I get asked that question a lot by people and now I have a pretty good answer–go to the blog of Jon Campbell–Branding and Innovation. Campbell did some amazing work on the Harley Davidson site before deciding to go to the Illinois Institute of Design to get an MDM, Masters of Design Methods. Now he’s blogging about his experience as a student of design thinking at the IIT Institute of Design in Chicago and its really insightful.

This is what Campbell had to say on his first post–why he went back to school, why design thinking is important to corporations and how it can end world hunger (well…that’s only partly a joke.

“Many people still think of design in terms of creating logos (graphic), cars (industrial), or the good ol’ haute couture (fashion). These all fall under the broad umbrella of big D Design, but for a marketing manager at a Fortune 500 to leave to work on what many envision is a degree in making logos and pantsuits doesn’t really make sense to a lot of people. So to make sure they don’t have a mental image of me appearing on Project Runway, I inevitably fill in the pause after “That’s cool!” with a five-minute explanation of what design-centered thinking, planning and strategy is, how that leads to innovative products, services, business models, and ultimately revenue to a company, and how it’s the Future of Business, and that programs like ID are years ahead of mainstream business, fancy MBA programs and super narrowly-focused “design as a trade” schools. Not surprisingly, I often end up boring people. In fact, I might have just lost some of you readers. (…)

Full article on:
www.businessweek.com