Ep.107: Design thinking and the entrepreneurial mindset, with guest, Dr Jochen Schweitzer

In episode 107, The Occupational Philosophers chat with the highly curious Dr Jochen Schweitzer, a strategy, innovation, and entrepreneurship researcher and education leader at UTS, Director of the Executive MBA, advisor, and author. 

His research, teaching and consulting focus on issues of strategy, collaboration, entrepreneurship and innovation with a special interest in design thinking, emerging technologies and open innovation. 

Jochen was a visiting Scholar at Stanford University and Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) School of Design Thinking at Potsdam University. Before joining the UTS Business School, he taught at the UTS schools of Design and Architecture and Macquarie University. Jochen is a passionate educator who has taught at universities in the UK, Japan, China, the US, Germany, the Netherlands and New Zealand and won numerous awards, too many to mention. 

He was a principal at PricewaterhouseCoopers, a production engineer at Volkswagen and a program manager at the Goethe Institute. Jochen is also the founder of U.lab, an interdisciplinary think tank and platform for innovation projects.

Apart from his academic pursuits, Jochen is an active member of the entrepreneurship community and has mentored and advised numerous startups. 

Interesting titles from co-authored papers 

• A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Strategy
• Herding cats to co-create cross-university courses in record time
• Avoid being the Turkey: How big data analytics changes the game of strategy in times of ambiguity and uncertainty

So a very interesting guest!! 

In this episode, the Occupational Philosophers explore:

• The five key attributes for an entrepreneurial mindset and behaviours 
• How entrepreneurialism comes from 'doing it'
• The importance of building your own startup 
• How Stoicism is a key part of entrepreneurialism 
• What 90% of startups that failed haven't found 
• The challenge of implementing design and design thinking in organisations 
• If you want to solve a problem, start with what pisses you off 
• Failing that, ask “what do you desire and what makes you itch?” 
• Find your tribe, find your network, maintain it 
• Why boards need to embrace curiosity and look around the corner 
• What is Design Thinking? 

As always, there is a thought experiment to stretch the mind. In this episode, it's Ferret or Fantasy? The start-up world animal kingdom.

There are also some listener questions, which are always a treat. 

The Occupational Philosophers hope you enjoy listening to the show as much as they did making it. 

Jochen Links

• Linktree (all links): https://linktr.ee/jochenschweitzer
• UTS Academic Profile: https://profiles.uts.edu.au/jochen.schweitzer 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jochenschweitzer
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3aWHIb4AAAAJ
• ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jochen-Schweitzer
• ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1807-6720
• Academia.edu: https://uts-academia.academia.edu/JochenSchweitzer
• Personal/Project Website:https://besyd.com

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Their day jobs:

• JOHN: https://www.bowlandconsulting.com/
• SIMON: www.simonbanks.com.au
• SIMON SHOWREEL: https://youtu.be/YZQdJI6qGvg