Analogous Inspiration from Unusual Places | Victoria Vivas
Victoria Vivas (center) in a promotion for her pirate ship-themed entrepreneur workshop.
Listen to the episode:
“I feel like knowledge is about creating memories. You can only enhance your learning process if you have the right stimulus. And that’s the role of design... to stimulate people to create better memories.”
Victoria's entrepreneurial workshop hosted inside a makeshift pirate ship.
One of the most fun techniques of design thinking is analogous inspiration: applying an out-of-context concept to the problem that you are trying to solve. There are a number of brilliant innovations that have been created using this method and it is in my top favorite techniques for innovation and problem solving.
We talk with Victoria Vivas, a Colombian experience designer in Chile, who focuses on enhancing the process of learning through analogous situations. She has put sales reps in a boxing ring and entrepreneurs in a pirate ship, to create memorable experiences that lead to lasting inspiration and learning. Victoria currently works with Exosphere in Viña del Mar, Chile to curate experiences in education for the creative economy.
Find her on Medium.com and read her recent article on creative blindness.
This episode's design challenge:
First, find a random place that is unrelated to your business and visits it with a colleague or friend. Ask yourself the following:
What elements are key for that setting?
What are the actions in that setting?
Isolate those elements and give them new meanings in your context.
BONUS: Here is a great resource on Analogous Inspiration from IDEO.org's Design Kit.