Dear friends,

A lot has happened in the last 20 years since we formulated and started to share design thinking in the early days of the Stanford d.school. For many of us, the environment, community and practices emerging from the early design thinking movement helped us encounter a creative part of ourselves deep down we knew was there but didn’t know how to fully utilize in our work and personal lives.

Since then, educators and consultants have spread design thinking practices far and wide. Innovation leaders and executives have utilized the methods to build and accelerate corporate innovation efforts. Former students and entrepreneurs have used design mindsets and methods to solve pressing global challenges and change lives. In many ways design thinking is bigger than any of us imagined it would be.

While studies have shown that design thinking creates real value, there is also significant feedback design thinking doesn’t always work in the real world. Many of us have experienced this first hand.

In our global work, we get to see how innovation practitioners around the world have put design thinking and other innovation practices to use. Despite the amazing gains, one thing continues to surprise us. Most of what we see is some variation or iteration of d.school bootcamp material from over a decade ago.

While the pervasiveness of this foundational content evidences its utility, it also suggests a significant gap in the field and shortfall of it’s full potential. Somehow the more advanced parts of design thinking have not spread as fast or were never made available in a form that allowed the innovation community to put it into practice.

We want to change that.

We are working on an offering for more experienced innovation practitioners that we believe will make a big difference in how design thinking can be used day to day in real work and drive faster, more continuous and lasting results at scale.

And we expect to start making it available early next year.

If you would like to have access to this more advanced content when it comes out, we need two things from you:

1. Your input and experience so we can tailor the offering to your needs

2. How to get a hold of you so we can let you know when we open the doors

To do that, click here for a quick groovy survey.

And...

Pass It On

…to anyone else you know who has encountered the magic and the pitfalls of design thinking, who has taken it as far as they can and who is looking for what’s next.

Best,

George & Mariel

.:

Global Creativity Labs

Investing in creative capacity at scale