Why we created a Design Thinking Collective

Design has a seat at the table, but for many design leaders across industries ranging from tech to the gig economy, that seat is a hot one.

Never before has design as a practice or business discipline been more in the spotlight. That leaves a lot of design leaders, veterans and newcomers alike, searching for answers to challenges we’ve never seen before.

At InVision, we don’t claim to have all those answers. What we aim to do, though, both within the InVision product and in the larger design community, is create space for us to tackle those challenges together. Design is a team sport, and we believe the answers lie in the power of many.

To that end, we recently launched our Design Thinking Collective. It’s our way of bringing together design’s top minds to attack the problems we all face, from scaling design to hiring top talent to identifying the trends and challenges around the next corner.

We launched this collective quietly, last month, with guests from Facebook, IDEO, Airbnb, and other design-forward organizations. These industry leaders journeyed through a progressive dining experience, with each stage of the evening punctuated by a different challenge or question.

We chose this format because unlike a workshop or conference, sitting down to a curated meal felt more intimate and more conducive to deeper, often personally-linked conversations. Based on the incredible conversations our guests had, we think it was the right way to go!

More and more businesses are recognizing the transformative, industry-disrupting power design has. It’s never been more clear — good design is good for business. According to Forrester, every $1 invested in user experience design yields a return of $100–9,900% ROI — and design-centric companies outperform the S&P 500 by more than 200%.

That is to say — we’re going to be having these tough conversations more and more, and it’s important to our team that we help facilitate them. Getting design leaders together to discuss our collective challenges is just one way to do that.

We don’t have all the answers, but we can create ways to help you and your fellow design leaders solve them.

Want to be part of the Design Thinking Collective? We’re planning events now for across the US and the world, and want you there. Reach out to request an invite or to just talk; let’s keep this conversation going.