Delightful Design Bunch
I’m officially inviting you to a 12-week life design ideation bunch. A group of trusted rockstars collaborating and figuring out how to do this wild world better. We'll follow the process that is laid out in the book "Designing Your Life" by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans.
What?
A 12-week process of using the design process to:
Understand and identify what you want to change in your life
Play and collaborate to come up with creative solutions
Test the solutions
Use all that info to select concrete next steps
Why?
I’ve been on a journey, learning user-centered design processes. I’ve been collaborating and learning through designing youth programs in Sooke, websites, and health services for mothers! But really, the thing that gets me most jazzed has been the idea that these design processes are useful for EVERYTHING… all sorts of non-tech life collaborative problem-solving. I get TOO EXCITED when I think of the conversations, growth, and change that participants have experienced. Personally, it has completely changed the way I imagine life goals, collaborating, playing, and working. The conversations facilitated by these groups are the conversations I want to be having ALL THE TIME. It's all about friends listening with empathy, then coming up with concrete, tested solutions to life problems, and silliness all the while.
This article is a breakdown of the 5 stages in the design thinking process that we will apply to your life:
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/5-stages-in-the-design-thinking-process
Past life design successes:
A doctoral student who spends a lot of time on the computer figuring out how to integrate a love of spending time nature with their chosen “computer-centric” career, by leading nature trips for people to look at the stars.
A tech worker making a plan to focus project management skills towards work based in heart-centered healing and art.
A support worker making a plan to go back to school, have a remote career, and remain location flexible.
A game designer tinkering with creating spaces for others to play with our conception of reality and storytelling.
How?
I’m constantly learning, practicing, and testing for how to facilitate this process in a fun- connective way. I really love the process that the book travels through, but we found many things that we would like to change. The book “Designing your life” does suggest reading this as a book club, but it is laid out as a personal process. IMHO The magic happens in collaborative ideation and design. This is where the Delightful Design Bunch comes in.
In true iterative design fashion, I will be using this process to understand and make future groups more fun, collaborative, and smoother. I have been play/practicing online collaboration tools, games, and using improv as a tool for facilitation, there will be silliness!
What you will need:
A computer that can run Zoom with stable internet
Webcam and mic
An imperfect life
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Designing your life book/audiobook:
*Make sure you get the 2016 Original: NOT “Designing your Work Life.”
2 hours per week for Tuesday live meetings and 2 hours for personal/group work homework.
12 weeks of collaborative life design process