Analysis
Frame insight
“Aha”
Synthesis
Explore concepts
“Eureka”
Make plans
Know
Hypothesis
?
Make
Know user
Know context
Realize offerings
-Prototype
-Pilot
-Launch
Implement
!
Research
Delivery
Analysis-Synthesis Bridge Model. interactions 25,
2 (2008).
[ 5] Nonaka is Professor Emeritus at Hitotsubashi
University Graduate School of International
Corporate Strategy (ICS) in Tokyo.
[ 6] Rittel, H. Issues as elements of information
systems. Working Paper No. 131, Berkeley Institute
of Urban and Regional Development, University of
California, 1970.
[ 7] Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. The Knowledge
Creating Company: How Japanese Companies
Create the Dynamics of Innovation. Oxford University
Press, New York, 1995.
[ 8] Nonaka, I. and Toyama, R. The Knowledge-creating Theory Revisited: Knowledge creation as
a synthesizing process. Knowledge Management
Research and Practice 1, 1 (2003), 2-10. doi:
10.1057/ palgrave.kmrp.8500001
[ 9] Michael Polanyi proposed the distinction
between tacit and explicit knowledge in 1966.
[ 10] Personal correspondence from the author to
Mauricio Manhães, August, 2010.
[ 11] Esmonde, P. Notes on the Role of Leadership
and Language in Regenerating Organizations. Sun
Microsystems, Menlo Park, CA, 2002.
Real
• Innovation Model, Vijay Kumar
model of “edition” and project, in
which design is “finished”—rather
than on an information-age model
of continuous improvement, multiyear beta, and organic growth, in
which design is never finished. In
the future, successful software and
service organizations will recognize
that software and service design are
ongoing processes. Each design iteration and implementation leads to
new knowledge. We need systems to
identify, capture, and build on that
knowledge in an ongoing process, if
we are to develop a design practice
appropriate for an information and
services economy [ 10]. Applying the
SECI model to designing is a step in
the right direction.
If both the SECI model and the
analysis-synthesis bridge model reasonably represent their subjects—
learning (or knowledge creation) and
designing—and if the models are
isomorphic, then we may say that
learning and designing are isomorphic, at least from one frame.
This conclusion has profound
ramifications for both business
About the Authors
Hugh Dubberly manages a
consultancy focused on making services and software easier to use through interaction
design and information design.
As vice president he was responsible for design
and production of Netscape’s Web services. He
spent 10 years at Apple, where he managed
graphic design and corporate identity and co-created the Knowledge Navigator series of videos. Dubberly also founded an interactive
media department at Art Center and has taught
at CMU, II T/ID, San Jose State, and Stanford.
practice and design practice. For
business practice, it suggests that
since knowledge creation is a
central activity of the firm then
designing is also a central activity of the firm. That is, designing
is an important form of knowledge
creation and thus the heart of value
creation within the firm. For design
practice, it suggests further study of
the mechanisms of knowledge creation and knowledge management
and their relation to traditional
and emerging notions of designing.
That is, learning is an important
part of the design process, not just
in design education and academic
design discourse, but especially as
design is practiced.
ENDNoTES
[ 1] Rawsthorn, A. Putting new tools in students’
hands. The New York Times. Aug. 22, 2010; http://
www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/arts/23iht-design23.
html?scp= 5&sq=teaching%20students% 20
social%20networking&st=cse
[ 2] Manhães is a student at the Knowledge
Engineering and Management Post-Graduate
Program at the Brazilian Federal University of Santa
Catarina (UFSC).
[ 3] Manhães, M., Varvakis, G., Vanzin, and T.
Designing services as a knowledge creation pro-
cess: Integrating the double diamond process and
the SECI spiral. Touchpoint 2, 2 (2010).
[ 4] Dubberly, H., Evenson, S. and Robinson, R. The
Shelley Evenson is a design
manager at Microsoft leading a
team that explores real-time
communication products that
engage and connect people in
new ways to help them commu-
nicate and collaborate. Before Microsoft she
was an associate professor teaching interaction
design at Carnegie Mellon University. Evenson
taught courses in designing conceptual mod-
els, interaction, and service design, and collab-
orated in projects with colleagues from the
Tepper School of Business and the Human
Computer Interaction Institute. She jump-start-
ed the study of service design in the U.S.—
designing courses, energizing students, and
hosting the first international conference on ser-
vice design. Evenson has also worked for more
than 25 years in multidisciplinary consulting
practices on a wide variety of design and devel-
opment projects.
January + February 2011
Doi: 10.1145/1897239.1897256
© 2011 ACM 1072-5220/11/0100 $10.00
