December 2007: Roger Martin on "Design Thinking: The Next Competitive Advantage"

December 20, 20075:00 to 6:30 pmAccelerator Centre295 Hagey Blvd., Waterloo[Map]Everyone is invited to this free event. If you plan to attend, please RSVP to Wanda Eby at Communitech so we can gauge attendance and plan for an appropriate room at the Accelerator Centre. We’re thrilled to announce that Roger Martin will pay us a visit on December 20. Roger is Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and a renowned speaker on the application of “design thinking” to business strategy. For a taste of his ideas and contributions to the field, dig out your back issues of Harvard Business Review, download this PDF of Roger’s article in Fast Company, or browse the results when you search for him on BusinessWeek.

Design Thinking: The Next Competitive Advantage

Two fundamental kinds of thinking co-exist and often collide in business organizations: analytical thinking and design thinking. Both have their places, but as organizations grow, analytical thinking — which focuses on exploitation and refinement of the current state of knowledge — often crowds out design thinking, which pushes knowledge forward and creates new possibilities. To benefit from design thinking, a business needs to understand how analytical thinking and design thinking differ, why and how they come into conflict, and how to create an environment which encourages design thinking to flourish.