Dan Wieden, founder of Wieden+Kennedy, said that line about being stupid when asked about his job by Polly Labarre of Mavericks at Work. I believe that the full quote was “My job is to walk in stupid every day.” His point is that there is no way he could know everything, that he is aware of the obstacle of expertise, and that he will not always have the best ideas. So, coming into work “stupid” keeps his mind open to ideas from anywhere, and open to valuing them when they happened. Clearly, that strategy has worked well for Dan.
I read that Dan Wieden quote at Mavericks at Work a few days ago and have been thinking about it over the weekend. I believe it is a very powerful attitude about how we could approach our work and maintain important perspective. I think there is tremendous value in, every day, going to work ready to learn, anxious for surprises, and anticipating the new. In coming to work looking for change, for improvement, and to challenge convention. We need to go to work knowing that ideas can come from anywhere, and should, and that those ideas should be acknowledged, encouraged, and supported… arriving every day with the intent of building this, of making it happen, of not standing in the way. Every day we need to know that somebody, somewhere is better than us… and that is totally cool because we want to learn from them. We need to come in every day hopeful, hungry, and focused on being in a different place than we were yesterday, on being in a different place this afternoon than this morning. We need to spend more time listening than talking, more time trying to understand and see from alternative points of view and work to avoid reaction and to lessen our reliance on instinct and instead give ourselves the time to own our decisions, and be thoughtful about it. We should spend as much energy on building our team as we do building our careers, and realize that our team is better when it is made up of people who just might be, and probably need to be, smarter than us. Instead of adopting the persona of an expert, we should try that of a student. Being a student was fun, everything was about newness and possibilities. Being an expert is limiting.
We all see the well-worn grain of company “culture” begin to show in ourselves and the others we work with. We see the behaviors that are counter to doing things better, to doing them the right way, and we allow this to happen. We see people who have stopped learning, people who no longer have wonder and curiosity and no longer have passion and drive. This is a form of giving up, or retiring from what is important. This is not an option. Dan Wieden nailed it.
In a similar vein, I found an excellent, direct and honest speech by Dan Wieden on the W+K London blog Welcome to Optimism, which I have followed for a long time. Both the speech and the blog are totally worth reading.
On July 11th schneiderism crossed the one year mark, and is closing in on 250 posts. It has been a great experience. This effort has introduced me to and allowed me to cross paths with smart, cool people from all over the world. As an outlet, researching for schneiderism has brought me to amazing stories and discoveries, and kept me on the hunt for the bonds between design, innovation and leadership. It has also been a good time. Thanks for visiting.
CrunchGear’s Peter Ha spent some quality time with James Dyson at his company laboratories. Dyson talks about design and engineering principles, and the value in personally working his products over. The limitations of the blip.tv player prevented me from embedding my favorite video in the series above, but you can view it here. The video is of Dyson giving an impromptu product test, with mixed results. It is great to see such a design legend come across as totally human, and a little bit fumbly.
“Anyone developing new products and new technology needs one characteristic above all else: hope.”
James Dyson
More video from Ha’s visit here. I will say that the blip.tv video player is a TOTAL pain in the ass.
Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of NASA astronaut and physicist Sally Ride’s first trip into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle, making her the first American woman into space. It was on June 18th, 1983 that Ride and her five crew members rode the Space Shuttle Challenger into Earth orbit. In so doing she became an important role model for all of us, but especially for young girls with a passion for science and adventure. I remember reading about that shuttle mission in the newspaper and thinking that she was just about the coolest person on the planet.
“All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.”
Sally Ride - Retired U.S. Astronaut
Prior to becoming an astronaut, Ride was a nationally ranked tennis player. When asked about her professional tennis career she quipped:
“I was always very interested in science, and I knew that for me, science was a better long-term career than tennis.”
She was preceded into space as one of the first women by Soviet Kosmonauts Valentina Tereschkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982. After inspiring an entire generation of women, she retired from NASA in 1987 and entered academia.
Chris Bangle is the sometimes controversial head of the global BMW Design Group, and he has worked tirelessly to move automobile design at BMW to a place where it can respond to both the demand for innovation and the needs of the user. He has put together a dream team of designers, engineers, and thinkers who challenge every convention of what an automobile is and how we use it. The most recent work from this team is the GINA Light Visionary Model pictured above. At the most base level, this dramatically effects the look of automobile design. At it’s most complex, it completely changes our relationship to this mode of transportation and brings out a level of emotion that I, personally, have not experienced in a very, very long time. I encourage you to watch this video presentation of the concept if you have any interest in the future of automobile design:
As far as I am concerned, GINA nails it by creating a seamless connection between form and function, by challenging every convention of automobile design, and by FINALLY bringing materials innovation to a point of influence that is beyond the shallowness of style. It is:
“Context over dogma.”
Chris Bangle - Head of BMW Design Group
Much more on this at Winding Road, perhaps the best automotive blog I have yet experienced.
Discussions around the demise of print continue to intensify. Just last week I posted some of my thoughts on this matter, motivated to do so by the confluence of increased speculation as to the future of printed media. Then, yesterday, BAM! Steve Ballmer of Microsoft, in an interview in the Washington Post, speaks his mind on the issue when asked for his outlook on the future of media:
“In the next 10 years, the whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down — my opinion.
Here are the premises I have. Number one, there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.”
Steve Ballmer of Microsoft
Video of the Ballmer interview:
I am not one to follow closely the predictions and strategies of Ballmer, or Microsoft, but this statement made my jaw drop. Fact: Microsoft is a force in the future of whatever media becomes. Fact: Microsoft devotes tremendous resources out of its tremendous resources to guide this future in a way that benefits Microsoft. Fact: Steve Ballmer is closer to this issue, in many ways, than the rest of us as he is leading Microsoft’s strategy with regards to media. Does his opinion have merit? Most definitely. He even points out that it might be eight years or it might be 15 years, the timing doesn’t really matter as the reality is that the result is inevitable.
Then, this morning via Twitter I come across a new post at FastCompany that approaches the issue from a slightly different angle, that the demise in print media is also being driven by huge changes happening in journalism. Newsrooms are shrinking, news media subscriptions are collapsing, and increasingly reporters are getting their information and tips from public web forums. That would make the big news media companies middle men for the news, with the end result being that the public gets this and prefers going direct to the source. Leaders at media institutions like the New York Times are in total confusion as to what is happening and what will happen next, and the New York Times has actually been a vanguard in pursuing the online media channel. Ten years ago the public needed the resources provided by the Newsweeks, NYT’s, and the myriad other special interest publications. The printed manifestation of this resource was the only interaction option. Following the change in that interaction, from the reliance on the printed piece to the irrefutable dominance of the online channel, is an exercise in realizing how traditional media outlets have been inept at surveying strategic risk and changing with the times.
The graph above and the recent editorial by Thomas Friedman intersect with some grim realities. The steadily rising price of oil has created petro-authoritarian states that no longer see the United States as a nexus of power in the world. In fact, they actively work to counter American interests globally, and do so fairly effectively right now. Huge amounts of money is flowing into states like Venezuela, Russia and Iran, and power and influence follow money. Energy and security expert Gal Luft testified to Congress last week and pointed out that as oil approaches $200 a barrel, OPEC will have amassed the wealth to:
“…potentially buy Bank of America in one month worth of production, Apple computers in a week and General Motors in just three days.”
Gal Luft
In his editorial, Thomas Friedman points out that the really startling issue here is that despite the confluence of so many negative catalysts around oil for our nation, and catalysts that will have long term socio-economic implications for us as individuals AND globally as a nation, we still do not have an effective energy policy in place that moves us past this desperate reliance on oil. What is it going to take?
The convergence of seemingly random events (the Print is Dead blog, this t-shirt, Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernhoff, and this presentation by Lynne d Johnson) has put the “Print is Dead” mantra in front of me several times in the last week. Oddly coincidental or representative of a growing sentiment, you decide. Obviously, print is still very much alive, but how we use print has changed, is changing, and will continue to change. Dramatically. The reality is that for some, print is in fact very dead. For others it is dying, and for a shrinking portion of the population… print is all there is. Print isn’t dead, but it is pretty ill and the prognosis is not good. You would be hard pressed to argue otherwise, that print is alive and well, as there is so much happening that clearly supports the hard reality that the ways in which we interact with information has quickly tilted to the digital.
Our mobile technology increasingly breaks down the usability barriers between where we are and the content we want. This is not just about convenience, either, it is very much about connectivity and the ease with which we can leverage diffuse networks to find what we want. How can the printed page compete with that? Print publishers are struggling with this reality, and working hard to figure out how to transition their content assets in a meaningful way to the array of digital channels before them. Some have pioneered great strategies for this, and benefit from not just increased audiences, but from the concept of content adoption. That’s what we do on the web, we adopt content and send it around. We point people to it. We fold it into how we navigate information, and personalize its place in our information networks. This is incredibly useful, and is the reason why I no longer subscribe to a physical newspaper and only a few printed magazines (that I subscribe to because I like them and there is not yet an online channel for that content). I don’t even hit most newspaper and periodical websites anymore as the content I want finds me through a myriad of personal technologies that do all of the work of searching for me. Popular and free technologies like RSS and Twitter. I have always been a reader, but I have never read as much as I have the last few years and I would say that close to 90% of what I read is online. Garrick Van Buren wrote a somewhat related post about this a few weeks back, and in that post he passed on a line that is unforgettable to me from an article in the New York Times:
Recently I had the opportunity to enjoy another MX Conference put on by the team at Adaptive Path in San Francisco. It rocked and was absolutely full of great information, stories, and people all focused on the developing practice of effectively managing experience design teams. I’d say the rapidly developing practice. We are under a lot of pressure to perform and to deliver value, and often success is largely determined by the effectiveness of how creative teams are led. MX is a window into the practices that have led to success.
At the conference I was asked to extend a pretty generous offer to the readers of schneiderism for the upcoming UX Intensive that Adaptive Path is hosting in Minneapolis, Minnesota from June 16-19. If you work in interaction/experience design in any capacity, really, I highly encourage you to check this workshop out. You can choose specific sessions or pony up for the full week. Adaptive Path knows what they are doing, and they are intensely focused on providing value to the people that attend their events. I speak from experience on that one.
Here’s the offer. If you register by May 31st and use the promotional code UXIM, you will receive a 15% discount on top of the early bird registration 10% discount. That is compelling. Here is a choice quote from the UX registration page:
“Three things I loved about UX Intensive: 1. presenters who totally know their craft and aren’t shy about saying it’s at least as much art as science, but that you can develop the art by first learning the science; 2. a room filled with smart, motivated participants who are expert in many things, some included in the conference topics and some not, working very hard with great joy, to everyone’s benefit; 3. the whole is totally greater than the sum of the parts.”
The phrase “The Agency of the Future” gets thrown around with some abandon (yes, I use it too…). This is partly because it is catchy, but also because it succinctly indicates we are in the midst of change with regards to how people engage media, brands, information and advertising… change mostly driven by the digital channel. This phrase seems to point to a mythical agency that has navigated this change successfully, but that I am not so sure yet exists. Things are very fluid.
I was thinking about this phrase recently and remembered reading the Avenue A|Razorfish 2008 Digital Outlook Report. In that report, on page 26, AARF CEO Clark Kokich writes a smart piece on “The Client of The Future,” noting that agencies are not the only ones who need to change. This is a fresh and smart perspective.
Basically, many client organizations have not evolved from an optimization model that found its inception in the 1950’s, and has been refined over time but largely left in place for the last fifty years or so. This is a model that subscribes to a linear “consumer purchase funnel” that begins at the top with brand building via traditional media, and ends with purchase usually driven by direct marketing or some such. Pretty ubiquitous, and increasingly irrelevant.
Kokich points out that this model is becoming more and more unstable, and this is both because of how consumers have changed as well as the level of specialization within client organizations, and the inevitable creation of silos based on that specialization each tasked with successfully managing a specific consumer touch point. Thing is, consumers don’t move neatly from touch point to touch point anymore. They surf, and search, and refer, and work information to streamline their own process of seeking. They seek truth and authenticity, and as marketers that is a really tough thing to put a finger on, to generate or control. We see a development that has rendered much of marketing, in the traditional message-based-push-sense, specious, annoying and/or dishonest in the minds of the consumer. This realization is not new, and thousands talk about this on their blogs every day. There are a number of agencies and marketers that are well aware of this change, and have changed the ways in which they work and how they engage audiences. To Kokich’s point, maybe now is a good time for the marketing orgs inside of companies to embrace this same change, and to begin thinking differently about how they set about communicating the value of what it is their company does or provides, to have new and clear expectations for what that communication entails and what the new relationship with the consumer really means.
Last Monday Stephen Hawking gave a speech at an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of NASA. Hawking has long been a proponent of the value of humans exploring space, and again called for a determined effort by humans to colonize the moon and Mars. He put special emphasis on putting humans into space, and not relying solely on robotic explorers, which is largely driven by the survival of humans, longer term, and is an insurance policy against war, catastrophe, and disaster here on Earth. A great quote from the speech:
“Robotic missions are much cheaper and may provide more scientific information, but they don’t catch the public imagination in the same way, and they don’t spread the human race into space, which I’m arguing should be our long-term strategy. If the human race is to continue for another million years, we will have to boldly go where no one has gone before.”
With regards to life on other planets, Hawking offered three possibilities: that life in the universe, of any type, is rare; that simple forms of life may be common, but intelligent forms of life rare; or that intelligent life typically destroys itself. He went on to say:
“Personally, I favor the second possibility – that primitive life is relatively common, but that intelligent life is very rare. Some would say it has yet to occur on Earth.”
Jean Nouvel was recently awarded one of the most prestigious prizes in architecture… the Pritzker Prize. I cannot say that I found this surprising given the sheer volume of high profile projects his firm, Ateliers Jean Nouvel, have been awarded over the past decade. The work of his studio is incredibly creative, innovative, and impressive and despite the niggling issues around functionality and usability (damn those people!) I continue to marvel each time I experience this:
Rumor has it that after presenting the building design concept with the giant cantilever to the Guthrie Theater client team, somebody quipped about the expense of building something so novel, something so seemingly frivolous, to which Nouvel replied:
“If you remove the cantilever you might as well cut off my arm.”
rumored quote from Jean Nouvel
He then threatened to walk away from the project. I so want to believe that is true. Suffice it to say, the cantilever was built and it is impressive. Every time I see this structure in person, though, I cannot help but think of this:
Which, when you think about it, is actually a pretty cool thing to come to mind in relation to a high profile theatrical arts building in Minneapolis.
In honor of Jean Nouvel winning the Pritzker I offer the following Quote of The Moment, which is incredibly appropriate given the dizzying pace of materials exploration in architecture today:
“My work deals with what is happening now. I like to use the techniques and materials we are capable of today.”
This has been cycling around for the last few days, and I mostly just thought that Philippe Starck’s comments were those of a person who has just become really bored. His comments were made during an interview for Die Zeit, specifically an answer to the question regarding how he can design more things in a world already rampant with stuff (much of it designed by Starck, himself):
“I was a producer of materiality and I am ashamed of this fact. Everything I designed was unnecessary. I will definitely give up in two years’ time.”
Philippe Starck
I imagine he is massively distracted by his role as a developer and tastemaker for the exploding Chinese moneyed glitterati. That would wear anybody out, right? I was not planning on writing about this, but then read a post at Mocoloco that was right on the mark. Here’s the deal, he may have committed much effort over the past decades to create designs within a materialistic constraint, but he didn’t have to. Instead of toilet brushes he could have focused on insulin pumps. Instead of bathtub drain plugs he could have improved the wheelchair. He could have committed that same effort to non-materialistic designs that improve and/or save people’s lives. The thing is, he still can do this and we would love him to do this. I am surprised that he has given himself a two year sunset as a designer. Why not just quit now? Directed at Starck by Mocoloco:
“Why don’t you devote that substantial talent and media savvy of yours to making stuff that’s smarter, more sustainable, and dare we say it, cool, in that gotta have it, materialistic way you know so well. Or is this really about clients who aren’t quite ready to make the big changes required to create the smarter, more sustainable, cool design? Greenwashing got you down? It’s not going to be easy.”
Catching up on my feeds just now I was saddened to see that Arthur C. Clarke, physicist, author, innovator, futurist, and ardent believer in the potential of humanity, has died. He was 90, so the man had a very decent run. Perhaps his most recognized work was 2001: A Space Odyssey, the movie for which just celebrated its 40th anniversary. He leaves behind an enormous legacy of invention, creativity, art, and inspiration having written over 100 books. Enormous. Few have been so profoundly influential to so many, and managed to do it with such consistent style, usually sporting a satin Nehru jacket and tanned from the beaches of his home in Sri Lanka. For me, Arthur C. Clarke is the Yin to Philip K. Dick’s Yang. A couple great quotes from Clarke in honor of his passing…
Reflecting on his life:
“Sometimes I am asked how I would like to be remembered. I have had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer and space promoter. Of all these I would like to be remembered as a writer.”
A terrific quote on the value of the space program, from 1970:
“The inspirational value of the space program is probably of far greater importance to education than any input of dollars… A whole generation is growing up which has been attracted to the hard disciplines of science and engineering by the romance of space.”
Being a lover of this movie and a huge fan of Stanley Kubrick, it seemed fitting to honor this incredible classic on its 40th anniversary (and it pains me to say “classic” in reference to a movie only just slightly older than myself). Given your probably very busy life, the above video has condensed this sci-fi marathon into five intense seconds. Enjoy.
Wise words from Stanley Kubrick:
“If you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the consoling illusion that it has been mastered.”
Great interview with Steve Jobs by Fortune editor Betsy Morris excerpted at cnnmoney.com. Read it.
He knows what he is doing:
“Our DNA is as a consumer company — for that individual customer who’s voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That’s who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it’s not up to par, it’s our fault, plain and simply.”
On his reputation as a total hardass:
“My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better. My job is to pull things together from different parts of the company and clear the ways and get the resources for the key projects. And to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better, coming up with more aggressive visions of how it could be.”
It’s all about focus:
“Apple is a $30 billion company, yet we’ve got less than 30 major products. I don’t know if that’s ever been done before. Certainly the great consumer electronics companies of the past had thousands of products. We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”
On February 23rd legendary auto racer, journalist and author Paul Frere died at the age of 91. His death was due to long term complications from an accident he had racing at Germany’s Nurburgring racetrack back in 2006. He never fully recovered from that accident. Frere pursued his passion to the very end.
He led an inspiring life, moving from racing motorcycles to completing 11 Formula One Grand Prix, racing in the Le Mans 24 Hours (winning it in a Ferrari in 1960 with co-driver Olivier Gendebein) and the Mille Miglia, becoming a renowned automotive journalist and highly regarded motorsports author. His automobile reviews were thorough, memorable and born out of a passion for going fast well. He raced with and against the best, and wrote for the rest of us to share his experience and expertise. His amazing book Sports Car and Competition Driving, which holds a permanent spot on my bookshelf and was originally written in 1963 (my copy is the 1992 edition), was my introduction to the world of high performance driving and motorsports. Through this book, Paul Frere taught me how to heel-and-toe, properly anticipate and apex a corner, trail brake at speed, and track out. He taught me that smooth is fast, and that driving well is understanding the science of vehicle dynamics. I have had the privilege of driving on some of the world’s most prestigious racetracks, from the Nurburgring to Laguna Seca, and every time I did I would remember his book, recalling his insights.
“Above a certain level, driving becomes a sport, demanding of its addicts instinct and accurate reflexes combined with perfect judgment. In this sphere, only those who enjoy an outstanding natural gift and who take a profound interest in the subject will ever reach the top.”
The media is creating a lot of confusion about the pressing economic situation. There is much talk, and hype, regarding whether or not we are in recession, mostly pointing to the realities of a recession that “may” already be underway. Scanning the mainstream media is an exercise in gloomy prognostications and flimsy evidence. Reading Rich Karlgaard’sblog at Forbes.com I came across the following excerpt of the 2008 Global Forecast by David Malpass:
“After the ongoing two-quarter slowdown, we expect a U.S. rebound in the second quarter extending through the second half. The softness in foreign growth in recent months should pass as U.S. orders start flowing again and the impact of lower U.S. interest rates spreads globally. We think the wave of downgrades in other outlooks–the Fed’s on February 20, the IMF’s in January, the falling Blue Chip forecast–is a delayed reaction to the severity of the August financial market turbulence. We’re more focused on the forward-looking response to the Fed’s interest rate cuts (3% and likely to fall), which we view as a significant positive event in the growth outlook.”
I appreciate that Karlgaard goes out of his way to present alternative viewpoints to those that seem to make better headlines. Malpass, as Karlgaard points out, has a pretty stellar record and is credited by Karlgaard as being one of the most accurate economic and market forecasters to navigate the intensity of the last eight years. Malpass feeling bullish about the U.S. economy is a very, very good thing. We need more good things right now.
It would seem that reality does map nicely to the various themes of science fiction:
“I’ve made the case that we will have both the hardware and the software to achieve human level artificial intelligence with the broad suppleness of human intelligence including our emotional intelligence by 2029.”
That is both fascinating and definitely something to ponder. I had imagined it taking us longer to reach human level AI as 2029 is only just over twenty years away. In the article Kurzweil goes on to say that humans and machines will eventually merge and become indistinguishable from one another. He does not say whether or not this will be by choice.
I have been reading a newish book from Japanese designer Kenya Hara, which came to me as an incredibly thoughtful gift. “Designing Design”, which is excellent, is not so much a portfolio or biography as much as a treatise on Hara’s philosophy of design, a philosophy that is both insightful and interesting, distinctive, and deeply immersive. His work is iconic in many ways, but not because of anything remotely approaching a signature flourish. He places significant focus on how allof our senses are affected by design, which encompasses everything from objects to environments.
Inside his book are beautiful images of his work, as well as that of others who have collaborated with him or contributed to projects he has curated. The images provide important references to his ideas and observations, and they are well integrated. The book functions almost as an illustrated guidebook to Hara’s design philosophy, visually representing the application of his thinking. Also, the design of this book is superbly elegant and engaging:
As a designer, Hara’s work reflects thought and consideration that seems contradictory in that it is both minimalist and comprehensive. It is evident that this is not a person who takes design lightly, and perhaps considers it more of an epistemological exercise:
“The human brain likes anything that entails a great deal of information.”
Kenya Hara
The book is divided into chapters that individually and collectively investigate:
We have spent a fair amount of time on this site investigating issues and ideas around innovation (especially back in October of last year). This is because few things can so substantially affect the fortunes of a company to the extent that supporting innovation can. Nothing new here, open any business magazine or visit any number of blogs and innovation is being discussed. This pervasiveness is born out of the priority and value we place on being able build the cultures that allow us to innovate consistently, and well. It is also because creating these cultures is incredibly challenging, and we benefit from learning how others have navigated these challenges.
I read yesterday an excellent article in Architectural Record by Andrew Pressman titled “Creating a Firm Culture That Supports Innovation” that offered a perspective that warrants sharing. This perspective begins with the increasing recognition that a firm’s cultural environment is a critical factor not only in producing the best possible design work but also in attracting and retaining both new staff and clients. In any creative enterprise you are only as good as your people, teams, and degree to which they are supported. A significant component of the talent war is demonstrating to prospects that you offer the culture that will support them in their creative work. Additionally, just as the business press is permeated with investigations into innovation, so are clients. The expectation for design excellence, and for teams and methodologies that put innovation front and center, should be considered a best practice by clients looking for creative services. For creative teams, fostering this culture and being able to identify successful outcomes is a significant competitive differentiator.
The article highlights an approach promoted by Robert Sutton in work featured in the Harvard Business Review back in 2000/2001, but still right on the money. It is an extreme approach to fostering innovation and acknowledges that new perspectives and ideas often emanate from “mavericks” with wildly diverse backgrounds, who harbor no preconceptions, and who are undaunted in challenging the status quo and championing their ideas. These mavericks are invaluable to successful innovation subcultures, and their ultimate impact on the organizational culture at large. Sounds good. The main points of this approach:
- Hire naive misfits who argue with you
- Encourage failure
- Avoid letting client input limit your vision
- Fully commit to risky ventures
I’ll let you read the article to get the full story, but there is some particularly valuable insight offered by Ted Hoff, an innovator and inventor of microprocessors, with respect to how client input can limit your vision. He says:
“Don’t do what your customers want; Do something better.”
Ted Hoff
I think all of the points above are important, and while they may sound somewhat intuitive they are very difficult to maintain in practice. Many organizations exist specifically to limit the existence of these behaviors, they are counterintuitive to an “established” enterprise and threaten the order that some managers can spend their entire careers trying to create. They defy predictability, and therefore deny managers the ability to financially model and plan. Therein lies the challenge, to encourage these behaviors in support of an innovative culture and in contrast to the ubiquitous corporate model. To realize and champion that business as usual in creative enterprise is a definitive path to extinction.
We live in a world of technology fetishism, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Nowhere is this more evident than in the world of consumer electronics, and few have had as significant an impact on design in this category as Dieter Rams. Renowned for his work at Braun and for creating the “Braun style”, his work in interaction and interface design not only shaped an entire generation of consumer electronics, and industrial designers, but set a standard for clean, excellent design that we see manifested today in seminal products like those from Apple. Back in 2004 Metropolis did a feature on him in which he provided his design philosophy in ten points, which I recently came across again and thought important to highlight:
“These points cannot be set in stone because just as technology and culture are constantly developing, so are ideas about good design.”
- Dieter Rams
1. Good design is innovative.
Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology and can never be an end in itself.
2. Good design makes a product useful.
A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of the product while disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.
3. Good design is aesthetic.
The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products we use every day affect our well-being. But only well-executed objects can be beautiful.
4. Good design makes a product understandable.
It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product talk. At best, it is self-explanatory.
5. Good design is honest.
It does not make a product more innovative, powerful, or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.
6. Good design is unobtrusive.
Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are
neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.
7. Good design is long-lasting.
It avoids being fashionable, and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years–even in today’s throwaway society.
8. Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
Nothing must be arbitrary. Care and accuracy in the design process shows respect toward the consumer.
9. Good design is environmentally friendly.
Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimizes physical and visual pollution throughout the life cycle of the product.
10. Good design is as little design as possible.
Less but better–because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with inessentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity!
More on Rams and an interview with him at designboom.
1. He just turned 85 and still has a firm and influential grip on high performance car design.
2. He not only built fast, winning racing cars… he raced too and won in his own right.
3. He usually wears a black cowboy hat.
4. In addition to a multitude of fast cars that have his name, there is also his signature chili.
5. Summing up his consistently successful approach to creating winning racecars, he said:
“It’s a massive motor in a tiny, lightweight car. “
As cool as he is, I’m going to have to pass on the chili. That’s Carroll Shelby up in the photo above posing next to one of his winning Ford GT40 Mark IV’s from the 1960’s. I posted a little bit about that a few months ago. I wasn’t born yet, but the Ford team’s victories with Shelby’s direction and leadership are legendary. They were also instrumental in burning in me a passion for fast sports cars, racing, and winning against the odds.
More about Carroll Shelby here, here, and here (ignore the goofy soundtrack…)
Over the course of his life, Stephen Hawking has made a number of sharp and pointed comments with regards to humanity. One of the most memorable for me would be:
“It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value.”
Stephen Hawking
Today he celebrates his 66th birthday. The man is beyond remarkable, and ranks up there with Carl Sagan as an inspiring astrophysicist who has made his life’s work making cosmology understandable and of value to the rest of us. From his limited physical state, the man has tirelessly worked to broaden our understanding of the universe we live in, and the physics of that reality, in ways that are beautiful and poetic while eschewing complex technical descriptions. He also has a terrificly dry sense of humor which he wields at every opportunity. His approach to life is probably as simple as stated in this statement, one we could take the time to consider:
“When one’s expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have”
Stephen Hawking
More about my favorite living cosmologist here, here, and from YouTube, Stephen Hawking lectures on the origins of the universe.
After posting about Oscar Niemeyer and his 100th birthday I felt compelled to discuss another great Brazilian modernist architect, Paulo Mendes da Rocha. He was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 2006, the second Brazilian architect to win the Pritzker after Oscar Niemeyer in 1988. In 2000 he was awarded the Mies Van Der Rohe prize for Latin American Architecture, also a tremendous honor. At 79 years old, Mendes da Rocha’s career now spans six decades since beginning his own practice in 1957. Considered one of the father’s of “Brazilian Brutalism” and part of Brazil’s avant-garde design movement, his work is signified by a simplicity of materials and forms. Brutalism for Mendes da Rocha was not about adherence to a style, though, and is instead about being guided by resolute design principles:
“Architecture is a human endeavor inspired by the nature all around us. We must transform nature; fuse science, art and technology into a sublime statement of human dignity.”
Paulo Mendes da Rocha
He is widely considered the most outstanding architect of Brazil and has steadfastly devoted his career to the creation of buildings and spaces guided by a sense of responsibility to those who inhabit then. His work also shows a responsibility to society, and a focus on honoring the context in which his architecture exists. Some of Mendes da Rocha’s work:
His residence in Sao Paulo. Mendes da Rocha has lived here since its completion in 1960.
The Chapel of St. Peter, Campos de Jordao, Brazil completed in 1987.
The Brazilian Museum of sculpture, noted for its unification of the museum with the landscape.
The architect reclining in a chair of his design, the “Paulistano”, created for the Paulistano Athletic Club in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Last evening, December 31, 2007 on New Year’s Eve, Ettore Sottsass passed away at his home in Milan. He was 90 years old. Remembered as one of the founders and the father of the postmodern Memphis design movement (of which I am definitely not a fan, but can respect from a distance), he was also the designer of many, many products that endure to this day. An architect by training, when Sottsass was able to break from Memphis he returned to his collaborative architecture practice in Milan where he practiced up to his death, enjoying a renaissance of his work in recent years with retrospectives in New York, Los Angeles and London.
A memorable Sottsass quote:
“Every color has a history. Red is the color of the Communist flag, the color that makes a surgeon move faster and the color of passion.”
Earlier this month an icon of modern design and architecture celebrated his 100th birthday. Oscar Niemeyer, the highly regarded and respected Brazilian architect, turned 100 on December 15th. He was an early innovator and pioneer in the use of reinforced concrete, and his stunning work blankets the cities of Brazil, but especially in Brasilia, the newly conceived capital city for Brazil for which he famously did the planning. Neimeyer continues to practice architecture (old architects never die…), and is active in projects that include a new city in Algiers and a cultural center for Avila, Spain.
Niemeyer is a committed communist, having joined the Brazilian Communist Party in 1945, and an atheist. Fidel Castro once exclaimed that “Niemeyer and I are the last Communists of this planet.” That aside, he began practicing architecture in 1934 and maintains a nearly 75 year legacy of design and innovation in the practice. Some images of Niemeyer’s work:
The Palácio da Alvorada, designed by Oscar Niemeyer, was the first building to be inaugurated in Brasília, in 1958 (two years before the official inauguration of the city).
Theater in Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo, Brazil, which opened in October 2005, in a park Niemeyer designed in the early 1950s.
Oscar Niemeyer Museum (NovoMuseu), in Curitiba, Brazil, completed in 2002
“Testing leads to failure, and failure leads to understanding.“
That puts him in alignment with a number of innovation leaders, those that believe that success is born out of learning from failures and capitalizing on that learning. In an intensely competitive world, not fearing failure and successfully mitigating and taking advantage of risk can be the difference between whether or not you are relevant next year. Anyway, a comment on my post What’s Left For Architects offered up a quote from Burt Rutan in reference to his employees at Scaled Composites, the company building SpaceShipOne, shown behind him in the photo above. Here’s the quote:
“You don’t get the privilege of designing something unless you have the capability of building it with your own hands.”
That’s a powerful statement, and incredibly prescient for a number of industries, the most obvious for myself presently being architecture. Architecture in the United States has done an impressive job moving about as far away from the actual making as possible. In many ways this has occurred due to a fear of failure, and a fear of risk. But that’s changing. Slowly. Stay tuned. Moving on, the comment and the quote it contained motivated me to do this post on Burt Rutan. Easily one of the most prolific innovators and leaders in the world of aerospace, Rutan is championing the first privately funded venture to put humans into orbit. Back in 2004 he and his team won the highly publicized Ansari X Prize for successfully sending SpaceShipOne into orbit. Twice. In two weeks. I do not think that NASA has ever accomplished that with the same launch and orbital vehicles. Though they suffered a tragic setback earlier this year, Rutan and his team are still focused and unwavering on their goal set. That is because this is a really big deal, and smart business people like Sir Richard Branson see the enormous potential of broadening our access to Earth orbit. Beyond SpaceShipOne, though, Rutan has a laundry list of innovations and achievements including Voyager, the first aircraft to circle the Earth without refueling. The man is a relentless, tough, smart, designer, engineer and collaborator. He is also an accomplished team builder, and while it may be his name that is linked to all of these achievements, his success has been from putting together exceptional teams, and supporting them. I leave you with one last smart quote from the man:
“If you don’t have a consensus that it’s nonsense, you don’t have a breakthrough.”
That headline is a famous Miles Davis quote. I watched an absolutely kick ass documentary about Miles Davis this evening. I have always loved his music, but really did not know that much detail about his life beyond what is part of the legend. The documentary is “The Miles Davis Story” from 2001 and it is full of live performances, recording sessions, and interviews with Miles. Without a doubt, the man was on a mission:
“Don’t play what’s there. Play what’s not there.”
Miles Davis (1926-1991)
I love the design of those old album covers from the 1950’s and 1960’s.
I really struggled with this post, but in the end felt compelled to put this out there. The election process that we are all being subjected to, the process that will ultimately choose the leader of the free world, is a joke. Instead of intense focus on the candidates’ perspective on the real issues that our nation faces, there is distraction after distraction and meaningless investigation into issues of faith. This is happening with both parties, and with people who may or may not actually be “religious” at all, but our process mandates that they act the part of the pious politician in order to participate and at least have a hope of being elected. During a debate a couple months back three Republican candidates, asked about their views on evolution, expressed concern with its validity, one of them saying that it is as yet unproven. Huh?
I think the Democrats are worse, though. This is because their sudden conversion has more to do with having parity with their Republican counterparts and not alienating the vast majority of people in this country who believe in a god. I get that, but it totally chaps me. What of science, of reason, or rational thought? What of the responsibility to not mislead? It is depressing, really, to realize we have another eleven months of this process and the exposure to candidates who may best be described as disingenuous. What has happened to our country?
I seek reassurance. Something I find interesting is the catalog of confirmed non-believers, of atheists, who have constructively and positively influenced our society and our culture. Here is an incomplete list of known atheists that I find reassuring in these times of feigned religiosity, offered in no particular order:
Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Noam Chomsky, Sean Penn, Woody Allen, Albert Camus, Arthur C. Clark, Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan, Benjamin Franklin, Ayn Rand, Charles Darwin, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Bertrand Russel, Kurt Vonnegut, James Madison, John Adams, James Joyce, John Lennon, Walt Disney, Oscar Niemeyer, Frank Lloyd Wright, George Orwell, Charles Schultz, Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson, Susan B. Anthony, William Howard Taft, Thomas Edison, Stanislaw Lem, Ian McEwan, Richard Dawkins, Richard Dreyfuss, Christopher Hitchens, Steve Wozniak, PZ Meyers, Angelina Jolie, Lance Armstrong, David Attenborough, Eddie Izzard, Penn Jillete, Ira Glass, Dick Cavett, Ingmar Bergman, Clive Barker, J.G. Ballard, Brian Eno, Ferdinand Piech, Gore Vidal, Ted Turner, Bruce Sterling and Steven Soderbergh
I would like to point out that there are five former presidents on this very incomplete list. We can dream. I leave you with the following quote:
“This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there was no religion in it.”
John Adams
Former President and Founding Father of the United States
I was reading about devoted modernist, design theorist, teacher and graphic designer Paul Rand and came across this choice quote:
“Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations.“
Learning more about Paul Rand brought me to the short film form & content produced by Imaginary Forces for his posthumous induction into the One Club Hall of Fame this year. From the film, which is much of Rand’s work brought to life with a narration pieced together from his many, many interviews:
That’s a quote from Evel Knievel last year. He died today at the age of 69. Definitely the end of an era, and the loss of a personal childhood icon (a pre-Hunter S. Thompson childhood icon… and just as weird and cool). The man jumped his motorcycle over big and scary things. Buses, sharks, and canyons… all were but opportunities for Evel Knievel. And he fractured over 40 bones in the process. Crazy? Yes. Cool? Yes. An American hero? Most definitely, in the most American way, which is to say honest and imperfect. A memorable quote from the man:
“You come to a point in your life when you really don’t care what people think about you, you just care what you think about yourself.”
Evel Knievel (1938-2007)
Update: And not moments after posting I find this kick ass tribute via Coop at Positive Ape Index:
“He was the last relic of the way America used to be, before the lawyers and pussies took over. A holy fool, watched over by angels who drank Old Style and smoked Lucky Strikes. A crazy, fearless, larger-than-life crackpot, last in a long line of same, heir to Davy Crockett, Wild Bill Hickok, P.T. Barnum, Horatio Nelson Jackson, “Cannonball” Baker, and every other kook who refused to listen to reason. The world is a smaller place without him.”
Norman Mailer has left us. His work influenced a generation of writers and readers, and his legacy will last a long, long time. He was nothing if not controversial, and also immensely memorable. A literary man with the numbers to back it up… 40+ novels, 6 wives, 9 children, 2 attempts at becoming mayor of New York… his life seemingly a quest for better subject matter.
One of my favorite Mailer quotes:
“Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.”
It was 1980. I was 11. PBS aired the Carl Sagan documentary “Cosmos” which would go on to be viewed by over 600 million people worldwide, becoming the most viewed PBS documentary of all time. For many of us, this was our introduction to the history of the universe, to astrophysics, and to planetary science. I remember being totally riveted. I remember thinking that Carl Sagan was cool.
I still think he is cool, but I had not thought much about him over the years. I was sad when I learned that he had died in 1996 at the age of 62, but beyond that had not really thought much more about how important an influence he was on me when I was younger. I believe that my love of the planets and my passion for learning about the universe started with watching Carl Sagan on television while laying on the family room floor when I was 11.
In a strange but happy coincidence, a friend loaned me a copy of Sagan’s first book “Contact” which I had not yet read, and somebody sent my wife a Carl Sagan clip from Youtube. This was within a 24 hour period. For me, it signaled the beginning of a Carl Sagan rediscovery, which I have been happily conducting for the last couple of days. Here is a choice Sagan quote that I came across:
“If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”
Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
Youtube has several segments of both “Cosmos” and another popular Sagan documentary, “Origins.”
