Rethinking Design Movement

Updated: Nov 3, 2023

Becoming More Visible

Greetings again NextD Journal Readers: Some good news: The awareness train is growing. Since we launched the NextD initiative in 2003 we have seen awareness slowly growing in the design community that there is need to rethink a new track of design / design thinking/doing methods to be more in sync with the rising complexity of challenges facing our organizations, our communities, our societies and our planet.

For a long time it was a slow moving awareness train in the design community. Somewhat oddly the arrival of design thinking marketing campaigns became a distraction, and a blockage to recognition regarding need for change. Finally in 2019-2021 we are seeing a tipping point arriving and the tide turning towards acknowledgement of need for change and alternate tracks.

While many of us have been involved in the Rethinking Design Thinking movement for many years, others are arriving, writing books, white papers, blog posts, creating events and bringing new energy to the prospect of rethinking how, an always expansive design philosophy could be better synced with actual methodologies.

For too long the gap between the promise of design / design thinking and the delivery was big enough to drive a truck through but with the help of many, diverse contributors there is hope that the gap is being constructively closed and a new frontier for the application of design / design thinking/doing in the context of complexity is more robustly opening.

By choice, some of us stepped through that door years ago and have been operating on the other side for at least a decade. As the shifts and the movement now becomes more visible what we know so far is that there is not one way to address the needs of operating in increased complexity arenas but rather there are several approach streams emerging.

For the most part, (with a few arriving exceptions) the changemakers around this subject are not traditional firms, associations or institutions. No official body is santioning what is being said and done on this subject to create new pathways, but never-the-less this work has occurred and is occurring. At this point its a train that can't be stopped and we see growing appetite for better understanding. More on this soon.

In this thread we are simply sharing some example quotes from folks who we recognize to be officially or unofficially part of the Rethinking Design Thinking Movement and the interconnected Emerging Practice Community. In this collection we also include folks who are onto the notion of need for change due to the arriving uncertain, continuously changing future and a new/next normal, whatever that turns out to be.

Happy to share this collection with those who are interested in this subject. More soon.