Thank You! for your participation tonight, we really appreciate it.
We hope the event was useful, informative and fun for you.
Please share with the Team, and the group your observations, reactions, predictions of your experience tonight.
Please also follow the Project's blog.
We all want to continue to hear about your use of Bodystorming, theatre+design, and what ever else your doing/thinking... (Pictures will be posted soon!)
Thanks again.
The Team
Byron Stewart
Dennis Schleicher
Miaoqi Zhu
Storm away.............
Last night we did a bodystorming in Chicago. We had a great group of people who came to do bodystorming and they enjoyed it. They were a mix of designers, engineers/Computer scientists, and actors. One of the most interesting comments of the evening was by Byron Stewart of Dramatic Diversity , my theater partner in this, who commented about half-way through the exercise to me that he had initially thought some of the engineering and computer science people were actors because they were getting into it so well.
ReplyDeleteThat speaks to the importance of structuring an environment and activities. Everything about the evening was positioned and arranged to encourage people to bodystorm. We weren't just telling people "Ok, now bodystorm." Even though this is similar to improv and as such seems not to be scripted there is a lot of preparation and planning involved.
Roger Martin writes about "stance . . . the knowledge domain in which you define how you see the world around you and how you see yourself in that world." In last nights bodystorming we put people into a different stance and it resulted in encouraging exploration and innovation in how people saw and approached the design problem. As Martin also writes "The design thinker has a stance that seeks the unknown, embraces the possibility of surprise, and is comfortable with wading into complexity not knowing what is on the other side."
I enjoy very much how Martin writes about design thinking and believe that bodystorming like this are one of the few ways to cultivate this kind of stance for people.
References
Roger Martin in "The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage." 2009
Issue Boards (Another Technique for Design Thinking)
I have enjoyed the exercise. It is actually beyond my expectation, everyone got involved and acted out their ideas very well.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I want to say about "Brainstorming" and "Bodystorming" is: I personally think "Brainstorming" typically occurs before "Bodystorming", although the latter can facilitate idea generation.
"Acting out" possible design solutions are not just good in terms of invoking empathy among designers/engineers/researchers, but also great in sharing your work progress with clients in an affective way.
Again, thanks for coming last night!
I really had an amazing time participating in Bodystorming.
ReplyDeleteIt was truly a great exercise that I can use it in my student organization. Acting out with other people in my group not only allowed me to brainstorm solutions efficiently but also allowed me to think about every possible scenarios behind my ideas. I believe that this exercise is very valuable to practice human centered design and understand the empathetic needs from the users.
Thank you so much for inviting us!
-Hannah Chung from Design For America
Fantastic workshop!
ReplyDeleteI already used the alphabet warm-up twice! I believe the greatest help came from the "freedom to make a fool of oneself".
Once we were just having fun, our minds opened to creativity.
Absolutely stunning. No trees left behind!
Mert Iseri from Design for America
This workshop was amazing!
ReplyDeleteImprov meets design!
It was great how people of all ages came together in such creative ways.
-Aaron Horowitz from Design for America