We were asked to answer a question which was: “How might we carry tonight ideas to our daily lives”. We were challenged to answer that question with people we have never seen before. We were challenged to answer a question that is quite general. That challenge came after a discussion about the diversity, inclusion and especially the famous “men/ women problem” (equality etc.), what does not make the problem easier.
It is 11:20 p.m. and that group of strangers turned into a group of people sharing the very deep thoughts, dreams, ideas and experience. We have never written a group blog and this is our message to the world about how to change it.
Somehow we might have derailed from the process of doing design thinking or we managed to do it in a way we didn’t realize we were doing it. In the end most of us feel like we answered the question in one way or the other. This blog represents an answer to the question. You should know that this blog is co-authored by seven persons which is amazing.
In the beginning we were asking ourselves which were tonight’s ideas and we were not feeling comfortable on getting an answer and not agreeing on anything, but we at the end agreed that the important thing was make a difference and help other people to make a difference, be inspired by people and inspire people is one idea that we can carry to our daily lives.
People have role models, people’s whose blogs you read, people that invest time in you to excel in what you do. The best way of paying these people back is to inspire others. To make a change do nice things for others without expecting anything in return.
I must say I feel touched by the way mentors pay forward, help without expecting any reward. An insight that had totally escaped me before this evening. I used to say there are people who DO things and then there are people who TALK about it, and usually they are not the same. Today I learned that this is very untrue, I really learned something. Thank you.
There was a time during this evening, where I didn’t feel comfortable, because I thought I learn something about Design Thinking. But I think the Question we got was too difficult to answer within such a short time. So at the end we had a very good discussion and I will take a lot of thoughts and life experiences with me. Perhaps it will change something in my daily life.
In the end, I am curious to know whether we were practicing design thinking. Honestly speaking, I guess no, but let’s see. At least we had a valuable discussion.
I thank all the ladies and gentlemen on my team (in order of seating clockwise): Tom Cenens, Raquel Cunha, Roel van der Berge, Jens Steckhan, Katharine Seiz and Florian Speth. I look forward to see you again!
p.s.: look for pictures, videos and other blogs on this event, because this event was really awesome.
Further reading:
Spreading Design Thinking - a practice workshop
http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=255525695
http://www.sapteched.com/emea/activities/inclusion.htm
http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/events/Summary+of+EIDI+Events
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