Sustainability with SAP from Planon: A complex challenge with a focus on the public sector
Michael Wetscher, SAP Senior Consultant and Team Leader at NOVO Business Consultants AG, delivered a webinar as part of the Bachelor’s in Design Management International Lecture Series on how SAP Sustainability Solutions help public institutions manage their property portfolios in line with the new Swiss sustainability regulations.
Yash Chauhan: How Design Managers help organizations reporting on ESG criteria
Our alumnus Yash Chauhan joined the Design Management International Lecture Series and delivered a webinar on how design managers help organizations report on ESG criteria.
Yash brings a Design Management background and helps businesses embed ESG into everyday decision-making by aligning sustainability requirements with user needs, operational realities, and long-term value creation.
In Dialogue with Kevin Bethune: The Evolving Role of Design Management
In this open conversation, Kevin explored how the design management discipline, as a strategic and systemic practice, helped people, organizations, and societies attend to shifting situations, navigate complexity, and drive impact. He also discussed his new book, “Nonlinear: Navigating Design with Curiosity and Conviction.”
Rich Brady: Collaboration in Tech Companies
In this webinar, Rich Brady shares how teams collaborate in fast-paced tech environments — what helps them thrive, and how trust and clarity fuel innovation. He offers insights into how you can apply these lessons to your own work, with practical advice for creative collaborations.
These reflections come from his lecture for Design Management students, where Rich emphasized that “progress is experimental.” He highlighted the vital role of design managers in shaping organizational culture, reminding us that “good team culture is not by chance.”
Evolving Design: Swiss Design’s Role in Advancing the SDGs
This panel discussion brought together leading experts to explore the new capabilities, mindsets, and educational transformations necessary for designers to meaningfully contribute to the SDGs. Together, they examined how Swiss design education, research, and professional practice can adapt to drive sustainable innovation and responsible consumption, ultimately shaping a more resilient future.
Webinar - How startups and large organizations can collaborate effectively to accelerate transformation
In this webinar, Felix explained why it was important for large corporations and startups to work together and how such collaboration could empower organizations to transform their businesses. He also discussed the skills required to thrive in such an environment and how to develop them.
Webinar – Fundraising for Social Impact
In this webinar, we explored the fundraising landscape and discussed the future of fundraising for social good. Violetta Vitacca, founder of Fondazia Impact Consulting, along with alumni Julia Ahlberg and Stefanie Bumbacher, shared their experiences in navigating the complexities of fundraising for social initiatives.
Webinar
Towards strengthening Methods in Design Education and Practice
Jorge Frascara, Paul Gardien, Guillermina Noël, Daniel Rosenberg, Pieter Jan Stappers and Danielle Wilde discussed their paper “Towards strengthening Methods in Design Education and Practice”. The paper emphasises that design has evolved, striving for new outcomes, pursuing new goals and addressing different standards as well as broader fields of application. Many design educators and practitioners face the challenge of adapting their methods and teaching to meet new demands regarding sustainability, diversity and the integration of emerging technologies such as AI or biodesign.
Panel discussion – Transitions towards more sustainable economies
On October 16, 2024, the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU) hosted a thought-provoking panel discussion on «Transitions towards more sustainable economies». This engaging event brought together leading experts to explore the integration of sustainability into business transformation.
Panelists:
- Alexander Finger (SAP): Shared insights into how digital technologies and enterprise software are driving sustainability across various industries.
- Xiaocun Zhu (HSLU - Design Management, International): Contributed valuable perspectives on sustainability initiatives and their ecological impacts.
- Jorge Hirter (HSLU - Design Management, International): Offered insights on integrating sustainable practices into business models.
Enhancing patients and clinician’s capacity through Design
Dr. Thomas Zeltner and Dr. Ian Hargraves, prominent figures in healthcare innovation, addressed critical healthcare challenges in an engaging event.
- Dr. Zeltner explored: a) Designing for improved teamwork, b) Creating better work-life balance and fostering career development, c) Enhancing job satisfaction and preventing burnout
- Dr. Hargraves highlighted Shared Decision Making (SDM) as a co-design process, emphasizing the importance of tailoring SDM to the unique needs of each patient.
Following their insightful presentations, both experts joined Dr. Balthasar Hug, Head of Internal Medicine at Lucerne Cantonal Hospital, in a thought-provoking panel discussion.
This event was a collaborative initiative between the BA Design Management, International program and Lucerne Cantonal Hospital.
Randy Mellaerts – From Cells to Society. From Life to Living.
Randy shared his journey, in which his research mindset, social entrepreneurial heart, and fascination for life came together. He highlighted several cases in which he had worked at the interfaces between disciplines and co-created with various actors for a better world, ranging from activism in local, small-scale cooking ateliers to facilitating collective learning at a systemic level in the fields of technology and health. The session was also an invitation to reflect on your own future way of working and living.
Podcast Design Management, International with Don Norman #1
Don Norman is Professor Emeritus, founder and first director of the Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego. His book *Design for a Better World: Meaningful, Sustainable, Humanity-Centred*, published in 2023, emphasises the urgent need to change human behaviour in order to tackle the climate crisis. In this episode, Don talks to Guillermina Noël about interaction between people, as well as between people and services and systems. He also discusses the requirements that future designers will need to meet. Listen to the full conversation.
Dr. Mariana Amatullo – Design Attitude and Social Innovation: New Perspectives for Managing Complexity
Design’s evolution from a craft-based discipline in the 20th Century to strategic abilities impacting innovation and organizational learning in the 21st Century continues to be the subject of dynamic research and practice debates. This talk builds upon a novel conceptualization of the concept of “design attitude,” and includes case studies of design for social innovation projects, highlighting the multiple cognitive abilities designers draw upon to be agents of change amid contexts of mounting complexity.
Sarah Maneshkarimi – Accelerating Circular Economy: Taking Action Together with Companies
Sustainability is changing the business landscape. New regulations and trends are shaping decision-making in organizations. Sarah Maneshkarimi offered a brief sneak peek into the kinds of challenges that consultants addressed with their clients on their journey toward circular transformation. With addressing climate change as a strategic priority, this webinar is an opportunity to learn from experts about significant changes currently taking place.
Marcel M. Samstag – A view from inside a large-scale transformation: fostering organisational change in a Swiss incumbent
Marcel M. Samstag looks beyond the agile buzzword into the endeavour of establishing interdisciplinary collaboration, the example of SBB today both offers achievements and challenges. Let me share some key observations along the ongoing multi-year journey going from top-down towards bottom-up in this progressive state-owned enterprise and open the discussion around your related questions or concerns.
Michela Lupi – Community of Practice: the spontaneous side of change
Michela Lupi is a sociologist with an experience in facilitating and coaching organizations to accelerate the change process, working with the most diverse teams for 20 years. She has recently introduced "Synthesys8 Program" to support people and organizations to rediscover their systemic intelligence with a mix of laboratory, community of practice and "the Game of Complexity”, a self transformation pathway to raise awareness about what complexity is.
Service Design and System Thinking
Prof. Birgit Mager is Co-Founder and President of the International Service Design Network. In 1995 Birgit started teaching as a professor for Service Design at the University of Applied Sciences Cologne (KISD), Germany. In her lecture she talked about services as living systems. The knowledge of the specifics of these living systems is a necessary prerequisite for design.
The core elements of biomimicry – reconnection, ethos, and emulation
Megan Schuknecht, Senior Biomimicry Professional, is a biologist by training, she has led numerous research and education initiatives for the Biomimicry Institute and created its design challenge and entrepreneurship program. Megan talked about how biomimicry can help drive innovation by emulating biology’s blueprints, processes, and systems to create more sustainable and effective designs.
Meadow-ing: Complexity and Warm Data in Living Systems
Nora Bateson, is an award-winning filmmaker, research designer, writer, educator, international lecturer, as well as President of the International Bateson Institute based in Sweden. Nora is the creator of the Warm Data theory and practices. Her work asks the question “How we can improve our perception of the complexity we live within, so we may improve our interaction with the world?"
Where Design Plays: Developing the Invisible Aspects of Integrated Sustainability
Dr. Cheryl Heller is the Chief Design Officer at Viridi Parente, a distributed storage zero carbon energy company. Design has a role to play in changing culture, defining leadership, building relationships of trust and changing mindsets. In her lecture she provided an in-progress perspective on the various ways in which design affects the foundational aspects of culture and leadership that are necessary to integrate principles of sustainability.
Feeding policy directly from grassroots creative experimentation: stories from the MTF Labs
Michela Magas is a designer who bridges the worlds of science and art, design and technology, academic research and industry with a track record of over 25 years of innovation. She is the founder of the Music Tech Fest. Paradigm-shifting ecosystemic approaches of MTF Labs have had direct influence on European policy missions such as the New European Bauhaus, Research & Innovation programmes and industrial strategy.
The scenario of proximity – A design-orienting framework for sustainable futures
Ezio Manzini is President of DESIS Network and Honorary Professor at the Politecnico di Milano. For over three decades Manzini has been working in the field of design for sustainability. He gave a lecture to our students about "The scenario of proximity – A design-orienting framework for sustainable futures" and presented his book "Livable Proximity".
Designing with and for Artificial Intelligence – How AI changes what we can design and the process we use to design it
Daniel Rosenberg is a UX consultant and adjunct professor of HCI at San Jose State University. In his lecture he shared how rapid advances in Artificial Intelligence and machine learning are transforming the world in many ways. Daniel showed our students how AI is changing design processes and the skills designers need. His advice: be a Lifelong Learner, because everything is changing all the time.
Merkle's innovation design model: Tackling clients’ challenges with a user-centred approach.
Marco Hauri and Luisa Mohler, our alumnus, shared Merkle's innovation design model showing “mylivit.” They presented the methods applied. Marco and Luisa presented how they re-designed the whole of process of interaction of “mylivit” with its diverse users. They co-designed “mylivit” to add value to the organization and most importantly to people.
The role of designers in public policies: An empirical perspective from three Chilean experiences
Daniel Moreno has a Master in Urban Development and is a researcher at Nucleus for Research on Governance and Territorial Organisation (NuGOT). He works with interdisciplinary teams on multiple urban and territorial planning projects for the Chilean government. He shared three Chilean experiences on the value that designers can bring generating methodologies, policies, and tools for the public sector.
System thinking for sustainability transformation
Karin Fink is a Geographer and Relational Designer. She works in the field of environmental policy and co-leads the Swiss State of the Environment Report. In her lecture she explored how system thinking can help us to approach the complex, interrelated and societal challenges we face. She focused on the challenges around food, mobility and housing.
Bioregional Regeneration: The Art & Science of Designing for Planetary Health
Daniel Christian Wahl is one of the catalysts of the rising regeneration and the author of Designing Regenerative Cultures. He reflected on his own journey from biological science, ecology and complexity science to writing a PhD on Design for Human and Planetary Health in 2006. Daniel addressed regenerative design as a journey of learning and suggested the need to be humble in our ways of knowing.
Organizational Shifts: Post COVID what changed and which are the new priorities
John Elkington, leader in sustainable business, presented 3 changes, and 3 priorities organizations face post COVID. In conversation with 2 other panelists Elkington highlighted what requires learning and rethinking to transition towards more sustainable futures.
Making the toolkit visible
On June 28 and as part of the Werkschau the Design Management Student Association organized a discussion with Michael Meyer. They discussed what design managers do, how to communicate it and why it is relevant. The goal was to make the toolkit visible.
Building collective capacity to co-design: Perspectives from Systemic and Participatory Design
Dr. Manuela Aguirre, Associate Professor of service design at The Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO), discussed the creation of a co-designing community from both the perspectives of Systemic and Participatory Design. It primarily draws on the work of Bela H. Banathy and compares it to more contemporary work in Participatory Design. It problematizes issues of power and the role of the “professional designer” together with the co-designing community.
An Intrapreneurial Designer’s Mindset for Transforming Organizations
Karel Vredenburg, director of design at IBM and responsible for IBM’s global design leadership, introduced the following idea “much is written about change management but little is written about organizational design transformation”. Few organizations have actually implemented a true design transformation at scale, but IBM has. Karel described this transformation at IBM, the key ingredients that drove it and are still driving it, and the pivots and lessons learned along the way.
Evolution: Living at the Intersections
Kevin is the Founder of dreams • design + life, a think tank that delivers design and innovation services using a human-centered approach. Whilst sharing his experience driving innovations, Kevin also talked about his experience as a nuclear engineer, a business specialist and a designer, and the implications of the accelerating forces of interdisciplinary convergence for organisations and individuals.
Design Education. Moving the conversation to the school
To celebrate the end of our academic year, we hosted a Zoom event with design education leaders in June 2020. Based on the special She Ji issue on Design Education, design leaders presented their reflections and shared their best practices, perspectives, lessons learned and recommendations for action.
Design education has enormous potential. We thank Michael Meyer, Donald Norman, Pieter Jan Stappers, Ena Voûte, Jorge Frascara, Gjoko Muratovski, Ken Friedman, Carla Spinillo, Celeste Martin, Praveen Nahar and our two graduating students Luisa Mohler and Linus Mäder for participating in this online panel discussion. Special thanks go to our Dean, Gabriela Christen.
