Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

In this episode, we discuss “design thinking,” a problem-solving approach that is now applied in business and education, as well as in the creation of new products and services. We talk with Jim Tappel, a professor at the University of Cincinnati and former IDEO employee, about how engineers might best coexist with, or even embrace, this approach to discovering new solutions.

• Jeff once used the intro and outro music of a Dire Straits song, Industrial Disease, in the background of a video featuring a robotic gripper he had designed.
• Jim is currently involved with Cooperative Education at the University of Cincinnati. At a previous point in his career, Jim worked for the well-known design firm, IDEO.
• An article that tells designers to excite engineers with performance issues is The Key to Sustainable Product Creation: The Marriage of Engineering and Design.
• Tracy Kidder’s book, The Soul of a New Machine is referenced by Jim as documenting one corporation’s willingness to fail.
• A series of increasingly capable robots from the movie, “The Incredibles,” is noted by Chris; he is probably thinking of the Omnidroids?
• Swiss watch manufacturers thought outside the box in creating Swatch watches.
• “Design Thinking” covers a broad swath of ideas, as evidenced by its entry in Wikipedia.
• Eddie Obeng has written about “foggy” projects in his book New Rules for the New World: Cautionary Tales for the New World Manager. Such efforts lack a clear objective, and the existence of any workable solution is uncertain.
• Jeff mentions a book by the CEO of IDEO, Tim Brown: Change by Design.
• We learn about the importance of “kiss off” and “suck back” in making toothpaste enticing to consumers.
• Jim estimates that when coming up with new ideas, the success rate is about 2%; it takes the courage to generate a lot of mediocre and bad concepts to find a winning solution.
• In reference to a Dan Saffer video about design thinking, Jim notes that there is more to the methodology than putting a whole bunch of post-it notes up on the wall.

Have you subscribed yet? It’s the easiest way to hear when there’s a new episode. We plan for every 2 weeks. But who can remember that? Just subscribe! Email or RSS reader or Podcatcher.

Thanks to Dawn D for the photograph from Design 2020.