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2013 | Buch

Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses

Putting the Power of Design to Work

verfasst von: Beverly Rudkin Ingle

Verlag: Apress

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Über dieses Buch

Having met Beverly Ingle and hearing her speak about design thinking, I was enlightened and enthused. With a depth of knowledge and obvious passion for the usage of design thinking, she has already helped many business people, myself included, inject greater creativity into problem solving to deliver better results—something that is a must for left-brainers! She has an amazingly refreshing ability to create deep understanding within her audience, and a hands-on, practical approach ensures that the results are manageable and within your grasp.

—Jill Robb, CEO, Ambition Digital; Belfast, United Kingdom

Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses: Putting the Power of Design to Work is the first book on the subject for smaller businesses.

Until now, design thinking—a methodology for solving business problems and identifying opportunities—has been the playground for companies with big budgets, giving them the advantage of the innovation that comes from using the latest design thinking tools emerging from Stanford, Harvard, Northwestern, and elsewhere.

Now, thanks to design thinking expert Beverly Ingle, entrepreneurs and small-business owners can make the design thinking playground their own—and on a much smaller budget. Ingle provides the tools entrepreneurs need as well as step-by-step processes that show how to use design thinking methods to transform your business and drive organizational success.

Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses offers just enough theory to provide you with working knowledge of design thinking, but its value lies in the practical, proven, hands-on information that you can put to use immediately. You will learn:

How to incorporate design thinking processes into everyday operations, and in what areas of business the approach is most valuable How to use the most prevalent and popular design thinking tools (like ideation, prototyping, and rapid branding) effectively How to use design thinking to identify and achieve your business goals and create new business models How to create revenue-boosting new products and services using design thinking How to improve the customer/user experience to create more loyal, profitable customers

By the time you've finished reading the last chapter of Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses, you will not just be thinking about producing new products and services, boosting customer service, or developing new business opportunities—you'll be doing it. Best, it’ll show up in the top and bottom lines.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction to Design Thinking
Combining Creativity and Analysis in Business
Abstract
In the past couple of years, the term design has been thrown around quite a bit in various business contexts. We’ve heard of user design, experience design, social design, integrated design, service design, and place-based design, in addition to the term with which we are most familiar: graphic design.
Beverly Rudkin Ingle
Chapter 2. The Role of Research in Design Thinking
Don’t Assume: Ask!
Abstract
Data can be intimidating, elusive, and enlightening. Obtaining it, specifically taking the time to conduct meaningful research, can seem like an obstacle to progress. It’s not. Research facilitates progress’s emergence from the primordial soup of data so it can begin to take shape and form a solution.
Beverly Rudkin Ingle
Chapter 3. Designing a Business Strategy
Get Down to Business
Abstract
A business strategy is created to outline purposefully the path a business must take to achieve its desired outcomes. Behind your business strategy is a series of deliberate, data-driven decisions about markets, products, and services. It also involves your organization’s culture, from which your business goals, decision-making processes, and measurements of success evolve. When described this way, business strategy sounds energizing, dynamic, and meaningful. So why is it that the majority of business strategies appear constrained, confused, and stagnant?
Beverly Rudkin Ingle
Chapter 4. Designing Live Customer Experiences
Maximizing “Face Time”
Abstract
One of the more visible ways design thinking can be manifested is through live customer experiences, meaning the ways a customer interacts with your brand and business in person. In fact, now that the customer experience has become recognized as an important part of the success of a brand, a specialized marketing discipline has emerged: experiential marketing.
Beverly Rudkin Ingle
Chapter 5. Designing Digital Customer Experiences
Creating Connections in the Digital Domain
Abstract
The importance of live customer experiences is undeniable, and knowing that is incredibly valuable to your business and marketing planning. Also undeniable are the realities of our digital world and the evolving customer touch points that technology provides. A good digital experience isn't based just on functionality but on how your customer feels while interacting with it.
Beverly Rudkin Ingle
Chapter 6. Designing Services and Service Delivery
Purposeful Customer Service
Abstract
The playground of small businesses and entrepreneurs is not only product development but also services and their delivery. In fact, a service business is a common point of entry for entrepreneurship. On some level, almost everyone is qualified to start a service-based business, because everyone has some skill, knowledge, or experience for which others are willing to pay. Starting a service-based business is quite an egalitarian proposition; anyone with a decent work ethic and a desirable skill can sell a service; as opposed to product-based businesses, there is a reduced financial commitment because there is no physical inventory to purchase and maintain.
Beverly Rudkin Ingle
Chapter 7. Designing Marketing
More Than Meets the Eye
Abstract
Proper, purposeful marketing is an integral part of a business’s success. It is also one of the most volatile, subjective, and misunderstood areas of business operations. Although largely considered the fun part of business—with logos, tag lines, advertising, promotional items, letterhead, and so on—marketing done well is much more than meets the eye.
Beverly Rudkin Ingle
Chapter 8. Designing for Change
Don’t Get Caught Off-Guard
Abstract
Change is inevitable. Even if you dig in your heels and fight it every step of the way, change still happens. It can seem interminably slow, or faster than the speed of light. The sheer number of clichés and colloquialisms to describe change is an indication of its inevitability. We’ve grasped at grammatical straws to come to terms with the flow of change. It’s important to understand that change doesn’t have to happen to you. I encourage you to use design thinking tools to make change happen for you and for your business’s success.
Beverly Rudkin Ingle
Chapter 9. Designing for Growth
Minimize Growing Pains
Abstract
By no means can growth be pain-free; it isn’t a reasonable expectation to think that could be possible. Think back to when you were a child and your arms and legs would occasionally—and seemingly randomly—ache for no apparent reason. If your mother was like mine, she described those aches as growing pains. If you were like I was, that answer seemed like the dumbest thing you had ever heard. Worse, you were powerless to prevent the ache.
Beverly Rudkin Ingle
Chapter 10. Case Studies
Design Thinking in Action
Abstract
Putting design thinking into action might feel like second nature or the most foreign thing on the planet, but it’s happening every day in large corporate boardrooms and in break-out sessions at conferences around the world. Design thinking isn’t just for big businesses, though, as you’ve discovered through the previous chapters. Many small businesses owners and entrepreneurs have dipped their toes in the design thinking water and have applied its principles to a variety of challenges.
Beverly Rudkin Ingle
Chapter 11. Metrics for Design Thinking
Measuring Performance
Abstract
Every bit of work and every penny invested are for nothing if you aren’t measuring their return. It’s a core tenet of operating a profitable, successful business. The same rule applies for design thinking initiatives: you must measure.
Beverly Rudkin Ingle
Chapter 12. Glossary of Design Thinking Jargon
Put the Right Words in Your Mouth
Abstract
I have never played Meeting Bingo—the game you can play secretly during a meeting when you’re bored. It’s played like bingo, but instead of keeping track of B-5 and O-20, you keep track of jargon and business-speak like “parking lot this issue” and “sustainable practices.” We’ve all been in meetings like that, and they validate my belief that jargon should be banned from any gathering of two or more professionals.
Beverly Rudkin Ingle
Chapter 13. Resources
The Tools for Your Toolbox
Abstract
I love the image of the tools in a toolbox as an analogy for the talents, skills, and resources we possess and put to use toward completing our daily work and building our businesses. Think of this collection of resources—books, magazines, websites, schools, and templates—as your starter set of tools.
Beverly Rudkin Ingle
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
Design Thinking for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses
verfasst von
Beverly Rudkin Ingle
Copyright-Jahr
2013
Verlag
Apress
Electronic ISBN
978-1-4302-6182-7
Print ISBN
978-1-4302-6181-0
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-6182-7

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