The Business of Design

That view has led Martin and a handful of other pioneers to lead a groundbreaking effort to redesign business education itself. In a first step, Rotman has allied with the Ontario College of Art & Design to launch a series of joint courses. The Illinois Institute of Technology's Institute of Design recently launched a nine-month-long executive master's degree program in design methods. And Stanford University has committed $35 million to launch its "d.school," where people from large companies and startups alike will come to learn design thinking. "We want to produce T-shaped thinkers," says David Kelley, the chairman of Ideo and founder of the d.school. "That means combining analytical thinking -- the vertical leg of the T -- with horizontal thinking: intuitive, experimental, and empathetic."

And that's only the beginning. Rotman, the Institute of Design, and the d.school are in the early stages of mapping out a new discipline, "business design," which will seek to yoke business schools' rigor, practicality, and business relevance with design schools' creative problem solving and intensive understanding of the customer. The goal is to create a new generation of design- and business-based talent factories that will help fuel the North American economy as it undergoes its next great transformation. nFC

Bill Breen is Fast Company's senior projects editor. He is based in Boston.