When it comes to the intersection of design, biology, and engineering, today’s guest has a few ideas about what people in these fields can learn from each other! Whitney Burks is a designer, scientist, Stanford softball player, and all-around incredible creative. In this episode, she sheds light on her creative strengths and how they manifest themselves in other aspects of her work.  She explains how she mixes mechanical engineering and biology in her job and why she sets up her biology experiments like an engineer. She also shares her thoughts on experimentation: how biologists are skeptical of feedback, how designers are not, and why designers should not only be more skeptical but also do more assessments and assess more values. We discuss the importance of finding time to allow meaning, data analysis, data synthesizing, and creative ideas to evolve, and the tension of doing this while also working towards deadlines. For some fascinating insight from someone who understands these very different fields, as well as some great tactics for capturing inspiration every single day, tune in today!

Key Points From This Episode:

• A creative accomplishment that Whitney is proud of: a present she made for a friend.
• How Whitney’s creative strengths manifest themselves in other aspects of her work.
• How she mixes mechanical engineering, where one has control of the outcome, and biology, which is more experimental. 
• Why designers should be more like biologists when it comes to being skeptical of feedback. 
• How designers can benefit from doing more assessments and assessing more values. 
• The importance of establishing a success parameter early on.  
• How creating success parameters translates into Whitney’s non-professional creative life. 
• Finding time to let meaning, data analysis, data synthesizing, or creative ideas come to her.
• How she deals with the tension of letting things take time and working towards deadlines.
• An example of when Whitney asked for more time for a better result and it worked!
• The role that inspiration plays in driving Whitney’s creative thinking.  
• What a ‘goosebumps journal’ is and how Whitney uses one in her creative process.
• How she reviews goosebumps and whether or not they graduate into other aspects of her life. 
• A book Whitney recommends: The Overstory by Richard Powers. 

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Whitney Burks on LinkedIn

Whitney Burks on Twitter

The Overstory

Hebru Brantley

Jeremy Utley on LinkedIn 

Stanford d.school

Marcus Hollinger

Reach Records

Portrait Coffee