Design as Glue: What's the big deal about the d.school?

I just read a fantastic interview with David Kelley from the Nextd Journal. And now I want to go back to school. To the d.school that is.

David Kelley, founder and chairman of IDEO is also co-founder of Stanford University's Institute of Design (the 'd.school'). The d.school is modeled much like IDEO in that for any given project, a cross-section of students from a variety of disciplines, like engineering, education, humanities, business or medicine, are brought together to work on projects collaboratively.

Kelley calls it the 'human-centered' design approach to education. "We approached Stanford with the concept that makes design the glue that can hold different disciplines together and uses design thinking as the methodology," says Kelley.

According to Kelley one of the primary drivers of the d.school is the changing face of business today. With companies looking to innovation as a primary source of revenue growth, they're looking for fresh blood to come out and help with their innovation strategy. One of the d.school's goals is to train students to be innovators. Formal training in design-thinking holds the key.

"We hope that this program will change how people view design. What they learn is a new way of thinking and a new way of solving interesting, challenging problems," says Kelley.

Makes you want to go back to school, doesn't it?

Read Kelley's entire conversation with GK VanPatter here.