Abstract
Within the last decade design has had a strategic role in tackling escalating environmental; social and economic problems. Through design thinking; creative methods have been applied to problem solving in a process of collaboration and designers working in new territories and knowledge domains. As the designer has moved further afield the method of Knowledge Exchange (KE) has become more recognised as a democratic approach to collaboration with the ethos that everyone has something creative and productive to offer. This paper provides reflections on early stage findings from a strategic design innovation process in which collaborative partnerships between academics; SMEs and designers emerged through KE and suggests that there is value to be had from using design strategically for not only those from a business or academic background but also for those from the design community and points to a need for more training for designers from all disciplines in how to use design strategically.
Keywords
design thinking; knowledge exchange; collaboration
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/servdes2014.27
Citation
Ballie, J.,and Prior, S.(2014) The Strategic Role of Design in Supporting Knowledge Exchange, in Sangiorgi, D., Hands, D., & Murphy, E. (eds.), ServDes 2014: Service Future, 9–11 April, Lancaster, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/servdes2014.27
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Research Papers
The Strategic Role of Design in Supporting Knowledge Exchange
Within the last decade design has had a strategic role in tackling escalating environmental; social and economic problems. Through design thinking; creative methods have been applied to problem solving in a process of collaboration and designers working in new territories and knowledge domains. As the designer has moved further afield the method of Knowledge Exchange (KE) has become more recognised as a democratic approach to collaboration with the ethos that everyone has something creative and productive to offer. This paper provides reflections on early stage findings from a strategic design innovation process in which collaborative partnerships between academics; SMEs and designers emerged through KE and suggests that there is value to be had from using design strategically for not only those from a business or academic background but also for those from the design community and points to a need for more training for designers from all disciplines in how to use design strategically.