Rik, that’s a great quote by good ol’ Steve. I’ll have to come back on that in a future post. The part about the soul expressing itself in successive outer layers really sets me thinking about all the different roles design can -and should- play in those different layers. See also my next post on Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance. The book also talks about how modern westerners tend to take the outer layers of what they see for the whole truth. This is a great battle to be fought by design. Luckily we have Steve on our side!

I really love the insight of ‘we are moving from designing things towards design thinking.’
That’s a pretty big shift in the way things will be done.

I guess the current attitude comes from the way most people still see design. Steve Jobs said it best: “In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains of the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a human-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.”

For me, that pretty much sums up the essence of design thinking.

Good point Erik. I’ve often seen this practice being called “Corporate Design Management” and the stuff that was discussed during the DME as “Design Driven Management”. I guess a design-driven-management-award was too long of a sentence!

http://www.designmanagementeurope.com/index.php?page=dme-network

As you can see it’s a network organisation, I believe it’s initiated by Joao Mena de Matos, manager of the European Design Center, and project manager of the dutch design awards. I’m in favour of the initiative, simply because of the fact that it’s pan european, and as such, supported by the EU (remember our europe assignment ralph? ). Actually, many of the nominees were from eastern europe, wich I think is pretty cool.

In any case thanks for sharing your helpful insights & links, but for me it would be far more interesting: Who is endorsing this Award and what’s the official and un-official network behind the scenes