All posts by Jaewoo Joo

Jaewoo Joo is a Professor of Marketing at Kookmin University. He also teaches in the Experience Design program at the Graduate School of Techno Design. Jaewoo holds a PhD in Marketing from the University of Toronto and earned his MBA and BA from Seoul National University. During his doctoral studies in Canada, he developed an interest in design thinking and behavioral economics to overcome the limitations of conventional practices in design and marketing. Jaewoo currently collaborates with industrial leaders, marketing agencies, and startup founders. Through field experiments, he designs experiences that are both intuitive and strategic. He enjoys sharpening practical insights and contributing to academic research.
Cases

Dev Patnaik, empathy in business

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Dev Patnaik, the founder and principal of the Jump Associates visited Rotman DesignWorks. He discussed empathy and introduced his book, How Your Business Can Prosper When You Create Widespread Empathy.

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[Summary]

According to him, empathy is giving up a self-centered world and walking in others’ shoes. It is related to the concept of mirror neurons or reciprocal altruism. He argues  that empathy is an important ingredient for designers. Further, we will be able to find which firms are highly empathic or not.

wiredtocare

[Question]

We do not know (1) when empathy helps business and when it does not and (2) if it does not help, how we overcome the dark side of the empathy and maximize its impact on business. For instance, B&O’s designers do not listen to customers (no empathy) but focus on their own inner voices. Dev said that designers can empathize with multiple groups of people in order to overcome the dark side of the empathy. Interestingly, there is no research that suggests that having multiple targets eventually benefit the impact of empathy on business. Then, the next question is which targets should be considered more important than others?

[Conclusion]

We are still in the early stage of understanding the empathy in the business area.