About us
Sydney Design Thinking (SydDT) is a diverse community of 10,000+ members. We've been meeting monthly since 2015 to explore the world of design thinking as a human-centred design and living systems approach to innovation and solving complex problems – to help create positive outcomes for people, our planet, and business. We're one of the top design thinking meetups globally.
The vision for the SydDT meetup from the get go was to build a connected community and ecosystem of people from a diverse range of design and business practices, industries, contexts, and roles… to learn and share. To get exposed to what others are doing and see what's possible.
We’re proud to see this in our community – our members are experience designers, researchers, service designers, startup founders, product people, consultants, academics, anthropologists, architects, software engineers, project managers, medicos, engineers, and many other roles.
We keep it pretty casual with plenty of time for networking before jumping into talks, panels, and workshops on a broad range of topics - with a healthy Q&A that often turns into a group discussion. You can read a bit about the history and journey of our community and events here.
New members are welcome! If you’re not already a member, feel free to join our community. Each meetup audience is curated to a degree to make sure we have a mix of new people, as well as the committed regulars.
We’d love to hear from you if you’re keen to speak – or if there’s someone you think we should invite to speak.
Thanks
Ben Pecotich, Kylie Mageropoulos, Kate Linton & Lucas Mara
Sydney Design Thinking (SydDT) Organising Team
Upcoming events
4
- A$10.00
SydDT #130: The Hidden Performance Skills of Great Designers
Sydney, AUDesigners spend years learning how to shape products, services, and experiences. But some of the most important design work happens live, in the room:
- facilitating conversations
- navigating uncertainty
- building trust
- uncovering perspectives
- creating energy
- driving alignment
- helping people feel safe enough to contribute honestly
Great facilitators don’t just run workshops, they shape emotion, attention, participation, atmosphere, and human connection in real time.
In this Sydney Design Thinking Meetup, we’ll explore what designers can learn from experts who work at the extreme edge of live human experience design.
Joining us will be:
Pamela Pilawa
A Sydney-based performer blending clowning, physical theatre, storytelling, and teaching across cultures and languages.Pamela’s work explores presence, emotional authenticity, courage, vulnerability, improvisation, and audience connection.
Pamela will share perspectives from the world of clowning and performance — including:
- how to stay present under uncertainty
- responding authentically in the moment
- reading audience energy
- embracing failure and imperfection
- building trust and connection quickly
- why vulnerability can be a leadership strength
Because sometimes the difference between a good workshop and a transformative one isn’t the methodology.
It’s the human presence in the room.
Wai Yin Vicente Kwok
Creative Director and Founder of Wai Yin Designs, with more than 20 years of international experience across theatre, film, immersive events, entertainment, and experiential activations — including large-scale themed experiences at Universal Studios Singapore.Wai Yin will explore how environment, atmosphere, spatial design, and intentional setup influence participation, behaviour, emotion, and outcomes.
Drawing from theatre, live entertainment, and immersive experience design, she’ll share how:
- environments shape interaction
- atmosphere influences engagement
- physical space changes collaboration dynamics
- intentional staging can reinforce purpose
- experiences can be orchestrated to support desired outcomes
Because workshops, co-design sessions, and facilitation environments are experiences too.
And like any experience, they can be intentionally designed.
Together, we’ll explore:
- facilitation as performance
- the role of presence in leadership and design
- designing environments for participation
- improvisation and adaptability
- balancing structure with emergence
- how designers can become more effective facilitators of human interaction
This session isn’t about becoming performers.
It’s about learning from experts whose craft depends on understanding people in real time....
EVENT SPONSORS
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7 attendees
Past events
128
