CPH127

I’m a heavy Flickr user and have over a few iteration re-discovered the possibilities in sharing photos. It’s amazing how easy it is to use, connect and share networks of interest.

Since New Year I’ve been working on a major innovation project for one of the truly market leaders in the food ingredients industry. As part of the project I’m considering using Flickr as an Anthropological tool, but I’m nor aware of the constraints or great possibilities, but can see a huge potential in using it..

Do you have any experience in doing so? Wanna share? How should I design this? Is it valid?

By the way – I see that Cheskin claims they invented Digital ethnography as a methodology. Did they really?

Brianna Sylver makes some very good points in her article "What does ‘Innovation’ really mean?" about the need to understand the hiring organization or client’s motivation for seeking ‘innovation services’. As we all know from our previous attempts to define the word, ‘innovation’ means different things to different people and this can give rise to mismatched expectations. From the article,

Corporations typically seek innovation services in response to one of three situations:

1. They are currently engulfed in the flames of the "burning platform"
(as Russ Ward, Director of New Product Development at IMP, Inc. calls
it). Their profits are dropping, their products are not selling and
they don’t know what to do about it.

2. They have emerged from the days of the "burning platform" and have
come to understand that innovation is not a start/stop process, but an
evolving one that requires constant attention.

3. They are a leader in their industry and are determined to stay
there. Failure is accepted within their organization because they
understand and fully embrace the numbers game in product development.

In addition to understanding the motivation, she goes on to write about the importance of understanding the client’s ‘innovation tolerance’ level which in turn helps define the success criteria for the project. This helps ensure that the project and it’s deliverables are relevant and useful to the hiring organization - instead of situations where the consultant offers a ‘blue sky’ radical solution while the client just wanted an incremental product improvement. There’s much more in the article including tips on understanding your client’s culture and effective ways to improve the consultant/client relationship. Go read the whole thing!

Understanding complexity, seeing patterns and knowing where you fit in – personal leadership - in the process, in the picture is what is needed when dealing with chaos – I think.

But do you understand complexity, do you know how to deal with chaos? And what about your personal leadership?

I just found a bibliography on complexity resources that I what to share with you.

The reason why I think complexity and personal leadership is important is of course because I think it matters in terms of your ability to innovate the right way.

What do you think?

After I wrote my post titled "Innovation Lessons from the BoP" it struck me that it would be far more appropriate a post for CPH127’s global focus on design and innovation. It’s a very long article, so I’ll repost an excerpt below for context. I look forward to discussions on  what we can do to assist those at the bottom of the pyramid with their efforts in innovation and design.

Prahalad states, in the introduction to his book Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, that:

If we stop thinking of the poor as victims or as a burden
and start recognizing them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs and
value-conscious consumers, a whole new world of opportunity will open
up.

IMHO,
the focus of the world, however, has been on the products and services
that can be designed for the BoP, they have been recognized as
"value-conscious consumers", which is but one aspect of Prahalad’s
assertion. The other side of the story, less visible in the public eye,
is the opportunity to co-create with those he recognizes as "resilient and creative entreprenuers".

The question, that arose in my mind, after reading this recent article, is "Where
is the venture capital, the product development support and the
marketing opportunity for the innovations that rise UP from the bottom?" It seemed to me, that all I ever read about were products FOR the BoP.

Now there is an opportunity to really make a difference. As Prahalad says, four billion* poor can be the engine of the next
round of global trade and prosperity, and can be a source of
innovations.

Continued.

I’m throwing this provocative question out to our global audience on CPH127, whether establishing a national design council, creating a national design policy, or in general, bringing government support to the design industry has any benefit?

My reason for doing so is not out of any particular opinion on my part, instead, two recent issues in the news impelled this question out of curiousity. Especially since I know that our esteemed founders are closely connected to the Danish Design Council :).

The first article, from The Hindu, announces India’s imminent ratification of a National Design Policy, creation of an Indian Design Council, and most interesting, their intention to create a "mark" to qualify good design. This article states,

"The National Design Policy will be announced in January. Merely
coming out with a policy statement will not suffice, as it will have to
be followed up with implementation. Among other things, the `Designed
in India’ label will have to be linked with a certain quality
specification," Mr N.N. Prasad, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Commerce
and Industry, said.

The attempt would be to position `Designed in India’ as a
label that assures quality and utility. This could be in conjunction
with other labels - `Made in India’ and `Served from India’.

A mechanism will be worked out for creating a brand image for
Indian designs through the award of an `India Design Mark’ that satisfy
certain criteria such as appeal, centricity, ergonomic features, safety
and environment findings.

The EETimes, on the other hand, has an article titled "The politicization of Innovation" and covers the recently proposed bill submitted to the United States Congress, the "National Innovation Policy 2005" [.doc link] While I will not enter into the "is design equal to innovation" debate, an overly battered dead horse, methinks, I do however wonder if a national design policy or design council, along the lines of those established in Europe, (notably the UK, the DDC of course :), ANZAC and Asia (Japan, Taiwan, Korea - all leaders in consumer electronics) would benefit American industry. Indeed, this Innovation Policy, and it’s intention to create a President’s Council on Innovation, could possibly be the equivalent of a design council/policy, as per the other nations, I doubt though, that it is. These are it’s three key initiatives,

increasing investment in basic research;

improving science and technology talent;

and developing a robust innovation infrastructure.

and their terminology implies a) that innovation is inherently technology led and that b) design is not innovation.  On the other hand, for argument’s sake, if this were a design policy and the intention was to create a national design council, do you think that it would be of greater benefit? If so, how and why? While on this topic, I’d like to throw out a few more questions on design policies in general, are they useful to nations? Actually, what I’m asking is, Hans, do you do anything over at that Design Council? [just kidding]  Here’s a link to Ars Technica, which has a pessimistic view of this initiative by the US to give balance, and perhaps add fuel to this discussion.

Arthur Cropley has done a marvellous paper on divergence vs. convergence thinking– “In praise of convergent thinking", where he has some interesting observations.

Convergent thinking is oriented towards deriving the single best (or correct) answer to a clearly defined question. It emphasizes speed, accuracy, logic, and the like, and focuses on accumulating information, recognizing the familiar, reapplying set techniques, and preserving the already known. It is based on familiarity with what is already known (i.e., knowledge), and is most effective in situations where a ready-made answer exists and needs simply to be recalled from stored information, or worked out from what is already known by applying conventional and logical search, recognition and decision-making strategies.

One of the most important aspects of convergent thinking is that it leads to a single “best” answer, and thus leaves no room for ambiguity: Answers are either right or wrong. IQ tests are frequently regarded as epitomizing convergent thinking. Divergent thinking, by contrast, involves producing multiple or alternative answers from available information. It requires making unexpected combinations, recognizing links among remote associates, transforming information into unexpected forms, and the like. Answers to the same question arrived at via divergent thinking may vary substantially from person to person but be of equal value. They may never have existed before, and are often thus novel, unusual or “surprising”. Sometimes this is true merely in the experience of the person producing the variability in question, or for the particular setting, but it may also be true in an absolute sense.

Which kind of thinking do you practice, do you motivate in your organization? When do you see it is nessesary to be divergent/convergent?

However, contrary to what is sometimes assumed, both convergent and divergent thinking lead to production of ideas. None the less, there is a major qualitative difference: Convergent thinking usually generates orthodoxy, whereas divergent thinking always generates variability; otherwise it would not be divergent.

Read more……

It was when I threw out a reference to the movie, Rashomon, by Kurosawa, while talking to a young designer at work, only to have him blink at me in response, that I was moved to write this ‘rant’ or ‘view’ or, in my case, ‘informed opinion’. ‘The Rashomon Effect‘, has become a reference for contextual truth or subjective reality, i.e. shared experiences may be interpreted uniquely by each member of the group or team, and for a practicing professional designer, one who deals in the world of interpretation, to be unaware of this seminal piece of creative work, appalled me.

When I asked him what his educational background was, he said it was a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) in Visual Communications from a better known school in the USA. This is a four year degree on a university campus, where one assumes, one is exposed to the great works of film, literature and the arts in near human history. How then, can one be ignorant of the influence of Francois Truffaut, Peter Brooks’ 10 hour long epic, The Mahabharata or even Leonardo’s use of The Golden Ratio?

My intention here, today, is to begin a conversation on design education, and to ask all you, a global audience, to share your own experiences in education. Is this issue one that is only faced in the United States, where I’ve met and interviewed hundreds of designers seeking graduate design education, or is it prevalent in Europe, Asia and Oceania? Ian, as an educator based out of Australia with significant Chinese experience, what is your opinion?

In my own experience, I’ve been educated in the British system until the O levels, followed by a year in an american high school, then undergraduate degree in Bangalore and of course, a year at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. From an early age, my schooling was such that I was exposed to world literature and culture, culminating in an intense experience at NID. In the 10 months I was there, I was exposed to Bharata Natyam through the AISEC, French filmography, the Battleship Potemkin, The Caucasian Chalk Circle et al. Every weekend, there was a film festival or a dance recital or an art exhibition. All of these influences, states the philosophy of the design school, written by Charles and Ray Eames, converge to create design professionals who are able to manifest in tangible form, their enhanced aethestic sensibilities.

This post relates at least indirectly to two themes referred to on CPH127 previously – [1] the emergence of China and [2] culture and it’s role in innovation and creativity.

We seek more “Asian voices” in our community perhaps motivated by observations of apparent opportunity. In order to assist in the facilitation of such involvement, do we need to foster awareness of the differences in Chinese thinking [for example] from what would be typical in Western/European/American ways of thinking? I’d suggest so…

The Shanghai Swiss Chamber of Commerce swisscham.org recently commissioned Birds & Fish Communications to work on the development of a quarterly magazine appropriately titled “The Bridge”. Designed to foster more awareness of Swiss Chinese business relations in Shanghai and China generally the publication’s March 2005 issue featured a wonderful article “10 differences between Western and Eastern Behaviour and Thinking” by Hans J.Roth, Consul General of Switzerland in Shanghai. The article describes the most significant differences between European and Chinese cultural environments. Although quite broad brushstrokes the observations can be considered a solid general guideline. I thought it would be positive to share the main points of difference highlighted in the article…Read on here

Much of what Mr roth writes certainly reflects my own perceptions about my experiences in working in China and more generally of Chinese friends and colleagues…intriguing I think.

Here is more useful insights by Hans J.Roth…

A few days ago I facilitated a workshop about Social Software - especially the use of Weblogs, Technorati, Bloglines and Flickr. It was a part of a Master Programme at CBS.

One of the participants reminded me of a very interesting theory on Complex Responsive Processes that I read last year.

The reason why I think it’s interesting in a design, innovation and leadership perspective is because of trying to find the answers on the following questions:

1. Who am I and how have I come to be who I am?
2. Who are we and how have we come to be who we are?
3. How are we all changing, evolving and learning?

I have been engaged in these questions myself and been working with them through a process of developing an understanding of my embodied values and in what way I am able to live these values in my practice. My identity.

Stacey has
placed emphasis on the importance of relating in his second question “How have
we become to be who we are?” He addresses this question through his theory of Complex Responsive Processes

I think the third question is answered by the way we communicate. Does that make sense? Is it btw. applicable to the thoughts of design thinking? What do you think?

During INDEX:Views – it happens in every meeting or gathering - I saw different patterns of position-taking.

Try to think back to the last time you introduced your self in a group. What did you tell about your self, why?

Why do almost all of us list up our work titles, where we have studied, and which exams we have?

Why don’t we tell about our last vacation, what we’ve planned for the weekend and what motivates us when working together with other people?

Another position-talking attitude is about using history as an argument. Is history a valid point in days where we don’t know the answers to tomorrows needs and problems? Has it ever been a valid argument when designing solutions for tomorrow?

Vocabulary – language – is the last position-talking attitude I will mention in this post. When working in multi-diverse team, with multi-disciplinary capabilities and different language it often appears to be difficult to agree on which level of conversation the group should choose.

Do you have any suggestions to how to deal with that? Leading diverse teams?

I’m sure you know of other examples – please share.