Photo from IDEO

Is the way we educate keeping pace with the changing needs of the marketplace? Are we creating graduates with the right skills for the 21st century? There are some good signs in the work we’ve been doing with the industrial design programme and industry here at IT Sligo and in other initiatives around problem-based learning. In a recent article from Metropolis magazine, IDEO summarises ten tips based on their Design for Learning efforts for the 21st century classroom.

I particularly like the call to stop calling creativity, collaboration, communication, empathy, and adaptability ‘soft skills,’ as if they were a bonus as opposed to a necessity. I’ve argued before that creativity can be taught, and certainly when it comes to ideas, the ability to come up with ideas is nothing without the ability to communicate them, or work together to commercialise them.

How do we begin to measure and evaluate process as well as outcome?

Read IDEO’s Ten Tips For Creating a 21st–Century Classroom Experience

Perhaps the first question should be whether “standard” and “innovation” should even be in the same sentence. However, I feel very strongly that there are certain systematic approaches to managing innovation that might not guarantee you’ll end up with a string of guaranteed innovations, but you’ll stand a much better chance of success if you apply some best practice.

Every day we hear calls to innovate our way out of the current crisis, but there is little practical, step-by-step how-to for organisations to apply. It was with great enthusiasm that I participated within a group to help the NSAI draft a National Workshop Agreement on a Guide to Good Practice in Innovation and Product Development Processes. It’s not a perfect document. How could it be after two day-long meetings? It is a start and highlights the need for a practical approach and more practical tools.

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Though Kevin McCullough’s article on Core77 is pitched to designers, there are several lessons to be learned by anyone looking to create design innovation. Globalisation has all but ended competition on price, and commoditised design services require designers to add more value to their own portfolio of skills.

Not only does he illustrate hidden assets beyond traditional design skills, he suggests four game changing habits than anyone can use: Adopt an agile perspective; spot gaps; make new connections; and teach yourself. Design thinking anyone?

Imagine the scene. You are a young designer, perhaps just finishing your degree and you already have 3 job offers from exciting companies in your own country.

Where is this nirvana? India, where companies are falling over themselves to employ designers as a means of generating competitive advantage.
Does this sound like Ireland? Well, no. Not yet anyway. Most of the brightest and best still find the only way to work is overseas. The future of a successful design industry in Ireland is demand-led; and it can’t come too soon.

India has just published its first design policy. Does something strike you as odd about this? Perhaps if I were to tell you that Ireland has no design policy you would be surprised?

Of course it grows out of a realisation that they cannot compete forever either as a low cost producer or a high-tech sweat shop. In short, it is going to establish design and innovation centres around the country, 4 new design colleges, design courses in all institutes of technology and a national Design Council.

The policy is good. It is coordinated, collaborative and focussed; how long before Ireland recognises the need to follow suit?

As we look into the future, what skills and behaviors will our future graduates need to possess? Have a look at the portfolio of projects already under the belt of Zachary Jean Paradis, still in his last semester as a graduate student at the Chicago Institute of Design. If you are a company looking to compete in the new value-driven economy, you’re in luck. If you’re applying for the same job and see him sitting outside for the next interview, I wish you luck.

Anyone else want to go back to school?