The soon-to-come U’Cos Convention, organized in Brittany (France) by the Catholic University (UCO) in Guingamp, with the support of the technocluster Anticipa (Lannion, Brittany), will be held on 21 March 2013, in Guingamp, as it did the previous years. As a reminder, this Convention is also the opportunity for a contest of students working in cosmetic industry training centers and schools. Organized for the first time in 2010, this contest comes from a new approach, especially innovative, of future of the students. Let us understand why.
In the innovation world, regularly new practices and different methods appear. Some live for a short time, while others last for a longer time, and become some kind of references. This is the case of the Design Thinking.
Born in the Stanford, California, University, embodied by companies such as IDEO, the Design Thinking is a process of thinking, action and troubleshooting problems, in order to improve a custom situation. At the core of the process: a work to observe, to look for the user’s needs (the need finding), and new uses, the Design Thinking puts back the design (in its English meaning of a way to imagine something), to the centre of the innovation process, in which it is a major actor, along with the marketing and the technology, to give rise to innovations that will improve our daily life(1).
One of the main initiators of this way of thinking is Tim Brown, who wrote several works on this topic.
From a practical point of view, the Design Thinking makes a group of three to ten people gather. These people have very different profiles (designer, sociologist, skilled worker, ergonomics, etc). First, they dismantle prejudices; then, they produce new ideas and …