Welcome to Design Log Entry #7! I’ve come to realize that the design thinking process is missing an important step: “step away from your work”. Indeed, doing creative work requires a different kind of energy and endurance than business-as-usual, put-your-head-down and think-your-way-through-it kind of work. That’s what the end of July and early August is for me. Hopefully you can find a little time away from your work as well.

Welcome to Design Log Entry #6! Working on DT Dojo as a “micropreneur”, I’ve realized that my attention is a pendulum. Now that the new DT Studios are live, my focus has swung from design and development back to marketing and member engagement. In June, I set up another round of site traffic and behavior flow experiments, invited another pilot group to join the DT Innovator Studio, and ran the site’s first-ever promotions. As with prior entries, I share highlights, key observations, and my favorite tools.

Welcome to Design Log Entry #5! May has been a heads-down, design & development-focused, exhilarating month. Indeed, May resulted in the most significant set of changes to the site & the largest release of new things since “launch day”. This month I made the shift from a “courses” model to a “studio” model. And I was able to pilot and test a new “DT for Teams” offering. As with prior entries, I share design & development highlights, key observations, and my favorite tools.

Welcome to Design Log Entry #4! April was all about design thinking certification — researching, designing, testing, and developing membership badges and course completion certificates for DT Dojo. Also, I set up a few A/B site traffic & engagement experiments to get behavior data as a complement to feedback data from my testing conversations. As with prior updates, I share development highlights, key insights, and my favorite design tools.

Welcome to Design Log Entry #3! Well, March sure didn’t go as planned. Even though I know that working on anything new, design-thinking-style, means twists and turns and many unexpected bumps along the way, it still surprises me every time. Design thinking reminds us, when facing ambiguity and uncertainty, to respond by maintaining a bias towards action and by crafting clarity along the way. And for me, that’s what March was all about…

Welcome to Design Log Entry #2! With the first three design thinking courses launched and live, and with friends & guests starting to visit and explore the new site, my attention has shifted to behind-the-scenes details. Indeed, as I planned a series of “Marketing Design Sprints” for the month of February, I had two goals: 1) set up and test initial systems for future digital marketing efforts; and 2) get ready to share DT Dojo with my broader network in the coming weeks.

Today is “launch day”! The first three DT Dojo Courses are now live and generally available: “Design Thinking Intro”, “Design Project #1”, and "Skills Bootcamp #1”. And along with it, an entirely new site is live too. To mark the occasion, I wanted to write up an inaugural “Design Log” entry to share a few highlights as well as my reflections on the design-thinking-style launch process I’ve run over the last three weeks.