DesignUp 2019: Innovation Goes Global

Effective, innovative design isn’t just about creating products that work for consumers. It is essential that we take the time to share knowledge with those in our field and educate the next generation of budding designers.

We do this a number of ways – by teaching a diversified course load at the Austin Center for Design (AC4D), offering custom trainings to large corporations in design strategy and networking with design thought leaders at events throughout the year. Among these events is the upcoming DesignUp conference, which will be held in Bangalore, India, November 12 – 16, this year.

In the spirit of knowledge-sharing, Jon will be featured as a speaker, leading insightful discussions on innovation, design strategy and shaping a creative culture in the workplace. Listed below is more information about each of his upcoming sessions:

Selling-In Innovation
Thursday, November 14
9:30am – 1pm

In the early stages of innovation, there is often very little evidence to prove the potential success of an emerging product or service. Instead, we often rely on the loudest voice in the room – a shrewd political navigator – to build or force the internal momentum needed to get an idea to market.

“Selling-in” innovation is about creating and delivering persuasive arguments. It is about telling stories that win the hearts and minds of internal stakeholders and building artifacts that allow them to see, and then advocate for, the vision on your behalf.

In this masterclass, Jon will teach an approach to building persuasive arguments and artifacts that can applied to any product or service innovation. Participants will see examples of how this has been done in Fortune 500 companies.

His masterclass will contain the following components:

• Introduction to Design Strategy: Design strategy is a way of exploring an organizational design problem through a customer and user-centric perspective, grounded in pillars of experience, emotional insight, and value-based narrative. Participants will learn about the fundamentals of design strategy, focused both on theory and practice, through a case study.
• Moving from Data to Themes to Insights: Customer and user-centric design begins with ethnographic research, but the research itself does not describe value. Through a process of synthesis, participants will learn to move from data to themes, and ultimately, to value-based insights that describe a new value proposition.
• Sketching Vignettes and Storyboards of Value: Narrative is one of the most effective ways to help someone see, understand, and believe in a new idea and a new future. Participants will learn to draw a specific style of visualization that brings a new idea to life and communicates the most essential parts of that idea – the human value it provides.
• Crafting a Persuasive Story of the Future: The most important part of selling-in innovation is helping other people believe in the value of a new strategy. Participants will learn how to leverage data, themes, insights, and sketches to convince people to follow them in a particular direction.
• Reflection: The process of selling-in innovation introduces several unique organizational challenges. The group will discuss some of the difficulties implicit in this process, and identify ways to address these challenges.

Additionally, Jon will lead a discussion on instilling creativity in the workplace:

Instilling a Creative Culture
Friday, November 15
9:30 – 10am

Creativity is the key to addressing ill-formed business threats and putting shape around poorly defined market opportunities. But bringing creativity into your company feels like adding to the mess, not fixing it. Creative processes feel wild and unpredictable – and so do the people doing the creative work. We hire creative talent, but we don’t have a lot of frameworks for helping them succeed.

During this talk, Jon will share a playbook for achieving creative clarity: for managing creative teams, honing a creative process, and designing a strategic creative vision. Participants will learn how to inspire and manage a unique style of employee, how to structure a repeatable process for addressing an ill-defined problem, and for developing a north-star to guide a company towards creative success.

For more information about DesignUp 2019, visit the conference’s website here.

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