Transforming Design Thinking into Collaborative Innovation: Meeting the Emerging Needs and Demands of a Complex World Through Design Thinking and Collaborative Innovation

Abstract

This paper/presentation will provide a description of the newly developed MFA/MA in Design with a concentration in Innovation Studies in the College of Visual Arts at the University of North Texas and the ways in which creates opportunities for faculty members from varying disciplines (Communication Design, Anthropology, Marketing and Logistics, Information Technology and Decision Sciences) to teach linked classes to cohorts of interdisciplinary graduate students—enabling the program to more effectively meet the demands of an increasingly complex world within which design is practised.

Design's increasing contribution to corporate competitiveness, its growing user inclusiveness and a marked reliance by those outside the discipline on its methodologies pose unique challenges to graduate design programs seeking to meet these emerging demands. Success in the market place and market of ideas now requires innovative thinking and collaborative interdisciplinarity. No longer is it possible for corporations to apply time-tested metrics to create innovative products that meet consumer's needs. Nor can socially conscious designers and the organizations they support rely on conventional means to respond to challenging global socio-economic conditions.

In response to these fundamental shifts, the new MFA/MA in Design seeks to empower students from disciplines across the university to collaboratively explore and redefine what it means to be innovative. The program will achieve this goal by placing its students in interdisciplinary teams to master core theoretical and problem-solving competencies rooted in collaborative innovation. These include: imaginative and adaptive thinking, visual argumentation supported by logical reasoning, iterative prototyping, project based workflow development and ethical empathy for others. Students gaining proficiency in these competencies will be able to create:

·	New methods for teaching people vital knowledge and skills;
·	New means to create jobs
·	New ways to increase business market share and revenues
·	New processes for creating products and services that meet emerging needs
·	New methods for using economic, social and environmental resources more efficiently and ethically.

Ultimately, graduates of the program will leave with the knowledge, conceptual tools and skills necessary to transform ‘design thinking’ into a powerful means to identify, broadly examine and resolve pure and applied research opportunities that can positively catalyze a wide variety of social, technological, economic, environmental and political initiatives.

Key Words:

• Collaboration
• Design Thinking
• Innovation
• Interdisciplinary
• Design Research