Design explodes on the scene!

Recently there have been murmurs about design in the business world, with frequent reports about leaders like Infosys embracing design thinking, IBM positioning itself as a big design company, various global consulting and tech firms gobbling up design firms or speedily moving towards reshaping their culture to be far more design centric. With Vishal Sikka as the design thinking poster boy of big business and Indra Nooyi as its unlikely spokesperson - the conversation has clearly moved beyond the design love story of FMCG giant P&G.

We stoked the design thinking conversation a bit with Design Open / 30th Nov 2016, Bengaluru Palace which was a design session and dialogue curated by SPREAD at BengaluruITE.biz2016 / 28-30 Nov Bengaluru Palace, India's biggest IT and ITES event, organized by the Dept. of Information Technology Biotechnology and Science & Technology, Govt. of Karnataka.

Design Open was a pop up session to trace the development of design and design thinking in the context of emerging ground-breaking products and innovative technologies, and in ushering in a new wave of growth within the Startup ecosystem. The caliber of the speakers, and the fully-packed hall were proof of the fact that design is now an inseparable element from any conversation on technology and innovation.

Design Open explored how big and small companies are leveraging design and technology to define the next, addressing big questions like:

How will the next generation create? What are the next trends and paradigms in technology, design? And how can we open up new possibilities by adding Design to Technology?

Technology, it is finally understood, without design is like a body without a heart!

The design stories of tech start ups

The more evolved founders of Tech Start ups have embraced design and scripted their own unique stories. The Design Open session was a great platform for them to share these stories for the first time, to an audience that was all ears.

Design Hacks at Design Open was a session curated by Manya Cherabuddi from the SPREAD team, featuring four innovative Startup leaders from diverse backgrounds, each sharing their design hacks and responding to three big questions posed by her:

• What is the change that you are designing?
• What is design success to you?
• Can you share your biggest Design Hacks or Tricks?

The session saw a series of presentations by innovative startup leaders who are putting design to great use for meaningful innovation. Speakers on the Design Hacks panel included:

Satish Kannan, CEO & Founder of Docsapp, a service that allows people to connect with doctors using a chat interface. Satish shared interesting stories of how he and his team have found ingenious and unobtrusive ways of designing around user behaviour. In one situation, the company found that many people in small towns were using the app to find doctors, but didn’t have access to credit/debit cards and weren’t familiar with online banking. How did the transactions happen then? Through cash of course, and as Satish discovered - people offered a rather unlikely payment method for setting up a consultation with a doctor: prepaid mobile phone recharges. Customers said to the Docsapp team, “Why don’t you give me your phone number, I’ll recharge your phone?”

When they observed this behaviour repeatedly, Satish knew he was onto something — he had to figure out a way to make this informal payment mechanism work. He let people pay by asking them to recharge a certain phone number at first, but then went on to work with service providers like Airtel to make the transaction flow smoother. People can now pay by deducting the consultation fee from their prepaid mobile balance. Although the final solution seems simple, the design thought, observation, and ingenuity that went into it are truly remarkable.

Somnath Meher, Founder of Witworks, maker of the Blink watch, talked about their vision to redefine the paradigm of wrist wearables, by creating a watch that is not just a gadget, but something beautiful which reflects the intrinsic craftsmanship of physical product design. While prioritising product features or starting the design process, they always ask - “Would the user be delighted? Would this make them happy?” Designing for delight, the Blink team have moved away from creating just a miniature phone on the wrist, and are reimagining the way watches fit into our lives. Blink is on its way to create a simpler, better and new way to interact.

Vivek Rajkumar, Founder of Airwood, talked about how his company is revolutionising farming with data science and technology. However, what was interesting here is that Vivek has a rather unique set of partners to work with and convince— farmers, who don’t necessarily care for technology or design that seems inaccessible. Instead of pitching benefits of data science bundles, Vivek took the design route - that of empathy, by showing and demonstrating, rather than telling farmers what to do. Vivek and his team have won the confidence of farmers by taking up a plot of land, getting down to actually farming, and showing how their solution can give better yields. An unconventional and successful strategy! His storytelling drew admirers and interest from investors and the audience.

Sandeep Ravula, Head of Business Development & Strategic Partnerships, Hug Innovations, showcased their product, the world’s first gesture control Smartwatch. And possibly the very first one with a sharp focus on safety — most smartwatches have the same gamut of health tracking, fitness, phone features on the small screen, etc. but none have really tackled the issue of safety successfully.

With Startup leaders leveraging the powerful combination of tech and design, there is great hope for the next generation of businesses in India to create impactful and transformative experiences.

This power session left startups in the audience thinking far more deeply about design as a way of creating value and of crafting their unique stories.

Scaling up design impact

Design is optimistic and curious about the future. Driven by research, which leads to understanding and empathy for users. Comfortable with complexity, it grapples with ambiguity, to create meaningful solutions with beauty, simplicity and truth. What are the possibilities then, when you scale up design?

Design Open started off with Design Impact, a panel discussion with design and innovation leaders from influential multinational organisations, who have a deep understanding and appreciation for design and how it accelerates change. Design Impact was curated and moderated by Sonia Manchanda (me), Founding Partner of SPREAD Design + Learning.

We asked the panelists about:

• The big why: If there is/was a story about the turning point, of when and why their organisation turned to design.
• The big how: If there is a unique blend of design with technology and/or some other mix that drives how design serves as the differentiator?
• The big impact: Moments when business was disrupted and achieved big impact by design
• The big next: Design innovation disrupts entire industries… Are there areas of disruption that big companies and Startups should be watchful of? What’s next in a disruptive landscape?

Our power-list of panelists who brought us up to speed included:

Sanjeev Narsipur, Managing Director, Accenture, who talked about how the global innovation giant is continuously multiplying their design capability. Referring to the Design Value Index he highlighted how companies embracing design are scaling up at a rapid rate. Innovation is the product of creativity in problem finding with empathy towards user experience and execution aimed at problem solving. In just 5 years, Accenture has acquired 30+ design studios and has showed how design is at its core, with 30% of Accenture India already trained in Design Thinking.

Hrridaysh Deshpande, Director, DYPDC School of Design, spoke about how every firm in the world today makes strategic decisions based on a set of assumptions, which are either true or false. 4 types of assumptions, namely common sense, common nonsense, uncommon sense and uncommon nonsense underpin a firm’s strategy. These assumptions in most cases are shared with competitors. Shared assumptions cannot be the source of success or failure. Hrridaysh emphasized how innovation is the art of discovering uncommon sense, or new truths, and discarding common nonsense. He concluded, saying, “The world as a whole benefits the most when you do something new, and innovative or when you do it differently, or better.”

Dr. Jayan Sen, Associate Vice President & Head, Learning & Development, Infosys, talked about how “Design is all about Learning to see what is not there!” Infosys has collaborated with the Stanford D.School to train 118,000+ employees in Design Thinking through experiential learning using the AiKiDo (Artificial Intelligence Knowledge and Design Thinking) methodology which combines knowledge and energy. Dr Sen emphasized on how this approach has brought the firm closer to its clients, through enhanced customer satisfaction and has helped drive the company’s satisfaction scores to a 10 year high!

With 100,000+ employees now as  Design thinkers, Infosys has sparked a customer centric culture of innovation. The firm envisions to democratize design thinking by creating a common vocabulary across the organization making it a way of life, drive additional depth via numerous Experience Design and Innovation engagements across its portfolio. Catalyzing social dialogue around Design Thinking via targeted enterprise and social campaigns, Infosys will collaborate with clients to help them get closer to their customers through deep empathy conversations and rapid prototypes.

Sudhindra V, Chief Design Officer, IBM Interactive Experience said, “Design has arrived and is here to stay” - describing how design is “the difference” between knowing and assuming, doing and saying, and great and good. He highlighted that great design is not an accident and emerging technology and innovations in the digital space, evolving roles of a CMO have scaled the creative economy. Sudhindra further emphasized how design for firms increases profitability and ushers in cultural change, moving them up the value chain. He urged the audience to nurture behaviours that encourage creativity to create a design driven work culture within organizations. Sudhindra concluded by saying, “Designing the design culture is a continuous activity and it is the responsibility of all of us.”

Saumitri Choudhury, Experience Design and Innovation, Samsung R&D, talked about  how design is all about meaningful innovations. He emphasized how “Leadership comes with responsibility” and Samsung looks at system design as opposed to narrative design. Referring to the Samsung initiative of Make for India, Saumitri shed light on how the global tech giant is moving from Instancy to Intimacy, Immersiveness and Identity.

While the panelists shared insightful stories and anecdotes on design success and how they’ve embraced design, the engaged audience responded with thought provoking questions.

Design the next

Bengaluruite.biz 2016 brought together 100+ Speakers, 1800+ Delegates, 200+ Exhibitors, 450+ Organisations and 10000+ Visitors, including C Level Executives, Young Innovators, Technocrats, Investors, Policy Makers, Scientists, Social Entrepreneurs, Students and Media from India and Overseas and the Government to come, connect, collaborate and craft unique experiences .

Spread Design and Innovation was design partner of the prestigious event. Our clients, Ms. V. Manjula, Principal Secretary, Dept. of Information Technology Biotechnology and Science &Technology, Govt. of Karnataka and MD KBITS Ms Tanushree Debbarma and their team were seeking engagement with youth and local talent. To achieve active and creative engagement, we created a Design Dare for an inspiring, relevant and enduring identity for the event. The level of commitment and sincerity of the response surprised everyone concerned. 200 usable entries were judged, to arrive at one winning logo. That combines local elements with dynamic and futuristic movement. The winning entry was by Mr B. Nagendra and Spread invited the winner over to guide him on the refinement of the logo, in order to achieve global standards.

The identity, communication across media, the exhibition and even the press kit, each element was crafted mindfully, leveraging design and design principles for BengaluruITE.biz 2016 by Spread to define the next and elaborate how design thinking will play a greater role in crafting the next wave of innovation. Thus the opportunity to integrate the ‘Design Open’ platform was created.

Spread is a new age firm working at the intersection of design, technology, and learning. More about Spread: www.spread.ooo and www.spreadlearning.com