ESSU Meeting Minutes & Active Memberships
ESSU Design Thinking Event 9/21/15
September 21, 2015
Today the Enterprise Systems Student Union hosted a Design Thinking event, where John Berry spoke. John Berry is the Director of the Design Thinking Initiative at Grand Valley. He has been working for over forty-five years and received his Masters in Design. He was the Vice President of Communication at Herman Miller for several years. He came to speak to us about what design thinking is and why it is important.
He explained that by understanding design thinking as students, it will allow us to be more employable when we graduate. He stressed to us the importance that design thinking is a process where individuals need to understand their end users.. He also told us that Grand Valley is offering a class specializing in design thinking called “Design Thinking to Meet Real World Needs”.
A student asked a great question about if there was some kind of certificate or credential a student could receive in design thinking. John discussed how this was one of his goals and that he working on creating it. He also talked about his fear of design thinking becoming a fad. During his presentation, he explained the difference between art and design. Art is a self-expression, where design meets the needs of others.
A story that he told that I found very interesting was where he compared baseball to design thinking. He said everyone believes that the pitcher in baseball is the most important player but he argued that the catcher is the most important. This is because the catcher has to think strategically. He also believes that the catcher in design thinking is the most important because they are the ones who catch all the ideas and utilize collaboration.
It was great to see the amount of students that came out to this event to hear John Berry speak. Many students asked really good questions. It seemed everyone was really engaged at this event and now have a better idea of what design thinking encompasses.