Weekly assignment : 31st of January

“Want to improve democracy? Try Design Thinking” is written by Linda Tischler, a journalist from Fast Company, and talks about how Design Thinking could help to resolve other matters than the ones linked to businesses.

The author begins with the elections of 2000, 9/11, and complains about the state of the current debates about important issues, such as the health system, financial regulation, climate change… Basically, she says that every political figures talk about these problems and do nothing else. She wonders if Design Thinking could have been used for better situations. To answer her question, she interviews Tim Brown, author of “Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation”.

Tim Brown simply says that Design Thinking enters in the debate with no agenda. It can bring experiences to life more quickly to see what works and what doesn’t. It could bring innovation to governments which could help to create a better life.

Linda Tischler and Tim Brown talk about bringing Design Thinking to one of the most rigid “business” in the world: governments. As the journalist says, it implies a willingness to think differently and that is the whole point of this article. If you want to innovate, you have to broad your horizons.
We can’t really apply this article to a business because every business has competitors to think about and consumers. They have to think differently, to be innovative. To them, Design Thinking is not a foreign process. But why not governments? They have competitors too – the other guy that wants to be elected – and consumers – the voters. They are stuck in their debates and there is no progress. Design Thinking could be a good solution.

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/linda-tischler/design-times/can-design-thinking-improve-democracy