divergent

28/10/2017

Check out this great business here in NZ connecting tiny home owners with people who have spare space on their property! We worked with Land Share NZ using design thinking to discover unmet needs and identify opportunities. Land Share NZ is driven by 'social good' values to reduce the environmental impact of housing and increase awesomeness. http://landshare.nz/

We’re finding better ways to utilise land in cities, on farms, and at beaches. Monetise your unused land asset in minutes by searching for a tiny home and its

27/10/2017

27/10/2017

Some fantastic inspiration here for designing diagrams for service design and customer journey maps. We think that, at the outset of creating these kinds of diagrams, a helpful question to ask is, "What does our customer insight tell us about how best to depict this experience?" and let those answers help guide the design.

If you like pictures, this post is for you.

27/10/2017

Yep - LEGO is fantastic stuff and is a staple in our prototyping/play box🇩🇰️

Lego blocks: playtime mainstay for industrious kids, obsession for many (ahem!) mature adults.

26/09/2017

A quick overview of the design process from Tim Brown, touching on several important elements that support and sit within the process.

IDEO’s Tim Brown explains design thinking.

26/09/2017

Absolutely - creativity thrives on constraints!

The painter must create within the boundaries of her canvas (or exhibit) using the tools and supplies she has available to her. The inventor works within the laws of time and space and motion. The...

20/09/2017

A reminder here of the value of time - an important commodity in the design thinking process. Some useful, specific tips too for how to manage your time most effectively.

Time is the raw material of getting anything worthwhile done.

19/09/2017

Re-purposing with purpose!

Beautiful water hyacinth was strangling the life out of waterside communities in Nigeria, but entrepreneur Achenyo Idachaba saw potential in the plague.

18/09/2017

Inspiring examples here of design thinking being taught to and practiced by high school students, with real results.

By Mary Ruskey and Lori Aument - Design Thinking fits naturally fit into the business course we teach to 10th and 11th graders. Here, we explore why.

04/09/2017

Tackling an interesting challenge in a project today - how might service blueprinting be used to inform an experimentation programme?

30/08/2017

Yep definitely in the 'notes by hand' camp. Using old fashioned pencil and paper enables you to record ideas and connections visually/graphically, almost as fast as they emerge in your brain ✍️ Plus, if something is worthy of taking note of in the first place, you're likely to want to do something with it later - a visual notes document can serve as inspiration💡 It's hard to imagine a digital notes doc being quite so inspiring..

Pinkcasts: short, informal, low-fi videos offering tips, recommendations, or whatever happens to be on my mind. Sent on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of every month.

24/08/2017

Some great examples here of things that could benefit greatly from re-design.. For each item on this list however, approximately 5 others spring to mind.. What would you add to this list?

IDEO designs a lot of things. Here's what's still on our wish list.

24/08/2017

An exciting morning with Design Factory NZ yesterday, hearing about this semester's design thinking students taking on the challenge to design technology-enabled learning spaces. Looking forward to checking in on their journey again soon.

23/08/2017

"Most of us tend to regard innovation as a semi-mystical process fuelled by some combination of creativity, serendipity, gut instinct and vision." While here, it is argued that "innovation strategy is entirely possible".

Some people say that creating true innovation is like capturing lightning in a bottle. Not so, says BCG managing director Martin Reeves. It’s actually a process that can be considered, managed and …

21/08/2017

An clear and concise piece here on the distinction between art and design - a long-time thorn in the side of design, which can be devalued as being primarily, or solely, about aesthetics. The converse is probably true of art, the value of which cannot be measured in the same way as design - can this result in a similar devaluation?

Next time you work with a designer, start with an overview of your goals, before diving into a discussion about colors, fonts or materials.

21/08/2017

Here are 5 reasons why play is essential to the design thinking process, from Design Thinking for Museums. At Divergent, we like to call it 'purposeful play' and it is certainly more than simply mucking around having fun - it is about adopting a different mode of thinking and working.

Play is essential for innovation, creativity, and collaboration, and the most successful design thinkers are the ones who embrace the notion of play. In this post, I share five reasons play is crit…

18/08/2017

An exciting new supermarket experience is launching in Christchurch! Innovations in the experience are technological, environmental, social and ambient. All of this based on problem-solving, with clear underlying philosophies. There is something especially exciting about innovation of everyday experiences.

If you thought this would be a regular supermarket - think again.

16/08/2017

Design thinking is imbued with many of the things listed here as what highly creative people do differently. While some people can more easily be described as "naturally creative", anyone can use the design thinking process and mindset to stimulate creativity.

This list has been expanded into the new book,

08/08/2017

A few tips here from OpenIDEO on how to run more effective collaborative sessions. The importance of the physical space and set up for work like this can't be overstated. You can easily influence the behaviour of your co-collaborators through the design of the session itself - the physical space, methods and tools used, and ways of interacting.

Teamwork by Design: Four Ways to Better Collaborate Teamwork by Design: Four Ways to Better Collaborate Trending Most Read Related After 25 Years, Danish Man Finishes Incredible Walkable Map Of The Earth by Tod Perry Cartoons Show How ‘Thank You’ Can Be an Empowering Substitute for ‘Sorry’ by Tod Pe...

13/07/2017

Love the idea of a future of car use that transforms cars from an individually-owned and operated asset/liability into a shared transport resource or network. Imagine the opportunities to re-design cities, roading, spaces, places and homes when they do not need to be designed for the individual using and parking a car that is solely for their own use..

Ride sharing and self-driving vehicles are going to redefine our relationship with cars. Auto makers and startups are already gearing up for the change.

22/06/2017

Love this idea of taking storytelling a step further. A great "set" for storytelling might be one resembling that of the new future being communicated.. Lots of inspiration here

It starts with suspension of disbelief.

20/06/2017

If you had a cardboard cutout of your customer on your desk, what would they be saying?

18/06/2017

Some great examples here of design thinking being applied in education

Design thinking and PBL can bridge what we know and how we innovate. Try combining these two practices as an instructional framework for teaching 21st-century skills.

13/06/2017

Prepping for a pilot interview tomorrow - love the excitement of wondering where the conversation will go!

01/06/2017

Keren Amit Bigio from IDEO describes perfectly something fundamental about being a design researcher: "you're given access to people's lives that feels like a great privilege, and with that privilege comes great responsibility."

Follow a design researcher through her day conducting field research in Tokyo

30/05/2017

Had a great time yesterday popping into Wintec Design Hub to catch up with where the students are at with their concept development!

13/05/2017

14/04/2015

Idea generation techniques for competitions and beyond. http://divergent.co.nz/tools-techniques/5-techniques-for-having-ideas-and-having-good-ideas/

Divergent mentors teams in the Innes 48 business start-up competition, and this year we were tasked with being the mentor experts on ideation.