5 of The Best TED Talks on Design Thinking
April 2, 2019 | Design Thinking
by ExperiencePoint

5 of The Best TED Talks on Design ThinkingTED talks — the short, powerful presentations that are usually 20 minutes or less — are dedicated to spreading and advancing ideas about all kinds of different subjects. Its very name evokes creativity, and grew out of a 1984 conference about technology, entertainment and design. It has since become a globally-celebrated non-profit organization, whose mission states that it believes passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world.

Ted Talks have become a clearinghouse of free knowledge from the world’s most inspired thinkers and a community of curious people who are looking to engage with ideas and each other. So, it makes perfect sense that you can find a lot of great talks about design thinking from people who make it the central part of not just their businesses, but their lives. Here are a few of our favorites.

Design Thinking is Not Just For Designers

Noah Ullmann, a user experience designer, explores how user-driven design works in all sorts of organizations, and is not just for designers. He recently launched Audio Preserves, in which he creates impactful video narratives to capture the significant stories in people’s lives. If you have doubts about whether design thinking is right for you, Noah will put your mind at ease.

Design Thinking

If you are an educator, a manager, or someone whose teams regularly tackle big complex human-centered problems, this TED talk is for you. Doreen Lorenzo, assistant to the dean of the new School of Design and Creative Technologies at the University of Texas, talks about working together with a team to attack a problem, and how important it is to educate students about DT.

The First Secret of Design is…Noticing

Tony Fadell, who helped design the first iPod and is the founder of Nest Labs, uses a scene from The Blues Brothers to illustrate how easily people get used to the status quo, even if that status quo isn’t all that great. He notes that innovation is about noticing, and looking beyond the status quo to the invisible problem that we’re not seeing so we can improve on it.

Designers — Think Big

Design thinking in the 19th century? Leave it to Tim Brown, CEO of the innovation and design firm IDEO, to find the correlation. Brown encourages people to think big, and to embrace “local, collaborative, participatory "design thinking" to solve big human centered problems.

Paper Beats Plastic? How to Rethink Environmental Folklore

At Eco Innovators, Leyla Acaroglu breaks through deeply-entrenched environmental folklore to reveal the true impact of the products and materials we use every day. Her aim is to use design thinking to create positive change by making people think about the choices they make every day and how they affect the environment.

TED leaders say “everything they do is driven by the mission of spreading great ideas.” We at ExperiencePoint like the sound of that.

 

Learn how to enable innovation skill-building at scale here or download our free ebook Kickstart Innovation: A Guide for Organizations.