The Renaissance Personhood Manifesto

AKA — “Innovation-Thinking”

In the land of buzzwords, there’s a continent known as “-Thinking”, a continent that’s ruled prominently by 3 nations, the nation of “Design-Thinkers”, “Exponential-Thinkers”, and “Systems-Thinkers”. These 3 countries however don’t have well-defined borders as there are 4 zones where they all intersect in all its permutations and combinations. But before I tell you about these mythical and legendary locations, let me first tell you why I’m even sharing this in the first place.

Problem-Solving is at the core of what every designer, developer, product manager, consultant, manager, leader, entrepreneur, etc. is required to do. Problem-Solving is our raison d’être as employees or entrepreneurs (striving towards goodness if not greatness). Problem-Solving is the reason why we’re employed, the reason why we sell, the reason why we analyze (data), design, and develop, the reason why we manage & lead, and the reason why we shoot for the moon, etc. So what is the point of “-Thinking”? Why do these buzzwords exist? It’s there to help us become more effective, efficient, and expedient problem-solvers simply put.

As a digital product designer / interaction designer we’re often asked to share our “design process”. But my “design process” isn’t just a “design process”, it’s a problem-solving…