ADAPTING DESIGN THINKING FOR MEDIA PROTOTYPING - INNOVATIVE COLLABORATION AT UNIVERSITIES AND WORKPLACES

Especially universities of applied sciences have the mission to interleave business and science perspectives. In times of dynamic and disruptive changes in the media industry, a cumulation of relevant knowledge is important but insufficient to train students for future challenges. Thus, methodological work is crucial and these new challenges require innovative methods. The Design Thinking has proven to be a suitable and fruitful approach. However, due to its universal purpose the method does not consider or reflect industry specifics. Therefore the federal state of Baden-Württemberg in Germany is funding the adaption of the Design Thinking method for innovations in the media sector. In the course of 2014, The Berlin School of Economics and Law and the Stuttgart Media University develop a Design Thinking framework for media innovations.

In the summer term four student projects practiced design thinking in cross-media publishing study courses to prototype media innovations. This was supported by a dedicated team of students who provide the learners perspective and a peer-to-peer point of view. The observation (action research) of the courses and the practical impact of the learnings (think/act/reflect) have been taken into consideration.

Supervised video tutorials as educational training units for the “design thinking” lecturer produced by this team are the student’s output of the project. These videos are part of a toolkit consisting of a lecturers guideline and adapted design thinking forms from the experts side are the didactical outcome of the project. The flexible didactical structure allows the lecturer to “teach” an intensive 1-day workshop as well as an extensive 15 week course. The outcome contains a media-specific innovation toolkit for the use in universities of applied sciences as well as in media companies. Corresponding and encouraging feedback was gained at a national conference of the german book industry in Berlin. The suitability of the toolkit for universities and corporates provides the media students with a skill set they will transfer to and apply at their future workplace. Thus, the collaboration of academic and corporate training converges and ensures a continuity of industry-specific methods for innovation.