Leadership & Strategy + Fighter Pilots + Design Education with Jason "TOGA" Trew — DT101 E145
Design Thinking 101
When I first connected with Jason Trew (callsign: TOGA), I knew this conversation would challenge some assumptions about where design thinking belongs. Jason is an Air Force fighter pilot and strategy leader turned professor. What emerged from our conversation wasn't just another story about design thinking adoption, but a deeper exploration of what he sees happening when we distinguish between capital-D Design Thinking and lowercase-d design thinking, and why that distinction matters for everyone trying to create meaningful change. Jason's journey from F-15 pilot to design educator reveals...
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Operational Excellence in Design + Leadership + Design Ops with Jon Fukuda — DT101 E144
Design Thinking 101
Jon said that when he first discovered the design operations community at the 2019 Design Ops Summit in Brooklyn, it felt like coming home. Here was this entire tribe of people who cared about the same things he’d been passionate about for years—creating systems that help designers do their best work. In this episode, I'm talking with Jon Fukuda, co-founder of Limina.co, about how design operations has evolved from an unnamed set of practices into a vital discipline that drives organizational excellence. As organizations continue to face economic pressures, the conversation around design...
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Building Sustainable Design Research Systems with Sam Zucker — DT101 E143
Design Thinking 101
The tension between doing good research and delivering on tight timelines is something I've experienced throughout my career in design and innovation. This conversation with Sam Zucker unpacks powerful approaches to making research more sustainable and equitable while building systems that support continuous learning and engagement. What particularly struck me was Sam's practical framework for embedding research into organizational workflows. Her approach transforms research from a periodic, resource-intensive effort into an ongoing capability that shapes decision-making and product...
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Architecture + Decision Design + Learning Spaces + Strategy with Adam Griff — DT101 E142
Design Thinking 101
In this episode, I explore how architectural thinking enhances strategic decision-making with Adam Griff. Our conversation reveals how his architectural background shapes his approach to helping higher education institutions navigate complex decisions and create flexible space solutions. We dig into the challenges of designing spaces that can adapt to unknown futures and discuss how universities can better integrate with their communities. I particularly love how Adam frames flexibility in building design as creating platforms for future adaptations rather than just multi-purpose spaces....
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Joy, Transformation, and Design as Creative Liberation with Sahibzada Mayed — DT101 E141
Design Thinking 101
Sahibzada Mayed is a creative alchemist who uses design and storytelling to cultivate joy and imagination as tools of liberation. Mayed serves as the Co-Lead for Strategy and Research at Pause and Effect, a liberation-focused imagination and design collective based on Coast Salish territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Beyond that, Mayed leads a small-scale startup, Naranji, that focuses on gender justice and decolonization in fashion. Today, we talk about decolonizing design and creative liberation. Listen to learn about: >> The impact of colonialism and power...
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Healthcare Design: Evidence-based, Business Fluent, and Change Prepared with Matt Van Der Tuyn — DT101 E140
Design Thinking 101
Matthew Van Der Tuyn is a designer and healthcare innovation strategist. Matt is the Senior Director of Design and Strategy at the Center for Health Care Transformation and Innovation at Penn Medicine. The mission at the Center is to serve as a catalyst and accelerator for initiatives that dramatically improve health outcomes, patient and provider experiences, and decrease the cost of care. Matt has had the unique opportunity to help build the Center’s design, discipline, and elevate design thinking as a key tool in Penn Medicine's organizational toolbox. Matt's design process balances...
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Behavioral Science in Human-centered Design with Christina Hanschke — DT101 E139
Design Thinking 101
Christina Hanschke's career journey has spanned many diverse roles. She's been a music therapist, nanny, and UX researcher, and she’s currently a Design Lead at Final Mile, where she applies a multidisciplinary approach to address pressing societal changes, drawing from behavioral science, human-centered design, and systems thinking. As an adjunct faculty at DePaul University, Christina extends her passion for leveraging behavioral science in human-centered design to the next generation of innovators fostering a diverse culture of curiosity and continual learning. Christina and I talk about...
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Organizational Design + Strategy + Change with Stephanie Gioia — DT101 E138
Design Thinking 101
Stephanie Gioia is a founder at Future Work Design with a focus on strategic planning and organizational innovation. She also serves as the director of the Either/Org project and teaches human-centered design for organizational innovation at the University of Oregon's Executive MBA program. She’s taught at Stanford’s d.school, University of Michigan, and Pacific Northwest College of Art. She is the founder of deckaholic.com, the world's largest library of card decks for problem solving and creativity. We talk about organizational design and strategy, and helping organizations navigate...
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Designing Your Career + UX for Small Business with Sarah Doody — DT101 E137
Design Thinking 101
Sarah Doody is a user research experience designer and researcher. She's also the founder of Career Strategy Lab, a UX career coaching program. In 2011, she co-created the curriculum and taught for General Assembly's first 11-week UX intensive program in New York City. She has extensive experience doing experience design, product strategy, and user research for companies including Fatherly, Sling, Citi Bike, We Work, Domino Magazine, Tictail, the Muse, Dow Jones and more. She speaks at conferences and teaches workshops worldwide. Today, we talk about designing your career and user experience...
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Design Ethics with George Aye — DT101 E136
Design Thinking 101
This is the inaugural DT101 Live!, with guest George Aye. George co-founded Greater Good Studio with the belief that design can help advance equity. Previously, he spent seven years at global innovation firm IDEO before being hired as the first human-centered designer at the Chicago Transit Authority. He speaks frequently across the US and internationally. George holds the position of Adjunct Full Professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Today, we are talking live about ethics in design in the design industry. Listen to learn about: >> What is ethical design?...
info_outlineThis is the inaugural DT101 Live!, with guest George Aye. George co-founded Greater Good Studio with the belief that design can help advance equity. Previously, he spent seven years at global innovation firm IDEO before being hired as the first human-centered designer at the Chicago Transit Authority. He speaks frequently across the US and internationally. George holds the position of Adjunct Full Professor at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Today, we are talking live about ethics in design in the design industry.
Listen to learn about:
>> What is ethical design?
>> The current state of ethics in the design industry
>> Project “gut checks” and saying no to projects
>> How power can warp ethics
Show Highlights
[01:33] Audience welcome + breakfast fun + mochi doughnuts!
[05:20] Dawan shares the event agenda.
[07:42] Dawan introduces George.
[09:06] George starts off by talking about human-centered design.
[09:41] The story of the invention of e-cigarettes on the Stanford campus and how it relates to human-centered design.
[11:13] What George found most shocking about the story.
[11:24] It’s not just about can we do something, it’s about should we do it?
[12:38] Looking at the roots of the design industry.
[13:13] The weakness of Dieter Rams’ ten principles of good design.
[14:20] What we need is an ethical framework for good design.
[15:12] How Greater Good Studio approaches ethics in design.
[15:58] Lived experience is expertise.
[16:21] Design is transformative.
[17:04] The design industry and education has trained designers to always say yes to projects, but not to know when to say no.
[18:01] George’s Ten Provocative Questions.
[19:10] Losing one’s inner conscience and voice.
[20:47] A succinct definition of power.
[21:24] Power asymmetry.
[23:59] The risk of working on projects that potentially cause harm.
[26:00] Greater Good Studio’s weekly gut checks and breakup emails.
[27:38] Some patterns and a framework when writing your own breakup emails.
[29:12] Design is an accelerant.
[31:08] We must call out the ways in which design can be harmful.
[31:24] George’s ideas around a possible standard design code of ethics and standards for practice.
[32:05] Accountability, not gatekeeping.
[37:21] Leadership needs to constantly practice being receptive to hard feedback from the team.
[38:19] The gut check is a deliberate tripping hazard.
[40:28] Ethics for people who don’t normally handle ethics.
[42:48] Approaching the potential for harm in a trained-to-be-optimistic design industry.
[47:58] How do we approach C-suite and other leaders to have conversations around ethics?
[51:49] What the next ten years looks like for ethics in design.
Links
George on LinkedIn
George at SAIC
Greater Good Studio
Greater Good Studio on Medium
Articles by George
Why designers write on the walls (and why you should, too)
Design Education’s Big Gap: Understanding the Role of Power
It’s Time to Define What “Good” Means in Our Industry
The Gut Check, by Sara Cantor Aye
DT 101 Episodes
Design for Good + Gut Checks + Seeing Power with George Aye — DT101 E50
Design for Good + Ethics + Social Impact with Sara Cantor — DT101 E100
Trauma-informed Design + Social Work + Design Teams with Rachael Dietkus — DT101 E81