TEDx is – first, last, and always – about talking. Talking originally, surprisingly, persuasively, and concretely about something new – a new way of thinking, of making things, or, in the case of Friday’s TEDx Philadelphia, titled “The New Workshop of the World,” a new way of being this city.
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How Jazz Can Increase Your Productivity
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09.07.14
Natalie Nixon, director of the strategic design MBA at Philadelphia University, explains how you can use jazz inspired leadership techniques to synthesize employees and engender a truly collaborative environment.
4 Things Leaders Get Wrong About Creativity
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07.07.14
Design theory and branding professor Natalie Nixon says the reason we don’t see more creativity in business is that most leaders don’t have any idea what it is.
Natalie Nixon is determined to bring more creativity to business. But that’s an uphill battle–especially considering that most business leaders don’t really know what creativity is, she says.
Nixon, the director of the strategic design MBA program at Philadelphia University, visited the Inc. offices recently to chat about creativity, strategic design–and how entrepreneurs can learn from jazz musicians. Below are edited highlights from our discussion, as Nixon explains the four things that leaders botch when it comes to creativity.
INNOVATIVE LEADERSHIP BOOT CAMP: JUNE 2014
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23.06.14
ADVIS and Leadership + Design have partnered to offer a two-day interactive leadership “boot camp” for school leaders from 21 ADVIS schools wanting to think creatively, work effectively, and build innovative school cultures.
INNOVATIVE LEADERSHIP BOOT CAMP
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15.05.14
ADVIS and Leadership + Design (formerly The Santa Fe Leadership Center) have partnered to offer a two-day interactive leadership “boot camp” for school leaders wanting to think creatively, work effectively, and build innovative school cultures.
This boot camp is ideal for any school leader who is responsible for making and supporting change in their school, from teacher-leaders to department chairs, technology directors, division directors, deans, admissions and development professionals as well as assistant heads of schools and heads. The program can also support school teams who want to approach innovation with a common language and a set of tactical skills.
This is a small cohort with limited space so early registration is advised!
Philadelphia Inquirer Article: TEDx Philadelphia
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30.03.14
FUSE’s Muse newsletter, May 2014
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25.03.14
Inside FUSE: Design and Brand Strategy Are Inextricably Linked
With FUSE 2014 just a couple of weeks away, I was fortunate to sit down with Natalie Nixon, Ph.D., Director of The Strategic Design MBA Program at Philadelphia University. At FUSE, Nixon will be speaking along with countless brand strategists, designers, trend hunters and culture curators. With one collective voice, the 18th annual FUSE conference celebrates a collaborative approach to building more meaningful brands – becoming a forum for all to share stories, inspiration and best practices.
Design Lab Grit 2014
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04.03.14
Your Ideas: Scalable Ideas for Fostering Grit + Resilience
For Design Lab 2014, Dr. Natalie Nixon, Director of the Strategic Design MBA (SDMBA) program at Philadelphia University, facilitated a 2-hour lab for participants on grit and resilience framed as a design challenge for “How might we cultivate grit?” She was assisted by Philadelphia University graduate students Juan Carlos Velasquez (SDMBA, 2015) and Dana Utembayeva (MS Industrial Design 2014). Dr. Nixon began with an overview on design thinking, which is a problem solving process that utilizes the skills designers bring to the fore (empathy, ideation, prototyping and story) and integrates those methods into the design of more innovative services, experiences and processes. The design thinking process allows for a series of iterative divergent and convergent thinking processes.
Design Lab participants’ first exercise was in divergent thinking, a “Quietstorm” exercise, which is a group brainstorm in silence. Prompts were the words “grit” and “resilience.” Quiet brainstorming prevents louder team members from dominating a session; teams end up with more robust ideas emerging from the group as they “riff” off of each other’s ideas. Participants were then challenged to sort and sift the ideas they had collectively developed and sort into patterns. They then prioritized their thinking using a Love/Like/Develop framework. Participants then mapped their ideas on a Creative Matrix.
Abstract, Organizational Design
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11.12.13
Natalie Nixon, Abstract: Viewing Ascension Health from a design thinking perspective
Girl Geek Dinner 2013
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15.11.13
A Recap of GGD PHL #10, Business Model-YOU
written by Lisa Yoder
Philadelphia University’s Director of the Strategic Design MBA, Natalie Nixon, Ph.D., brought her vast experience and knowledge to share at the latest Girl Geek Dinners PHL event, the 10th dinner, hosted at Zivtech.
The Strategic Design MBA is a new program at Philadelphia University that merges both business school and design school that bills itself as The MBA for Hybrid Thinkers. The program integrates the best aspects of design thinking, namely problem solving and empathy, into a business context. Dr. Nixon outlined the program and the inspiration, goals, and needs behind it, then led attendees through a teaser of the program, an exercise called Business Model: YOU. Her goals for the presentation were that we left with a practical guide to help us in our professional lives and that we left inspired.
Modelling Melissa D’Agostino’s fashions
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19.09.13
by Doreen Creede
Know your customer. That’s the first lesson of fashion. That was also the first element focused on in the first months of the first year of The Philadelphia Fashion Incubator, a program designed to cultivate and keep fashion talent in Philadelphia. While following the program over the course of 2012 I saw over and over again howMelissa D’Agostino, one of the inaugural group of five Designers-In-Residence and designer/owner of D’Agostino Fashion Textile & Design, embodies that tenet. Her clients are her tribe, they are friends, they trust her, and it is always evident why.
