Portland Design Thinkers

4.7•772 ratings

About us

PDT is a community of creative problem solvers advancing human-centered design literacy through high-quality events, lively conversation, and practice-based development.

We're made up of all kinds of people: practitioners who use human-centered design methods and mindsets every day, designers and researchers, design strategists, Agile scrum leaders, urban planners, and many more who use or appreciate Design Thinking.

One way to define design thinking is that it is a mindset, approach, and set of tools and techniques for problem-solving and innovation anchored around human-centered design. Design thinking is different from other innovation and ideation processes in that it’s solution-based and user-centric rather than problem-based. This means it focuses on the solution to a problem instead of the problem itself. Design thinking is the essential ability to combine empathy, creativity, and rationality to meet human needs and drive business success.

Typically, we meet monthly, mostly virtually, and occasionally in person. Our monthly meetings, announced through MeetUp, may be webinar-style, or interactive and focus on some topic of interest to our community.

But we're about more than just meetup events.

You can find information about our upcoming events as well as links to recordings of past events on our website [PortlandDesignThinkers.com](portlanddesignthinkers.com).
We have an active, private Slack workspace – it is a thriving online discussion space for all things design thinking. Please join us there --[ https://bit.ly/2JuQ2V6](https://bit.ly/2JuQ2V6).
We also have a private LinkedIn group. Please join us there as well – https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13997019/.

PDT is a volunteer-run organization. We rely on sponsors and donations to help us offset these costs. If you or your organization is interested in sponsorship opportunities, please contact Deb Mrazek (debmrazek@gmail.com ).

Upcoming events

See all

Hot Topics, Cool Heads
Wed, Sep 23 · 5:30 PM PDT
North Bank Innovations at The VIC, 18110 SE 34th St. Suite #120, Vancouver, WA, US
Portland Design Thinkers, The Pacific NW Facilitators Guild, and North Bank Innovations are excited to host a special in-person event: Hot Topics, Cool Heads

NOTE: THIS EVENT IS ON A WEDNESDAY

Every team has conversations where stakes are high, opinions clash, and silence is just as dangerous as conflict. This interactive workshop gives you practical techniques to facilitate those moments rather than dread them.
In this 90-minute, in-person session at North Bank Innovations at The VIC, members of the Pacific Northwest Facilitators Guild share their go-to methods for keeping tempers cool when hot topics arise. Through hands-on exercises and group discussion, you'll focus on group facilitation (team meetings, cross-functional discussions, leadership off-sites), not one-on-one conflict resolution.

You'll leave with several facilitation techniques for cooling down high-stakes group conversations, plus a simple plan for trying at least one of them out in a meeting sometime in the next two weeks.

ABOUT THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST FACILITATORS GUILD
The PNWFG is a professional collective of independent facilitators and small firms serving Oregon and Washington. The Guild exists because organizations in this region deserve better access to skilled facilitation when it matters most: the high-stakes conversations, the stalled innovations, the cross-functional tangles, the decisions that keep getting deferred. Members bring a range of methodologies and deep experience.

Please RSVP and let us know if your plans change, so we can plan accordingly.

Suggested Donation: $10 at the door helps cover costs, but money should never be the reason you miss this. If you can't contribute, you're more than welcome regardless.

***
If you have any questions or would like to connect with other members of PDT, join our Slack community.

PDT is a volunteer-run Oregon nonprofit organization, and as you can imagine, organizing events can be expensive. We rely on sponsors and donations to help us offset these costs. If you would like to help, we accept donations through Venmo @PortlandDesignThinkers.
5 attendees