An image of participants during the Madroño Service Jam 2014 in Madrid, Spain. Photo courtesy of Rafael Zaragozá Álvaro/thinkersco on Flickr.

Every spring thousands of people from over 100 cities across the world gather to participate in a 48-hour design-thinking adventure called the Global Service Jam. Started by Markus Hormess and Adam Lawrence of WorkPlayExperience in Germany in 2011, the Global Service Jam is a growing, volunteer-run community event that brings together people from all walks of life to exercise their creativity and problem-solving skills. This year South Florida, joins the ranks of Global Service Jam sites for the first time through the Miami Service Jam, made possible by Knight Foundation and the Wynwood Warehouse Project.

The Global Service Jam kicks off worldwide at 5 p.m. local time on Friday when the secret theme will be revealed. Participants have until 3 p.m. local time on March 1 to publish their projects on the Global Service Jam website.

Event participants, known as Jammers, work in small teams around a common design theme to conceive, design and prototype a new service. Jammers publish their prototypes on the Global Service Jam website under a Creative Commons license to widely share their projects.

The Global Service Jam is a fun event designed to celebrate human creativity, promote teamwork, build people’s creative confidence and give participants the opportunity to create and build a service that adds value to others. The event heavily emphasizes doing instead of talking, and Jammers are strongly encouraged to start building prototypes of their concepts from the get-go.

In addition to connecting locals with the global event, the Miami Service Jam will offer Miamians a chance to get acquainted with design thinking tools and methods, build their creative confidence and sharpen their ability to innovate in a fun and relaxed environment. Introducing Miamians to design thinking not only adds value to their work and lives but also supports the city’s emerging innovation ecosystem.

This community is growing rapidly, but design thinking and human-centered design methods critical for creating lasting and sustainable innovation are largely unknown to many people in the sector. For instance, while traditional hackathons embrace the use of available data sets and fast problem-solving, they do not feature a key factor that drives sustained success at companies such as Apple: a deep understanding of user’s goals, desires and needs. Design thinking focuses on developing empathy and gaining insights from the people who will benefit from the solution. The insights uncovered by design researchers are then translated into solutions that are feasible, viable and, most importantly, desirable. Design thinking methods also reduce risk, guesswork and waste because the design process is devoted to solving clearly defined human needs and problems.       

As the organizer of the Miami Service Jam, my aim is to expose as many people as possible to design thinking and human-centric design methods to inspire collaborative problem-solving in our city. I believe that design thinking provides us with a toolkit to ask better questions, get beneath the surface of vexing problems and leverage the vast collective genius of our city in meeting old and new challenges. This event is the beginning of a journey, and I hope you are inspired to join us.    

The Miami Service Jam kicks off at 5 p.m. Friday at the Wynwood Warehouse Project and runs through 4 p.m. Sunday. To register visit miamiservicejam.com. Follow us on Twitter @MiamiServiceJam.

Ezequiel Williams is an entrepreneur, business designer and co-founder of Contexto. You can connect with him on Twitter @ContextoTweets.