[MUSIC] Thank you for joining me today. We're talking with three professors from the Segal Design Institute within the Northwestern School of Engineering. And this Liz Gerber, Greg Holderfield, Ed Colgate And I'd like to start with, could you tell me a little bit about yourselves? How did you get to the Segal Design Institute? >> Certainly. Well, I'm a design professor within Segal, as you noted, and I come here with 15 years of experience having designed products and services across a wide variety of industries from transportation, healthcare, education. And beyond. >> Wow, and Greg? >> I'm also a design professor. I teach design thinking in the context of products and services at undergraduate and graduate level. And I have a diverse background in new product and service innovation in healthcare. Hospitality technology. >> And Ed? >> Well, I'm an engineering professor in mechanical engineering, and my research has to do with the field of haptics, which have to do with interface to the environment through touch. That lead me to actually start a number of companies. And actually in the very first one of those I begin to realize the value of design. This is about 20 years ago and so I became fairly involved in design education in the school of engineering. And I remained so ever since. >> So, before we start on the subject could you tell me a little bit, what is this Segal Design Institute. >> The institute is a center of innovation. That grew out of the school of engineering that was rooted in teaching human-centered design to undergraduate engineers. We now have a variety of course content and research across a variety of different industries. And we partner with schools across campus and are rolling out Designed thinking platforms across campus. >> And now you have graduate students as well. >> Yes. >> And are the director of the design incentive? >> I am. >> That's great. So, let's now get back to what is innovation. Innovation, if you don't mind. >> [LAUGH] >> Innovation is novel and useful ideas implemented. And I want to emphasize implementation. Because oftentimes we think about innovation as new and novel. But the real critical part is that they're implemented. So, creativity by itself thinking up an idea isn't really designed in your thinking? >> It's not innovation, it's an idea. >> Right. >> Right. But I can come up with an idea right now. But until I have actually gone through the work of implementing it And having people use it. It's not innovation. >> Excellent. So, we've sometimes hear this term human centered design. What does that mean? >> Well in Segal Design Institute that's really an approach to design that we focus on quite heavily. And the idea is that an effective design, a successful design really needs to meet the needs. Of real people and so, the process starts always with trying to understand those needs. Almost always when we start a design project of any sort, we get the designers out in the field. Watching people as they either, you know solve the problem with whatever is available today or truly understand their context their lives. And then as we go through the process of designing something you're constantly referring back to actual users, those who will interact with the product. Because if it doesn't meed their needs, it's not going to be very successful in the long run. >> It's interesting because we talk in leadership about customer insights and even in this >> This course, we're going to touch on that. So, do you have an example of a case you've worked with, where you interfaced with a human and then And, then took it back to the studio? >> Certainly. I'd love to share one. As a toy designer, I would often go out and meet with children in their playrooms, and talk about, what's your favorite toy? Get down on the ground, criss-cross applesauce, and talk with them. What's your favorite toy? What do you like to do for fun? And, they'd carefully pull out their latest toy, and show me how it worked. And they tell me stories about how they used it. And it was precisely those stories, in fact, in the case of one boy named Billy, he told me this story about toys he loved that gave him superhuman powers. And when I brought that story back to the design studio, and I said, this kid Billy, ten years old, red hair, described what he looked like. He wants toys that give him superhuman powers. The design right away picked up on that story. They got that. They related to that. And ended up making a toy, night vision goggles we called them, allowed kids to see in the dark. They're effectively glasses with little flashlights on the corner. But it was It was that story of Billy wanting super-human powers that I was able to bring back, and then actually went all the way through the company. And it was actually the story that the sales team used to sell the product into the toy stores, and ultimately the story that Billy used, not Billy, but Billy's friends used to convince their moms that they wanted to purchase that toy in the store. Isn't that interesting? I think I've spent money on the night goggles. So, I didn't realize it was you that I had to- >> You relate to the story. >> I do relate to the story. >> Right, everybody wants to. >> Absolutely, so why does innovation need storytelling? >> Well, for many reasons. [LAUGH] Innovation uses storytelling partly because of context, the importance of context. You know, ideas live in a human context. Think about interfaces. Many of us have some interfaces, be it a website, or a computer operating system, or for those of us to remember programming VCRs and how horrible some of these interfaces are. Now if you think about these examples, think about an interface you don't really like, if you think about it you realize, probably from a technical standpoint, it's okay. You can actually do all the things you need to do. The problem is really from a human standpoint. The problem is that whoever designed that Was really thinking about how to solve the technical problem I wasn't really thinking about the broader context of how this interface is used in the real world. So one of the reasons story telling is so important is because it brings in that context when you tell a story. >> I like the idea of context and story telling >> And I can understand that there's a chain of people who might need a story, but what's the leader's role in this? And who do we consider to be a leader? >> Well, I think you need to have leaders or leadership in every stage of the development process, and so one of the roles that I see a leader playing is >> A person who can empower that team to remain patient in that space of innovation. To make sure that those stories are well crafted. And to make sure that the team is tracking in a way that they fully understand those users needs and that are >> And they are actually framing the problem in the correct way. I think that's important. We often jump to conclusions quickly. We like to layer in technology very rapidly into our innovation cycle and we don't always have the nugget, the actual core problem framed correctly. And so leaders need to be there to help guide, mentor, and really help enable that team to move forward >> Is the leader of the team and the leader of the organization using the same story? Or do you change your story, depending on your audience >> I think the story. The core elements of the story, the characters, the context, the resolution that the solution or the service we're going to create stay the same. I think the emphasis may change. For example if I'm talking with Marcadine I might focus more on the users. I might focus on Billy >> And his mom, and what they need. If I'm talking with engineering, I'm probably going to focus, I'm going to still tell the story so they understand, but I'm going to focus a little more on what the technical constraints are, and And that radical transformation to the state that they're in, to where they're going to be, and how that product really helps them get there. Same story, different focus. >> So, I've got the same story, different focus, different stages of leadership. >> Right. >> And in all of these you've sort of weaved in a persona who has a problem >> But there's an emotional angle, right? I'm supposed to resonate with this story. How does that work? In terms of the leader telling the story and the user hearing it. >> Well, I mean, the, when you, when you put the design team in the context of the problem, the design team often rallies around that problem. And, because there's emotional value created in those stories, whether it's, whether it's Billy, or it's >> Or it's your parents struggling with their first VCR out of the box. And so I think those stories, they become richer with a variety of level of content based on where you are in your development process. So, when we start with a base story that helps us incubate initial ideas. But those ideas become more robust the further you go through the value chain, with greater constraints applied to them. And so the story, the core story stays the same to Liz's point, but it morphs, and evolves, and becomes better. And the ideas become better and or they don't resonate, and you shift them off to the side. So, ideas are not always great. And the story is based on those insights. And if the insights are good, and the constraints are robust, and you're working within that, you have a greater cause for success. That's an interesting point, because I've actually heard people who have fallen in love with their story they're telling. And the design, and the innovation doesn't actually live up to the expectation of it. And, it's hard to give it up, because you've now incorporated the story into your raison d'etre. >> Yeah, I mean, we're constantly challenging our students to go back to the insights. Does it ladder to the insights, and are we overdesigning? Are we overthinking this? Are we putting our own bias against it? And so if the insights are robust and it crafts as good story, that's what we want to be grounded in. >> Excellent [MUSIC]
