Post-Conference

Design Thinking Workshop

Put simply, design thinking is a discipline that uses the designer's sensibility and methods to match people's needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity. - Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO

Drawing on the conference theme, Technical Services by Design, Xavier University's Center for Innovation, in conjunction with the University Library, will host a half-day design thinking program at the completion of the OVGTSL conference (Tuesday, May 23rd, 1-5 p.m.). This added option will focus on the challenge of how we might provide a more seamless experience for customers across all information platforms provided by our respective libraries.

This event is free but registration is limited to the first forty conference respondents.

Registrants for the design thinking program must commit to doing two empathy interviews, one with a sophisticated library user and also with an inexperienced patron. The empathy interview is an approach to finding out as much as possible about a person's experience as a user of a space, process, objective, or environment. These interviews will need to be completed by May 1st to facilitate crowdsourced insights required for the session.

More detailed information on conducting the interviews and interview submissions will be provided via Batterii, a collaboration tool for customer engagement. Two interviews with Xavier patrons (student and faculty) are provided to serve as a template.

Working in teams, registrants will come away from the session better understanding the design thinking process to improve the patron's experience of the library A summary of the outcome, most likely in the form of several different prototypes, will be shared with all participants of the OVGTSL conference.

Scheduled Agenda
1:00-1:45 p.m. - Design Thinking Overview
1:45-2:20 p,m, - The insights, and how they were developed
2:30-3:30 p.m. - *Ideations session
3:30-4:30 p.m. - *Prototyping session
4:30-5:00 p.m. - Testing - where do we go from here? (actionable items you may follow up with at home library)
*working in teams

For any questions regarding this post conference opportunity, contact Ken Gibson, Director of Xavier University Library.

Dr. Tom Merrill is a professor and the Director of the Center for Innovation at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is an Innovation Engineering black belt, a proud alumnus of the Stanford d.School design thinking boot camp, and is a facilitator for ExperiencePoint's Design Thinking and Change Management simulations.

Internally, the Xavier University Center for Innovation (CFI) works with students, faculty and staff across the three colleges of the university to help bring new ideas to life, adapt to change, develop new products and systems, and serves as a conduit to the regional startup ecosystem.

Externally, the CFI provides workshops in design thinking and change management to non-profits and businesses in the greater Cincinnati region. They also offer half-day workshops in empathy mapping, journey mapping, story telling, and offer a four-day Innovation Design certificate.