The socio-economic impact of creative products and services:

authors

Bruno Pires andJoana Cerejo

May 4, 2013

DEVELOPING THE CREATIVE INDUSTRIES THROUGH DESIGN THINKING

&Context Goals

Methodology

Theoretical Framework

Design Thinking

Conclusions

agendasteps

ContextThere is the notion that creativity is an increasingly important tool that fosters economic growth as well as innovation goals. This new context in the current creativity

paradigm provides an exciting and challenging model for cross-economic fields, including areas such as engineering, science and design, converging into an effective field of innovation and creativity.

Creative Industries are strongly dependent on creativity.However, the common claims that creativity is everywhere, thus, turning all products and services into creative designs, make it pertinent to bring forth what it is perceived to be a creative product.

Purposes of the studyDesign thinking, is still seen with some distrust, given that its impact is difficult to quantify and its benefits are subjective. This paper wants to address that distrust and contribute to clear it by providing some information about what it can do for companies by taking a look at creative products and services.

MethodologyThe research method developed during this study was based on a literature review.

Our research question is "what is the advantage of using design thinking as a tool for the development of creative products/services?". Giving the fact that the nature of the question relies on 'what', our ap-proach is made from a theoretical point-of-view.

Theoretical Framework

Design Thinking

Creative Products and Services

Kotler and Armstrong (2012)

DesignKolko (2011) and

Lawson (2006)

InnovationBassant (2009)

Creative Products and ServicesFor Kotler and Armstrong (2012:224), a product is 'anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use or consumption that might satisfy a want or need', specifying that products can be 'physical objects, services, events, persons, places, organizations, ideas or a mixture of these'.

InnovationBessant (2009:6) proposes that a working definition of innovation could be: innovation = ideas + implementation.

Thus, the idea needs to become the focus for an organization in order to impact working processes that increase efficiency and sustainability.

DesignDesign has spread its influence during the past decades, becoming more important for companies wanting to grow and looking to gain competitive advantage.

DTI (2005:26) design may improve firm performance by changing the value of outputs (goods and servicesproduced), costs of inputs (resources used in production), and the efficiency with which inputs are turned into outputs.

Design has changed its paradigm.

Currently it is a tool for development,innovation and productivity.Now it goes much further than simply conception of an artifact.

Design thinking is seen as the next step of innovation.

Design Thinking

Analyzing the mindset of design, we were able to watch design being used for more than just the visual component or even the symbolic aspects.

This diversity of design brings to light that: if traditional design is applied along the value chain, challenging thinking methods of data collection, production, promotion and selling, it seems safe to assume that all the advantages here attributed to design can be also attributed to design thinking.

Resource toOrganization

Part ofOrganizationalSystem

Design is theOrganization

Core toOrganization

Design has been considered as a visually driven activity. However, in some way, design thinking disrupts this stereotype conveyed by traditional education.

We could identify design thinking as an exciting new paradigm for dealing with problems in many professions — most notably IT (e.g., Brooks 2010) and Business (e.g., Martin 2009).

By studying the impact of creative products and services we consider that design thinking could become a catalyst to the upstream and downstream flow of economic growth.

Upstream, as it effects related organizations, companies, and projects, which capture ideas and solutions — a direct incentive to creativity and productivity. Downstream, as design thinking provides a creation of dynamic environments. As a result, the relationship that design has with other knowledge-based fields is very dynamic and could be entrepreneurial — this is the main advantage that design thinking can provide for economic growth, especially to creative industries.

Questions

authors

Bruno Pires andJoana Cerejo