NextD Barks RERETHINKING DESIGN
What Matters? Analysis of proposal to create a new Design School at the University of California, Irvine
GK VanPatter Co-Founder, NextDesign Leadership Institute Co-Founder, Humantific Making Sense of Cross-Disciplinary Innovation
Commentary on the Design in the University Conference proceedings PhD-Design Community Discussion Forum, December 2003
NextDesign Leadership Institute DEFUZZ THE FUTURE! www.nextd.org Follow NextD Journal on Twitter: www.twitter.com/nextd Copyright © 2003 NextDesign Leadership Institute. All Rights Reserved. NextD Journal may be quoted freely with proper reference credit. If you wish to repost, reproduce or retransmit any of this text for commercial use please send a copyright permission request to journal@nextd.org
NextD Barks I ReReThinking Design
What Matters?
“The future is already here, it’s just that it hasn’t been evenly distributed.” Attributed to William Gibson
“To create the future, a company has to unlearn at least some of its past.” Gary Hamel, CK Prahalad, Competing for the Future
“To explain innovation we need a new theory of organizational knowledge creation. Organizational knowledge creation is a continuous and dynamic interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge.” Ikujiro Nonaka, Hirotaka Takeuchi, The Knowledge Creating Company
“Everything is relevant; making things relevant is the creative process.” Attributed to William J.J. Gordon
“We are just on the verge of people starting to understand that we have to learn how to think differently in order to make any substantial change in how we operate.” Min Basadur, NextD Journal, Conversation 1
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Contents: Catching and Connecting.................................................................... 4 Unique Project or New Frontier?......................................................... 5 Navigating Knowledge ........................................................................ 6 Innovation Ecology.............................................................................. 8 Love Those Bumper-Cars?............................................................... 10 Enabling Knowledge Creation........................................................... 11 Beyond Differencing.......................................................................... 11 Complexity & Acceleration ................................................................ 12 ReRePurposing that Problem Solving Thing .................................... 13 Information Ordering/Visualization.................................................... 14 Know1,2,3 ......................................................................................... 15 Are We There Yet? ........................................................................... 16 Choose Your Precision(s) ................................................................. 16
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Catching and Connecting Thank you Dr. Friedman for inviting me to contribute. From the comfort of our studio here in New York I have been reading much of the conference dialogue and enjoying the convenience of this medium. Despite its obvious visual and interface shortcomings, this on-line forum does have definite advantages over getting on an airplane. Let me start with this: Last night as I was walking home from the office, thinking about what I had been reading in this (month long) discussion, trying to make sense of it and contemplating how I might best add some value, I looked up into the night sky and had, what was for me, a small aha. As I observed the light from the stars in the sky above Union Square Park, I remembered that there are everyday circumstances in which we can see time traveling towards us. Of course that particular light probably left its point of origin thousands of years ago, but was just now appearing within view of where I was standing on planet earth. Observed from a different planet, the same light might look very different; larger, smaller, brighter, dimmer, newer, older, closer, farther away, etc. I believe this is more or less what we have going on in discussions regarding design education today. In this particular conversation we are being presented with the publicized draft of a new school model. I would venture to say that depending on where various observers stand in the universe, it likely looks quite different; larger, smaller, newer, or older, than we might have imagined it to be, before its light actually reached us. As it streams in, we try to get ourselves oriented to what we are seeing. All of us try our best to understand that light by viewing it through the context that we are familiar with in our own study, practice and research. In its most abstract sense, innovation acceleration often involves catching and connecting streams of light/thought traveling towards and away from each other. I see this Design in the University conference, despite its extended time frame, primarily as an opportunity for innovation acceleration. As I begin my response I want to speak for a moment to the official students among us in reference to something that is near and dear to us at NextD and that is process. We see a lot of confusion in the marketplace around process these days so I want to clarify how and where what I am about to say fits into process from our perspective. I say this because we see a great deal of focus in the design industries on “critical thinking” and “criticism” as if that alone amounted to the Holy Grail. We see significantly less focus on explaining exactly when that applies and what that really means. “Criticism” is judgment. Let’s not forget that. We see many students emerging from design schools today with the mistaken belief that the best way for them to add value, in any given situation, is to use “criticism” as quickly as possible. It is a monster that senior people create through our unexplained actions but that is an entire conversation for another day. Simply stated: In order for convergent “criticism” to occur, something important, probably more important and often difficult has to precede and that is the divergent creation of ideas. As simple as it sounds, this is often forgotten, even within our own community. As designers, as pattern creators, I believe it is always important to remember and honor that.
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As we contemplate a new and perhaps more dominate role for judgment in a new field of design, let us not forget that divergent idea creation, pattern creation plays a huge role in all the design industries. Throughout history, and still today it is a role that requires courage and one that students must understand deeply today in order to succeed. With that said I want to acknowledge the considerable courage and work of the Irvine committee. Although I was somewhat surprised to see that a group of talented folks studying the feasibility of a design school today would put together a 180+ page proposal without a challenge architecture, and without a single visual explanation diagram, I can see, and do acknowledge, that a lot of work has been done to move the conversation there in Irvine to where it is today. I say, the conversation in Irving for a specific reason. I believe it is important not to confuse that conversation, that light, with other conversations going on elsewhere in the universe. The most recent light arriving amongst us, may or may not signify advanced thinking regarding design and design education today. Regardless, we can celebrate its arrival in the community. In this conference there have been many distinguished experts making insightful comments at various altitudes across the considerable span of 20+ days. After some reflection, it seemed clear to me that instead of retreading through that ground it would be most valuable for me to depart slightly from what Dr. Friedman asked me to do here. Not for lack of respect but rather due to some over capacity I think. There is more than enough firepower among my fellow commentators to cover that intended ground. With this in mind I thank Dr. Friedman in advance for his patience with me in this regard. As I took note of the dialogue and reflected on the Irvine strategy artifact I thought it might be useful to try to sketch out some conceptual territory here that seems to be thus far missing. One of my concerns is that the degree of change facing design today dwarfs anything that has arisen in any of the discussion thus far. In order to construct this picture I will need to connect across several conceptual dimensions, so bear with me. This is difficult terrain to try to reach in this format so please forgive the imperfections. I want to try to stay focused on surfacing opportunity space but we may have to tread through some bumpy territory to get there.
Unique Project or New Frontier? At NextD we appreciate and view the Irvine project from the perspective of scale and complexity. While it would be easy to assume that it was a unique, one of a kind study, the opportunity of a lifetime, a one-time event, that would be missing the forest for the trees I think. Apart from the uniqueness of the specific content there are a lot of similarities between the Irvine project and the types, scale, complexity and fuzziness of challenges that designers increasingly must be equipped to address today. From the perspective of NextD, the Irvine project largely took place in the strategic space that we believe exists above the traditional planes of design, above where the traditional methods and tools of design were designed to engage. We refer to Page 5 of 20
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that strategic space as B4Design. It is a terrain that often requires designers to engage new awareness, thinking, tools and behaviors. In viewing the Irvine challenges I believe we are looking at much more than a one-off school design project. In many ways we are looking at a slice of the future for design in a still emerging frontier. Like those on the Irvine committee it is a frontier that I want designers to go forward and occupy with confidence and skill. It is no secret that it will take some real work to get there.
Navigating Knowledge I want to wade into this, in short form, from the direction of knowledge creation, since this seems to underlie numerous aspects of the conference conversation including the intended output of the new school in Irvine. We work in the realm of enabling knowledge creation and innovation in the context of large global organizations. It may be news to some on this list, that there are designers already involved in the realm of cross-disciplinary human performance. Working in that kind of context, we have over time, with considerable effort, become familiar with how knowledge is created by humans in corporate environments. Acknowledging that the Irvine study and much of the conference dialogue has been inwardly focused in the direction of design education institutions I want us to switch hats for a few minutes, for perspective purposes, and move out into the realm of corporate organizational settings. In the consultancy business the idea of a knowledge economy has been around for a considerable period of time. It peaked at the height of the initial internet boom and is undergoing a renaissance of sorts. One of the most famous and often quoted remarks from the early part of that era is attributed to Lew Platt at Hewlett Packard: “I wish we knew what we know at HP.” Platt’s now much overplayed words still serve as an appropriate jumping off point for so many things related to our client’s businesses and their very real challenges. Today in many kinds of knowledge creating companies we often see a set of phenomena occurring and reoccurring which we generalize under the term “Innovation Redundancy Loop”. Many organizations are grappling with the problem of repeatedly generating the same ideas, solving the same problems, and creating the same knowledge over and over again. It can be an expensive loop for business organizations to be caught up in. This tends to happen when those doing the knowledge creating, or what we call the pattern creating work are unconnected to the organization’s knowledge base, when the knowledge base is unconnected to the real world outside the organization or when there is no detectable knowledge base in the organization. In the past few years, entire industries have grown around helping organizations grapple with this problem. The problem has become so significant that some organizations have what we call Knowledge Navigators in addition to elaborate knowledge management technologies.
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As challenges, ideas and solutions begin to be generated, those doing the pattern creation work are encouraged to seek out a Knowledge Navigator early in order to avoid the invented in a vacuum syndrome, the reinvented the wheel for the 25th time syndrome, the buggy whip syndrome, and the market is wide open syndrome, among others. Knowledge Navigators or Innovation Scouts as they are sometimes called, work in front of the more formal gate keeping systems that many large companies set up to evaluate innovation ideas as they move through the judgment/gate keeping pipeline. Unlike the Gate Keepers, the primary function of the Knowledge Navigators is to help make connections to streams of knowledge, emerging and historical, rather than to judge. This is an important distinction. Navigators serve to connect the past, present and future. (Many organizations have an overabundance of gate keeping going on and a shortage of idea generation but that is a story for another day). The idea is to engage Knowledge Navigators early with the rationale being that by the time ideas get to the formal Gate Keepers, the organization has already expended considerable resources. The point is that until I saw the Irvine Design School artifacts and this conference conversation, it never really occurred to me that similar phenomena might also be occurring outside our organizations at the level of communities. I can now see that a significant amount of what has been occurring in the debate portion of this conference is the Irvine Pattern Creation Team interacting with the unofficial Knowledge Navigators in our community. Without formal acknowledgement, mechanisms or protocols, numerous experts have been doing their best to point out knowledge that already exists or is in the process of being created in various fields and disciplines. Others have suggested idea additions such as the inclusion of information design etc. It is also clear that some participants consider themselves to be Gate Keepers. Suffice it to say that in corporate organizational settings it is not uncommon for considerable heat and stress to be generated around Gate Keeper interaction, especially if the timing of the review is late, or if the avenues for altering course appear to be closed off. The point is, many organizations work very hard to take hold of the levers of knowledge creation as they become more known. Large organizations, full of the best and the brightest, struggle with sequencing, default behaviors, purpose, definitions, improper tools, low quality information, lack of applicable skills, dysfunctional built environments, all kinds of things. OK this is the bumpy part. Although we have a very sophisticated group participating in this conference and we are here, perhaps ironically, to talk about how to deepen expertise, make design more intellectually sophisticated and build a knowledge creating design school, we are encountering a few wrinkles ourselves. Lets think about that. For those who might not know, these are now questions that designers become involved in as it all relates directly to knowledge creation, to human performance. There are new dimensions for designers to think about here. Historically the realm of design has not included behavior dynamics linked to process for example. I have noticed that some expectations around the conference were perhaps slightly
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different than others. I took particular note that the Irvine committee’s opening remarks included a statement pointing out that not only have they already reviewed the Irvine concept with their own team of Knowledge Navigators but they have already cleared several layers of Gate Keepers there in Irvine. This would suggest that the purpose of the event in their minds was intended to be a general discussion, a new baby parade of sorts, more like a virtual water cooler conversation than a more purposeful session driving towards an intended and deliberate outcome that included course altering idea generation for instance. The former would place us further forward in process than the later. Perhaps this was news to some participants. Perhaps some assumed that the month long gathering was to be focused on creating new patterns while others assumed they were here to judge the new pattern in Irvine. Since no orientation “We are here” map was included in the Irvine artifacts this would not be surprising. To cut to the chase; I point this out for two reasons: 1. I believe there are several layers of dynamics here including those described above that have combined to create some tension and dare I say confusion in the activity space in a way that might be undercutting some of its potential. This would not be so unusual under the circumstances. 2. In this realization there are likely opportunities that we could identify for the community to consider. In order to surface that opportunity we have to endure a few more bumps.
Innovation Ecology There are many talented people doing research in and around these kinds of activity spaces as they relate to human performance, a few involved in design, most not. Our own research in this area is ongoing and incomplete but it lies at the center of everything we do in practice. In our work we believe there are likely interconnections between many component parts of how innovation occurs, how knowledge is created or not. The dimensions around which we have built our model are strategy, information, process, team dynamics, and environment. We believe there are connections between each of those dimensions. While I can not go into all of that here and the research is not complete or public, the Innovation Ecology below will give you a glimpse into how we think about the kind activity space interaction that we have here in the conference. Here is how we would unpack and view this particular Innovation Ecology: We have: • • •
An activity space called Ph.D.-Design list that attempts mediation through text An activity called Design in the University that attempts mediation through text A detailed Irvine information artifact that attempts mediation through text Page 8 of 20
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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
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An interaction technology that is capable of global reach An interaction technology with same time - different place, different time different place access An interaction technology that lends itself to bumper–car group dynamics A historically based default group/list dynamic described as debate that is primarily convergent A set of values related to the protocols of research overlaying the activities A four week activity period No visible process orientation map No visible project orientation map No visual challenge map No visible group dynamics maps No visible process A highly educated, absent problem owner (President of Irvine) with unknown problem solving preferences A small, highly educated (28+ person) Irvine Pattern Creation Team with unknown problem solving preferences A highly educated group moderator (involved in content and process) with unknown problem solving preferences who was also on the Irvine Pattern Creation Team A large, highly educated (1000+ person) group of conference activity participants with unknown (likely diverse) problem solving preferences An activity space purpose variously defined as introducing a new baby, creating a new baby, and critiquing a new baby but remaining primarily focused on convergence and gate keeping An Irvine defined purpose variously defined as creating a new design school to focus on knowledge creation, to focus on design research, to improve the credibility of design in the academic community, to make the field of design worthy of serious, formal study, to make design more like science, to address the needs and problems of the coming decades, etc. etc
Now standing back from that unpacking lets ask ourselves a couple of questions: What might that particular innovation ecology tell us about the underlying nature of our activities here? Do you see any red flags? If we were in an organization and these were the dimensions of our innovation ecology what kind of conversation dynamics would we expect, what kind of output? In the context of this conference lets ask ourselves how deep knowledge of research might or might not impact the dynamics of this activity space. Is it likely that we will find adequate tools and protocols within the expertise of research to help us correct course and or direct intervention in such an activity space? Would we find those tools and protocols in traditional design practice? Would we find them in design education today? What are the levers of knowledge creation and what/where are our tools as designers to engage there? Does anyone see any opportunities for next design in the above-described ecology? I certainly do! Among other things we could figure out how to improve our community knowledge base, our process of knowledge sharing, our gate keeping, our idea generation and capture, our orientation tools, our group dynamics, etc, etc. I can see
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numerous interesting projects there. Does anyone see any challenges and opportunities for the new school in Irvine as they create their new knowledge creating school?
Love Those Bumper-Cars? In the work that we do in large organizations we see a lot of what we call bumper-car group interaction dynamics (the most intense version is called demolition derby). It is no secret that there are a lot of legacy system interaction models and behaviors in many of our corporate organizations. It is not uncommon to see the most advanced technologies in use simultaneously with the most basic interaction dynamics. The concord jet engine attached to a 1952 Chevy syndrome. Some of this has been talked about previously on this list, the Gang of 3 etc. Many of our large organizations have created predispositions toward preemptive judging and gate keeping and then wonder why they have no ideas in their pipelines. To make a longer story shorter, we often see contradictions between the interaction model, the default behaviors and the intended outcomes. I believe similar legacy system models and behaviors can be found in academic circles including those related to design, ironically a field of adaptation, discovery and invention. The old school thesis judgment model where a grad student has to stand up and defend her/his work has bled over into many other types of interactions. The debate/argument model while considered water cooler material in the business world is found to be still revered in academia as a kind of Einsteinian survival of the fittest experience. The degree of romance built up around many of these models has little to do with their actual performance. The harsh reality is that in innovation dynamics circles today these models are considered to be low performance with little process skill required in which to engage. They are considered to be general use models most useful in establishing communities based on content knowledge, hierarchies and doing general kinds of often-painful knowledge sharing. Many people have had to operate in such conditions their entire adult lives and have become accustomed to, even skilled at operating in such environments. We often see those who are masters of this domain defending the model and the behaviors at any cost. After twenty or thirty years of learning to survive in such conditions it is very difficult to give up that behavior, especially if your behavior dominates. Needless to say behavioral and interaction model dynamic interventions in large organizations are among the most difficult to undertake in the area of innovation and knowledge creation but there are some folks out there who do this extremely well. We work with some of them. There is some good news here. There is opportunity for design here if we can open our minds to the possibilities. There are many misunderstandings around meeting/activity space tensions today and much of that can be connected back to process, process mastery and process externalization. In the past, such tension was often thought to be related to personality differences. Today we know that tension can arise simply from participants being in different phases of the process at the same time without knowing it or expressing it. Page 10 of 20
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So if one person is trying to define the challenges and another is already in solutions it is likely that conflict will occur. If one person has already settled into solutions and the others want to go back to challenge definitions without really articulating it, then we are bound to have some tension in the system. If five people want to diverge and 50 people are in converging mode without signally where they are, it is easy to see how conflicts erupt. A look across the landscape of our graduate design schools confirms that design education rarely reaches into this level of specifics. In many design schools, teamwork skills are taught simply by placing students in an environment and handing out a team assignment. That is often the extent of the knowledge transfer. The point is, it really serves little use to expend our energies on exercises related to reinventing design if we refuse to address our own fundamental interaction models, our process skills and our own behaviors. We are kidding ourselves if we think otherwise. Many organizations today are facing this same issue. In that there is huge opportunity for next design if we can get out in front of this. I’m optimistic. In the (distant) future I believe it will be understood that next design is at the center of human-to-human interaction innovation. It would have been great to have seen reflection of this awareness, this goal, in the Irvine strategy artifacts.
Enabling Knowledge Creation It is possible to and we certainly do, place design at the center of organizational knowledge creation by virtue of how organizational knowledge is created: through human-to-human, human-to-information, human-to-environment interactions. In light of some of the recent conference dialogue you may find it ironic that at the center of the interaction, we seek to place what we call Whole Brain Teams, understanding Whole Brain Interaction Dynamics, navigating by Whole Brain Process, referencing Whole Brain Information Fields, and operating in Whole Brain Environments. Each of those interaction intersections represents opportunity for design. I believe it will be understood in the future that next design is at the center of knowledge creation. It would have been great to have seen reflection of this awareness, this goal, in the Irvine strategy artifacts.
Beyond Differencing The kinds of vertical differencing structures found in many corporate organizations today represent significant opportunities for design intervention if we can untangle ourselves from the deeply embedded, exclusionary differencing dynamics that are part of designs history. Organizations today understand that there is significant potential for innovation across their entire organizations, not just in their design departments! They seek to maximize that brainpower. To do that, they seek strategies and tools of inclusion not exclusion. They seek strategies to celebrate and clarify difference in constructive, inclusive ways that connect directly to their central activities: problem solving and innovation. I believe it will be understood in the future that next design is at the center of inclusion dynamics. It would have been great to have seen reflection of this awareness, this goal, in the Irvine strategy artifacts. Page 11 of 20
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Complexity & Acceleration We see two fundamental shifts in corporate organizational settings that are driving change in ways that impact design today. Rising complexity is driving the need for team-based cross-disciplinary problem solving. Compressed time frames are driving the need for parallel processing. Combined, these two dynamics represent massive change. What it means to shift from the individual to the team, from linear to parallel processing are in themselves hefty and lively subjects. In design-focused academic debating societies it is not uncommon to still see the crossdisciplinary subject focused internally, going round and round at the level of should we, perhaps without understanding that the world has already moved on. Cross-disciplinary teams are a done deal folks. This is already the way of work in many business organizations today. For design education to miss that would mean missing some of the most dramatic change regarding work practices to occur in the 20th century. On several occasions I have noted well intentioned, derogatory references being made on this list, (several in this conference,) some in jest no doubt, to short attention spans, time compression and even team-think. It occurred to me that it might not be well understood in academia that not only are these dynamics the way of the business world at this point in time but they are also creating considerable potential opportunity for designers if we can get our folks prepared to meet them. In the old days of linear processing the designer was often called in near the end of the project as form giver. In parallel processing environments all team members are much more likely to be in the room from the beginning of the project. Therefore the question today is: do designers have the skills and tools necessary to participate in the initial strategic stages of complex projects? Design education has been extremely slow to wake up to the implications of these two above-mentioned drivers. That sleepy state is part of what prompted the creation of NextD. If we are not open to, or if we never model time compression and parallel processing we might never surface the challenges and opportunities that exist there for design. As a community I would to see us be more out in front of these challenges and opportunities. I would like to see us working on making sure, not only that some of our folks are in that room as participants but that we have people from the design tribes who are capable of acting as process leaders in all kinds of complex problem solving conditions. On this one the hour is late and the competition is already considerable. This is a challenge that our graduate design education leaders and institutions need to step up to the plate and take ownership of today. Ten years from now will be too late. It is already late! At this point, design is far behind and in the catch up position. While I welcome the expression of interest on the part of Irvine to adopt a crossdisciplinary orientation it is important to know where we are and to understand the depth that is already in play here. It is that orientation thing again. I say this because early adopters can behave much differently than those in the catch up mode. Irvine will be a hybrid; early in terms of design education, very late in terms of what is already Page 12 of 20
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going on outside in the land of leading business organizations today. It would have been great to have seen reflection of this awareness in the Irvine strategy artifacts.
ReRePurposing that Problem Solving Thing It appears to be a well kept secret that team based cross-disciplinary strategic problem unscrambling/solving has become the bridge language between business and design. It is well on its way to becoming a common language, open architecture platform between those two worlds as the notion of multiple intelligences, working towards common goals takes hold. At NextD, we believe there are significant opportunities for design and design education in that shift, but again the hour is already late. Unfortunately in design education debating societies we still see the conversation directed internally, going round and round focused on that never ending question of whether design is problem solving or not. Again the harsh reality is that the world outside is rapidly moving on as other challenges, needs and opportunities present themselves. The move from a focus on the individual, to focus on the team that unleashed massive change brought with it need for new forms of shared navigation and shared intelligence. We view both design and strategic problem solving as collaboration process languages, the former remains very specialized, with a limited toolset, (sort of like the Mac) the latter with multiple tool attachments that are now applicable across many domains. All of the large organizations that we work with have already moved to parallel processing and cross-disciplinary teams. Many contain a very diverse employee base including, engineers, scientists, business people and some times designers. Organizational leaders seek to maximize that innovative brainpower. Gone are the days when designers alone were considered the creatives. Today organizational leaders seek tools to ensure that everyone, all disciplines are included in the circle of innovation. As we work that terrain we seek common purpose, language, and toolsets that are capable of spanning every conceivable discipline and all levels of an organization from CEO to the folks in the mailroom. Although they may be called upon to do other things in their daily work patterns, under much of what goes on in business, and industry today is proactive problem solving/unscrambling. It is the common bond and underpinning across virtually every activity in most organizations. It has occurred to me that in our inwardly focused academic circles this connection has not been made. Building on its inclusive platform, adding our own tools to it, we can mediate mental inclusion, cognitive inclusion, physical inclusion, behaviors, goals and outcomes across an entire diversified organization. Perhaps most critical are interconnected behavior and team dynamics models that design has never been able to muster. For systems thinkers there is a lot to work with here! We believe mastery of enhanced process tools, HOW tools, not WHAT tools, in one form or another, is key to navigating the B4Design opportunity space. In our work we use these tools to provide the mental mediation, ordering space between information Page 13 of 20
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artifacts, other humans and the working environment. We use them to drive towards cross-disciplinary innovation. We recently asked one of our new corporate clients why they wanted to work with us. Their reply was: “We believe you can improve the quality of our thinking.� At NextD we believe that design has the opportunity to move from a focus on so called critical thinking to being the enabler and protector of all thinking modes in crossdisciplinary settings. To do that one has to have mastery of more than traditionally based design processes. I always feel badly for young students who have been told by well meaning teachers that design is not problem solving. I believe that advice has sent many young people into states of confusion that are quite unnecessary. Once you are operating at a high level of mastery there is little difference between opportunity finding and challenge finding, between so called wicked problems and tame problems. In spite of what you might see being discussed in theory, the reality is that most forms of specialty processes, most forms of design connect back to this underlying fundamental logic. This is a connection that we can build on if our minds are open to the possibilities. If I could only keep one thing that we know how to do in our practice this would be it. Students should know that deep mastery of this one process logic tool can help you order and navigate multiple forms of content in a confusing real world. With a high degree of mastery you can walk into many kinds of complex messy situations and add significant unscrambling and ordering value, not just design value. At this point in my career I am well aware that the primary reason why folks want me in the room is due, not to my good looks, but rather to my so called problem unscrambling/solving skills. Oh sure, I am a designer but that set of specialty tools resides behind my primary navigation toolset. At NextD we believe that the need for cross-disciplinary teams, working towards common goals across inclusive intelligence platforms represents great opportunities for design to step forward and engage the outside world on common ground, not only design ground. If we get (quickly) to work, designers can take hold of many of the supercharger mechanisms around cross-disciplinary strategic problem unscrambling/solving (systems thinking, visual modeling, user centeredness and humanist orientation) in ways that provide huge added value and distinguish design in the marketplace. I believe it will be understood in the future that the field of design is at the center of team-based strategic problem solving innovation. It would have been great to have seen reflection of this awareness, this goal, in the Irvine strategy artifacts.
Information Ordering/Visualization As David Sless has already pointed out, the field of information design has developed significant knowledge across many applications. We are just starting to understand the role that shaped and unshaped information plays in organizational knowledge creation. In client organizational settings we use the logic of information design to construct inclusive information fields (Whole Brain) that are used to share knowledge, accelerate Page 14 of 20
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ideation and decision-making. We combine the organizing logic of information design with that of inclusive, strategic problem solving. Since there was reference earlier in the conference dialogue to the value of hand drawing I will just add quickly that we see keen interest from clients in learning how to unpack complexity and visualize abstract ideas, strategies, problems, solutions, initiatives, etc. Recently we were asked to provide a Visual Modeling Workshop for a group of client executives who had worked with us. Clients recognize that their own organizations are often heavily oriented to words. I believe it will be understood in the future that conceptual idea modeling and the design of information play key roles in enhancing knowledge creation. It would have been great to have seen reflection of this awareness, this goal, in the Irvine strategy artifacts.
Know1,2,3 In an effort to distinguish between the different types of knowledge in the mix in a way that connects to process we created a little organizing framework that we call Know1,2,3. We refer to knowledge related to the challenges or opportunities facing our clients, ourselves, the world, as Know1. We refer to knowledge related to possible solutions as Know2. Knowledge related to implementation in the marketplace is referred to as Know3. Over the years we have learned that sometimes the best, most up to date Know1 information resides in a completely different place than where we might find ideas for Know2. We have learned that there are certain people out there (some consider us among them) who have considerable Know1 knowledge. In other words they have a great sense and understanding of what the current challenges are across specific subject areas. People working in the area of future trends for instance often have great Know1 insights. One of the challenges facing knowledge navigators and pattern creation teams is that the “where to look� part of that equation is not always crystal clear. The conventional wisdom that happens to be reflected in the Irvine artifacts is that new forms of knowledge can be found in academic circles. While that may be true across many subject areas it is presently seldom the case when it comes to issues related to design from our humble perspective. This observation may help the case that the Irvine team is trying to make. Our own experience is that it is very difficult, at present to find much in the way of emerging Know1, 2 or 3 in design education today that has anything to do with our own research and what we do in practice. Subject areas of interest to us rarely seen in design education presently include cross-disciplinary teamwork, complex problem solving, knowledge creation, innovation dynamics, organizational dynamics, interaction dynamics related to knowledge creation, distributed intelligence, challenge mapping, idea capture, systems thinking, strategy, multiple intelligences, business transformation, among others. Page 15 of 20
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With a few exceptions, we find the most advanced and up to date knowledge in these areas elsewhere in other communities. If the new Irvine school can change that I would certainly welcome that news. I believe the potential is there for those on the front lines of practice to surface Know1 insights and work in collaboration with design research institutions working Know2. At the moment few opportunities or mechanisms exist in this regard.
Are We There Yet? At NextD we try to make a clear distinction between where design was yesterday, where it is today and where we would like it to get to ASAP; the intended future state or states. In reviewing the Irvine study, particularly the sections on Vision, Structure/Size of the School, and Graduate Education I had an uneasy feeling that this distinction was sometimes not crystal clear. Many things about the way people work, including designers changed during the recent dotcom boom era (1999-2002). That era, often referenced in the Irvine strategy is long gone and much has changed since then including the dimensions of over capacity in many areas of design. I am hoping the distinctions in the Irvine proposal between the past, present and imagined future state of the industry were clear to the problem owner and others who had to use that information for go forward decision-making. With our clients we find that orientation is key to understanding and therefore to decisionmaking.
Choose Your Precision(s) In closing I want to access one more territory before I have to leave today but am unsure exactly how to wade into it. Excuse the bumps! Let’s try this: Without doubt it is easy to find considerable precision and depth in the Irving artifacts. It has an impressive depth of detail and one can clearly see that every i is dotted and T crossed according to the proper orthodoxies and protocols of design research. To say this another way; I noticed that the values embedded in the report are the orthodoxies of research, which in turn are mirrored in the school’s proposed strategy, which in turn are mirrored in the conference. For me this is one of the most complex, interesting and revealing things about the Irvine project. In contrast, we see relatively little precision in terms of what we think of as strategic problem solving protocols. We see even less precision around the kinds of supercharged visualized problem solving/unscrambling that leading firms are using in the B4Design space today. This is particularly evident in the area of challenge definitions. In the Irvine document most challenges can be found sprinkled throughout the document and in no particular order. Apples and oranges, strategic challenges and tactical challenges are routinely mixed. There seems to be no clearly defined highest order challenge. While this likely tells us something about the nature of the Irvine team (and or perhaps their budget) I am not sure what this tells us about what they intend to teach in Irvine. In the realm in which we operate, we seek precision around understanding as an Page 16 of 20
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instrument to drive human performance. To help us get there we utilize an enhanced process toolkit, combed with information visualization and systems thinking to link and communicate orders. Interconnected to those three primary ordering instruments are numerous protocols of precision. For instance in our universe it is critically important to have considerable precision as we move from a client’s initial fuzzy situation towards defining what the challenges and or opportunities actually are. We know that words are an important part of that precision. We know that ordering the challenges and linking them together is part of that precision. We know that changing a few words in a challenge can substantially change its meaning and therefore the direction of possible solutions. In our work we are often called upon to untangle, unpack, reconstruct or enhance corporate strategies. In doing such work we often begin with an exercise that we call Reverse the Logic. Applied to the Irving strategy, that exercise would look something like this: If the new Irvine School of Design is intended to be a solution, we ask ourselves what in plain language is the perceived challenge or challenges that it is intended to be a solution to? If producing more research oriented PhDs is a solution, what in plain language is the perceived challenge or challenges that it is intended to be a solution to? If the specialty of vehicle design is an intended to be a solution, what in plain language is the perceived challenge or challenges that it is intended to be a solution to? etc. In taking this line of inquiry, and if we were engaged in a real project we would dialogue with the strategy team and also look beyond. Wearing our strategic archeology hats we go into the strategy draft artifacts, documents etc to see if we can find the challenge paths. One of the things that we are looking for is the highest order challenge from which the entire strategic story might be hung. We would also be looking to see how the other challenge layers connect back to the highest challenge identified. How does focusing on vehicle design connect back to the notion of building a knowledge creating design school for example. What am I talking about when I say challenges? Here are a few examples gleaned From direct text and inferences made in the Irvine document as well as a few from the conference dialogue. How Might We (Irvine): • • • • • •
Determine if a new school of design is feasible and appropriate? Reposition ourselves as design education leaders? Become a design education leader? Create an ideal model design school? *Create a design school that is focused on knowledge creation? *Create a school focused on design research?
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• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
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Improve the credibility of design in the academic community? Create a school of design that makes a lot of money? Create a new school that captures the fundamental transformations now shaping the future of design? Create a school of design to impress scientists and engineers? Change the nature of design in order to impress scientists and engineers? Create a design school to impress academics? Create an innovative, forward looking design school? Make the field of design less superficial? Make the field of design worthy of serious, formal study? Expand the frontiers of design? Take advantage of the existing strengths at Irvine? Create a design school that capitalizes on existing developments in the field? Create a design school that addresses the needs and problems of the coming decades? Redistribute and repurpose our faculty? Reposition design as science? Reshape design to make it more like science? Create a school that takes advantage of our contacts in the vehicle design industry? Create a school to serve the vehicle design industries? Determine the size that the new school should be? Determine the makeup of the new school? Convince the public that design is science? Create an appropriate building in which to house a new school of design? Determine what a new design school curriculum should be? Determine what should be included in a new design school curriculum? Determine what not to include in a new design school curriculum? Fund a new school of design? Find appropriate faculty for the new school of design? Create the design school of our dreams? etc., etc,
Notice the difference between the 5th and the 6th challenge for example. Each would lead in a slightly different direction. The 5th challenge may or may not lead to a research based solution. When we are engaged in the actual planning work we would want to interface with the problem owner, users/students, users/faculty, advisors and others to capture as many perceived challenges as possible without applying any judgment. I will repeat that. No judgment is applied as we initially gather and order the challenges. With the challenges gathered we apply additional foresight and build a visual architecture of the challenges, a challenge map. In some cases we might build a visual solution path map. The point is, this is the kind of precision that is valued in our particular corner of the universe. What we think about when we look at the Irvine documents is where the kind of precision found in that study and apparently proposed for the Irvine school fits into the universe that we know. Where will capabilities around those precisions allow designers to engage the world and in what manner? We would want to think about whether or not that kind
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of precision is primary, secondary or in the background when operating in the crossdisciplinary inclusive B4Design space. With that in mind, my only concern about the Irvine strategy lies in the nature of its embedded precision and what that seems to imply. It appears to be inherent in the strategy document, as well as the conference itself that an underlying and perhaps unstated goal is to reposition research protocols, values, precisions and dare I say even exclusion behavior dynamics as superseding all others, including the precisions and inclusion behavior dynamics connected to cross-disciplinary strategic problem solving today. Whether this is problematic or not connects back to the earlier identified challenges and the intentions at Irvine. If the objective is: How Might Irvine become a school focused on design research? then these precisions might be perfectly appropriate. On the other hand if the objective is to pursue the broader challenge of: How Might Irvine become a design education innovation leader in the 21st century? then there may be some other things to think about here as that challenge connects directly to the terrain of the crossdisciplinary, inclusive world. Lets not confuse the two. To operate and lead in the latter domain requires awareness and mastery of a different set of precisions and behaviors today. Ultimately it is up to the design research community to decide whether it seeks a great, respectful seat, perhaps up front near the window, on the reconstructed design train in the 21st century or the driver’s seat. The latter implies special responsibilities today. You must ask yourselves as a community if you are truly ready to sit in that drivers seat. Other than that I have no great concerns about Irvine and wish you well in your learning journey. My primary concern is more in the direction of our design community in that I would like all of us to do our part in making sure the reconstruction of design (whichever direction it is rebuilt in) is more than a stealth mechanism to reposition judgment, evaluation, selection, convergence as the primary drivers and focus of a new design. We would be throwing away so much of our true value and power in the marketplace if we did that. The forces of pattern optimization (evaluation) and pattern creation (ideation) must always work at balance. I believe getting them to do so will become part of our responsibilities as designers operating in the cross-disciplinary world of the 21st century. The harsh reality is that a lack of deep research capability is not our only challenge as a community, as a tribe, as a profession or series of professions. We need to get some heavy lifters on the front lines at high strategic altitudes who know and understand the power of next design. Others are moving into that opportunity space who will not necessarily be design friendly let alone design savvy. We need to get some of our folks in there who can move through the fuzziness from unframed to framed. Why? Because that is where the framed work streams originate. This becomes the framed work sent downstream to our traditional design mechanisms in the form of; I need a new book, I need a new building, I need a new product, etc. Raising awareness around such issues is the underlying purpose of the NextD initiative. (For more on this subject see NextD Journal) In any case I believe it would serve us well to keep this all in perspective. It is unlikely
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that the nature of design will change overnight regardless of what is or is not decided in Irvine. Instead, all of us decide the future of design everyday through the course of our own action and inaction. We must decide, not the Irvine team, what mechanisms, organisms and models make sense for us to use as we engage the world everyday. We must decide how to maintain, restore, and extend the power as well as the reach of design in a competitive world. Thanks again Dr. Friedman for your invitation, your courage in taking on this event, and your patience with me today. Good luck to all of us. Have a great weekend everyone. See you out there in the universe!
NextD Journal RERETHINKING DESIGN
NextDesign Leadership Institute DEFUZZ THE FUTURE! www.nextd.org Questions: Please direct all questions to journal@nextd.org Follow NextD Journal on Twitter: www.twitter.com/nextd
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