Design is all the rage in the startup world.  No longer just the purview of the UI and marketing teams, now companies are taking a design-based approach to just about everything.  Apps and codebases can be designed, but so can human resource departments and quality assurance procedures.  It’s a powerful philosophy, and now the smartypants factory known as Stanford University has a whole program dedicated to training the next generation of innovators.

Where was this stuff when I was in college?  Recent classes include “Improv and Design,” “Storytelling and Visual Comms” and “Creative Gym: A Design Thinking Skills Studio.”  D.School’s philosophy is to bring together people from different disciplines and collaborate on problem solving using human values as a centerpiece.  Their website’s predictably well designed, and best of all, you don’t need to be a grad student to learn some of the basic methodology they use.