank you And thank you. So on you get discouraged a beautiful way of of acting in a higher education that Is so different in many ways from what we normally do, but I don't want to talk more I want to give you more questions that have come in uh, and this is from uh, jessica pocarsi Have you had success getting grant funding for design thinking projects? We've had very success with this given that funders want an exact timeline deliverables, which aren't knowable beforehand Yeah, I I I like that. Um It's it's the it's like, oh, okay, so, um And that's the they're approaching innovation as a recipe Um, a lot of people will look at design thinking like oh, it's this recipe you you put Um energy in it goes through these steps and boom innovation innovation comes out And so the the way I've, um looked at, you know Grant related and I have and like I have not had to like go out and get grants Um, I've had lots of uh conversations with development folks who are who are front facing um the the work that I did at elan was funded by a Gift from a trustee, uh, so a trustee gave a large gift, um for design driven work And so when I when I think about like how to balance the The nature of the ambiguity And the desire for certainty on the part of funders. Um, I often find me find myself scoping a, um Um A timeline related to the problems to solve Um at at various points and being explicit about sort of what what we can do at various points and the Kinds of outcomes without saying like oh, we'll have this thing here because we don't know um, but we know will be related to student loneliness and um we will it will be a Service or or product that serves to Reduce or address those student loneliness challenges on on campus Not for anyone who's actually interested in that topic since I brought it up. Um, hope lab has done some Hope lab in san francisco has done some fantastic work around student loneliness on campus Thank you for that very practical Answered one and thank you For the jessica for that really really solid question I that's a great problem to to bring up friends, uh, you've seen some of our question formats both the Video and the q&a box and of course some of you have been shopping a whole bunch of great stuff in the chat box So please keep them coming as we've been going we've been covering a lot of ground and hitting a wide range of interesting ways of approaching change and creativity in higher ed so please Feel free to show your own questions your own thoughts and i'll be glad to bring you up on stage or flash your questions on on the screen Here's another one from michael meeks At lsu who asks your opinion on the importance of design thinking in the bigger picture for higher ed And can traditional research schools faculty actually move into design thinking is teaching while shackled their need to publish Oh Wade carefully into this one. Thanks michael. I didn't I didn't see that bus coming um, so like the first piece on Design thinking the bigger picture of of higher ed You know, I I think about the The academic enterprise in terms of How are we designing the learning environment? So I think about the learning environment as a design problem And and that's just like the way my mind works, but I it helps me have conversations about it that way But that encompasses sort of the everything of the enterprise um, and So then you you're pulling in systems thing you're pulling in futures You're pulling in change leadership and change management and being very clear with people that they're not the same thing Uh, sometimes people get those those two overlapped Uh, those two uh, those two confused Um, the the idea that you can have innovation without without change Um, and then cause that change and not support people as they go through it. We've seen what happens Uh, and it's and it's not pretty. Um, and so it's thinking about both the leadership piece and and the management piece um, and so I'm You know, there's there's this comfort zone for me around That side of things now the the challenges around um design thinking pedagogy and um, and I think you were getting into tenure and promotion um, like that that is a whole other uh Like a whole other mess that plays out in uh in in different in different ways in different institutions um one of the One of the questions gets into you know to to what degree can Um, can human center design have a voice in creating promotion and tenure systems? um, and uh making Changes in promotion and tenure systems and the ability to do that. Um Is I don't want to say it's leader dependent senior leader dependent, but in a lot of ways it is. Um because it takes the the the right leadership to um not shut those conversations down um to to help those conversations flourish. Um, and so the the like any like the success that I've had, um Would have been much harder with different leaders um, and so I had I like just as as an example so my um When I was talking about doing the design work at elon university The first time I went to campus or the first time went to campus. My first meeting was with the university president Like that was my first meeting. My second meeting was with the provost Like third meeting that day busy day. Um was um with the um senior vice provost that I ended up reporting to do to while I was doing that work. Um and so It takes that Um that kind of commitment now I've I've done projects Um where you know, we didn't have the provost on board and we didn't have the president on board But you're working in a different scale and scope and um, and and there it's I'm looking at like ways to keep the larger university system from eating anything cool we create Yeah, yeah That's always a risk Jessica, um, uh, I believe it's zeller asks a question that comes back to this topic In for a different angle. Uh, she asks i'm just reading this from the chat here It sounds like design thinking overlaps well with other frameworks and now that agile has come up I wonder how we can gain support in such a traditional higher ed environment For future flexing of design thinking an agile type innovative push And you've you've described some ways and some ways of approaching this already do on i'm just wondering what um, what you what you could add to uh, Jessica's question What would be uh, what are some other ways we can convince people to follow what Ohio state has been doing for example um, one of the questions that that I've been pursuing is how um How do we is as leaders? Um Um sort of live well within our roles in our role responsibilities And also, how do we do dynamic teaming? Uh, such that like oh, I have like this outcome that I am responsible for like given my given my title um But it's not going to happen because it is um an effective system challenge that stretches across broad areas of the university um, and so maybe it's coming into um Conflict with with budgetary rules And like then we have a governance. Oh, it's like hitting hitting something over here with with faculty governments and there's a risk component Maybe it's a summer program and and you have uh Miners involved and you have sort of all this like risk and mitigation and compliance things to do um And so part of it is how do we spin up? um those teams uh without disrupting the role and um You know, and it's and it's not a uh, I don't think it's a unique challenge to high red. Um, it's an it's an organizational challenge And that's straying into uh organizational development. Um, and I will steal badly from those practitioners as well um But looking at um How we can um I can create the the frameworks Uh for those conversations so that we're not relying on them happening organically um, because we rely on lots of things uh to happen organically In terms of how how teams function well together and that's something that we can we can design. Um, we can um We can sorry I saw something in the chat that made me giggle. Um, uh, we can um Be very we can be more intentional uh about about how those teams come uh come together and um That's one of the uh challenges I have to figure out this summer. Um It's a lot to do well, uh We have more questions coming in and uh, I and some interesting comments. Um Jennifer goes on to describe uh Oh, excuse me, uh Kenan Solonero mentions the uh in the agile community The belief has been that 70 percent of agile led companies 70 percent are not consistent with the foundational principles. Um, which is an interesting question. Um And then um, we have another one that's just come in uh, and this is from uh, this is from kenan or kennon solonero Let me actually put this on the screen Science is a major resource for new innovations Your take about science departments at university on innovative thinking getting design thinking having openness to input as well as output I'm gonna have to throw up and I don't know. Um the The way that the way that I've been the way that I've been working. Um it's it's often been Finding ways to Achieve various objectives like with uh with whichever groups I haven't noticed a um What I would call a deep resistance Um, but that may be the way that I the way that I approach things Because I'm just trying to use things from the design toolkit to give us a better evidence for various actions better evidence for various ideas so that we're not rushing into Um Attempting things in the learning environment Um that just are like oh well it seemed cool over here or it looked good over there So I'm I'm not sure if I'm I'm I'm answering I'm answering your question. Um, but um That's that's how I have how I have played You're speaking of evidence and different departments have different standards for evidence or different forms evidence that they focus on That's a kid. That's a great question. Um, that'd be a fun one to follow up on and explore. Well, it's it's also the um like helping people combine their different ways of knowing And and sometimes see a bit of validity in Ways of noticing other ways of knowing as complimenting your ways of knowing And adds um, I speak from having been on faculty at Georgetown in the chemistry department so Looks like a kind of shadow colleague for us. Um, which is great Friends, we have about seven minutes left. And so I wanted to put one question of my own To do one. Um, and this gives you all a chance to formulate your own last question before we run out of time Um, do one, uh, I always think about the future and here I'm thinking about what happens to design thinking in higher red Five or ten years from now That is if we get more and more design thinking practice More design thinking habits that seep into into higher red What does a college or university look like say five or ten years from now if it's been designed thinking arrived How does it look different from others? um So a couple things I think that there would still be a um Your role for for someone like me in in leadership. I don't think that that role goes away Because having someone who is holding holding that space and protecting it Will will be important I think one of the one of the changes, you know, imagine you have Leadership teams and it's just natural for them to reach into the design the designed toolkit and to to push and ask and ask the the questions that sometimes even question the like some of the The the fundamentals of the enterprise of the fundamentals of the of the university and suggest longer term changes I would see There's a fantastic book. I think it's called immunity to change. Um, I would see the the university's change immune system Taking out fewer of the good things I would I would see more people approaching Approaching the the work and their conversations With some kind of process And when I say some kind of process like I don't I don't I don't care whether it's like Like the like one you get from stanford or like IBM has one my consult the consultancy has one Um, like I don't care what it is but have one Um, so that you know, you have a shared language on a shared way of thinking about Okay, what is this problem? We're trying to address. How does it matter? Um, how do we proceed through because then you have something to to tweak and get better at You have tools that That you can craft to dissolve like your unique challenges You can think of um, you know, Ohio State, elan georgetown very different institutions There's place history public private all all of that And you know Randy Bassett You know, he talks about that that unique combination of like, hey, well Like what can you do with you like place history resources all of those things? And I think I've channeled a bit of randy when I talk about like what is uniquely possible um And so I think that the distance between um, or the the ability for the whirlwind to insert distance between um delivering the day-to-day And designing the future Um, we'll get harder doesn't mean it won't happen. Um, but I think that um, it will get harder and I think that, um People won't necessarily talk about design thinking the way they do now um We will mean a my title like design innovation um, so it's that human centered piece and um, if I and I love the definition of innovation from um 10 types of innovation uh by larry keely and many others And that's the creation of viable new offerings And and that's that's fantastic because you have creation which implies process You have viable means it like works in all the ways. Um liability happens new new to the world or new to um your context And you can use the uber example like uber didn't really invent anything new But they pulled a whole bunch of stuff together that hadn't been combined that way And that converse combination is powerful And the last piece is offering. I just people say, oh, we're there's a lot of innovation happening here at our organization or university or And it's like, oh, you start to talk you're like, you know, not a lot of it gets offered Um, and it's that offering piece that says it has to get out to the world and get out to get out to students And so when you have that design and innovation um I think that there will be a You know, if I think about that designified, uh, university um, it would be university where the That that isn't a special space that we inhabit occasionally Um, it's just part of how we do things um, and there would be small pieces Distributed throughout throughout all of the all of the activities all of the meetings all of the question All of the excuse me all of the all the rituals all of the places where the work happens So it's designing it into the work. Um, that's what I'm trying to do now and It's a lot of figuring it out as I as I go I'm I'm grateful to the the provost at Ohio state and and all of my Ohio state colleagues for Giving me the the space to really lean into that. Um, and The um The grace to roll with the things. Um, not only I don't know I don't know but we don't know we don't know Which is hard in academia. We're we're supposed to know things Yes, um, we are um, the being being expert knowers is you know, sort of, um the the tradition, um, and You know, we're we're heading into the world where we are expert learners um, and and creating environments that help people come into um ways of Of knowing making ways of knowing their own And those are currently associated with disciplines um And I think we would have another hour-long conversation about That future university and and disciplines and where they go when you are really designing with the The learner in mind, um, as opposed to the faculty discipline well That can go to a whole other direction and and carol in the chat just asked a great question, which um, which was that uh any any Sustainability has to be part of the viability of the solution And that's making me think, ah, how do you plug sustainability into the design process? And then I thought it is three o'clock and we have to we have to wrap things up very sadly To one you have you have taken us through this hour with with delight and a lot of lot of thinking Um, this is terrific. How how can we keep up with you? What's the best way to track what you're working on? Uh, so there's the design thinking one-on-one podcast Comes out every other other week toddler willing And um, we have a another we're adding a new segment to that Called five and a half things. Um, so it's five and a half things every designer should know about design The first one of those is going to be about the opioid overdose epidemic We wanted to bring in subject matter experts Um that are connected to places where more human-centered design would be fantastic Um, so we have we have that opening up Um, if anyone knows someone who would like my job, um, we are currently hiring for that um, and so the um, you know that job hosting is up on um, Live on on Ohio State. Um, and I think brian retweeted it on or every re Resented on on linkedin So so that's out there and um, you can also find out about different things. I'm doing via via fluid hive Yes, please go toddlers And uh, yeah, so that's um, that's that's my my world There's a there's a link to fluid hive as well as to the design thinking what a one on the bottom of the screen Um, so won't thank you so much Please go go back to your um your toddler and to Ohio State And um, I look forward to grabbing as much of you as I can at Georgetown University Oh, thank you brian and uh, looking forward to the next time we get to play together Excellent excellent and friends don't leave yet. I just need to point out where we're headed over the next few weeks So if you're interested in continuing this thought, what is how does agile play with design thinking? How does design thinking follow carol's admonition to consider sustainability? Just continue our conversation on twitter. Use the hashtag FTE or tweet at me brian alexander or at schindig events or check out the uh, our blog brian alexander.org If you'd like to look into our previous sessions on design thinking or anything else having to do with the future of higher ed Just go to our archive tiny url.com slash FTF archive If you'd like to see what else we're talking about coming up everything from inclusive teaching to the climate crisis to diversity and technology Just go to forum that future of education that us And if you'd like to share with us any of the great things you've been working on, please just shoot me a note on gmail I would love to share that we've already got some more shares coming up over the next few weeks And thank you all for great questions. Thanks for letting design thinking ripple across our minds Thank you for thinking about how to change institutions for the best And as you all work in institutions, please take care do great work above all be safe And we'll see you next time online Bye-bye