mark rolston@dmi: embrace the coarse process

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Mark Rolston, chief creative officer at frog design, argues in this presentation, given at the DMI conference 2009, that the time is ripe for "less design thinking and more design doing." He highlights the importance of craftsmanship and calls for an agile concept of design strategy that embraces both the ambiguity and the materiality of the creative process.

TRANSCRIPT

Mark Rolston

Chief Creative O!cer

Rethinking Design

Embrace The Coarse Process

“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”

Elvis Costello

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The Fog of War

"The great uncertainty of all data in war is a

peculiar di!culty, because all action must,

to a certain extent, be planned in a mere

twilight, which in addition not infrequently

— like the e"ect of a fog or moonshine —

gives to things exaggerated dimensions and

unnatural appearance."

Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian military analyst, 1800’s

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“The implicit assumption that thinking

is somehow removed from the act of

design itself. That is, if we get some

really smart folks together to ponder

and brainstorm paradigm shifts,

great stu" will come from it.

This is mildly delusional at best.”

Bob Brunner, in Fast Company

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embrace the coarse process

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The market for innovation:

What do we have and what do we want?

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what we had

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what we wanted

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what we had

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what we wanted

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what we have

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what we want

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“so then, a modern strategic design

program should do the trick, right?”

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The era of design superstars

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The big idea

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But the problem has changed

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We want simplicity

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© 2009 frog design. Confidential & Proprietary.MEX: Personalization

© 2009 frog design. Confidential & Proprietary.MEX: Personalization

© 2009 frog design. Confidential & Proprietary.MEX: Personalization

© 2009 frog design. Confidential & Proprietary.

The physical object loses functional identity

© 2009 frog design. Confidential & Proprietary.

Open Systems Invite Innovation

it can be anything

you want it to be

phone = computer = netbook = MID...

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general computing / communications / lifestyle / entertainment...

A white box

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A white box

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A white box

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agnostic in form, time, place, and purpose

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what if there is no box?

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a!ordance overhead

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a"ordance overhead

Randall Munroe xkcd.com

how can we innovate in this new context?

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embrace the coarse process

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design by intent is waterfall thinking

(determinism)

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who wants to be standing here?

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A map may have a structure similar

or dissimilar to the structure of the

territory.

A map is not the territory.

- Alfred Korzybski, 1931

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design with intent is working in the

territory, not trying to perfect the map

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jump in, get dirty!

craftsmanship

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craftsmanship

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“We consider that the architects in every

profession are more estimable and know

more and are wiser than the artisans,

because they know the reasons of the

things which are done.”

Aristotle

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craftsmanship

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Plato observed that although ‘craftsman are all poets…they are not called poets, they have other names”

Plato

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craftsmanship

“The hand and head divided”

Richard Sennett

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We discover elegant solutions

more e"ectively than conjuring them

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tacit knowledge

Soviet and Japanese models

of craftsmanship

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Soviet Construction Industry

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Japanese Total Quality Control

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Text

While Marx dealt with “the worker”

The Japanese dealt with “the work”

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designing with the material

rather than upon it

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material

Technology

People

Processes

Politics

Money

oh, and actual

”materials”

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then development team

(software and hardware)

builds it

strategy and design research

folks do their thing, defining the vision,

the solution, and the requirements

then the designers design it

discover design deliver

failure points

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then development team

(software and hardware)

builds it

strategy and design research

folks do their thing, defining the vision,

the solution, and the requirements

then the designers design it

discover design deliver

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insight design build

!

convergence of

design with development

convergence of

insight with design

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insight build

!

convergence of

design with development

convergence of

insight with design

design

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Best Business/Productivity Application, People’s Choice Award

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my recommendations:

(six of them)

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encourage tacit knowledge

(Plans are no substitute

for the real thing)

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create a culture of doing

as much as, if not more,

than thinking.

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embrace the discomfort

and ambiguity of the

creative process

(the fog)

...even the chaos

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you don’t know shit.

(demand perpetual curiousity and

the willingness to course correct)

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remember there is a point to all this...

process is a means to an end.

Our purpose is to create.

Embrace The Coarse Process

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