The April 22 -23 Center for Creative Economy Triad Design Leadershop addressed “Ugly is not Profitable.” Ryan Jacoby delivered an energetic, humorous and creative keynote talk on Tuesday evening. He addressed the process of Design-Based Innovation focusing on both the overall model flow and important elements to include under each of the model segments.

The large audience (100 plus) had many questions and comments that connected Ryan’s content to the challenges they face in their businesses.

Wednesday’s all-day workshop allowed the 30 participants the chance to put Ryan’s content into practice by addressing identified problem statements. This energetic small team experience included learning to focus on the customer’s job to be done, establishing a diverse team, using a divergent and convergent thinking process for both problem clarification and opportunity identification and experiencing the value of prototyping early and often.

Being one of the facilitators, I witnessed the progress and enthusiasm of the teams and realized how much an open and creative group can absorb in a true hands-on learning workshop.

by Bill Knowles