Design Thinkers Podcast

In our latest podcast, coach Simon Gough explains what is Systems Thinking and how it makes Design Thinking projects more successful.

Simon Gough is an experienced design consultant, facilitator, trainer, speaker and writer with clients ranging from fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies to central government. He also teaches our Systems Thinking three-day course.

Listen to him explore Systems Thinking, how it can be used and why it is crucial for anyone interested in developing their Design Thinking skillset.

Despite the many business closures of 2020 due to the pandemic, it also saw the launch of a record number of start-ups. Around 407,510 new businesses were formed during this period in the UK and one of those was Plateaway – an online platform that enables users to create their favourite restaurant dishes using meal kits.

Meal kits feature all the ingredients and instructions needed to help make your own version of a restaurants signature dish. Think a DIY version of Deliveroo, that can touch all parts of the country and not just those local to the restaurant. Plateaway was born when one of the founders, a former Design Thinkers Academy London open course delegate, Harry Slagel, decided that there needed to be a centralised platform where all these kits were available. Working fast, Harry and his brother Lewis brought this idea together and Plateaway was formed.

We first met Harry back in 2019 when he attended both our Design Thinkers Bootcamp and Design Thinking Facilitation courses. In this edition of our podcast we talk to Harry about starting Plateaway. We look at the lessons learned when launching a startup and Harry shares his best advice for those looking to do similar. We also look at how Design Thinking helped influence the work. Make sure you stay listening to the end in order to access a little Plateaway surprise for followers.

Some of you may have heard of the charity YMCA – the Young Man’s Christian Association. It was founded nearly 180 years ago in Britain. Now it’s based in Geneva and helps more than 60 million youth in 120 countries.

Lloyd Wamai, is Programme Innovation and Management Executive at the Africa Alliance of YMCAs. We first met him in 2019 when he attended our Design Thinkers Bootcamp. At the time he feared the YMCA had lost its relevance. Now, with the help of Design Thinking, he’s planning to lift one million people out of poverty in Africa by 2026.

In this edition of the podcast, find out how Lloyd is doing it.

Shambala is a four-day festival that takes place in Northamptonshire, England with over 200 musical, comedy, and dance acts across dozens of venues and stages, winning multiple awards along the way. We first met Shambala’s Creative Director and co-founder Sid Sharma back in 2019 when he attended our Design Thinkers Bootcamp. He loved that experience so much, he’s since been back on our Online Facilitation, Advanced Facilitation and Prototyping courses.

In this edition of our podcast we spoke to Sid about the origins of Shambala festival, their drive for sustainability, why he wants a Design Thinking tent at the festival and why he's also signed up for our upcoming Design Sprint Camp.

In our craft series we recently introduced our new prototyping course, which teaches participants to use prototypes to test their ideas: determining if they are solving the right problem, building the right thing, failing fast if you aren’t, and improving their concept through an iterative process of learning-by-doing.

One of the participants on the prototyping course was Annemarie Sheridan-Antille, who knows all about the power of the prototypes due to her work in luxury fashion. In the latest edition of our Design Thinkers Academy podcast, we spoke to Anne Marie to learn about her time on the prototyping course and how she uses prototypes, before focussing on her experiences working in the world of fashion with brands including Louis Vuitton, Hermès and Alexander McQueen. With our Design Sprint Camp on the horizon, where one of the key topic areas is fast fashion, we also discussed the fashion industry today and the changes it needs to make to deal with the fashion crisis before us.

For our upcoming Design Sprint Camp, we have a wide range of facilitators and coaches here to teach the very best of Design Thinking focussed towards our climate based challenge. One of those is Design Thinking innovator, facilitator and creative leader Arne van Oosterom, who we talk to in this edition of our Design Thinking podcast. We talk to Arne about why he is joining as a coach for the upcoming Design Sprint Camp, the benefits of learning online, and we dive into his background to learn all about his history in Design Thinking and how it’s led him to where he is today.

In this podcast we look at how the Design Thinkers Academy London used a Design Sprint to help one of the world’s largest software companies to initiate an idea that has led to real world solutions in tackling the scourge of plastics pollution. For it we spoke to Stephen Jamieson, Global Head of Circular Economy Solutions at SAP and DTA Founder, David Kester. The podcast was hosted by environmental consultant and former BBC journalist Daniel Boettcher. Learn all about the Sprint itself, the impact of Design Thinking on climate issues, and SAP's exciting new venture.

For our latest podcast we spoke to one our newest facilitators, Alieu Fofanah. Alieu is a senior consultant, facilitator and leadership coach and has worked within the private and not-for-profit sector for 12 years. He is well known for challenging mind-sets and behaviours to get leaders and teams to a place where transformative change can happen.

For the podcast we interviewed Alieu about the world of consultancy and how it is now using a Design Thinking mindset. We also spoke about his own experiences and key life mantras that have got him to where he is today.

Effective facilitation in the workplace has never been more important, as the world navigates the vast complexities of remote working. So, for our latest podcast, we speak with two expert facilitators, Arnoud Koning and Susana Osorio, about their experiences as facilitators, touching upon the art of facilitation itself, great facilitation examples and people to learn from, and also covering our new Online Design Thinking and Advanced Online Facilitation courses in detail.

For our next podcast we focussed on the research method critical to Design Thinking: ethnography. Here we explore what ethnography is and its history as a research method. We look at the benefits of ethnography to business and how it can still be conducted during the current lockdown. For this podcast we interviewed ethnographer Dr. Katie Gaddini. Katie is a sociologist and a writer and a Senior Teaching Fellow in the department of Social Science at the University College London (UCL). To find out more or for any other questions, including about our new online courses, please get in touch.