Design Thinking's empathy is about 'becoming the user'. Journalist Nam Hyeongdo coined the term 'experialism' (experience + journalism) and covers stories in a unique way. To empathize with job seekers who have a hard time finding jobs, he fills out applications and cover letters, only to be rejected. To experience the perception of society on tattoos, he tries out sticker tattoos. He also does strange things like wearing bras to understand how uncomfortable women's underwear is. The reason why he started experialism was not because he feels pleasure in getting attention from others.

 "I rode a wheelchair around Seoul when I was a junior reporter. I wanted to understand how people with disabilities felt. And a completely different, uncomfortable world opened. It's different when you try something out yourself. That's how I started to write a special column every week of trying different things and sharing with the world what I've learned. In other words, ' experialism '." Trying it out and realizing it's different – this is what Design Thinking's empathy is about.

 The main agents of Design Thinking are not individuals but teams. Members of a team complement each other, offering various expertise and opinions. Tasks that could not be solved alone may easily be solved with the help of someone with a new perspective. Have you heard of the story of a soap factory? This soap factory had a problem – empty soap boxes would occasionally be shipped out. Many experts came together to solve this problem, and they decided to buy a very expensive x-ray equipment to check for empty soap boxes. They were all waiting for the x-ray to arrive when suddenly the defect rate dropped to zero. They investigated to find the cause for this sudden change when they realized that the problem was solved by one production line employee who brought in a fan to blow away empty soap boxes. Design Thinking can open up a huge potential of possibilities when people with different skills and expertise come together from different directions.

 The preference and needs of customers are not fixed. And solutions to meet one particular need can also have different approaches. In the foods industry, there was a constant request made by consumers who wanted more of the green part of the 'Watermelon bar (Subakba)', a popsicle that looks like a watermelon. And in 32 years since the product was first released in the market, the 'upside down Subakba' was produced, selling one million in only 10 days. It didn't stop there – customers' demand continues, including half and half Subakba, stripes Subakba and others. Some prefer the original, some want the 'upside down' Subakba. Customers' needs will become further fragmented, and their requests and demands will continue to change.

 As customers sometimes change their minds, products and services must also evolve together with customer needs. The mouse we use at work was developed to solve user needs that were not met with keyboards through a Design Thinking approach, but it continues to evolve by engaging with customers according to convenience and purpose of use, such as the gaming mouse, Bluetooth mouse, and even air mouse from the movie Minority Report. There is no such thing as a 'Finished Product' from a Design Thinking perspective.

 The reason why it's called Design Thinking is because it started from a designer's way of thinking. A designer thinks of the user and completes the design after many sketches. A sketch is not 'One Solution' but 'One Possibility', and it can be modified. Wouldn't we be able to avoid a mistake like the Chrysler Building transformer robot if we adopt both Business Thinking and Design Thinking in developing our plans by accepting the approach of a designer of empathizing with customers, participating in collective intelligence and conducting flexible and continuous improvement measures?