The idea of design thinking is one that has been up for a ton of discussion recently. But what exactly is it?

“Design thinking, as a concept, has been slowly evolving and coalescing over the past decade. One popular definition is that design thinking means thinking as a designer would, which is about as circular as a definition can be,” writes Roger Martin.

Read an excerpt from his book, The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage—and the colorful commentary that follows—at Design Observer.