1.     What is design thinking?

Essentially, design thinking is figuring out how to solve an issue, like the video says “poverty, hunger, or small annoyances”. Basically, you start by researching background information related to the thing you’re trying to solve, as well as what is needed to make it happen. After figuring out what the true issue is, you can think about solutions, and attempt to implement solutions, or prototypes. These prototypes are designed to fail but be rapidly re-designed to gradually get closer to achieving success. Doing this early in the process minimizes losses overall.

2.     How has design thinking influenced a product I use?

Design thinking has changed how I normally would go about cleaning my room with a can of air, as silly as it sounds. What I used to do was go around, and spray objects in my room to get the dust off it, and basically that would be that. All it ended up doing was moving the dust around, so I started using a brush as well as the air. The brush would gently get most of the dust off, and the can of air spray would remove the finer particles, meaning less excess dust, and a cleaner room.

3.     What are the connections between opportunities and planning? 

Opportunities provide the perfect time, setting, or conditions to take advantage of a situation, and make it work in your favor with proper planning. Planning is when you have worked out an idea of how to take advantage of a situation, and all you need is the proper conditions, or time to implement that plan. By applying planning to an opportunity, you open the door to maximize the advantage you stand to gain from said advantage. An example being if you planned to get a freshly bakes cake from a popular bakery, you would plan to be waiting at their door before they opened; by being there before they open, you exploit the opportunity to be the first customer of the day so you can get the cake you want.

4.     What opportunities have I missed?

I spent the past 5 years out of school, wasting time at a job I don’t particularly care for. I could have gone back to school during the pandemic and come out on the other side ready to enter the professional world, but I wasted that opportunity. When my co-worker suggested that I meet with a neighbor of his, a cybersecurity professional, who teaches “interns” one day a week, I let the opportunity pass me by because it might have interfered with my day off, and my schoolwork when the semester started back up. Those are 2 of the biggest opportunities that come to mind.

5.     Can a successful venture be unethical?

Generally, a successful venture can be considered unethical if it abuses the trust of customers, or investors, or otherwise exploits a person, or group of people. A sad example of this would be some of the coffee and chocolate industry today. It’s a rather well-known fact that cocoa plantations in Western Africa utilize either child labor or even slavery to farm cocoa beans. Despite knowing that these beans are grown by involving slavery, most big chocolate companies, and many coffee companies still do business, and are wildly successful because the cheap labor keeps the cocoa costs low. It is probably the best example of an unethical, yet successful business venture.