Design Thinking Course – Assignment Rubric

Design challenge was thinking of a logo and name for my personal life coaching business. Issues to be address was  naming the company, designing of product and services, copyright, and legal issues. The business started and continues  by mostly referrals and word of mouth with no formal marketing or advertising. Requests from clients to expand  services and products through different channel mediums limited by time constraints of being a sole proprietor with  limited full and part time staff. Business began as a side “job” to assist others, sometimes current employees, former  employees, peers, co-workers who were needing career, financial, and personal guidance in my “spare” time. It  developed into a business, when clientele offer to start paying me for my services, most of which are on very limited  incomes, and new to having professional coach or mentor. Most resources are free, or very low costs.  The business is  not the sole source of income, given the fact I have a full time job, non-profit, and two other businesses.

I selected storytelling as my design tool. I love to tell stories, and telling stories is a coaching method that I use quite  naturally with my clients. My stories are mostly not personal, but have that all universal personal element to them that  all good stories have. I find it a natural conversion starter when people asked me how and why I end up starting the  business. I remember to keep the story interactive, too listen more than to say, and ask clients about their own stories  along the way to see if they are relating to the story.

I applied storytelling in relation to the name of the company and logo to the ability to understand that we all have a  story, and we are continuing to write that story every day. The meaning of our life stories is our legacy, that is our focus,  but all the other parts that go into making up a story also play particular roles within our lives and those which we come  into contact with during our journey. This is maintaining a hard and soft focus. What I mean by this is focus on the goal  or target which immediately before one’s self (Hard Target) while maintaining a peripheral vision for the next goal or  target (Soft Target). Also the logo and company name related directly to clientele and target audience given it’s  symbology and name.

The insight I gained was that people really loved my stories, that our life stories are important to us, and to others.  People want to share in those life stories. That in choosing to name and come up with a logo for the company it drew  more interest in the company, but the fact that I did not name it after myself with the story of how the company began  reflected on the values of the company, both personally and professionally in helping focus on their dreams and  overcoming obstacles.

Storytelling comes naturally to me, so the fact that I end up using this tool in the end did not really surprise me. What  did surprise me was the impact that it had on the development of this “side job” into something possibly much more,  which is continuing to grow, and expand. I try to remain very focused on serving my original clientele without going into  “high end” clients by remaining true to my original target audience. This constraint as placed the focus on company  strategy on the values which both personally and professionally involved in that decision, which if I had decided on  another design tool might have taken a different path, or has I see “worn” path which would compromise my personal  valves and standards, which is why my clients sought me out in the first place.

Neither the name of the company nor logo are mention at this time do to legal issues and constraints, and the company  protection and liability.

