I’m reminded of Gene Autry’s classic as I type this, getting back out to the world of engaging with a broader community around topics of design, systems, AI, innovation and more. My time teaching at the Nueva School was magical and consuming in all the right ways. One of the frameworks I was able to prototype was connecting Design Thinking to Systems Thinking and Data Science. The idea of combining at the time, these three domains, was to help students get beyond the “design saviors” trap, to consider the nonlinear and downstream impacts of the solutions they were designing and then using data science to close the feedback loop on their efforts.
Of course, being teenagers, I had them design for a user they care a ton about, themselves. Discussions of the importance of empathy didn’t capture their attention as much as hacking their own lives. They had to decide on a behavior they wanted to measure in their lives, identify the system pattern that drove that behavior and then hack their way to a new behavior. The results were incredible, the students learned to look at their own lives in a more objective lens, see the system impact of the various “products” they designed for themselves and close the feedback loop as to what worked or did not.
Some students successfully started new hobbies as a way to find balance in their lives, others worked to interrupt their cycle of binging Netflix. Some were successful in their personal hacks, others failed in catastrophically hilarious fashion, but most all students put serious effort into the project because they are their most important user. And that was the goal, not success or failure but to go on the journey, to stay in the saddle even when it got rough. And along the journey, they improved their understanding of how to design experiences, anticipate the down stream impacts and use evidence to check their progress objectively.
That was more than three years ago, before the GenAI boom. Now I would extend the framework to include AI across the entire framework, as a tool to augment design thinking practice, a partner in identifying the system patterns at play within an user scenario, as well as means to help with the sense making of the data that elucidates the impact of the intervention.
There will be more in the coming days and weeks as I start to explore these topics and share again. My plan is to extend this into a podcast of sorts, enabling a dialog with the greater gestalt, and providing a platform to bring in guests that are also wrestling with these topics, issues and opportunities.
It’s good to be back in the saddle again!
John,
Great to see you back in the saddle – I’m my world you never left it! I’m excited about how this combo strategy can be used with our youngest students: what does system thinking and data science and AI look like with 6-8 year olds?
John,
It’s so great to see you sharing what you love to do with others again. I’m eager to hear your podcast and to read more of your blogs. I truly regret that I had to leave the Bay Area and my opportunity to work with you. I had so much more to offer and only scratched the surface during those extremely stressful times. You were an absolute angel of understanding to deal with all the snafus when you should not have had to… I truly wish we could have had the opportunity to start over because I still believe you are a genius and an absolute gem of a mentor to work with. I had to take a hiatus after that to care for my mom and it would be great to get in touch with you to review some of my ideas for bouncing back into the design world, just like you have recently succeeded in doing so. I have not remained absolutely latent since 2012 – I use design thinking daily – but I’m really putting it to serious work into product and experience design now. Since the technology is rapidly changing, I’d love your input on some of my ideas and how I might make them them not only come to fruition, but also, really make an impact in the digital and social good of the world. What is the best way to contact you? You can DM me here (if I have any DMs left) or email me @ jenn@alumni.stanford.edu
Yours in longtime friendship,
~ Jennifer Tackman