How Can Design Thinking Approach Improve Business

Here videos I found on how to incoporate design into business.



This video is pretty long so if you don't have time, you can start from around 00.21.He talks about how can analytical thinking person(left brain) and intutive thinking(right brain) working together and bring good side from both to the business.



When a lot of people think about the word"design", they might think about something that related to piece of artwork,something more tangible like graphic things,fashion design, or product design.But actually,design can be the way how can we approach to problems as well.Design thinking person are open minded to any solution,they are more flexible and free from constrant.

A Whole New Mind: The Middle Way

After finished the first half of this book "A Whole New Mind" by daniel H.Pink, I found some points that I cannot agree with the writer. I fully understand what the point that the writer want to sell and I strongly agree that the ability to see the big picture and creativity are so important not only today but for the whole period of our human development. The target audiences for this book of course Americans so I am not the target audience for this book.The way the writer try to claim why the right brain directed thinking is so important for this era or what he calls "Conceptual age" by blaming the abundant of goods,machines that can replace the human,and the cheaper wage labors in the developing countries in Asia.I don't think this is a good opening to the selling point.I think most people can answer these questions:
- Who created the intelligent machines that can produce a ton of product and can do the job that human used to do faster and cheaper?
- Who decided to relocate the factories or outsourcing some works to the developing countries in order to make more profit and use the natural resources from the poor countries and of course left all the pollution over there as well.

Another point, I think the thing he call the right brain directed thinking is not anything new and it's not just become more important this day.These kind of abilities: seeing the big pictures,sense of beauty,designing,creativity,etc., have been part of mankind since the ancient period.Think about how can the Egyptians from 3,000 - 5,000 years ago were able to create one of the most amazing architectures and what about their technique to preserved the body for new life after death.This can prove that this kind of thinking ability played the important role since the early civilization.

http://www.jaunted.com/files/admin/egypt5.jpg


From agriculture age to industrial age,then from industrial age to information, and from information age to conceptual age, all the movement from stage to another were always driven from the new innovation in that time.Don't the new innovations come from someone imagination and the strong believe that his or her crazy idea is possible?

I do not believe that the right brain people will rule the future. Yes right brain functions are very important but we still need the left brain persons.We need a balance between these two skills and I am sure a lot of us already good at both and we just have to choose what kind of skill we need in the particular job and situation.If we realize that one of our skill is weaker than another, how can we strengthen that skill.Finally,if we cannot develop or improve the weaker skill, then learn to work with other people that can complement us.The bottom line is we only need the middle way, we need a balance for both inside each of us and balance in our whole society.

Week 4 Reflection : How Social Networking Sites Affect Google

One point that we discussed in class and I found it's interesting and want to do some more research is that Google lost their web finding number to Facebook.Although,this might not true by now but might be possible in the future.People do not search for information but they have been told about information and where are the sources for information from social networking websites like Facebook. I have never though about this point before but when I think about how many percentage of information I search from Google or elsewhere compare to the information that I have been told from Facebook,email,classes,blogs,RSS,etc., I found that they almost about same percentage. Although, I am not a heavy user of social networking sites,I still recieve a lot of information with searching for it. But for me I still prefer to spend time and searching for information I really need or interested in.
Full of meaningless information for me is not different from having unwanted clothes in the closet.

Here link about this topic I found http://www.suite101.com/blog/marcbitanga/how_social_networks_could_affect_googles_algorithm

Growing up with Google

After read through this article, I cannot agree more that very aspects change: student change,technologies change,time change,
education change,and attitude toward education change as well. I know that today education became one kind of businesses and students are customers. The customer oriented approach is not something new for the business sector, but when we have to apply this approach to education, I feel a little strange. Absolutely educators have to change the way they teach and adopt technologies into the classroom.We should use technology because it can enhance the learning,not because it's a trend or other people use them.The new thing is not always better.

I would like to quote some part of this article about an awareness of applying technologies into education.
"digital comfort does not necessarily mean technology proficiency"
"Just because students know how to open a web browser educators should not assume that everyone knows how to search for information."
"How do we ensure that students develop the critical thinking skills necessary to survive and thrive in age when anything can be found on Internet"

The Twitter Explosion | American Journalism Review

The Twitter Explosion  | American Journalism Review

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twitter

Franky,I would not have signed up for twitter if I hadn't had to. Why? This kind of thing is not for me.
I don't want to expose my activities of the moment to the world; I am nobody then who care what am I doing.
No one in the world right now I want to follow. Although, I signed up for some social networking sites, I am not a big fan or crazy about these social networking things. I agree that we get some benefits from them but for me one or two must be enough. I hate when some friends invited me to join some new social networking site, more!-No!.

Let's go back to twitter,as a newcomer I found it's a bit confusing to use. The home page starts with 140 character tweets
"what's happening" that seems simple but when I post something, I don't know where it go and what else I can do besides this .How can I find someone who are interesting to follow? I just feel the twitters interface is not a user friendly when compare to Facebook (I hate the new interface on facebook as well). I think twitter is just good for entertainment, if people want a real information then go to blog to elsewhere .

I have read some reviews of twitter and I found them useful for the newcomers like me, here links below and I also share one article from American Jurnalism

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2197461,00.asp
http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/18494/?a=f

week 3

Today class discussed on several issues: peer review, privacy,adding tag in our blog post,real world topic for the final project,etc.
I think the main discussion was "privacy".For me every point of views from our classmates are all right but they are only from different angle or different perspective. The situation in the video that the principal can check what students are doing on Internet while they are in the classroom and suppose to use Internet to study is fine. Students must know that what they are expected to do and they should do in class.But the point is why didn't teachers tell them that they were watching while they were using Internet in class.I don't know if there are some reason why school didn't inform the students in the first place. It might be part of research or experiment or other reason.

I agree with Elizabeth that when people know that they are being watched while they are teaching or other kind of works,people are tend to pay more attention and try to perform the best as they can. Again,this case for me is acceptable because this is in the work place.I understand that this thing is annoying and I don't like either but I just think it's understandable.If the workers, students or whoever do what they are suppose to do in the certain time and space then why they have to care that they are being watched or not.However,this has a certain limit when and where teachers, employers can monitor what their students and staff are doing.This is a link about workplace privacy and employee monitoring

Emerging Technologies in E-learning

After I read this chapter"Emerging Technologies in E-learning", the 2 opposite side of thought came to my mind.
The positive one,I was amazed how these technologies can enhance and facilitate learning, and our life. I have never used online for a formal education before but I decided to attend 801 class online using Elluminate since I can save $4 for train, save about 2 hours to travel to school. Since English is my second language and I understand the topic better when I have more time to think about it carefully,I don't feel comfortable to discuss in class ,most of the time I have nothing to say; moreover,for this kind of class don't have any hand on skill and very one can access to the same learning material and discussing forum.Then online option using technologies is suit my leaning style.But for hand on class like learn how to use a software I think face to face class room still works better.Although,I can learn a lot of software online like lynda.com,I learn better form traditional classroom. love that these emerging technology provide the learners more alternative to choose what is the best way to learn.We are all unique that must be nice if we can play around with technologies that we can access and customize our own learning solution.

I also like the idea that Wiki sites adopted some useful technique from the commercial site.According to the reading, Wikipidia adopted rating systems from Ebay to help solving problem on how to verify the accuracy of each educational resource. This is the important point and as I am the one who often rely on information on Wikipedia, how can I know that the content is accurate since anyone can create the content. As I am a Ebay buyer,I like this system and I think this rating system can solve this problem in some degree.

For the negative thought,after I read through the list of these emerging technologies,I felt there are overwhelming numbers of technologies I have to catch up if I want to be part of this profession. Several terms in the list that I have never heard about before like: mashups,swarmcasting,long tail.Nowadays,technologies change very fast, not only have to keep up date with brand new technologies, but also software that we already used keep up dating the new versions.I like to keep track how many time a week my computer ask me to update new software.These scared me since I am looking forward to work as a structional designer in the near future.A lot of thing we learn to day like software or some technologies might be gone or out of date in the next few years.I know that we cannot stop learning but we have to learn even faster in this flooding of information and technologies age.

Week 2 Reflection

This week is very interesting, so many ideas from our classmates,video, and our guest speaker inspired me.
One idea that absolutely grabbed me is form our classmate,Ian.
He talked about the people who teach in the university level
they don't need to have teaching credential, degree or serious training in education
or how to teach people effectively. On the other hand, it is required for teachers in schools.
Since I am a foreigner, I don't know much about the educational system here in the US.
But what Ian said so this is same as what happen I my country,Thailand.
I used to teach undergraduate student in the university in Bangkok.
I have a master degree in Mass Communication and also experiences in the field,
so I qualified to teach in Mass Communication Department although I didn't have any degree in education.
The university provided a very short session on how to teach but I thought they was not very serious about it.
I taught so many student with out knowing deeply how to teach effectively.


The same thing happened when I was a undergraduate student (political science),
I studied in one of the best university in Thailand.All professors have high profile,
99%(from around 20) have doctoral degree form the top schools from the US.,UK,or France.
It's very difficult to get in and teach there, they need to have an outstanding academic background,
but nothing mention about the teaching skill. So, some of them have never realized that
student don't understand what they try to teach, and some class so boring or too many information
to remember in one session.

It would be nice if my old professors have a chance to watch the video that we watched in class
"21st Century Schools: Learning in the Digital Age". I am grade that I did and sure I am going to be
a better teacher than what I was before.


here my lovely riverfront university