Category: Students’ stories

  • The Rabbit Hole of Design Thinking

    Professor and researcher Katja Tschimmel and ideation facilitator Gijs van Wulfen showed us where the Rabbit Hole of Design Thinking is. So I also jumped in it, dug together with fellows hands on for two full days – and we are still digging. The more we explore, the more we find. This post is about what…

  • Innovation versus an intern’s comfort zone

    I met Christopher Fabian, co-lead of UNICEF’s Innovation Unit at New York Headquarters, in spring 2012 in Finland. He was one of the panelists at the conference “Zombie Innovations or True Development” organized by Aalto University. During the conference I realized how close the subject was to my Master’s Study Programme in Service Innovation and…

  • Field notes from Cape Town

    By SID student Terhi P. Howzit? My calendar tells me that I have been here in Cape Town for three months now. Time flies, even in a place where the concept of time is very different, African-time, as they say. Project work and studying at CPUT I am here related to the UFISA collaboration and…

  • Cut the corners first – Harness the power of futures thinking

    “Futures are about knowledge. We must be inspired about futures. Futures are also about storytelling. “ explained lecturers Minna Koskelo and Anu K. Nousiainen. In the course Futures thinking and foresights methodologies we learned how futures thinking is linked to service design and how it can be applied in business. Through hands-on workshops lot of new…

  • Helsinki Service Jam 2013 retrospectives

    It was an amazing weekend! A weekend full of surprises, with some doses of emotions and full of fun!  After a whole week of intensive work, finally Friday arrived. I was waiting for this moment already a long time. I’ve  got a really good feedback from guys attending Helsinki Service Jam (HSJ) earlier and I saw…

  • Future of the book – workshop

    by Juho Hyvärinen My course fellow Anu. K. Nousiainen arranged a year ago a workshop regarding her thesis. The idea was to create ideas in order to help her to get material for the thesis and help with the research part. Anu only had a one problem: She needed qualified facilitators to keep the discussion flowing…

  • Service Design Breakfast #2 – Mikko-Pekka Hanski, Idean

    Figure 1. Service Design Breakfast, Idean 2012 How do emotions impact the design? How can design projects benefit from understanding the emotional rollercoaster? How can you become a better designer if you are aware of the changes in emotions throughout a project? How can you adjust your project plan based on that? In this blogpost…

  • Design Thinking: The Journey of Group 5

    Design is a central feature of our everyday life. But what is it? How do you define a good design solution?  Is it about aesthetics, quality or functionality? How do you develop the creative process and when can you consider yourself a designer? The discussions, lectures and exercises during the Design Thinking course were aimed…

  • Design thinking – easy and difficult?

    “I never design a building before I’ve seen the site and met the people who will be using it.” –Frank Lloyd Wright Design thinking is a human centred design method, transforming needs into solutions. Design thinking could be called as a mind-set, a way of using creativity to tackle design problems. How to solve a…

  • Design Thinking – Group Exercises to Train Your Design Muscles

    We formed one of the teams in the Design thinking course fall 2012, led by Mariana Salgado and Sanna Marttila.  During the course we were introduced to the main ideas and philosophy of design thinking, ways of seeing and understanding design as well as with various methods, project and cases from the multifaceted field of…