Design Thinking Digest

Signposts for Design Thinking Digest and Chris Bernard

Ah, the blog has seen better days in recent months due to my travel schedule. It's waiting for it's shiny new redesign to be deployed and will sadly have to wait a bit longer, but I'll be in many places over the coming months. A quick rundown is coming up.

It's sometimes hard to believe I've been at Microsoft since September of 2006 I certainly owe folks some ruminations on what that journey has been like and we'll also be diving in deep on the PhizzPop Design Challenge contestants.

PhizzPop Design Challenge Chicago: See Dave Armano of Logic + Emotion

Technorati Tags: David Armano, Logic + Emotion, Critical Mass

David Armano of Logic + Emotion (and Critical Mass) will be joining us for a 20 minute talk to warm up the crowd at the PhizzPop Design Challenge in Chicago.

Considered a part of the Power 150 by Ad Age (#26 actually) David Armano is one of the leading thinkers on the convergence of social media, marketing, advertising and what it all means about how we need to work together. Dave will share some insights on this as the competing Chicago teams put the final touches on their presentations.

So, what are you waiting for? Get over to PhizzPop now and Register!

http://designchallenge.phizzpop.com/

Dave's topic? Why digital agencies and design of course! Dave will present an updated overview on what emerging trends in design thinking and practice mean for folks that practice design in the enterprise or the agency. Check out some of Dave's thought on this concept below clicking the picture to visit SlideShare.

Please note that reservations are filling up fast. If you get a note saying you're on the waitlist sit tight! It probably means we just have to ensure we can get you in the door to keep the fire marshal happy and that alas is a manual process.

If you register by Tuesday night and don't get a confirmation that 'you're in' by Wednesday drop us a line at pdchelp@microsoft.com

Is this thing still on?

There’s a concept in baseball called the Mendoza line. More or less when you’re batting average falls below .215 (some say .200) it’s more or less a demarcation where you’ve got no business playing pro ball (pitchers excluded of course). If there’s a Mendoza line in blogging I’m certainly flirting with it. There’s a lot of reasons for this including travel, speaking, and (honest) Twitter and Facebook which I find myself using more and more everyday.

This is a shame however as there’s so much exciting stuff going on, so bear with me as I blow the dust of things, change a few lightbulbs and getting Design Thinking Digest firing on all cylinders again.

The next post will highlight a big part of what I've been doing though. Stay tuned and thanks for being patient.

Pardon the dust at Design Thinking Digest

If you subscribe to this page or get it's content through Design for Innovation you've probably seen a lot of cryptic looking posts. I'm working on some different scenarios for embedding media in my site and because of how WordPress handles syndication and other gobblygook (i.e. JavaScript) some folks might be seeing gibberish. Bear with me as I work out the details and expect to see the occasional funny post from me. It should be worth the hassle once I get all the kinds worked out. Thanks.

Why you should subscribe to Logic + Emotion and Creating Passionate Users

So, because I've been rebuilding my feedlist I thought it might be helpful to list some of the blogs I find most useful and enjoyable (ie the first ones I couldn't live without so I had to resubscribe to.)

First up is David Armano's blog called Logic + Emotion (and duh, I link to it so it's a bit of a nobrainer). David's blog states he sits and the intersection of marketing, brand engagement and experience design. But also has a strong focus on how consumers are now active participants in the conversation. One of my favorite posts is his incomplete manifesto. If you want a succinct summary of what all great designers do (and you need to BE a designer to do this) check it out. Typically this is the first blog I look at everyday that is foucsed on design, branding and marketing.

Finally a note to the AIGA, if you ever spin up a print version of GAIN see if you can hire Dave to help. I'm not sure he knows it yet but I think he's going to be the Roger Black of infographics soon.

Second up is Creating Passionate Users. This blog also gives me a daily does of inspiration and who doesn't need that? Alas, this blog will also become a bit of a time capsule due to the still, on occasion, puerile nature of people that inhabit the internet behind a cloak of the anonymous. I'm hoping over time that the authors Kathy Sierra and Dan Russell find a new outlet in the future that makes them feel comfortable to share there wonderful insights.

Creative Passionate Users is wonderful in how it visual displays it's ideas. A few of my favorites are:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Struggling with social networking overload

It seems we could do a George Carlin bit on all of the social networking sites, tools and technology that are available today. For the A-list I think it boils down to possibly two. One is your actual blog (ala Scoble) and two is Twitter.

For the rest of us regular folks we probably need to pick and engage in a few additional tools. In my case I've settled on Facebook and Linked In and Twitter on occassion but I'm dubious of the benefit of me sharing what I'm eating or what I'm doing with kids. I'm curious how others major their online personas or if folks feel overloaded like I do as I get asked to participate in more and more social networks.

A social membership somewhere--Linked In and Twitter almost seem to be the new digital tools that everyone needs and I would say a blog IS the new resume in alot of ways.

I'm also not ignoring things like You Tube or Flickr but it seems to me that those are more akin to services that we would leverage with these other sites. Is social networking the CB radio of our generation? It's very hard for me to belive that it is. If you're not creating your own digital persona someone (or something) is already doing it for you via clickstreams and datamining. Social Networking provides a way for you to exercise an element of control in that dynamic.

I'll be at the Institute of Design Strategy Conference

My favorite conference of the year is coming up this Thursday and Friday. It's the ID Strategy Conference. One of the great things about this conference is that it's small so you get a chance to meet everyone and also that it get's some really interesting people, kind of like a mini version of TED. I expect to hear interesting things at this conference and will provide summaries here.

If you're not attending you'll still be able to participate in the conference via the blog which is being moderated by John Maeda. How cool is that!

Beautiful Diversions: Going Deeper on Bruce Nussbaum's Musings

NextD does a thoughtful community created piece on Bruce Nussbaum's "Are Designers the Enemy of Design?" Via the Next D Journal: ReRethinking Design Founding Editor GK VanPatter enlists the thougts of 50 design professionals. It also includes some commentary from peers and mentors Nate Burgos and Adam Kallish and Microsoft's own Will Tschumy.

If you haven't read Bruce's post do so first. Then read this, it's worth your time to see the varied chorus of design perspectives in our community.