Instructor: Dr. Jennifer Palilonis, Director of Center for Emerging Media Design & Development, Ball State University
Understanding and solving complex strategic communication problems
Design thinking is a people-centered approach to problem solving that encourages collaborative brainstorming and diverse ideation through systematic strategies and processes. Used in a variety of fields, from product design to web development, design œthinking serves as a powerful model for flexible and dynamic critical thinking that puts the audience/user at the center of idea generation.
In this session, Dr. Palilonis will share a number of design thinking strategies and explain how they can be used by communication and media professionals to inspire innovative, engaging approaches to storytelling. Dr. Palilonis will also share how she has used design thinking in a number of diverse projects, from working with USA Volleyball to promote the growth of boys’ and men’s volleyball nationwide, to developing a digital literacy curriculum for K-3 students.
This session is the first of three taught by the Center for Emerging Media Design and Development at Ball State University. Join our linked sessions on Transmedia Storytelling and User Experience Testing over the following two weeks. A portion of the instructor fees for these sessions will be donated to Puerto Rican hurricane relief.
What you’ll learn from this training:
- How to execute five popular design thinking strategies
- How design thinking can be applied to strategic communication and storytelling
- How to apply divergent thinking to inspire diverse solutions to complex problems
- How to apply convergent thinking to synthesize and refine ideas generating during the design thinking process
Handouts:
- Design Thinking 101: Five strategies for collaborative brainstorming
Who should take this training:
- Communication designers
- Strategic communication professionals
- Producers/project managers
Date and Time: November 29, 2017 at 1 pm ET / 10 am PT
About the instructor:
Dr. Jennifer George-Palilonis is a full professor in Ball State University’s Department of Journalism, and the director of the Center for Emerging Media Design & Development. She holds a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction from the Indiana University School of Informatics & Computing. Since 2002, Palilonis has been a media design consultant, both independently and as an affiliate with Garcia Media Group. She has worked on the redesigns of more than 30 newspapers nationwide. She also worked for the Chicago Sun-Times as a news design editor and the Detroit Free Press as a business art director. She is also the director of the Ball State Digital Publishing Studio.
Palilonis is also the author of two books, The Multimedia Journalist (Oxford University Press, 2012) and A Practical Guide to Graphics Reporting (Focal Press, 2006; 2016). Her research interests include design thinking, active reading in mobile environments, multimedia storytelling, the use of multimedia as a teaching and learning tool, blended and online learning, mobile design and development, and information graphics.
In 2012, she was named the Scripps Howard Journalism & Mass Communication Teacher of the Year; and Ball State presented her with the Outstanding Teaching Award. In 2006, she was named the “Young Alumnus of the Year” by the Ball State University Department of Journalism and “Graduate of the Last Decade” by the Ball State University Alumni Association. Prior to becoming the EMDD director, she was the coordinator for the nationally recognized journalism graphics sequence.
