Colombia has been transformed into the third country with the best business environment in L.A.; however, investment in Research, Development, and Innovation is only 0,2% of the Gross Domestic Product. Taking into account that 98% of the Colombian enterprises are Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), from which 5% invest only 2% of its annual budget in design, the National Industrial Design Program (MinCIT) saw the need to develop the Integral Design Tutoring Model. The model makes a bet for empathy and emotional intimacy as tools to transfer the necessary knowledge so that the local businessperson develops an innovation culture based on design thinking. To test the model, the Integral Design Tutoring Project was developed as a pilot. This four months project allowed an interdisciplinary team, conducted by designers, to accompany twenty SMEs. Through a process developed in three stages it was possible to prove that, through empathy and emotional intimacy, one can achieve knowledge transfer to business people and their organizations in an effective, efficient and fruitful way. This knowledge transfer allows the enterprise to develop human-centered design processes in a systematic, independent and autonomous way.

Keywords: Design knowledge transfer, empathy and emotional intimacy, tutoring, Contextual design approach, and Colombian SMEs.

Read the full paper here: Paper D&E 2014. and here:

Cited (APA) as: Mejia Sarmiento, J. R., Jimenez, J. E., & Chavarria, D. (2014). Integral Design Tutoring Model as a Knowledge Transfer Strategy for SMEs in Colombia. In J. Salamanca, P. Desmet, A. Burbano, G. Ludden, & J. Maya (Eds.), The colors of care: 9th International Conference on Design & EmotionThe colors of care (Vol. 1, pp. 288–300). Bogota, Colombia: Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Arquitectura y Diseño, Ediciones Uniandes. Retrieved from http://doc.utwente.nl/93965/

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9th International Conference on Design & Emotion: the colors of care

The International Conference on Design & Emotion is a forum held every other year where practitioners, researchers and industry leaders meet and exchange knowledge and insights concerning the field of design and emotion. The conference will offer research paper presentations, design case presentations, poster presentations and workshops. Since 1999, when the series of Design and Emotion conferences started, this is the first time it takes place in Latin America. The Design Department of the Universidad de los Andes, located in Bogota, Colombia, will host the conference from October 6 to 10, 2014. The workshops will be held simultaneously in three different cities from October 6-7: Bogota at Universidad de los Andes, Cali at Universidad Icesi, and Medellin at Universidad EAFIT. The organizing committee of the 9th International Conference on Design and Emotion is pleased to invite researchers, design practitioners and the general public interested in the cross-disciplinary field of design and emotions to participate in and attend to this conference.

Read more about the conference here: http://de2014.uniandes.edu.co/

Javier Ricardo Mejia Sarmiento