Design Thinking

Some of you may remember me writing about ideas around the participation economy back in Spring 2009. One of those articles was entitled “The Post Consumption Economy” . There hasn’t been a whole lot of debate in the mainstream media about whether we have been solving the wrong problem by trying to revive the consumer economy but David Leonhardt argues in his New York Times article ” We’re Spent” that we may have no choice but to look for a different answer.

The UK has long had an impressive track record of producing successful designers and engineers. Many credit that success to a focus on design within the education system. Significant investments were made in the second half of the 20th Century on design and engineering programs at the University level but more importantly for the last 20 years design and technology has been mandated as part of the core curriculum in high schools. Apparently this is now under threat as the government in the UK reduces spending and alters priorities. A number of influential designers, engineers and business folks, including James Dyson, Paul Smith, Dick Powell and Ian Callum make the argument in this video as to why this is a huge mistake.

This seems an appropriate title under which to resume my commentary on design and design thinking. I do indeed apologize for the lack of posts over the last three months but this is not the primary reason for the choice of title.

I just returned from a visit to Tokyo, a place I have visited more than twenty times over the last twenty years. I was struck this time by the change that seems to be going on in the national psyche as a result of the recent earthquake, tsunami and nuclear emergency. Japanese citizens have lost confidence in their institutions and in response all those institutions seem to be able to do is apologize.

The most striking impression you get on arriving in Tokyo is that it has gone dark. What was once one of the brightest cities on the planet has dimmed significantly as lighting in public spaces has been turned down and escalators in subway stations turned off to conserve power. This dimming seems emblematic of an institutional lack of imagination and resolve. Instead it is Japanese entrepreneurs and business people along with students and the non-profit sector who seem to be leading the charge into the future. I met with a group at the Tokyo University i-school, an interdisciplinary innovation institute based out of the engineering department similar to the Stanford d-school. The students were extremely eloquent in their assessment of the disaster and its impact. Here are a few of their comments:

“Japanese people have increased confidence in themselves but less confidence in the government”

“we have never felt more strongly Japanese”

“to win back trust government needs to be more direct and open”

“government should be a platform for information”

They commented on how important social networks, and in particular Twitter, had been in allowing them to share more information and bypass the government. I left thinking that this elite group of students who would normally head off to the major corporations or into government might just decide to take a different, more entrepreneurial direction with their careers.

At a meeting of TEDx Tokyo organizers and others concerned with promoting ideas about positive change in Japan I heard a similar message of needing to support the new generation in their desire to be entrepreneurial. The conversation centered on how to create networks that supported the implementation of new ideas. Ideas that might make a difference to the areas effected by the disaster and Japan as a whole. This seemed to me to be the nub of the issue. We have developed networks that very effectively promote new ideas. How do we move to creating networks that support getting those ideas done? Networks of action are far harder to establish than networks of conversation. What are the key principles for establishing them? How can the social web enable more people to get more stuff done?

I left Japan feeling that the old institutional hierarchies were left wanting at a time of crisis (and let’s not forget we had the same experience with Katrina) but that while we have the beginnings of a new social network driven alternative we still have some design to do.

I have noticed a growing conversation recently concerning the relationship between design and science.

Adam Bly, founder and editor of Seed magazine, did much to get this conversation started, aided and abetted by Paola Antonelli, Curator of Design and the New York Museum of Modern Art. Some of her columns on the topic of design as it relates to science are excellent, as was the Design and the Elastic Mind show she hosted at MOMA a couple of years ago. Unfortunately the magazine ceased its print version in 2009 but there is still great material on the website.

My own view is that the latter half of the twentieth century saw a steady decline in designs interest toward science and technology as engineering inserted itself between the two. This is not a criticism of engineers who, in places like silicon valley, performed wonders with the new technologies of micro-processors, storage, networking and software to create the products and services we rely on today. The same is true in other fields such as aeronautics and bio-medicine. No, my criticism is of the designers and scientists who have relied on engineers to provide the translation between their two fields. My concern is that in this translation much is lost that could benefit scientists, designers and the end user.

I wonder how much might be gained if designers had a deeper understanding of the science behind synthetic biology and genomics? Or nanotechnology? Or robotics? Could designers help scientists better see the implications and opportunities of the technologies they are creating? Might better educated and aware designers be in a position to challenge the assumptions of the science or reinterpret them in innovative ways? Might they do a better job of fitting the new science into our lives so that we can gain more benefit?

If scientists were more comfortable with intuitive nature of design might they ask more interesting questions? The best scientists often show great leaps of intuition as they develop new hypotheses and yet so much modern science seems to be a dreary methodical process that answers ever more incremental questions. If scientists had some of the skills of designers might they be better able to communicate their new discoveries to the public?

The twenty-first century will be the scene of significant scientific developments that may fundamentally change our human experience. I am intrigued by how different that change might be if scientists and designers could figure out how to work better together.

I am off to TED next week for my annual dose of new ideas about science, and many other topics. I will be on the look out for scientists who might be interested in hanging out with some designers.

I was posting on the World Economic Forum blog at Davos last week. Here are the three pieces all in one place for those who are interested.

Post 1

What are we sharing?

I like the theme for this year’s Davos Annual Meeting – Shared Norms for the New Reality. I like the way it is characterized as the challenge of navigating complexity while experiencing an apparent reduction of shared values and principles. I like all of this because in describing it as one of the foremost concerns of many leaders today, the Forum is describing a classic design problem.

As a designer I ply my craft in the turbulent waters between the complex things we create and the human beings they are intended to serve.  Often I define design as getting the interface right between technology and people. If you accept Kevin Kelly’s definition of technology in his recent and excellent book, What Technology Wants, then technology means all manmade things including business and political systems. Therefore design can be about getting the interface right between businesses and people, politics and people or gadgets and people. We are surrounded by instances where these interfaces do not work. Places where they confuse, confound, annoy, frustrate or miss serving altogether the users (us) for which they were intended. Whether it is navigating our on-line bank account, programming our digital alarm clock or managing cancer treatment, the experiences we have of our systems too often degrade rather than enhance the human condition.

When I get asked to help out with one of these interfaces I am often asked to look at the system and figure out how to make it better for the customer. My response is to say no because this is the wrong approach. Instead, I suggest that a more fruitful approach is to look at the people and figure out what the system is that they really need. This may seem like a trivial and semantic difference but it is not. When we look at what the world needs through the lens of the systems as they already are the most we can achieve is incremental difference. If we look at our systems through the lens of what the world needs then the possibilities for innovation are endless.

As always, I am traveling to Davos in anticipation of great discussions and new discoveries about the systems we create. I expect to hear about new business ideas, important themes in the global economy, the ups and downs of the political landscape and the latest in science and technology. What I most hope though is that we share plenty of discussion about the needs, hopes and values of the people these systems are intended to serve. Do we really understand values and principles by which people navigate our complex world? That, for me, is the key to getting the design of the interface right.

Post 2

From Newton to Darwin

As has been the case for a few years, crowd sourcing and social media continue to dominate conversations around Davos this week. In the context of this years theme what is new is the way in which these topics are being discussed. While there is still a division between the views of those directly involved in these disruptive ideas and those used to more traditional approaches, there is evidence that the concept of bottom-up emergence and the power of the network is percolating through all sectors.

Jim Breyer of Accel Partners stated in a session on Connectedness that it is futile to add ‘social’ to existing business models and that instead the opportunity is to build radical and disruptive new businesses to exploit this phenomena. When it comes to venture investing I cede to Jim’s experience and wisdom but that is not the whole story.

As organizations of all sizes and forms grapple with the need for new levels of agility and innovation the leadership and organizational paradigms are changing. One might describe this as a shift from Newtonian thinking to Darwinian thinking. The phenomena of social media is percolating through and effecting the ways in which we all think. Instead of predictable, top-down, architected approaches to the future (the world of Newton) we are becoming more comfortable with a bottom-up, evolutionary, learn-as-you-go approach (the world of Darwin). While the analogy is not bullet-proof (we have the ability to add intelligent design to the survival-of-the-fittest of natural systems) it provides a useful framework for leadership behavior.

I have heard stories of enterprises letting go of the command and control approach. The recent success of Pepsi Cola’s consumer generated Super Bowl adds come to mind as well as the open innovation platforms being used by pharmaceutical companies. It is also clear that this bottom-up approach does not eradicate the need for strong leadership. If anything, the best examples in social media, Wikipedia and Mozilla for instance, have clear roles for expertise and decision making.

In a fascinating dinner conversation I heard a strong vote for the role of the leader as creator of culture where good ideas emerge, the selector of the strongest ideas that deserve support and the driver of ownership and accountability necessary for great execution.

So perhaps in future Davos’ we will see a continued development of the conversation about networks and social media. Just as we flock to listen to Sean Parker, Craig Ventor and Francis Collins tell us about the coming revolutions in the Internet and biology we will also be listening to them for clues about how to lead our own organizations.

Post 3

The Diversity of Davos

From afar it may seem as though Davos is a homogeneous collection of the world elite discussing a narrow set of economic and business topics. For those lucky enough to attend it is of course an entirely different experience.

I find myself not only appreciating the diversity of geography, cultural background and role in the world, but also the diversity of approaches to any given topic. Growth might be addressed from an economic perspective, the development of talent or achievements of innovation. Sustainability has been discussed in terms of resource depletion, brand credibility and social justice.

A session on the Creative Workplace, in which I was a participant, saw Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com showcasing the emerging future of collaborative technology, myself talking about various aspects of creative culture and Marcus Samuelsson, the famed chef, talking about the value of diversity and inclusion in the quest for cultural innovation. This crashing together of different perspectives produced a rich discussion and new insights that might not have emerged if three contributors from the same background had taken the stage.

Davos is not just a unique opportunity for people to network so as to create new possibilities. It provides a unique opportunity for diverse ideas to meet, network and create entirely new possibilities that might well, to quote the mission of the World Economic Forum, improve the state of the world.

I was given the opportunity to contribute to the HBR Agenda 2011 and wrote a short piece on the idea of successful companies earning  ‘permission to innovate’ from customers and stakeholders. You can see it here and the other 23 contributions from far more esteemed folks such as Dan Pink, Michael Porter, AG Lafley and Bob Sutton here.

In a conversation over breakfast this morning an architect friend was relaying a conversation she in turn had had the previous evening with someone influential in the world of economics. He was wondering why in architecture and design there are relatively few examples of massive and systemic failures. Buildings rarely fall down and products rarely fail to work basically as intended. He compared this to the financial world where ‘new designs’ often fail systemically with significant unforeseen downsides. Of course there are failures in design and the occasional product recall to prove it but in general his observation is accurate. The design process as applied to products, buildings and other tangible things is quite reliable.

This led me to wonder about two things. Firstly, why is the design of tangible things so reliable and secondly are there lessons from attempts to design in the abstract world of economics that may be useful to all design thinkers?

My response to the first question would be to wonder about the inherent transparency of tangible things. It seems to me quite a bit easier to inspect and test designs that are tangible versus designs that are intangible, and often extremely complex. Even in their nascent form as drawings many people can assess the viability of a new product idea during the design process. It is also relatively easy, and getting easier all the time, to create prototypes that can be tested under the laws of physics, markets or any other environment one might be interested in. The design of physical things also has a long tradition and hence many past examples to draw on when imagining potential failure modes.

So, what happens when we leave the world of tangibility and enter the abstract. Examining software design might be a good first stop. Here we see many of the same characteristics as in the tangible world (fast prototyping, iteration, reasonable transparency) that help mitigate against catastrophic failure but we also see some of the characteristics of the abstract and complex that signal potential danger. The network effects of modern software mean the ultimate impacts of our design can be hard to understand and imagine in advance. The relative ease of iteration and innovation makes change constant and the impact of that change hard to assess. As we move even further from the comfort of tangibility toward financial systems, social networks, health care systems and the like the predictability, evaluation and transparency of new designs become even more of a problem and the risks of dramatic failure increase.

As far as I can see there is little inherent in the design process that protects design thinkers from these same failures if we choose to tackle abstract, intangible questions such as services, systems and networks. Instead we might imagine how to apply the same rigor and discipline to the design process that has emerged from hundreds of years of practice in the tangible world. We might concentrate on how to make the process of the design of the intangible as transparent and open to observation as the design of the tangible. We might develop prototyping environments that allow us to learn through failure without catastrophic implications. We might accept that we need better mechanisms for criticism and feedback so that we begin to establish a body of knowledge about what works, and what does not, in the design of these things that don’t go ‘thud’ when we drop them.

I am off to Singapore in a week for my first visit. I have been invited by the government to give a talk on design thinking and meet with various government and business leaders to talk about the role of design thinking at a national level.

It is interesting to think about national scale design and innovation policy and the person who I believe has done most with this is John Kao with his I20 group of 25 national innovation leaders. There seems to be a group of small to medium size countries that are committed to building innovation infrastructure to drive economic growth and I wonder what are the key elements for success in this endeavor?

Finland is a great example of a country that has done many of the right things. It has an integrated design and innovation policy and has created new institutions like Aalto University to facilitate greater cross-disciplinary collaboration. What is not clear is whether this is actually generating increased numbers of innovative companies or increased economic growth.

I have been wondering whether top down government policy is what really makes the difference or whether instead there are emergent characteristics that determine a nation or region’s success in the global innovation economy. When I look at places that have generated significant innovation in the past- London, New York, Paris, Silicon Valley, Florence, Rome, they all seem to have been successful ‘fusion cities’ (or regions) that benefited from ideas flowing in from the outside and the interaction of diverse populations. That’s why I think cities like Singapore, Shanghai and Mumbai may one day be seen as equally productive innovation hotspots. Each of these cities has the opportunity to help translate ideas and forces that exist in the world for the rapidly expanding Asian market. The mix of ‘outsiders’ and ‘insiders’ helps ideas mutate in the way that they must to create relevant innovations.

How will the western concept of brand mutate to serve Asian markets? How will the idea of social networking mutate within the community minded societies of Asia? Will social entrepreneurship be different in Asia? Will there be Asian Einsteins and Steve Jobs’?

I wonder whether these and many other questions will be answered by cities like Singapore that actively promote a fusion of outside and inside and that are positioned as hubs in the Asian network?

The first two OpenIDEO challenges have recently been completed and now the trick is spreading the best ideas with the goal to have some be implemented. The results of the the educational tools challenge, sponsored by Grey Matters Capital, have been presented at the Enterprising Schools Symposium in Hyderabad. They have also been collated in a catalog that you can download for free. Any idea in the catalog is free to be used in any way by educational entrepreneurs and innovators worldwide. If you work in education then go check out the ideas to see if you can use any of them.

Similarly the Jamie Oliver challenge results have been published in a downloadable book. This time Jamie plans to work on some of his favorite ideas but again everything is available to inspire others innovators.

My question is, what beyond publishing winning concepts can be done to increase the impact of these challenges?

The Future of the Book. from IDEO on Vimeo.

Some folks in the New York office of IDEO have been thinking about the future of the book and how it shows up as an experience on tablets. They would love to get your reactions to the ideas.

It is interesting to think how a media morphs as it transitions to a new technology platform. In this case is this really about the ‘book’ or is it something entirely new? There is a conversation going on over at IDEO’s Facebook page.