“Thinking” within the popular business and innovation forum

I was writing a comment to one of Bruce Nussbaum’s blog postings on BusinessWeek online. My comment became longer than I anticipated and the tiny little comment box their website provides is just annoying. So, here’s my comment at large.

Bruce and Fred,

I am happy that we are even discussing design and thinking in the context of a business and innovation forum.

I also am very happy to see national publications and international design companies address concepts  that help us raise awareness of the seemingly infinite thinking processes we have available for use. I’d like to think that this is only the beginning of a much larger awareness towards more holistic thinking processes.

I am a designer and I think that design is a great addition to the business/innovation toolbox but it is not the end-all. There are a lot more thinking processes that may be combined with design to help us produce even more innovative ideas.

So, Bruce, on the business arena, lets keep talking about design but also lets continue to add new thinking processes beyond those classified as design.

Fred,
From the design side, I agree with the need for research. We should also keep in mind that research requires funding. Funding requires awareness. So, thank you for bringing it up into the conversation. Hopefully as more folks agree with your proposal researchers will find funding to expand the depth of the conversation.

It’s inevitable that we will need research but we should also acknowledge that the research approach would serve a different audience demographic (folks that care about the nuts and bolts).

Bruce is currently introducing new concepts to the popular business magazine audience. New concepts should  function as attention-grabbers that present ideas in a form that is simple and easy to understand. Hopefully the folks that are newly introduced into design and holistic thinking processes will eventually make their way into more sophisticated, research-based material. We have to start somewhere and yes, in the popular business forum I’d say we’re still just at the start of this awareness.

Fred, on the Cartesian mind vs. body split concept mentioned in your article….
The Cartesian split has had a tremendous influence in the shaping of our past, present and will continue to have an influence in the shaping of our future.

Whether I agree with this Cartesian split or not is not the challenge we face today – this is just my ‘position’ on the matter.

I would like to suggest that the challenges are:
– to be able to identify it
– to be able to understand its function within the context
– to relate all these findings with more holistic alternatives and hopefully make these alternatives more attractive

Simply turning our back on the Cartesian concept because it is not something we agree with would be an act of denial that would not help us solve the type of problems we face today.

But once again, I thank you for bringing it up within the business and innovation forum. I see it as another opportunity to raise awareness about the limits imposed by socialized thinking and the possible alternatives .