mark rolston@dmi: embrace the coarse process
DESCRIPTION
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
