– Diversity is the Core of Innovation – Media City Bergen
Last week, Media City Bergen was all about Design Thinking, as one of the leading experts on innovation, Justin Ferrell, visited the Media Cluster for the fourth year running. This time to hold experiential workshops in advanced design thinking for the Media Cluster and the Fintech Cluster, with a focus on challenges within member’s ongoing projects.
Ferrell also held a workshop for master students from the University of Bergen and Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL), as well as an open pop-up talk where he gave a quick introduction to the principles of Design Thinking.
Designing for Digital Disruption
On Friday, we hosted an open pop-up talk with Ferrell in the Media City Bergen atrium.
In his keynote presentation, “Designing for Digital Disruption”, Ferrell gave a quick introduction to Design Thinking, and gave pointers and advice for media professionals faced with digital disruption and massive transformations within their companies. 
Around 150 attendees from the media industry and academia seized the opportunity to learn from the best.
Hands-on Workshops
Situated in the Media Lab, participants engaged with the Design Thinking process and its methods through a hands-on learning experience that highlighted the principles of human-centered design. The workshops instilled creative self-efficacy, established the rules of effective brainstorming and reinforced the value of low-resolution, rapid prototyping. 
During the two-day workshop for the Media Cluster, participants engaged in a multi-day group challenge that pushed them into the world to engage with real users. The goal of this session was to introduce the foundational tools of design thinking, and the practice and rigor of working in Adaptive Teams.
Ferrell introduced a number of quick warmup sessions, which instantly broke the ice.
Anna Torgersen (in picture) from TV 2 had a great learning experience during the workshop:
– I learned many things that I will be able to use, especially to separate the idea process from the solution and to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, in order to enable crazy ideas. These are concepts I will try to integrate in my work environment, because one day a crazy idea might also be a great and innovative one, she said.
The workshop resulted in plenty of great ideas.
More pictures from the two-day workshop
Students Learning from the Best
Before coming to Bergen, Ferrell expressed wishes to arrange a workshop solely for students. On Friday, after the pop-up talk, 35 students were treated to a a half-day workshop where they got hands-on experience and in-depth perspectives into the principles of design thinking.
The Master’s students, from Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL) and the University of Bergen, hard at work doing hands-on exercises with a human-centered approach.
In this half-day crash course, the students had to unleash their creativity to come up with rapid prototypes…
… and boy, did they deliver!