Nathan Shedroff on Design Strategy and the Merging of Business and Design

Nathan Shedroff researches, speaks, and teaches about meaning, innovation, and interfaces. He is the chair of two groundbreaking MBA programs at the California College of the Arts that marry design and business. In this exclusive interview, conducted in partnership with the AIGA Design Conference, Kristin Ellison talks to Nathan about the ways he's helping designers merge the qualitative and quantitative to better understand customers and pitch ideas to company leaders.

Nathan explains what business has to learn from design (tolerance for ambiguity) as well as what design has to learn from business (comfort with data and communication skills). He also touches on redefining the word "value," design thinking, and deliberate design that improves customers' lives.