I had the opportunity to spend some time recently with Dr Harold G Nelson, President and Co-Founder, the Advanced Design Institute, Antioch University Seattle. Washington USA and Past President, The International Society of Systems Sciences (ISSS) during the recent Thought Leader Forum on Leader as Designers at the Banff Centre, Canada.

Harold co-authored The Design Way with Dr Erik Stolterman, Director, Human-Computer Interaction Design, and Professor of Informatics at University of Indiana. The book, variously described as must have, fascinating and provocative by their peers, looks at the idea of design as the ongoing genesis of the real world - the seminal process of world creation. The authors make the case for design as both the oldest form of human intention the one that defines us as being human and design as one of the emerging approaches to creative human inquiry and innovative action, superbly suited to facilitating intentional change in an unpredictable, complex and dynamic world. If design is your thing, this is a book worth having!!

Listen to this  fire side chat with Harold at the local Banff pub as he talks briefly about the intersection between business, arts and academia and the effects of this emerging field of study and the difference between creativity and innovation.

The Creative Leadership Forum looks forward to presenting Harold in its Leaders as Designers of Organisations course that it will be running late 2007/early 2008. Watch this space.