A powerful guide to why even the most well-intentioned innovations go haywire, and the surprising ways we can change course to create a more positive future, by two celebrated experts working at the intersection of design, technology, and learning at Stanford University’s acclaimed d.school. “This brilliant book offers a new approach to all creative work that will expand your understanding of what it means to make and open up possibilities you didn’t know existed—it did for me.”—Adam Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Orphan Master’s Son In Assembling Tomorrow, authors Scott Doorley and Carissa Carter explore the intangible forces that prevent us from anticipating just how fantastically technology can get out of control, and what might be in store for us if we don’t start using new tools and tactics. Despite our best intentions, our most transformative innovations tend to have consequences we can’t always predict. From the effects of social media to the uncertainty of AI and the consequences of climate change, the outcomes of our creations ripple across our lives. Time and again, our seemingly ceaseless capacity to create rubs up against our limited capacity to understand our impact. Assembling Tomorrow explores how to use readily accessible tools to both mend the mistakes of our past and shape our future for the better. We live in an era of “runaway design,” where innovations tangle with our lives in unpredictable ways. This book explores the off-kilter feelings of today and follows up with actionables to alter your perspective and help you find opportunities in these turbulent times. Mixed throughout are histories of the future, short pieces of speculative fiction that imagine the future as if it has already happened and consider the past with a critical yet hopeful eye so that all of us—as designers of our own futures—can create a better world for generations to come.
A practical, illustrated guide to using the tools of design to create feelings of inclusion, collaboration, and respect in groups of any type or size—a classroom, a work team, an international organization—from Stanford University's d.school. “This is a beautiful book. Wise has applied the gift and imagination and lenses of the d.school to one of our most precious questions: how to create belonging.”—Priya Parker, author of the Art of Gathering and host of the New York Times podcast Together Apart Belonging brings out the best in everyone. Whether you’re a parent, teacher, community organizer, or leader of any sort, your group is unlikely to thrive if the individuals don’t feel welcomed, included, and valued for who they are. The good news is that you can use design to create feelings of inclusion in your organization: rituals that bring people together, spaces that promote calm, roles that create a sense of responsibility, systems that make people feel respected, and more. You can’t force feelings, but in Design for Belonging, author and educator Susie Wise explains how to use simple levers of design to set the stage for belonging to emerge. For example, add moveable furniture to a meeting space to customize for your group size; switch up the role of group leader regularly to increase visibility for everyone; or create a special ritual for people joining or leaving your organization to welcome fresh perspectives and honor work well done. Inspiration and stories from leaders and scholars are paired with frameworks, tools, and tips, providing an opportunity to try on different approaches. By the end of the book, you’ll be able to spot where a greater sense of belonging is needed and actively shape your world to cultivate it—whether it’s a party, a high-stakes meeting, or a new national organization.
Scheme the impossible! Turn your vision into reality! Transform what if into what’s next! Discover how to make your ideas work for you with this transformative guide from Stanford University’s d.school. “An operator’s manual to design thinking.”—John Maeda, Vice President of Design and Artificial Intelligence at Microsoft Possibility is the ability to see something in your imagination and materialize it in real life. You already possess (almost) everything you need to make things happen—Make Possibilities Happen helps you find your way. Discover tools and strategies for overcoming the hang-ups that prevent you from getting things done or even starting. Learn exercises for building the creative capacity of your brain. Explore ways to build on the momentum of your work so that you can keep going. Award-winning author Grace Hawthorne shares insights, ideas, and activities from the Stanford University d.school courses she teaches, as well as scientific research and entrepreneurial escapades to get you thinking productively toward making possibilities a reality. It’s hard to begin, uncomfortable to not know, natural to question yourself, easy to be impatient, and challenging to swallow setbacks. This book addresses all of these hurdles and walks you through four main stages of turning your idea into reality: SEE (imagine what’s to come), START (just begin, this is everything), DO (show up and work), and FINISH (follow through). You can positively alter your life—and other people’s lives—by making the inklings of your imagination real. All you need to do is pick up this book and START.
WINNER OF THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • “A delightful, compelling book that offers a dazzling array of practical, thoughtful exercises designed to spark creativity, help solve problems, foster connection, and make our lives better.”—Gretchen Rubin, New York Times bestselling author and host of the Happier podcast In an era of ambiguous, messy problems—as well as extraordinary opportunities for positive change—it’s vital to have both an inquisitive mind and the ability to act with intention. Creative Acts for Curious People is filled with ways to build those skills with resilience, care, and confidence. At Stanford University’s world-renowned Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, aka “the d.school,” students and faculty, experts and seekers bring together diverse perspectives to tackle ambitious projects; this book contains the experiences designed to help them do it. A provocative and highly visual companion, it’s a definitive resource for people who aim to draw on their curiosity and creativity in the face of uncertainty. Teeming with ideas about discovery, learning, and leading the way through unknown creative territory, Creative Acts for Curious People includes memorable stories and more than eighty innovative exercises. Curated by executive director Sarah Stein Greenberg, after being honed in the classrooms of the d.school, these exercises originated in some of the world’s most inventive and unconventional minds, including those of d.school and IDEO founder David M. Kelley, ReadyMade magazine founder Grace Hawthorne, innovative choreographer Aleta Hayes, Google chief innovation evangelist Frederik G. Pferdt, and many more. To bring fresh approaches to any challenge–world changing or close to home–you can draw on exercises such as Expert Eyes to hone observation skills, How to Talk to Strangers to foster understanding, and Designing Tools for Teams to build creative leadership. The activities are at once lighthearted, surprising, tough, and impactful–and reveal how the hidden dynamics of design can drive more vibrant ways of making, feeling, exploring, experimenting, and collaborating at work and in life. This book will help you develop the behaviors and deepen the mindsets that can turn your curiosity into ideas, and your ideas into action.
An essential how-to for crafting a guiding motto that sets intentions, increases creativity, and helps accomplish your goals, from Stanford University's world-renowned Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, aka the d.school. We all need agency to feel the power and joy of acting in the face of challenge and opportunity. But we also need humility and restraint to ensure that we guard against hubris and harm. We need trusted and testable navigation tools to give us confidence in our creative power and cautiousness in carrying out our work. Instead of looking for answers, what we are all seeking are tools for navigating the increasingly complex, noisy, conflicted culture that we inhabit. A personal manifesto is one of those tools. In You Need a Manifesto, Charlotte Burgess-Auburn, the d.school's director of community, first defines the challenges of information overload we all experience today. Then she explains the importance of creating a personal mantra or motto to use in the face of daily tasks and roadblocks, walking you through the steps of creating more purpose in your work. Explanations and hands-on design-based exercises are interwoven with vibrant quotes and excerpts from a curated collection of designers, artists, writers, scientists, and social activists. These quotes serve both as inspiration and material for the activities. Each chapter of the book is also preceded by a graphic by artist and letterpress printer Rick Griffith, who created his illustrations in response to the material in each chapter, to guide and inspire you to see what you can produce for yourself.
A thought-provoking guide to help you lean in to the discomfort of the unknown to turn creative opportunities into intentional design, from Stanford University's world-renowned d.school. “Navigating Ambiguity reminds us not to run from uncertainty but rather see it as a defining moment of opportunity.”—Yves Béhar, Founder and CEO, fuseproject A design process presents a series of steps, but in real life, it rarely plays out this neatly. Navigating Ambiguity underscores how the creative process isn’t formulaic. This book shows you how to surrender control by being adaptable, curious, and unbiased as well as resourceful, tenacious, and courageous. Designers and educators Andrea Small and Kelly Schmutte use humor and clear steps to help you embrace uncertainty as you approach a creative project. First, they explain how the brain works and why it defaults to certainty. Then they show you how to let go of the need for control and instead employ a flexible strategy that relies on the balance between acting and adapting, and the give-and-take between opposing approaches to make your way to your goal. Beautiful cut-paper artwork illustrations offer ways to rethink creative work without hitting the usual roadblocks. The result is a more open and satisfying journey from assignment or idea to finished product.
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