Designing a Better Solution
Thursday, November 17, 2011
As director of the Winterhouse Institute in Connecticut and editorial director of DesignObserver.com, William Drenttel knows a thing or two about design. But it wasn’t until an unplanned workshop in Milan a few years ago that Drenttel saw the real potential behind his field of work.
Photo: William Drenttel, Winterhouse Institute Director, DesignObserver.com Editorial Director
“The workshop was about design and poverty, which seemed at the time like a non sequitur,” Drenttel recalls. “But poverty involves everything from health care to housing to food and water. People working to eliminate poverty are trying to figure out how to design better delivery systems for these things.”
Drenttel was struck with a deeper, more meaningful challenge: how design could contribute to poverty relief. Drenttel says his work has afforded him a few bits of wisdom from which to begin thinking about any healthcare problem.
- A solution is often found by redefining what the problem really is.
- Don’t design things—design a system that inspires new ideas.
- Collaboration is the fuel of innovation.
- Enlist those you’re trying to help as co-designers with you.
“We are taught to believe we have some knowledge or expertise that others around us don’t,” Drenttel says. “But I find that sitting down with others is more likely to present a solution. That is such a shift in our thinking because it requires humility.”