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Week 4: Why is design thinking an important skill in social innovation?

Hi again! This semester sure is moving quickly. I know that is something I always seem to say during semesters, but it always amazes me at quick time passes. This week we discussed Design Thinking and how to use that to address issues. I found it interesting that we can have such a thing as design thinking. It seems to me to be a bit of a formula of how to solve a problem. Sure, some steps are a bit circular until you get to the right solution, however, what comes next is still the next step. I like this little bit of step by step process because I feel it helps to offer a bit of order in a place where things can spread out in so many directions. In particular, we read an article that took a good hard look at using this method to address poverty creation. When we think of poverty, we don't always think about how or why it is there and what factors go into the creation of it. For some reason, we tend to think of poverty as something that happens after a bad situation, not a result of parts of society. We think of a lost job, a death of a loved one or an accident. Not that low-income people are stuck, and that begets more stuck low-income people and that this is a failure of the system of society we live in. And when I write 'we' I recognize that I am referring to people like me, doing ok in life, and not being able to fully see the picture that others are in. People like me who find it a shock to learn that some families can't feed their kids even one meal a day. I see myself as someone who is learning to see this whole other world that others are living in.
This brings me to this week's prompt:
Week 4 Prompt: Why is design thinking an important skill in social innovation?
What I gained the most this week is how design thinking is aimed at finding the real issues and working to repair those in a methodical fashion. The steps are simple in that you go from one to another. However, you may spend a great deal of time dedicated to one step and fine-tuning the goal so that you are addressing the right thing. In addition, the design thinking can also be used in not only root cause situations but in the more common 'band-aid' type solutions, to make them more effective and reach more people. While most effective in the root causes, I appreciate the versatility of the design thinking. We can use it in our personal lives as well. I think that this type of method encourages you to think outside the box to follow tangents to determine if they could be just the solution you are looking for. However, by following the method, you are able to come right back around again to discover the next option and see where it leads. Once you have found the right one you know where to head next with what you have found and stay on track to get to the end product or plan. Like I said, I really like the bit of organization that it brings to the web of seeking a solution. A bit of organized chaos, in a sense.

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