#design-thinking #adobe-creative-cloud #workshop #framework #digital-fluency #faculty-development # Communicating with Digital Media (CDM) Series When I started as the Director of Strategic Digital Learning Initiatives at The George Washington University (GWU) in July 2020, a key part of my mission was to design, develop, and launch a series of programming to help elevate faculty digital fluency. This was no easy task given we were in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. But at the time, GWU was an [Adobe Creative Campus](https://www.adobeforeducation.com/higher-ed/creative-campus) member and I, along with an Associate Vice President in IT, was driving this partnership. For my part, I was responsible for programming that would drive faculty digital fluency upskilling. The **Communicating with Digital Media (CDM) Series** was formulated at the start of 2021 and launched mid-year. It served as a collection of small workshops aimed to introduce faculty (and staff) to how they could begin working with [Adobe Creative Cloud](https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/buy/students.html) apps in teaching, research, and work. Rather than being purely technical workshops, I decided to have these workshops add value by engaging participants with a design thinking process. I wanted them to *think* about what they wanted to make and consider how different tools could be used together to achieve their goals. The initial apps I targeted were Adobe Spark/Express, Adobe Rush, and Adobe Portfolio. Adobe Spark/Express was the "everything" app and a good way for anyone to ease into small creative projects. Most faculty are generally interested in learning how to make simple, competent-looking videos and to build their own portfolio or help students create a portfolio. For these reasons, Adobe Portfolio made sense too. Additionally, as part of making a plan where to begin, I leveraged some of the resources that the Adobe representative was providing for on-campus marketing. Below is a PDF listing all of the Adobe apps at the time, their purpose, how the could be used, and their platform availability. (I was allowed to edit this one slightly to include the GWU logo and descriptive text.) <div class="container"><iframe class="responsive-iframe-pdf-port" src="https://1drv.ms/b/c/13829E5D2EB238DE/IQSK217KRlWuQYyn3tyoXyMmAScPtuF2BGDyN6vOf_JStKA" width="100%" height="550" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe></div> ## CDM series website Because I wanted to make the Adobe experience as immersive as possible in the apps, and avoid using traditional PowerPoint slides, I built this [Adobe Portfolio website](https://sdli-cdm-series.myportfolio.com/welcome) as the central hub. ![[comm-dig-media-website.png]] The four workshops listed on this website are the following: - **Communicating with Digital Media: Priming the Imagination** - Adobe app: none (A **design thinking** workshop) - 90 minutes, In-Person and Online - **Communicating with Digital Media: Crafting a Message for Video** - Adobe app: Adobe Rush - 90 minutes, In-Person and Online - **Communicating with Digital Media: Creating a Space to Inspire** - Adobe app: Adobe Spark (i.e. Adobe Express) - 90 minutes, In-Person and Online - **Communicating with Digital Media: Bringing Together an Adobe Portfolio** - Adobe app: Adobe Portfolio - 90 minutes, In-Person and Online ## A design thinking framework As I approached planning this series, it was obvious that the best way to approach teaching faculty was from the **perspective of design thinking**. I had been interested in design thinking processes since my time at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) designing Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and learning about professional [[multimedia production]]. I had also taken a MOOC entitled [Design Thinking for Business Innovation](https://www.coursera.org/learn/uva-darden-design-thinking-innovation). As inspiration and guidance, I looked to this course and its instructor [Jeannie Liedtka](https://jeanneliedtka.com) as my primary resource. Liedtka and Ogilvie (2011) provide a simple yet compelling way to visualize the process of design thinking from initial concept to product launch consisting of four parts: [What Is?; What If?; What Wows?; and What Works?](https://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/design-for-growth/DesigningForGrowth.pdf) ![[Y_images/design-thinking/What-Works-Liedtka-and-Ogilvie-2011-p37.png|center]] While this model provides clear steps and a visual flow for how to approach the process of design thinking, it also helps to guide innovation by addressing [5 key principles](https://ideas.darden.virginia.edu/designing-for-growth-5-keys-to-innovation): 1. Tell human-centered stories; 2. Supplement stories with data; 3. Provide transparency to design thinking; 4. Invite analytically oriented coworkers into the idea testing process; and 5. Share the learning and business results. ## Design thinking in the CDM series Design thinking was purposefully built into each workshop of the CDM series as **the method for moving workshop participants toward collaboratively ideating and sharing**. The workshops *Crafting a Message for Video*, *Creating a Space to Inspire*, and *Bringing Together an Adobe Portfolio* each had their core sections built around addressing the ideate, prototype, and testing phases of the Liedtka model. Additionally, the workshops always began with a section called "Chaos, order, good idea". This section prompted discussion on the chaos of searching for an idea and how the thought of most people is to begin developing as soon as they have identified the idea. The workshops instead wanted to slow down that process and challenged participants to break up the search into stages of empathy, ideation, and prototyping. All corresponding to the first three steps of the Liedtka model. To guide this, my team and I redrafted some key visuals from Liedtka's Coursera course to align them with the visual style we were aiming for. These are shown below as are some details used for each. ### Chaos: Making sense of ideas The problem everyone faces when starting to think about communicating with digital media is simply making sense of the chaos. ![[Liedtka_Idea-to-Product_1.png]] ![[Liedtka_Idea-to-Product_2.png]] ### Order: Applying some structure To address the challenge of moving from idea to development, we guided participants through a series of questions. In sum, each of these questions will relate to common steps in a design thinking framework. ![[Liedtka_Is-If-Wows-Works.png]] > [!attention]- For best results with design thinking > The best design thinking experiences happen in-person. One of the severe challenges that this workshop series faced was that participants wanted to be online and were reluctant to be in the same room. Because this workshop series launched during the COVID-19 recovery – even while vaccines were just coming out – it was impossible to get people together. It is hard to overstate how fear crippled so much of what we do. I strongly recommend doing design thinking activities in person whenever possible. ## References Liedtka, J., & Ogilvie, T. (2011). _Designing for growth: A design thinking tool kit for managers_. Columbia University Press.