Place innovation: using design thinking in live cases

The paper presents a study based on two views, i.e. innovation in teams of non-designers and live case interactions. This means that a diverse set of roles are involved in the innovation activities that originate from real regional situations. The application area relates to design and development of destinations, e.g. regions, tourism and attractive places. This study focuses on two main issues, namely (a) is it possible to make non-designers momentarily become design thinkers, and (b) is it possible to produce ideas and ‘out-of-the-box’ views in groups consisting of non-designers within a short timeframe? The purpose of this paper is thus to illustrate and explain these issues in order to contribute to a live case platform for collaborative innovation among society, trade and industry, and universities. The empirical data from four workshops, in total engaging 179 participants, shows that there are several challenges related to the efforts to transfer techniques and methods for design thinking and innovation into the heads and hands of non-designers. For example, trade and business can rarely allocate regular working hours for participatory design thinking, so they act based on traditional professional roles. Also, sessions turn into (unproductive) discussions if the participants are not firmly facilitated and encouraged. Bringing in live cases through the participation of mixed teams places additional requirements on innovation research in respect of implementation and packaging for practical uses.