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Can you transfer empathy? 

Gaining a deep understanding of users has become important in technology development, helping designers provide useful and successful solutions for the users.  Even though many methods developed for empathic design emphasize direct contact with the user, it is seldom efficient for the whole development team to meet the user.
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WHAT DOES RESEARCH SAY ABOUT EDUCATING USERS ON NEW PRODUCTS?

For any new product to succeed, customers need to adopt it as part of their consumption habits. Food products represent specific types of consumer products in their high frequency of consumption, physiological function, actual ingestion of the product and socially embedded nature of food-related behavior, all of these adding up to the challenge of new product adoption. How to then enhance customer acceptance of new food products?

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Erika PerttunenWHAT DOES RESEARCH SAY ABOUT EDUCATING USERS ON NEW PRODUCTS?
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From growth to responsibility: Changing conversations in Silicon Valley – excerpt from book ‘Design+ Organizational renewal and innovation through design’

With the rising complexity and reach of technology, the work of designers can have global consequences. We need to be open to talking about the dark side of design and prepare for some difficult discussions on responsibility and who do designs include, exclude and advocate for.

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Erika PerttunenFrom growth to responsibility: Changing conversations in Silicon Valley – excerpt from book ‘Design+ Organizational renewal and innovation through design’
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The evolution of empathy

Empathy is part of our everyday life. Empathy allows us to understand others and to feel the joys and sorrows of fictional movie characters as if they were real. Empathic understanding helps us to recognize the needs of other people and can even lead to extreme forms of unselfish behavior. People have even donated their kidney to an unknown person without expecting anything in return. Where does this remarkable ability originate? Often, it’s said that only humans can feel empathy. But what should we think, for example, about birds that show characteristics of empathy or unselfish behavior among single-celled organisms?

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Internationalizing design service business – excerpt from book ‘Design+ Organizational renewal and innovation through design’

The ability to function effectively across national and cultural boundaries is a critical challenge faced by companies in the increasingly global economy. Idean, a Finnish design agency with a strong international presence, offers one example of a pathway to globalizing design services. Growth requires learning along the way, adapting plans and practices.

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Erika PerttunenInternationalizing design service business – excerpt from book ‘Design+ Organizational renewal and innovation through design’
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Designers as change agents – excerpt from book ‘Design+ Organizational renewal and innovation through design’

In engineering-driven organizations, designers often find themselves increasing design awareness amongst developers, selling the relevance of user research to management, or facilitating design workshops for product managers. Designers go beyond doing design work, and act as change agents creating more design-friendly working environments. Sharing showcases and offering opportunities for first-hand experience help to get the message across.

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Erika PerttunenDesigners as change agents – excerpt from book ‘Design+ Organizational renewal and innovation through design’
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Changing an organization without a mandate

The process of a professional group gaining a mandate and adopting their practice to an organization includes a variety of complementary actions. Introducing and adopting a practice simultaneously on multiple levels of an organization enhances the fit of the practice and provides opportunities to gain a mandate. Thus, the role of a change agent take shape in multiple ways in such contexts.

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Erika PerttunenChanging an organization without a mandate
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