1 00:00:04,600 --> 00:00:08,100 How is designed changing as a discipline and profession and 2 00:00:08,100 --> 00:00:10,400 how do we face these challenges and opportunities as a 3 00:00:10,408 --> 00:00:13,800 community? We explore these questions and 4 00:00:13,800 --> 00:00:17,900 more on design feature now from aiga the professional 5 00:00:17,900 --> 00:00:22,300 association for design. I'm Li Shan Wang in this 6 00:00:22,300 --> 00:00:24,700 episode. We talk Cowboys Indians 7 00:00:24,800 --> 00:00:28,900 assumptions tension and more with our guest designer 8 00:00:28,900 --> 00:00:31,600 filmmaker and author Jack Roberts. 9 00:00:37,200 --> 00:00:38,900 Hijack. Thanks so much for coming on the 10 00:00:38,900 --> 00:00:41,600 show. You wrote a recent book called 11 00:00:41,600 --> 00:00:43,300 Echo. Designs her way out of a paper 12 00:00:43,300 --> 00:00:48,100 bag and in the book you share an anecdote from your childhood and 13 00:00:48,100 --> 00:00:51,200 you describe yourself as a little bit Cowboy a little bit 14 00:00:51,200 --> 00:00:54,000 Indian. Can you tell us more about that 15 00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:57,000 in terms of your identity as a person and as a professional and 16 00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:00,800 how these melt together absolutely thank you for having 17 00:01:00,800 --> 00:01:04,099 me. I am a little bit cowboy and a 18 00:01:04,108 --> 00:01:07,600 little bit India. I'm I'm both Cherokee Native 19 00:01:07,600 --> 00:01:11,800 American and also grew up in the wild west of, Oklahoma. 20 00:01:11,900 --> 00:01:16,100 Ah place not many people venture out of to places like New York 21 00:01:16,100 --> 00:01:19,000 or Los Angeles or Paris where I spend most of my time. 22 00:01:19,400 --> 00:01:23,900 So I find that growing up in the land of what I would call The 23 00:01:23,900 --> 00:01:27,700 Land of Stories a hundred and eleven tribes pushed into an 24 00:01:27,700 --> 00:01:32,000 Indian Territory you grew up with nothing, but myth and so 25 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:35,500 finding a way to kind of kind of a symbol that into a worldview 26 00:01:35,500 --> 00:01:39,400 was quite a unique opportunity. So let's talk about stories and 27 00:01:39,400 --> 00:01:42,300 myth because your book Echo designs are way out of Paper 28 00:01:42,300 --> 00:01:44,600 bag. It's a mix of a business book. 29 00:01:44,800 --> 00:01:47,500 There's fiction. There's nonfiction. 30 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:52,400 There is story telling you we've all of these things together in 31 00:01:52,600 --> 00:01:56,100 pretty seamless interesting way, but it definitely breaks some of 32 00:01:56,100 --> 00:01:59,000 these rules and boundaries of typical business writing. 33 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:04,400 So why why do we need to mix fact and myth and design 34 00:02:04,400 --> 00:02:07,000 thinking and storytelling or that's a great question. 35 00:02:07,400 --> 00:02:10,600 I think ultimately the illusion is that we're not mixing them 36 00:02:10,600 --> 00:02:14,700 already our Facts are only facts until we disprove them which 37 00:02:14,700 --> 00:02:17,900 happens constantly, especially if you live in that sort of 38 00:02:17,900 --> 00:02:20,700 design thinking iterative mindset where you're constantly 39 00:02:20,700 --> 00:02:23,700 challenging assumption and I think that's what I wanted to do 40 00:02:23,700 --> 00:02:27,300 with business books in general. I feel like they purpose to 41 00:02:27,300 --> 00:02:29,900 deliver a lot of value and that's really their proposition 42 00:02:29,900 --> 00:02:33,200 to the world. But so much of value isn't just 43 00:02:33,200 --> 00:02:36,700 in what we say, but it's really in how we say it and I don't 44 00:02:36,700 --> 00:02:41,000 find business books particularly creative in the how they say it 45 00:02:41,500 --> 00:02:45,900 and I really approached it in a way of how might I really share 46 00:02:45,900 --> 00:02:52,200 something unique and generative and valuable for people in 47 00:02:52,700 --> 00:02:58,800 business and design in everyday life that has the same kind of 48 00:02:58,800 --> 00:03:02,700 Truth a business book would but is also delivered in a way 49 00:03:02,700 --> 00:03:06,200 that's entertaining because honestly, we as authors are no 50 00:03:06,200 --> 00:03:10,600 longer competing with other books or other business voices 51 00:03:10,600 --> 00:03:13,800 even were competing with Scrolling Netflix for 45 minutes 52 00:03:13,800 --> 00:03:15,100 to decide what we're going to watch. 53 00:03:15,200 --> 00:03:18,100 Can you give us some of these story beats in your own 54 00:03:18,100 --> 00:03:20,900 professional life? Like how how designed weaves 55 00:03:20,900 --> 00:03:23,600 into all of these things? How do you came to design how 56 00:03:23,600 --> 00:03:27,100 you are integrating design and storytelling in what you do 57 00:03:27,400 --> 00:03:33,100 absolutely design for me is a way of being I would almost 58 00:03:33,100 --> 00:03:36,100 characterize it as a religion in that way. 59 00:03:36,500 --> 00:03:40,300 I think that the idea of religion is it's an organization 60 00:03:40,300 --> 00:03:43,000 of beliefs that guide. The principles of how we 61 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:46,900 approach the world and for me design has a little bit always 62 00:03:46,900 --> 00:03:51,200 been that how can I design the best story to tell in the moment 63 00:03:51,500 --> 00:03:53,600 and I've really always approached storytelling from a 64 00:03:53,600 --> 00:03:56,800 design perspective growing up in the Cherokee Nation the way that 65 00:03:56,800 --> 00:04:00,100 I did moving around as much as I did and Reinventing myself 66 00:04:00,100 --> 00:04:02,400 constantly. I started to notice these 67 00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:08,100 patterns and really to me design is ultimately about finding the 68 00:04:08,100 --> 00:04:12,600 insides of patterning and clustering and pulling those out 69 00:04:12,600 --> 00:04:15,200 and weaving them together into something that's meaningful. 70 00:04:15,200 --> 00:04:18,600 It's really about meaning making and storytelling is essentially 71 00:04:18,600 --> 00:04:21,500 the same thing. It's the vehicle that allows us 72 00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:25,800 to make meaning because it connects with us on a human 73 00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:28,900 level and design is really moving in the last several 74 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:31,700 decades towards a very human centered approach. 75 00:04:31,900 --> 00:04:35,800 And so I found these two to fit rather seamlessly for me in 76 00:04:35,800 --> 00:04:38,400 regards to how I Came Upon design. 77 00:04:38,400 --> 00:04:41,300 It was in constantly moving as a child. 78 00:04:41,300 --> 00:04:45,900 I think I Was in 37 different houses by the time I was 18 and 79 00:04:45,900 --> 00:04:49,700 every time my mother would want to reinvent the house and so we 80 00:04:49,700 --> 00:04:53,100 would redecorate and every time she got stressed she'd rearrange 81 00:04:53,100 --> 00:04:55,500 things and I think I picked that up. 82 00:04:55,500 --> 00:04:59,700 And so I found myself designing for stress relief and 83 00:04:59,700 --> 00:05:02,100 ultimately, you know, I have a queue of over a hundred 84 00:05:02,100 --> 00:05:04,000 websites. I've designed that I'll never do 85 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:07,300 anything with simply because it's my stress relief and I 86 00:05:07,300 --> 00:05:10,900 think that the stories that I tell ultimately have a real 87 00:05:11,400 --> 00:05:13,400 design. In through like so you tell the 88 00:05:13,400 --> 00:05:16,300 story in your book. There's this theme of not your 89 00:05:16,300 --> 00:05:20,100 first rodeo and it sounds like you've had multiple rodeos of 90 00:05:20,200 --> 00:05:24,800 just moving house as well and redesigning those experiences 91 00:05:24,900 --> 00:05:27,900 and those spaces for comfort and distress. 92 00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:30,700 How do you encourage this idea of Master? 93 00:05:30,700 --> 00:05:34,200 It may be folks who didn't grow up with the same environment of 94 00:05:34,200 --> 00:05:37,300 having to redesign their situation all the time and 95 00:05:37,400 --> 00:05:40,300 building creative confidence as designers as storytellers. 96 00:05:40,300 --> 00:05:42,900 How can people do that? That's Wonderful question. 97 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:47,600 How can people practice the principles of constant change is 98 00:05:47,600 --> 00:05:50,400 really what you're asking in a way and I think we're in 99 00:05:50,400 --> 00:05:52,500 constant change. And the first thing we have to 100 00:05:52,508 --> 00:05:55,100 address is the fact that we're usually terrified of it. 101 00:05:55,800 --> 00:06:00,300 So I think so ultimately encountering that with that 102 00:06:00,300 --> 00:06:03,400 creative confidence is the thing to do but it's that strange sort 103 00:06:03,400 --> 00:06:07,500 of double edged sword because when you practice creative 104 00:06:07,500 --> 00:06:11,200 confidence, you may not have creative confidence quite yet. 105 00:06:11,200 --> 00:06:13,600 And so You almost have to practice in order to gain 106 00:06:13,600 --> 00:06:15,900 creative confidence, but you didn't the creative confidence 107 00:06:15,900 --> 00:06:22,400 to even start to practice. And I find that the way anyone 108 00:06:22,400 --> 00:06:25,100 can start is simply by acknowledging something. 109 00:06:25,100 --> 00:06:29,600 They want to change and I would encourage anyone to look at the 110 00:06:30,200 --> 00:06:32,600 millions of resources that are out there at this point, maybe 111 00:06:32,600 --> 00:06:36,000 not Millions, but certainly tens of thousands of methodologies 112 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:39,400 around design and redesign and what those processes are the 113 00:06:39,400 --> 00:06:41,700 processes of design thinking my book tour. 114 00:06:41,900 --> 00:06:44,100 It's about one of them called narrative design which is sort 115 00:06:44,100 --> 00:06:47,600 of a fusion of design thinking and storytelling principles. 116 00:06:48,100 --> 00:06:52,500 And so the idea is that the you have these processes that you 117 00:06:52,500 --> 00:06:57,700 can take any situation through and change it you can redesign 118 00:06:57,700 --> 00:06:59,200 it. I think ultimately it goes back 119 00:06:59,200 --> 00:07:02,400 to what we talked about a moment ago in the space of assumption. 120 00:07:02,900 --> 00:07:05,400 I think many of us make assumptions that that's 121 00:07:05,400 --> 00:07:09,200 something someone else does or they've had a lot of practice at 122 00:07:09,200 --> 00:07:11,700 it or they're ultimately more gifted than I am. 123 00:07:11,800 --> 00:07:13,700 I am and it's just simply not true. 124 00:07:13,700 --> 00:07:17,400 I think on some level were unwilling to see the life were 125 00:07:17,408 --> 00:07:20,200 living as immediately transferable to the life. 126 00:07:20,200 --> 00:07:23,200 We'd love to live. So in some ways, it sounds like 127 00:07:23,200 --> 00:07:27,500 you're defining design in your experience of having to 128 00:07:27,500 --> 00:07:29,800 redecorate a redesign your living space because of all of 129 00:07:29,808 --> 00:07:32,000 these moves. It's almost a way of reclaiming 130 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:36,100 your story write in terms of your identity of who you are and 131 00:07:36,100 --> 00:07:40,400 having to constantly redesign who you are whether it was 132 00:07:40,700 --> 00:07:43,600 growing up in the environment. You did but also more recently 133 00:07:43,600 --> 00:07:46,800 as a professional having just completed his Master's program 134 00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:48,900 here at Parsons. Now you're teaching at Parsons. 135 00:07:48,900 --> 00:07:52,400 So can you tell me more about this idea of like reclaiming 136 00:07:52,400 --> 00:07:54,500 your story and identity is almost kind of Designing 137 00:07:54,500 --> 00:07:56,000 yourself, right? Yes. 138 00:07:56,000 --> 00:07:57,500 It is. It's absolutely designing 139 00:07:57,500 --> 00:07:59,500 yourself. And I think that's very astute. 140 00:07:59,800 --> 00:08:01,700 In fact, I'm having a realization in this moment 141 00:08:01,700 --> 00:08:04,500 because of your question that I likely pursued acting for so 142 00:08:04,500 --> 00:08:08,400 long because of the reinvention of self and when you design a 143 00:08:08,400 --> 00:08:13,300 character you you implement actual Sign you use user 144 00:08:13,300 --> 00:08:15,400 research. You study your characters you 145 00:08:15,400 --> 00:08:18,500 come with character breakdowns which are context and then you 146 00:08:18,500 --> 00:08:22,000 begin to build out a Persona and create an entire sort of user 147 00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:24,100 Journey. So so many of these tools that 148 00:08:24,100 --> 00:08:27,100 we use in design and design thinking are actually being used 149 00:08:27,100 --> 00:08:29,300 elsewhere to we just call them different things. 150 00:08:29,600 --> 00:08:32,700 And I think that's the thing that's really been surprising to 151 00:08:32,700 --> 00:08:37,000 me is that all of my worlds have sort of converged in this space 152 00:08:37,000 --> 00:08:40,299 of design thinking and so many of the things I had already been 153 00:08:40,299 --> 00:08:44,100 doing in film. Television writing and acting 154 00:08:44,100 --> 00:08:48,300 and even novels all of these things required the same process 155 00:08:48,800 --> 00:08:54,300 and that process is essentially the reinvention of yourself, and 156 00:08:54,300 --> 00:08:57,000 I know that that sounds a bit esoteric and it sounds a little 157 00:08:57,000 --> 00:09:01,100 bit, you know psychology driven but little self-help a little 158 00:09:01,100 --> 00:09:02,900 self helpy. Yes, absolutely. 159 00:09:02,900 --> 00:09:06,300 But if we can't design our own lives, what are we doing here? 160 00:09:06,900 --> 00:09:10,200 Ultimately everything you're trying to accomplish through 161 00:09:10,200 --> 00:09:13,100 your design principles is Thing that benefits or affects your 162 00:09:13,100 --> 00:09:15,600 life, why not go straight to the root and change who you are and 163 00:09:15,600 --> 00:09:18,500 actually become the thing and the person that achieves the 164 00:09:18,500 --> 00:09:22,400 thing you want to see happen. So for folks who see design 165 00:09:22,400 --> 00:09:24,900 maybe or their background in design is different. 166 00:09:24,900 --> 00:09:29,000 Maybe it's more focused on the visual or the artifact something 167 00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:33,800 that's more tangible and maybe less self-reflexive in that way. 168 00:09:33,900 --> 00:09:36,400 It could be a little bit uncomfortable to think about 169 00:09:36,400 --> 00:09:39,000 design in the self. Helpy kind of way. 170 00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:41,700 Do you have any advice for folks like that? 171 00:09:41,800 --> 00:09:45,100 Come from a traditional design background and getting them more 172 00:09:45,100 --> 00:09:47,900 confident or just convincing them that design is also this 173 00:09:47,900 --> 00:09:50,600 bigger thing about reclaiming your story and designing 174 00:09:50,600 --> 00:09:52,300 yourself. Absolutely. 175 00:09:52,300 --> 00:09:57,600 I think ultimately I would say that the designs that they 176 00:09:57,600 --> 00:10:01,300 already know the way they designed their way of being so 177 00:10:01,300 --> 00:10:04,600 to speak as a designer that they already use day-to-day to create 178 00:10:04,600 --> 00:10:08,300 those artifacts to create products to create Services. 179 00:10:08,700 --> 00:10:11,600 All of these things hold the same key. 180 00:10:11,700 --> 00:10:15,000 He's that it would take to shift their life and any Direction 181 00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:17,300 they wanted to take it. I think the thing that was 182 00:10:17,300 --> 00:10:20,800 fascinating to me was this idea of sort of reframing or 183 00:10:20,800 --> 00:10:25,400 redesigning your story because fundamentally is story is 184 00:10:25,400 --> 00:10:28,900 essentially a collection of beliefs that we've aligned 185 00:10:28,900 --> 00:10:31,000 ourselves with somehow. This is true. 186 00:10:31,500 --> 00:10:34,100 And if you think about story in the bigger sense and you take 187 00:10:34,100 --> 00:10:37,500 away these sort of pedantic use of Storytelling as marketing or 188 00:10:37,500 --> 00:10:41,000 branding and you think about it as sort of a little more ancient 189 00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:43,700 something we've always He's done to kind of bring each other 190 00:10:43,700 --> 00:10:47,900 together around a fire or in the time of Crisis or trouble. 191 00:10:48,300 --> 00:10:51,000 You know, the stories are the things that can unite us there. 192 00:10:51,000 --> 00:10:55,400 Also, the things that divide us so in my opinion designers have 193 00:10:55,400 --> 00:10:59,600 a really unique position because they understand the how of 194 00:10:59,600 --> 00:11:05,700 something and we're in an age of information which is fallen out 195 00:11:05,700 --> 00:11:09,300 of the Industrial Revolution, which was really an age of what 196 00:11:09,300 --> 00:11:11,600 we're about what we're doing expansion growth. 197 00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:15,200 And then we move into this space of information and it's 198 00:11:15,200 --> 00:11:18,300 exponential each day. We're getting barraged with so 199 00:11:18,300 --> 00:11:20,900 much information and we don't know how to make sense of It 200 00:11:21,200 --> 00:11:26,700 ultimately designers though have the unique ability of how they 201 00:11:26,700 --> 00:11:29,200 understand a thing. They have ways and methods to 202 00:11:29,200 --> 00:11:32,300 understand a thing and to make sense of it. 203 00:11:32,900 --> 00:11:37,400 We're poised in this place if we choose to be to actually lead 204 00:11:37,800 --> 00:11:41,600 things to Unity rather than division through design. 205 00:11:41,800 --> 00:11:46,900 And through design methodologies what we're essentially afraid of 206 00:11:47,100 --> 00:11:49,900 I think is our own power. That's what I would say. 207 00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:52,000 That's really interesting. You've said so many interesting 208 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:56,000 things that I'd love to pick on multiple threads right now. 209 00:11:56,500 --> 00:11:59,500 The power 1 is something I'd love to come back to as well as 210 00:11:59,600 --> 00:12:01,900 the use of fiction and myth and go deeper there. 211 00:12:02,200 --> 00:12:05,800 But first I just want to reflect a little bit on this idea of 212 00:12:05,800 --> 00:12:09,800 shared story and identity among designers because I think one of 213 00:12:09,800 --> 00:12:13,200 the I don't want to say Isis that sounds too alarmist, but 214 00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:16,900 one of the issues facing design as a profession right now, I 215 00:12:16,900 --> 00:12:20,500 think comes from this breakdown of the shared story because 216 00:12:20,500 --> 00:12:24,200 there's no longer one dominant story of shared struggle, right? 217 00:12:24,200 --> 00:12:27,400 If you think about design from a few decades ago people were 218 00:12:27,400 --> 00:12:31,900 coming into the field in Fairly homogeneous ways in terms of you 219 00:12:31,900 --> 00:12:34,600 starting out as an apprentice or you going to an art school 220 00:12:34,600 --> 00:12:37,600 design school working your way up to art director creative 221 00:12:37,600 --> 00:12:39,600 director. Maybe you get a say in terms of 222 00:12:39,600 --> 00:12:43,400 strategy and management and Days, there's folks coming in to 223 00:12:43,400 --> 00:12:47,100 design through these hybrid programs like ours at Parsons in 224 00:12:47,100 --> 00:12:50,300 strategic design and management. You have folks with mbas who are 225 00:12:50,308 --> 00:12:53,500 calling themselves designers and that sort of shared identity and 226 00:12:53,500 --> 00:12:55,700 that shared struggle is going away. 227 00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:58,300 Do you have any thoughts about that in terms of just designers 228 00:12:58,300 --> 00:13:01,500 identity because it's both a field that's more open than ever 229 00:13:01,500 --> 00:13:05,200 before but also because of that openness is fragmented in terms 230 00:13:05,200 --> 00:13:08,300 of the stories that we tell in the shared identities that we 231 00:13:08,300 --> 00:13:12,100 might have you bet. I think we are in a and You use 232 00:13:12,100 --> 00:13:16,100 the word crisis and I would say it's an identity crisis. 233 00:13:16,800 --> 00:13:19,300 I also don't want to sound alarmist, but we are in an 234 00:13:19,300 --> 00:13:23,400 identity crisis. We're in a space where websites 235 00:13:23,400 --> 00:13:28,300 can be built in, you know, an hour by a teenager who has zero 236 00:13:28,300 --> 00:13:34,000 practice and zero design education that person will see 237 00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:36,700 themselves as a designer that will be their narrative. 238 00:13:37,300 --> 00:13:39,900 They may create logos or graphics for their friends. 239 00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:43,100 They may have an app that allows To change a sneaker that they 240 00:13:43,100 --> 00:13:46,800 love and I see this in my students at Parsons as well. 241 00:13:47,000 --> 00:13:50,500 They come in already seen themselves as designers to a 242 00:13:50,500 --> 00:13:54,300 design school. So it's really an identity 243 00:13:54,300 --> 00:13:58,900 crisis in a lot of ways we had this shared space this shared 244 00:13:58,900 --> 00:14:02,000 struggle to Shared identity of designers against the world. 245 00:14:02,000 --> 00:14:05,900 So to speak and struggling for their say at the table and 246 00:14:05,900 --> 00:14:07,900 really working very hard for it, but it's not that different than 247 00:14:07,900 --> 00:14:11,000 so many other social movements in a lot of ways and we find 248 00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:13,900 ourselves at this. Crossroads in a lot of areas, I 249 00:14:13,900 --> 00:14:16,200 think in each of those struggles. 250 00:14:16,200 --> 00:14:19,700 I see a pattern myself and I see an inability of the generation 251 00:14:19,700 --> 00:14:23,800 that's come before to lead and not an inability but really an 252 00:14:23,800 --> 00:14:27,400 unwillingness and it's sad to me because they hold the keys and 253 00:14:27,400 --> 00:14:30,600 the knowledge to actually bring people into the fold at you 254 00:14:30,600 --> 00:14:33,800 mentioned the concept of apprenticeship earlier and I 255 00:14:33,800 --> 00:14:37,500 wonder sometimes if the generations that came before us 256 00:14:37,500 --> 00:14:40,500 rather than struggling to hang on to their power and their 257 00:14:40,500 --> 00:14:43,700 influence. And trying to not change in the 258 00:14:43,700 --> 00:14:46,400 face of this overwhelming change. 259 00:14:46,400 --> 00:14:49,000 That's a foot. What if they decided to get on 260 00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:51,600 top of the wave and actually lead it what if they decided to 261 00:14:51,608 --> 00:14:55,100 open the doors and say yes, come on in be a designer. 262 00:14:55,300 --> 00:14:57,500 Let me show you how that's done. You know, it's interesting 263 00:14:57,800 --> 00:15:01,500 because part of this decline of the apprenticeship system, 264 00:15:01,600 --> 00:15:05,000 perhaps also comes from the Boom in design jobs, right, 265 00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:07,600 especially in the tech industry where there's just so many 266 00:15:07,600 --> 00:15:10,300 designers that needs to be higher that we now have, you 267 00:15:10,300 --> 00:15:12,600 know, the general Assemblies of the the world these kind of boot 268 00:15:12,600 --> 00:15:15,500 camps that have the promise of turning somebody into a designer 269 00:15:15,500 --> 00:15:19,400 or technologists and in 12 weeks or 14 weeks, whatever that is, 270 00:15:19,400 --> 00:15:22,800 right and how that changes the shared narrative which is 271 00:15:22,800 --> 00:15:26,600 different from folks who were working a way kind of doing this 272 00:15:26,600 --> 00:15:30,700 log at an apprenticeship for three four five years before 273 00:15:30,700 --> 00:15:35,900 they were allowed to really have more agency and for me I got 274 00:15:35,900 --> 00:15:37,800 into design through art school, right? 275 00:15:37,800 --> 00:15:41,500 I've studied at NYU in an art and Technology Program. 276 00:15:41,700 --> 00:15:45,100 Really working with digital media emergent media and then 277 00:15:45,700 --> 00:15:49,300 design is one of the ways to pay off your NYU loans and so for me 278 00:15:49,300 --> 00:15:51,800 it was kind of from there. But now we also have this 279 00:15:51,800 --> 00:15:56,800 narrative around trying to divorce designed from art and 280 00:15:56,800 --> 00:15:59,600 and just Aesthetics right in thinking about design is problem 281 00:15:59,600 --> 00:16:03,700 solving and that creates another crisis because plenty of other 282 00:16:03,700 --> 00:16:07,000 people can solve problems right like Engineers are problem 283 00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:09,700 solvers managers are problem solvers like it doesn't make 284 00:16:09,700 --> 00:16:13,000 designers special per se Say yeah, do you have any thoughts 285 00:16:13,000 --> 00:16:15,300 about that? I do think it's a great 286 00:16:15,300 --> 00:16:17,400 threatened and interesting set of questions. 287 00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:23,000 I will say that one of the most fascinating movements to me came 288 00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:26,100 through a body of research over the last 30 years and is 289 00:16:26,100 --> 00:16:29,200 epitomized in a book called The Design way in it. 290 00:16:29,200 --> 00:16:32,600 It's posited essentially that at the Advent of Western 291 00:16:32,600 --> 00:16:35,900 Civilization. We had we had this division of 292 00:16:35,900 --> 00:16:40,300 knowledge and one was the Arts and Humanities the other was 293 00:16:40,300 --> 00:16:44,300 science and math and Engineering would have fallen into that 294 00:16:44,300 --> 00:16:47,800 category the third they didn't quite know how to quantify was 295 00:16:47,800 --> 00:16:51,300 this thing that bled in the sort of every area and it was it was 296 00:16:51,300 --> 00:16:55,300 sort of design you think about ancient philosophers and 297 00:16:55,300 --> 00:16:57,700 mathematicians and artists and these people who didn't quite 298 00:16:57,700 --> 00:17:02,600 fit into everything you think of Pythagoras the DaVinci's of the 299 00:17:02,600 --> 00:17:05,900 world these people who were prolific and so many different 300 00:17:05,900 --> 00:17:08,300 mediums in so many different ways and that's because they 301 00:17:08,300 --> 00:17:12,000 understood the how of a thing and they were ability their Leti 302 00:17:12,300 --> 00:17:16,900 to transfer that knowledge through mediums was nothing 303 00:17:16,900 --> 00:17:22,200 short of Staggering and I would ask I would ask this question to 304 00:17:22,200 --> 00:17:26,000 your question and some ways. Where is that gone? 305 00:17:26,500 --> 00:17:32,200 And where is that ability to I would say design anything with 306 00:17:32,200 --> 00:17:35,500 the same sort of methodology and abilities that designed one 307 00:17:35,500 --> 00:17:38,900 thing moving into another industry and innovating there as 308 00:17:38,900 --> 00:17:41,100 well. I don't see a lot of that 309 00:17:41,100 --> 00:17:43,500 happening. In fact in some ways it were on 310 00:17:43,500 --> 00:17:47,700 an uptick of that move and I would say we're headed towards a 311 00:17:47,708 --> 00:17:50,800 Renaissance in some ways personally, but it's going to 312 00:17:50,800 --> 00:17:55,000 take the designer to leave the Smithy and to stop seeing 313 00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:58,900 themselves as a Craftsman alone. That's what I mean by that 314 00:17:58,900 --> 00:18:02,600 leadership space that we're sort of unwilling to take ownership 315 00:18:02,600 --> 00:18:06,500 of our own abilities and we use it and some of the best 316 00:18:06,500 --> 00:18:11,000 designers in the world have done products for both apple and also 317 00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:15,000 made dish Washers, you know, how does one person solve problems 318 00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:18,700 in all of those spaces? Well, there's clearly some kind 319 00:18:18,700 --> 00:18:21,100 of thinking behind it. And so now we have the emergence 320 00:18:21,100 --> 00:18:23,900 of design thinking but the story were telling about it I think is 321 00:18:23,900 --> 00:18:27,100 a little bit disjointed in a little bit miserable. 322 00:18:27,300 --> 00:18:30,200 So was there a moment for you and your own life and career 323 00:18:30,200 --> 00:18:33,500 where you had this realization that you were more than just a 324 00:18:33,500 --> 00:18:37,700 Craftsman and artisan and you were leader and and to use your 325 00:18:37,700 --> 00:18:40,800 own phrase to you were able to step into your own power. 326 00:18:41,100 --> 00:18:43,700 Yes. I think ultimately it came 327 00:18:43,700 --> 00:18:47,200 through feature film and producing writing and acting in 328 00:18:47,200 --> 00:18:51,000 a feature film that I made and the film did very very well 329 00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:54,400 played 21 festivals around the world at 111 of them was picked 330 00:18:54,400 --> 00:18:57,500 up by Warner Brothers went on to a limited theatrical release 331 00:18:57,500 --> 00:19:01,500 etcetera Etc. What was unique about that is I 332 00:19:01,500 --> 00:19:07,000 had the opportunity to move from artists to designer because when 333 00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:11,900 I started that project and before I sat across from Ders to 334 00:19:11,900 --> 00:19:15,200 raise money and asked for you know, millions of dollars from 335 00:19:15,200 --> 00:19:18,200 people. I went in with these artistic 336 00:19:18,200 --> 00:19:21,400 sensibilities. The story has to be this it's 337 00:19:21,400 --> 00:19:25,800 going to feel like this and it has to express these things and 338 00:19:25,800 --> 00:19:31,200 that's really what my art is about and it's going to be like 339 00:19:31,200 --> 00:19:35,700 these projects but better And then you look across from 340 00:19:35,700 --> 00:19:39,100 someone who cares nothing about any of those things and they're 341 00:19:39,100 --> 00:19:43,000 holding the key in their checkbook to your dreams, right 342 00:19:43,000 --> 00:19:46,700 and how will it focus group rent and how will it focus group and 343 00:19:46,700 --> 00:19:49,300 who's your target audience and I'm like the people who love my 344 00:19:49,300 --> 00:19:53,800 art and and they're like, yes and beyond your self-expression. 345 00:19:53,800 --> 00:19:56,700 How will I make my money back and like that's just it my self 346 00:19:56,700 --> 00:20:00,300 expression will make your money back and they don't believe you 347 00:20:00,500 --> 00:20:04,100 so it changes your mindset slowly and you have to go Okay. 348 00:20:04,100 --> 00:20:07,200 Well who is my user? What is their Journey? 349 00:20:07,500 --> 00:20:11,700 They have a hundred films a day. They could choose from why mine 350 00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:15,100 what's differentiated? What's the story? 351 00:20:15,100 --> 00:20:18,200 I'm telling about this story. Let's say I make the film but 352 00:20:18,200 --> 00:20:19,800 now how am I going to take it to Market? 353 00:20:19,800 --> 00:20:21,400 What's the story about the story? 354 00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:25,700 How do I design all of this to create an experience for my user 355 00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:30,900 that actually makes them say I love this film everything about 356 00:20:30,900 --> 00:20:34,200 this film. And so then I both get to 357 00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:37,100 express what I want to do and they get what they want. 358 00:20:37,200 --> 00:20:40,100 I think there's a quote by Jim Rohn who I think is interesting 359 00:20:40,100 --> 00:20:42,600 because he was one of these early sort of self-help 360 00:20:42,600 --> 00:20:46,900 motivator guys in the 60s and 70s and he said give enough 361 00:20:46,900 --> 00:20:50,300 people what they want and you'll get what you want and I think in 362 00:20:50,300 --> 00:20:54,500 many ways that's how design is differentiated from art and art 363 00:20:54,500 --> 00:20:57,400 we come into this wanting to be creative and we come in wanting 364 00:20:57,400 --> 00:21:01,700 to express our Left and I think in some ways the designers of 365 00:21:01,700 --> 00:21:04,900 the past that's what we have to let go of and we have to realize 366 00:21:04,900 --> 00:21:09,000 that we are and have always been in our profession has often been 367 00:21:09,000 --> 00:21:12,600 used at and it's been most successful when we take our 368 00:21:12,600 --> 00:21:16,800 creativity and we use it in service of others and I would 369 00:21:16,800 --> 00:21:19,500 say that for me that differentiation happened in that 370 00:21:19,500 --> 00:21:23,600 shift happened with that first film Project when we think about 371 00:21:23,600 --> 00:21:28,000 design is creating these experiences serving others. 372 00:21:28,500 --> 00:21:33,000 There's a need for power. However, you define it right and 373 00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:36,900 and film just by the nature of the medium requires a lot of 374 00:21:36,900 --> 00:21:38,800 money. It requires a lot of teamwork 375 00:21:39,300 --> 00:21:42,600 and I think we go back and forth about the filmmaker or the 376 00:21:42,600 --> 00:21:45,900 designer as auteur right of you know, if we think about Johnny 377 00:21:45,900 --> 00:21:49,700 Ive and his tiny red apple and they can vote or of all of those 378 00:21:49,900 --> 00:21:52,500 design choices that resulted in all those Apple products. 379 00:21:53,100 --> 00:21:56,800 How do we think about individual and Collective power to go back 380 00:21:56,800 --> 00:22:01,400 to this theme of power, right? About both advocating for our 381 00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:04,600 users, right the people our customers the people that were 382 00:22:04,600 --> 00:22:08,300 serving but also advocating for ourselves in terms of that power 383 00:22:08,600 --> 00:22:12,700 and grappling with this whole tension of the auteur and the 384 00:22:12,700 --> 00:22:16,100 sort of great man, and it's traditionally has often been a 385 00:22:16,100 --> 00:22:18,600 man. Unfortunately, right and this 386 00:22:18,600 --> 00:22:22,500 whole narrative around the creative and the creative genius 387 00:22:22,900 --> 00:22:26,700 versus this Collective power that we need to deal with some 388 00:22:26,700 --> 00:22:28,300 of these problems that were addressing. 389 00:22:28,400 --> 00:22:30,900 Being in some ways. I think the myth of the creative 390 00:22:30,900 --> 00:22:36,600 genius is necessary to get those of us with the biggest ideas 391 00:22:36,600 --> 00:22:39,500 going. I don't think it's sustainable 392 00:22:40,300 --> 00:22:43,800 and I think history proves that point when you watch the mad 393 00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:47,600 scientist at work, if they never drop the Mad Science, they end 394 00:22:47,600 --> 00:22:50,500 up decimating themselves at some point along the way. 395 00:22:50,500 --> 00:22:53,400 I think it's a stage of growth and some ways to those of us 396 00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:56,100 that want to do big things. You have to have a big enough 397 00:22:56,100 --> 00:23:01,100 ego to try something ridiculous. Just enough creative confidence. 398 00:23:01,100 --> 00:23:06,100 Perhaps even unfounded to try something really unique and 399 00:23:06,100 --> 00:23:08,300 original in the world because it's a vulnerable thing. 400 00:23:08,300 --> 00:23:12,900 It's a very vulnerable thing to share your big ideas in your big 401 00:23:12,900 --> 00:23:15,500 hopes and dreams out there either in a story or on the 402 00:23:15,500 --> 00:23:18,000 screen or in a design or in a product. 403 00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:21,200 It's about the biggest thing. I think we can do your naked on 404 00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:26,500 display in front of everyone and that myth though that myth of 405 00:23:26,500 --> 00:23:31,100 the creative genius I think is Myth because ultimately all of 406 00:23:31,108 --> 00:23:35,200 those successes that came from those individuals came because 407 00:23:35,200 --> 00:23:38,300 of their exchange with their audience or their users. 408 00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:42,900 So I think about the quote that's attributed to Henry Ford 409 00:23:42,900 --> 00:23:46,600 whether he ever said or not. I hope whoever gets credit for 410 00:23:46,600 --> 00:23:50,700 it someday probably some woman back there and who was 411 00:23:50,700 --> 00:23:55,500 uncredited said that if I'd given people what they wanted. 412 00:23:55,700 --> 00:23:58,300 I would have found a way that create a faster. 413 00:23:58,500 --> 00:24:03,600 Horse and instead he created the automobile and despite even his 414 00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:05,300 friend Tom Edison at a time telling him. 415 00:24:05,300 --> 00:24:10,900 It was a bad idea. And so Granite Edison had on his 416 00:24:10,900 --> 00:24:13,600 shelf and electrical engine. He was working on as opposed to 417 00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:16,000 the combustible. So he had plans that Henry was 418 00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:18,900 just a little faster to get to and what a different world that 419 00:24:18,900 --> 00:24:21,300 would have been nothing but electric cars from the beginning 420 00:24:22,100 --> 00:24:23,600 but I think about things like that. 421 00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:26,900 And so there is this sort of acknowledgement of this is what 422 00:24:26,900 --> 00:24:30,300 people want and what he did is he did the hard work to see 423 00:24:30,300 --> 00:24:33,400 through that and challenge those assumptions and say what you're 424 00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:36,400 really wanting is to get from one place to another faster. 425 00:24:37,300 --> 00:24:39,000 Well, how can I create that for you? 426 00:24:39,500 --> 00:24:43,700 And then he started to really brainstorm those spaces and out 427 00:24:43,700 --> 00:24:47,600 of that came the the tractor and then the truck and then the car 428 00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:51,600 and then the assembly line and that's led to specialization 429 00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:53,500 which is created the technological boom. 430 00:24:53,500 --> 00:24:55,900 We're in now and the age of information and now we're in the 431 00:24:55,900 --> 00:25:00,500 age of how we're designers have a very unique opportunity to use 432 00:25:00,500 --> 00:25:03,000 that same kind of exchange and ability to see through what 433 00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:05,900 people say they want and give them what they have no idea can 434 00:25:05,900 --> 00:25:08,200 exist because Of our own creative power. 435 00:25:08,900 --> 00:25:12,400 I think that is an interesting tension that's inherent than in 436 00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:15,800 the power array because as you say you kind of have to be 437 00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:19,200 somebody with a huge ego to think that you can do something 438 00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:22,200 that will change the world and that is that it is inherently 439 00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:25,800 part of the creative confidence part, but then there's also to 440 00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:29,400 use another buzzword this servant leadership part where 441 00:25:29,400 --> 00:25:34,100 you are doing it to benefit or to add value to the people who 442 00:25:34,100 --> 00:25:37,500 are using your products and your services and and there's always 443 00:25:37,500 --> 00:25:42,200 that tension there between the I am the designer versus I am 444 00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:47,200 serving my users or my community grappling with that tension. 445 00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:50,400 Have you thought about what success as a designer as a 446 00:25:50,408 --> 00:25:53,500 creative professional looks like to you because in many measures 447 00:25:53,500 --> 00:25:56,600 you already have achieved a lot of success in terms of having a 448 00:25:56,600 --> 00:25:59,400 book having put out films and shows and things like that. 449 00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:03,300 So in the broad sense, what does that success look like? 450 00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:05,800 I think it looks like to quote Thomas Edison. 451 00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:09,200 I like hard. Work and overalls and I think 452 00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:11,800 ultimately a lot of continuous Improvement and in some ways 453 00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:15,600 maybe you do have to have a really large ego to say I can 454 00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:19,400 never be done growing, you know, because maybe you really have 455 00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:22,900 like a stalemate at some point. I don't know ultimately though. 456 00:26:23,300 --> 00:26:27,900 I think success for me looks a lot like continuing to explore 457 00:26:27,900 --> 00:26:31,500 the world and continuing to hold those things in tension between 458 00:26:31,500 --> 00:26:35,800 what people think they want and what creativity can give them 459 00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:39,000 and to assemble All teams of people to continue to do those 460 00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:43,100 things you use the word tension and I think it's really an apt 461 00:26:43,100 --> 00:26:46,000 description of how I would Define truth. 462 00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:49,700 I think truth itself is a constant tension of all the 463 00:26:49,700 --> 00:26:52,100 things I am and all the things I'm not because I'm both of 464 00:26:52,100 --> 00:26:55,100 those things. I'm both a person who lacks the 465 00:26:55,100 --> 00:27:02,700 ability to I particularly have a weakness for gluten free donuts, 466 00:27:03,300 --> 00:27:05,800 right? So I have the inability to cut 467 00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:08,700 sugar out completely because Every time I randomly run into 468 00:27:08,700 --> 00:27:11,100 the very few places, there's a gluten free donut. 469 00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:14,300 I'm going to have one Sour Patch Kids on Long flights. 470 00:27:14,300 --> 00:27:16,800 It's the same thing. I will always take Sour Patch 471 00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:20,000 Kids on flights despite my Affinity for Natural Health and 472 00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:23,800 every other area of my life. And I think those kinds of weird 473 00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:27,200 little tensions or eccentricities that we all have 474 00:27:27,500 --> 00:27:29,500 our the tensions that make us who we are. 475 00:27:29,900 --> 00:27:32,700 I saw a brilliant Heineken add that years ago. 476 00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:35,100 We are they brought a lot of people in blind. 477 00:27:35,100 --> 00:27:38,400 They used user experience in a really fascinating way and they 478 00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:40,500 brought these people in blind with people. 479 00:27:40,500 --> 00:27:44,600 They knew that they previously had interviewed to disagree with 480 00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:48,100 on specific topics. For instance. 481 00:27:48,100 --> 00:27:54,500 They brought sort of a middle American man who was homophobic 482 00:27:54,800 --> 00:28:03,400 and anti-gay and a veteran in to build a bar with a woman who is 483 00:28:04,700 --> 00:28:09,500 gay part of the gay. its movement and also in the Army 484 00:28:10,500 --> 00:28:14,400 and so they brought her in and him in and they built this bar 485 00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:17,100 together and they didn't tell either of them anything about 486 00:28:17,100 --> 00:28:21,200 each other and the ad had me in tears by the end of it because 487 00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:24,900 by the end of it, they're challenging their assumptions in 488 00:28:24,900 --> 00:28:27,700 the most basic and beautiful way possible because they've made 489 00:28:27,700 --> 00:28:31,700 each other human-centered the really only trying to connect 490 00:28:31,700 --> 00:28:34,300 with the person across from them and then they share a beer 491 00:28:34,300 --> 00:28:36,400 together and then they are interviewed them afterwards and 492 00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:39,500 said to George assumptions change and both of them had 493 00:28:39,500 --> 00:28:44,100 completely changed in addition to being just a fantastic story 494 00:28:44,100 --> 00:28:48,200 in terms of Storytelling for advertising. 495 00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:51,900 I think it's a great ad for the power of design as well. 496 00:28:51,900 --> 00:28:52,800 Right? So even though they have the 497 00:28:52,808 --> 00:28:55,300 instructions on how to build the bar. 498 00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:57,800 I think there's something there's a theory of change 499 00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:00,200 there. That's like if we can get more 500 00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:04,500 people diverse people designing stuff are building stuff 501 00:29:04,500 --> 00:29:09,000 together in a concrete way. Maybe that's a social movement 502 00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:12,900 as well because more and more of our economy feels more and more 503 00:29:12,900 --> 00:29:15,600 abstracted and remove from the everyday riddance. 504 00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:18,500 Not not necessarily about going back to an industrial economy, 505 00:29:18,500 --> 00:29:21,200 which is getting people to design stuff and make stuff 506 00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:24,000 stuff also, including experiences and things that are 507 00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:26,400 more experiential or service based as well. 508 00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:27,700 Do you have any thoughts on that? 509 00:29:27,700 --> 00:29:31,100 I do and I think it's a great observation and I concur with 510 00:29:31,100 --> 00:29:33,700 you that it is absolutely the power of design at work. 511 00:29:33,700 --> 00:29:38,900 I would go back to the idea of The power the designer actually 512 00:29:38,900 --> 00:29:43,100 holds in the ability to design experience if we allow our 513 00:29:43,100 --> 00:29:48,000 Craftsman mentality to morph and iterate into something that is a 514 00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:52,700 bit broader and a bit more leadership oriented and a little 515 00:29:52,700 --> 00:29:55,300 more. Let's help guide these kinds of 516 00:29:55,300 --> 00:29:58,700 interaction experiences. We understand human behavior in 517 00:29:58,700 --> 00:30:01,800 a way that very few professions. Do we study it through 518 00:30:01,800 --> 00:30:04,600 ethnography? We're actively inside design 519 00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:10,600 research and we're in a Ecology that most people don't even know 520 00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:12,500 most people don't even know what phenomenology is. 521 00:30:12,500 --> 00:30:15,100 Can you unpack phenomenology for our listeners? 522 00:30:15,100 --> 00:30:19,200 You bet phenomenology means the study of human experience it, 523 00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:22,300 you know goes back to some movements and Germany in the 524 00:30:22,300 --> 00:30:25,900 1800's people are very scared of anything that was happening in 525 00:30:25,900 --> 00:30:31,500 Germany that led to some really heinous uses of design inside 526 00:30:31,500 --> 00:30:34,200 camps and these these kinds of atrocities. 527 00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:41,200 However, we also have within phenomenology the study of human 528 00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:43,400 experience. If we just take it for what it 529 00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:50,500 is the power of observation of actual hypothesis in observation 530 00:30:50,500 --> 00:30:54,200 educated guesses we go in and we observe because there's a huge 531 00:30:54,200 --> 00:30:57,200 disconnect between what people say they do versus what they 532 00:30:57,200 --> 00:30:59,800 actually do. There's a fun exercise if you 533 00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:03,300 just take a moment of brushing your teeth and you write down 534 00:31:03,300 --> 00:31:07,000 everything you do when your Your teeth and then later that night 535 00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:08,900 you record yourself brushing your teeth. 536 00:31:09,500 --> 00:31:13,100 I think that most people would actually find and most people 537 00:31:13,100 --> 00:31:15,600 would have done this exercise that I've encountered do 538 00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:18,000 actually find that they're Liars. 539 00:31:18,300 --> 00:31:21,500 They don't know what they do when they brush their teeth and 540 00:31:21,500 --> 00:31:25,300 they think they do it for a lot longer than they do as well, you 541 00:31:25,300 --> 00:31:29,600 know, and so dentists all say to brush your teeth for two minutes 542 00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:34,200 minimum between two and four minutes is ideal and even the 543 00:31:34,200 --> 00:31:35,700 people who Say they would do that. 544 00:31:35,700 --> 00:31:38,400 I've clocked themselves at about 27 seconds. 545 00:31:38,900 --> 00:31:41,500 And so that's that's very very far from 2 minutes. 546 00:31:41,500 --> 00:31:45,400 And my point is when we study people in their natural habitat, 547 00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:49,600 and we observe their experience as designers were able to pull 548 00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:53,100 out these kinds of insights and create personas and then create 549 00:31:53,100 --> 00:31:56,600 Journeys which ultimately our stories that allow us to guide 550 00:31:56,600 --> 00:31:59,800 and shape future experiences like this Heineken ad for 551 00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:03,300 example, that was something that was created through observing 552 00:32:03,300 --> 00:32:06,800 people through Rafi through Visual ethnography the power of 553 00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:10,600 documentary which is essentially a visual ethnography and then 554 00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:13,000 the documentary in the information and insights from 555 00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:16,300 that was created to pair two people together that Our 556 00:32:16,300 --> 00:32:20,100 intention from the beginning and if we get them back to the place 557 00:32:20,400 --> 00:32:24,900 how might we get them to a place of understanding and that whole 558 00:32:24,900 --> 00:32:27,300 ad could have been structured around that one how might we 559 00:32:27,300 --> 00:32:29,700 statement. I think this is another point 560 00:32:29,700 --> 00:32:32,400 where we can draw a parallel between the how might we 561 00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:34,600 statements of the design thinking process. 562 00:32:34,700 --> 00:32:38,100 Process and storytelling as well you pointed out earlier that I 563 00:32:38,100 --> 00:32:40,600 use this word tension and you've also been using the word 564 00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:43,800 assumption trying to weave them all together to make sense of 565 00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:45,600 them. I started using this word 566 00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:48,000 tension to describe the setup for stories. 567 00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:50,500 I borrowed it from my friend Gary Jaffe. 568 00:32:50,500 --> 00:32:53,700 He's a filmmaker he came to speak about storytelling to one 569 00:32:53,700 --> 00:32:57,300 of my classes and prior to his guest lecture. 570 00:32:57,300 --> 00:33:00,500 I had always talked about the essence of story being conflict 571 00:33:00,500 --> 00:33:02,800 but conflict in a broad sense right? 572 00:33:02,800 --> 00:33:04,600 Not just like Michael Bay action movie. 573 00:33:04,700 --> 00:33:08,900 Conflict but also internal conflict but I think it was kind 574 00:33:08,900 --> 00:33:12,600 of throwing a lot of people off and Gary started using he 575 00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:16,100 introduced me to using the word tension and that could be a 576 00:33:16,100 --> 00:33:17,600 dramatic tension. It could be, you know, the 577 00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:21,500 sexual tension of characters in a rom-com and I think for 578 00:33:21,500 --> 00:33:25,000 designers it's navigating that tension between the ego right 579 00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:29,400 and wanting to change the world and the service-oriented dynamic 580 00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:33,600 and then also this tension between knowing what we think is 581 00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:36,800 best for people and these these assumptions and the empirical 582 00:33:36,800 --> 00:33:40,600 aspect of what we do like actually recording documenting 583 00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:42,200 and measuring what actually happens. 584 00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:46,200 So yeah, that's how I think about tension and assumptions 585 00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:49,400 and back to this parallel between design thinking and 586 00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:53,100 storytelling in a story you kind of set up this scenario, like 587 00:33:53,100 --> 00:33:57,800 what happens when the alien ship shows up to Earth in some ways. 588 00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:01,600 It's a question and the story that unfolds is an answer to 589 00:34:01,608 --> 00:34:05,700 that question just as the how might we is a That kind of winds 590 00:34:05,700 --> 00:34:09,000 up the tension that allows the design process to move forward. 591 00:34:09,199 --> 00:34:11,400 Yeah. I think it's in astute 592 00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:13,600 observation. There is certainly a parallel. 593 00:34:14,100 --> 00:34:18,600 I think that tension is sort of inherently what drives both and 594 00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:22,800 probably most Industries, right an entrepreneur is often defined 595 00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:25,699 as someone who wants to solve a problem through the capital 596 00:34:25,699 --> 00:34:29,900 system a social entrepreneur is someone who wants to solve a 597 00:34:29,900 --> 00:34:34,500 problem in society and ultimately those problems are 598 00:34:34,699 --> 00:34:38,400 Attentions right that would be another way to say them and so 599 00:34:38,500 --> 00:34:42,300 in storytelling specifically there is the old adage that if 600 00:34:42,300 --> 00:34:44,300 you don't have conflict, you don't have a story. 601 00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:47,600 However, there's always conflict if you're willing to dig at all. 602 00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:50,400 It's always there and I think the same is true. 603 00:34:50,400 --> 00:34:54,500 We find and design research. There is always an assumption. 604 00:34:54,500 --> 00:34:57,800 We're making that's not true. How much of what we believe to 605 00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:02,700 be true actually is true and if you start from that premise and 606 00:35:02,700 --> 00:35:05,100 you're willing to go in there and and Alan G. 607 00:35:05,100 --> 00:35:09,000 Each place that you're starting to create from that I find is 608 00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:12,900 the most powerful place and most resonant voice. 609 00:35:12,900 --> 00:35:17,500 You can tell a story with and from a parallel perspective as a 610 00:35:17,500 --> 00:35:19,500 designer. It's also the place I've found 611 00:35:19,700 --> 00:35:24,100 you can design the greatest products the greatest Solutions 612 00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:28,400 and ultimately even just the the greatest ideas from we have 613 00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:31,500 identified these tensions, but we also have to just live them 614 00:35:31,500 --> 00:35:34,700 and that's just an inherent part of being a designer being A 615 00:35:34,700 --> 00:35:37,900 Storyteller so we're coming up on the end of our time together. 616 00:35:37,900 --> 00:35:41,300 So just kind of end with a lightning round of Q combined 617 00:35:41,300 --> 00:35:43,800 questions of I guess death that death and life. 618 00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:46,600 So the first one is sleigh and then the second one is what's 619 00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:48,400 giving you life. What are some myths 620 00:35:48,400 --> 00:35:52,000 misconceptions out there accepted knowledge that you want 621 00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:56,300 to Slayer dispel and then what's giving you life in terms of 622 00:35:56,400 --> 00:36:00,500 inspiration of works of art or design or other things that 623 00:36:00,500 --> 00:36:03,500 inspire you right now sure the first part of that something I 624 00:36:03,508 --> 00:36:07,700 want to slay. Is our allegiance to the concept 625 00:36:07,700 --> 00:36:10,400 of Truth back to this idea of tension. 626 00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:14,600 I think the tension is the truth and we need to process that as 627 00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:15,800 designers. Yes. 628 00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:19,600 Yes, the Craftsman who have studied under a Goldsmith for 629 00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:21,800 three years are a designer of jewelry. 630 00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:26,300 Yes, absolutely. But so is the MBA who went to 631 00:36:26,300 --> 00:36:29,300 Stanford D school to learn how to see the world differently. 632 00:36:29,700 --> 00:36:33,700 We've got a both hold on to what we love and allow for the World 633 00:36:33,700 --> 00:36:35,200 to Change at the same. Same time. 634 00:36:35,500 --> 00:36:38,200 So that's the thing that I would like to slay right now. 635 00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:41,100 Is that sort of the blockages that keep that from being the 636 00:36:41,100 --> 00:36:42,400 reality? Right? 637 00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:48,200 So if folks are being accepted as designers by business or 638 00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:51,000 their self-identifying as designers just kind of let them 639 00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:52,900 have that too right? There's a big enough tent for 640 00:36:52,900 --> 00:36:55,600 that. I think it's up to us to design 641 00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:58,500 the tent. So yes, I think there is a big 642 00:36:58,500 --> 00:37:01,400 enough 10 for it if we choose for there to be but I'd also 643 00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:04,500 like to slay our allergy to leadership. 644 00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:09,300 Because I think ultimately we've left it to the CEOs and the CFOs 645 00:37:09,300 --> 00:37:12,000 and all the other Seas for so long and we see a move there 646 00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:16,400 only 18 as of right now. I think there's a new 19th cdo's 647 00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:18,300 in the world Chief design officer is at large 648 00:37:18,300 --> 00:37:21,600 organizations of 50,000 or more employees. 649 00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:25,200 And I think we'll start to see that move more and more and more 650 00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:27,500 as we start to get over our allergy to leadership. 651 00:37:27,500 --> 00:37:30,800 We realize that we can actually design the entire organization 652 00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:35,900 the skill set we have is poised to To remake Society if we 653 00:37:35,900 --> 00:37:40,900 choose to so back to ambition, then finally what is giving you 654 00:37:40,900 --> 00:37:43,800 life in terms of creative inspiration right now was giving 655 00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:47,600 me life in terms of creative inspiration right now is this 656 00:37:47,700 --> 00:37:51,900 strange synthesis at the crossroads of the myths. 657 00:37:51,900 --> 00:37:54,400 We tell ourselves the stories. We tell ourselves that we 658 00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:57,400 believe to be true that influence and change our lives 659 00:37:57,900 --> 00:38:00,700 and ultimately create our decision matrices. 660 00:38:00,700 --> 00:38:03,900 We make our decisions everyday from these stories. 661 00:38:03,900 --> 00:38:07,500 We tell ourselves. And what happens at that 662 00:38:07,500 --> 00:38:11,000 crossroads when we start to infuse it with design thinking 663 00:38:11,300 --> 00:38:14,600 and when we start to actively realize that we're empowered and 664 00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:19,100 we actually have this ability to move through a process. 665 00:38:19,100 --> 00:38:23,300 That's measurable. That can change everything in 666 00:38:23,300 --> 00:38:26,000 our current reality and the moment, you know, I go back to 667 00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:29,200 what Gandhi said of, you know be the change you want to see in 668 00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:31,400 the world and what would happen if we actually have the tools 669 00:38:31,400 --> 00:38:33,900 and the ability and the creative wherewithal as well as the 670 00:38:33,900 --> 00:38:39,200 confidence to change ourselves. We'd approach every conversation 671 00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:42,300 a little bit differently. We come to it from a place of 672 00:38:42,300 --> 00:38:46,000 security rather than a place of defense and and I think that 673 00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:49,000 ultimately is the thing I'm most inspired by right now as I'm 674 00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:51,100 starting to see that more and more and more out there. 675 00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:54,900 And I think as those communities start to come together. 676 00:38:54,900 --> 00:38:58,100 We're going to find ourselves not just problem solving or same 677 00:38:58,100 --> 00:39:01,800 design as a problem-solution cycle, but rather for what it 678 00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:05,600 really is, which is the ability to remake reality Jackie was 679 00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:08,300 good to see you again. Thanks for coming on the show. 680 00:39:08,500 --> 00:39:11,700 Check out Jack's book. Echo designs her way out of a 681 00:39:11,708 --> 00:39:16,100 paper bag available wherever books are sold and thank you all 682 00:39:16,100 --> 00:39:20,000 for tuning into this episode of design future natl a production 683 00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:22,700 of aiga. The professional association for 684 00:39:22,700 --> 00:39:27,000 design learn more about our design conference at design 685 00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:31,000 conference dot aiga dot-org until next time. 686 00:39:31,300 --> 00:39:32,300 I'm leash on Huang.