Andy Polaine: So Sophia came with a question today, which I hear a lot:

I've done all my primary research, I've done a lot of secondary research, I've gone and spoken to people, done workshops, I've read all the literature, all that and what do I do with it?

And it's often I see a leap to, I've now got an idea, and, and she was saying, do I need a framework? Do I need to find something? And. I think the answer to this often is you need to do the analysis and synthesis of the research. So you need to have those themes both in the primary research, the literature and case studies and everything else you've looked at. What are the kind of themes and you might find there's a framework here, a set of principles there or some criteria here and some of that is then synthesizing that and going out of that and going to extract these four or five things that are going to drive the ideation that I'm going to be doing as you would do with the primary research or your interviews and the rest of it. We've got a kind of bunch of unmet needs or opportunities in those things.

And then we bring those two together. You're really saying I could do this or I could do that. What do my criteria tell me would be the right decision to be going for here? And it's very tempting to go to, I've got an idea and now I'm going to work on it and iterate it. The bit that they often miss and the bit I always used to say to you that you made a big thing out of is come up with your a hundred shitty ideas, go then broad and really generic lots of stuff. You'll get through all the easy ones first. You'll start to get a bit stuck and then you'll get ridiculous ones that you might find a real sort of little kernel of interesting opportunity in. You will stumble across an idea that is what I call generous, right? Where you'll go, there's a theme there or there's a kind of area there.

And when I think about it, there's one, I could do that and I could do that and I could do that and I can do that. And those are the ones to go for, right? Rather than, I've got my idea, but it's a mean idea, it's not generous, and I'm really struggling to pull anything out of it, and I'm just there, and I sat there, and I'm looking at it, and it's just not coming. Just get rid, just, jettison that one, go on, maybe it comes back later. But you don't get to have that kind of exploration unless you have a really broad idea. Ideation. And when you're a master student, you've got a piece of work, you've got time to do a piece of work where there is no stakeholders to please, there's no kind of boss telling you what to do. You can do whatever kind of crazy thing you want. And now's the time to do that. That's my answer to that question. What about you?

Daniele Catalanotto: Yeah, obviously I resonate a lot with the, with this notion, of of making a lot, because usually as I'm someone who is not a perfectionist, it really helps me to kill my imposter syndrome, to have a lot of stuff out. And I think for students also, who often have this kind of fear of, I'm not doing well, just doing a lot.

It's like the luxury thing. If you do enough, there will be something good that comes out of it. I think that's one big piece here. Maybe a provocation that I could add to this is like the ping pong thinking, where often people think about research as like this linear thing where you do the research, then you do the synthesis, etc.

it step by step. And what if you did it in a ping pong fashion where, you're doing the research, but after an interview, you can already prototype something, you can already sketch something. Because Obviously, it's fun to do, and thinking, okay, I did this interview.

What could it mean right now? And I know I'm going to park this idea, but just for already thinking a little bit in a hands on way. And strangely enough, that's synthesis, but it's synthesis with hands instead of And that's like an a provocation that I often like to do also with students, just have fun, do some stuff.

Just do some stuff, don't get stuck in the

Andy: Yeah. Be a designer, right? Your job is to invent stuff and make stuff up. Yeah, good. Good provocation.

Daniele: And maybe if we add another one, because we're very provocative both us, would be to remember from where you come, often I hear, illustrators say, ah, it's hard for me to research thing because I'm an illustrator. I'm someone who likes to draw, who said you can't draw? Like use these skills also to do your synthesis, to do your to summarize stuff. I think that's another thing that can really help and make it

Andy: You just made me think of something else, which is also to think of where you're going, right? Because when you're doing a master's project, it's going to be a big piece of work that will form part of your portfolio. And you will get more of that kind of work because that's how, that's how people work.

Show us what you've done. Oh yeah, we're looking for someone who can do that. Can you do it for us again? And there's a real opportunity to think about, what methods or, making methods or what things am I rubbish at and I'd like to try out and get good at. But also, what do I want to have as a thing at the end that is going to show the kind of work I want to be doing.

So that's very useful to, to guide your ideation.

​