Hello and welcome to another episode of the AIGA Design
Podcast. My name is Lee Sean Huang Co,
Executive Director of Learning and Programs here at AIGA, the
professional association for Design.
Hello everyone, I'm Julia Donatello, Design Competitions
and Event Manager at AIGA. In this 11th season of our
podcast, we are exploring the theme of Eyes on Design, which
is also the overarching theme of AI GS programming this year,
which includes this podcast and more which we'll be sharing
shortly. This season's theme is inspired
by the legacy of the acclaimed AIGA Ion design publication,
which ran from 2015 to 2022, Challenging our community to
look deeper, connect broadly, and think further about design.
We're dedicating the season to fostering a new era of discourse
by critically analyzing the present, bridging disciplinary
divides, and boldly facing the future.
The three eyes include the Connecting Eye, which is
connecting design with other disciplines like technology,
science, art and culture. The Critical Eye We seek to
analyze thoughtful critique and design commentary using the
lenses that that check and analyze A broader cultural and
social landscape. And finally, the future eye.
The Third Eye is about keeping tabs on the evolving landscape
of design practice, emerging trends, and technologies,
including AIVRAR, and all sorts of other stuff as we design the
future together. Our guest this episode is Lisa
Grolnick, who's both the managing director of IF Design
USA and the global head of Sustainability and impact at IF
Design. She also hosts the Future of XYZ
podcast. Lisa, it's so great to have you
on the show. Neutron, it's a pleasure to be
here. Thanks so much for having me.
So let's just dive right in to a bit of your story, how you got
to where you are today. You had an interesting journey.
You studied political science in French in undergrad.
I'm also a poli sci major myself.
And then you later earned an MBA.
So how did design enter your life with this this start?
Not to belabor like the history, but I think it's material for
where I've landed. Design has always been forefront
to me. I grew up in a household that
was very focused on interiors, landscape architecture and
contemporary art. So that was really a big part of
my growing up, as was the natural environment.
So I really think about sustainability also and design
have kind of been the lenses weirdly, through which I've
probably experienced the world my whole life.
And when I went off to, I grew up in Southern California, but
when I went to college on the East Coast, because I'd spent my
summers on the East Coast in that same place or similar
place, I studied political science because we'd also been
very, very new centric at my house and cultural fairs and
things. So political science became an
obvious one to me because I thought I'd do psychology or
anthropology. But in the end, I got really
hooked on the poli sci and the lens of really thinking about
like post colonialism and identity politics.
I also had the luxury, I call it, of being considered like the
best dressed on campus, which was really not that complicated
in the 90s in rural Maine when you would come from a high
school that was double the size in Southern California.
But I did I I really loved clothing as an expression of
identity. And I ended up writing my
college thesis after junior year abroad and some stints in
advertising internships and advertising in various cities
around the world. I actually wrote my thesis on on
self versus others. So it was an identity politics
visioned thesis. I really wrote my thesis on
life. But because I'm making this
really long winded, I actually graduated.
And the day I graduated, I was had decided I was moving back to
Paris. And my boyfriend at the time
said to me, that's lovely, what are you going to do?
And I said, well, I bought this visa and you know, I didn't know
anything. So I thought that I could
actually get a job. But it turns out I probably for
two months could have like directed traffic on a on a tour
bus. But instead I got to Paris and I
said to him that day and they made it realize that I'm going
to work in fashion. And I ended up actually spending
the next almost nine years in the fashion world and really and
the intersection of the business and the creative doing kind of
both roles. And that's where I find myself
still. That's an amazing story.
Yeah, I love that. I love that Lisa.
Now shifting a little bit of the role that you have at IF design
at the moment. So we know that you oversee I
have design award which receives more than 10,000 entry entries
from around 70 countries every year from a person that also
manages design competitions from AIJ.
And one of them that is actually a very traditional more than 100
years old competition. The scale that I have design
award reaches is incredible. So I'm very curious to hear a
little bit of the backstage of the production.
So how is it to receive so many entries?
How does it work to choose the? I know there are, I think more
than 90 categories on on. Yeah, something on those lines
you did. Your research well.
Yeah, I know there are disciplines and the categories
and how do you choose the jury to to evaluate all that?
How long does it take the evaluation?
If you can share a little bit of the the backstage, we would love
to hear more. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, you nailed it. So if design has been around
since 1953 in the post war period as the Brits were in
charge of kind of Northern Europe and we're looking to
rebuild Northern Germany and kind of moving N they named
Hanover, Germany as the location for what they became the Hanover
Mesa, which is a convention and it was for industrial design.
And so we were actually the original award component of the
Industrial Design Trade Fair, which was the largest, most
prestigious in the world for many, many, many years.
It's where, you know, Dieter Hams and Braun came out of and
everything else. So he was one of our original
jurors, for instance. And so we're coming up and he
actually was our first lifetime achievement award that we gave
two years ago and made his final public appearance at age 92 on
the award stage, which was pretty exceptional for everyone
in the room, 2500 people. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's so
we started in product design as the discipline and we've
subsequently, as you mentioned, evolved to 93 categories across
these 9 disciplines, which product is still definitely the
biggest. But under product, you have car
and transport design, you have sports, you have lighting, you
have now, you know, interconnected ecosystems, you
know, you have audio. I mean, it got babies and kids.
I mean, building materials. It goes on and on.
Obviously audio and tech and all the things, but we also have
packaging design. We have branding and
communications design, which is both physical and digital, as
well as logos and stuff, really in AIG as wheelhouse.
We have services systems design, which is growing.
We have UXUI architecture and interior architecture as well as
concepts across those things that aren't coming to market,
which is really fun I have to say for architecture and
branding in my favorite categories for that.
But the you mentioned the jury process, the jury process and
it's really, I think what differentiates IF from most of
the other cross disciplinary and global awards out there is the
real rigor and objectivity of the process.
So it's a 2 step process. So the 10 to 11,000 entries we
get are juried individually by subject matter experts in that
this last year, we had 130 for jurors in that first online,
they take 3 1/2 days to jury between 300 and 500 entries each
across 5 criteria. So classic design, crit idea,
form and function, more kind of business, commercialization,
differentiation. And then, and I know we'll talk
about it a little bit, sustainability as of two years
ago is 20% of the score. So those are equally divided and
they have a zero to 100 score for each of those criteria.
So the overall become some factor of 500, right?
Yeah. Everyone gets their feedback
chart so they can see how individual jurors scored them in
those five criteria and then also how they compare to their
category on average and overall. On average at the end of the
preliminary jury, 50%, the top 50% of of of all entries,
regardless of geography, regardless of category move
forward. We don't balance.
So if you have really tough jurors in automotive, for
instance, who don't score, you might have a lot less automotive
in the final jury. Got it.
People are allowed to update their applications during a
short window in between and we encourage all entries that have
a physical sample to send to the final jury hall, which happens
either in Berlin or in Hamburg traditionally.
So in Germany this last year, which just happened in mid
February, our final jury was quite remarkable.
We had 500 more physical presentations than we've ever
had. So this really shows how people
are involved and understand that for the jurors to touch and feel
and really play with the things, it's really important.
Anything else is presented in, you know, on a screen.
And our jurors sit together for 2 1/2 days.
We bring the jurors together to, you know, it's very
confidential. There's no press.
And they discuss and they look at their starting scores from
the preliminary jury and then they discuss it together.
So it's much more group oriented.
And from that, we choose 1/3 as winner and we choose and then we
choose 75 gold winners, which is really the most prestigious
high, high end aspect of the I Have Design award.
And our jurors are, you know, global heads of design, chief
design officers for companies like Samsung, Hyundai, Sony, my
goodness, Mattel plus young, you know, not necessarily big
corporate leaders of Harmon, the audio company architects, the
president of the II, the International International
Interior Design Association, I can't speak and CE OS as well as
independent architects. So it's a really robust and
very, very senior group that really makes it quite
extraordinary when they all come together and share 2 1/2 days in
person, not only looking at what's considered the best of
design, but also really, you know, discussing where the
future is heading, which of course is the conversations I
like and where there's cross disciplinary things and what
kind of macro trends we're all seeing.
And it's, it's quite extraordinary.
And then we have a big party for the winners in Berlin at the end
of April. Oh, nice.
OK, wow, very, very cool. Amazing.
So as you just mentioned here that you're, I think I, I also
heard some other podcast interviews from you and you
mentioned that you consider yourself a, a futurist.
So looking back, why? How do you think I have Design
Awards has made it like it continued being a relevant award
And how do you see the future of it?
I, I love this question. You know, look, I, I do consider
myself a futurist. I, I find that it's very funny
as a futurist that the words that I use seem to somehow get
completely bastardized in some period of like, you know, two to
five years from the time I put something on my LinkedIn
profile, I can no longer say it, you know, like authentic brand
builder, like, you know, went the way of 15 years ago.
Then it was strategist. No one was calling themselves a
strategist and it went everywhere.
And now it's futurist. I don't say it anymore because
everyone's a futurist, but also because, you know, I think what
it really means, all of those things actually mean the same
thing to me, which is, you know, you're really kind of just very
curious in, in life and, and reading the, the tea leaves, if
you will, and looking ahead and connecting the dots.
And I think you know IF when I came on board nearly three years
ago now to open the first ever North American subsidiary, I had
never heard of IF. And I've been in and around the
design world for a long time. And I think that's kind of what
we're coming up against is in the US, especially North
American market, IF is not well known in certain countries in
Germany, in Germany, in Europe, including Germany, obviously our
headquarters and certainly in certain industries, we are
extremely well known. We are also extremely well known
in the Far East, so Japan, China, Taiwan, South Korea, also
Turkey, Brazil, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, like places where
we've had a presence now for over 20 years.
We're very well known and considered the most prestigious
design award. So what we have to offer in the
US excites me as a as a futurist because we have a long legacy,
which is what makes it meaningful.
We've retained our relevance. We're only continuing to grow
since the pandemic, which is quite remarkable.
And what we're hearing in the US over and over again is how
relevant the award is. But now we also just introduced
the Academy, which is executive leadership for design leaders.
And that's hopefully I'll have a chance to talk about that a
little bit. But that really ties to the
mission of IF Design, which is a nonprofit foundation to really
help designers and the design industry at large kind of find
its relevance, keep its relevance.
So I I think we see ourselves as partners and facilitators and a
platform and just really a active member of the design
community globally, not as anything more or less than that.
Yeah, Yeah. No, I love that.
Yeah, it makes it makes a lot of sense.
And now I'm curious. You brought it, you briefly
mentioned that I think two years ago there was a change in the
criteria in the evaluation process of all of the categories
if I'm not mistaken and sustainability is now represents
20% of the evaluation. Can you elaborate a little bit
of how was the shift? How has it changed, how the if
it has, if you have seen already some type of changing in the
entries that have work folks who have submitted new entries, a
little bit of the background also of this shift.
I love that you asked about sustainability.
I love talking about it. When I came on, it was very
obvious to me that this social and environmental aspect was a
very, very important piece of everything for me.
I'd mentioned before Business School, I went to Business
School after fashion specifically to get into
sustainability and luxury and unfortunately graduate into the
financial collapse of 08 with a whole bunch of school debt.
And that was not the conversation that anyone, much
less the luxury sector was having.
And I've really been working on the sustainability side behind
the scenes, not maybe explicitly, but in each of my
roles. And so if I was going to take
this role with IF, it meant a lot to me that if we're going to
be this authority and partner to the design community, we were
going to need to take on sustainability.
And fortunately, the CEO who had come on about a year before me
after the prior CEO had been there for almost 30 years, he
also felt very strongly about this as did the award director
who had been there for about 30 years.
So this was really exciting collaboration and we pretty
quickly took what were the five criteria I mentioned before.
The fifth one previously had been impact and impact was kind
of confusing because it was both commercial impact as well as
social and environmental. And so we just renamed it
sustainability and we pushed the kind of leading question of
commercial impact into differentiation.
And, and then we focus sustainability and we've built
out a working team of outside experts who consult with us, if
you will, if you call them that, they, they consult with me and
our team on making sure that the application makes sense from the
questions and the criteria and the accreditations we're asking
about and really getting to the the biggest impact, which is
different for instance, in cars or audio or packaging or
architecture. So really trying to hone in on
by cap category, what is most important, but also then
advising the jurors, you know, in their during process, not as
jurors, but as expert advisors on the sustainability topic.
So we've really invested heavily on this.
I'm really proud of the work we're doing.
We just, as I mentioned, came out of the final jury and we had
one expert per jury chairperson, which really has helped
accelerate understanding acceptance.
And we look at this as a journey that we're helping our
participants become more aware of the topic and, and asking
more, but also our jurors. And yeah, you asked like, are we
seeing a difference? Like the answer is like the
quality of the responses is getting better.
We're learning about what we can ask without overwhelming the
person filling out the, the application.
And we always said we're rewarding good, not punishing
bad. And that's really to try to help
like, you know, rising tides lift all ships.
And that's really our, our attitude is like, let's bring
people along to make things better.
And I'm, I really, I think we're seeing that all the time.
And we have 4 gold winners this year that were randomly selected
by our sustainability experts as well as like best in show just
internally on the sustainability topic.
And, you know, we got our first ever 100 score in
sustainability, which was incredible.
So, you know, these are really exciting times and we're just
continuing to push and move forward.
Wow, I love it. Yeah.
I'd love to follow up a bit on the sustainability thread and
then also come back to this IF Design Academy, which is how we
first connected, Lisa. So in previous media that you've
been on, you've talked about returning to the repairable, the
reusable and updatable in design and also shifting from short
term to long term value. And so there's a lot of these
different ways of looking at sustainability as you've
mentioned. So how do you see companies and
designers doing that? I mean, I think it's going to
intersect nicely at least Sean probably with the talk of the
Academy. I, I think there's a real
challenge. I mean, there are a lot of
headwinds as we know, right, just in terms of accepting
sustainability moving forward, understanding what it is.
I think a lot of products are very complex and therefore it's
hard to know the difference. There are a lot of materials
that. You know, are nebulous.
Every market is different in terms of, I mean what what we
can single stream, you know, recycle in New York City is
different than in Providence, RI or Los Angeles, right.
So these are really interesting aspects.
One of the partners we've brought into this is what we
call the sustainability working group has been some of the
design leads from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
And Ellen MacArthur Foundation is one of my favorite
organizations I've been involved with for a very long time who
are focused on kind of transitioning to the circular
economy. And all of those words that you
just use repairability, reuse, recycle, etcetera, are parts of
the, you know, eight step R ladder, which we ask people
about in our application. We don't call it the R ladder.
We don't ask about the circularity.
We ask is it repairable, is it recyclable?
Is it reusable, right? Is it refusable?
We don't ask that because then they wouldn't be there.
They wouldn't have built it. But that's really, you know,
kind of how we're leading, if you will, leading the witness to
try to understand in bed. We are seeing this last year
very candidly, that people check a lot of boxes.
And then when you actually get into, well, where they get to
write something about it, there's not always justified and
it's not conscious greenwashing. I think that there's a real lack
of understanding. And again, someone filling out
the application may not have full purview.
But if you say that you're, I mean, use the headphones as an
example, right, are repairable. You have both designers who
understand what that is because they're experts in audio design
of the best quality in the world.
And then you have a sustainability expert in this
topic, right? And so you're able to look at
this headphone and say, well, they say it's repairable, except
that none of these pieces seem to come apart.
It's molded plastic with foam like.
And again, we reward good, we don't punish bad.
So that doesn't mean that they get knocked down.
It just means that they don't get recognized, you know, but
their materiality might actually be superior.
So it's all a discussion, but it really invokes these
conversations that are really meaningful.
And So what we're seeing is our jurors get more aware and
because our jurors oftentimes, you know, they can't jury their
own projects. That's like a it's very clear
cut, right? Like, you know, someone from
Samsung steps away if the Samsung is is on the table and
there's a very clear process for that.
But if they become aware of oh, wow, we said this, but that's
actually not true. Oh, well, there's another way of
doing it that helps everyone, you know, because the when the
leaders in market and the lead the people are applying for IS
they're either some, they're not all big companies, right?
They're like leading design studios.
They're young designers starting out and trying to make their
mark. The more that they all can feel
invested in these answers to these questions, the hope is of
course, that, you know, they become more informed and then it
trickles out into the marketplace and then it becomes
more adopted by consumers. And that's the role we hopefully
get to play without being too naive about the impact.
I think that's actually a really good segue to talking about IF
design Academy. But just to synthesize a little
bit of what you've been saying, Lisa, it's almost like having
these criteria of sustainability as part of the application form
when people submit is both there's like a pedagogical value
to those designers as well as well as a pedagogical value to
the jurors saying like, oh, wow, this is something that I'm being
asked to evaluate on, right. And you're like setting a
standard in that sense. And people can go away and say,
like, OK, how do we learn more about this for next time around?
I think it's a great summary at least Shawn and the only thing
I'll add to it if you guys don't mind.
To the best of our knowledge, we are the only cross disciplinary
or global design award that now has embedded sustainability
fully into the primary during criteria of an award across
everything and not calling it out separately.
So that was really important to us in in, in the work we're
doing and the decision making. And I think that's really where
we're seeing the difference. If we called it out separately,
it wouldn't have the same impact, right?
Because now we're demanding that, you know, the Ferrari,
right? Who, who is there?
They better explain like, what are they doing, you know?
Totally. Yeah.
So we've talked about like using these award criteria as a form
of educating designers and jurors.
But IF Design has also created programming that's explicitly
educational. And in fact, as I mentioned, we
met last year in New York City at a launch event for the IF
Design Academy. You all have launched with
initially 5 courses, I believe, on design leadership.
So can you tell us more about that move into education as like
an explicit space that IF is taking?
Absolutely. I'm really excited about this.
I think coming into a new market, I mean, I say new Apple
has won more IF design awards than any other company in the
world. There are a lot of companies in
the US who have already participated in the IF design
award. It's just mostly product and,
and just not very well known as a brand.
And you know, it's one thing to try to convince people to apply
for a design award that doesn't have brand recognition and that
cost in the end close to €3000 if you win.
But it's a whole other to say, well, actually we're a design
institute. We're a nonprofit.
Our mission of the foundation that owns us at 100% shareholder
right is in fact the future of design in terms of making and
serving the world, making it better, serving the world world,
solving the world's biggest problems.
And it's a design. It's, it's, it's really, it's a
design is to focus on research and education on this topic.
And so I can talk about the IF design award.
I can talk about our content, you know, which we put out an
annual trend report, which is big macro trends and very
robust. We put out an online magazine.
We support the podcast now, A Future of XYZ, that's part of
Sandow's Surround Podcast network as well.
And we have two other awards, which is like the Social Impact
prize and the student award, which get about 15,000 entries
across the two every year across 130 countries and support or
solve for one or more of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
And those are free to enter and we give €150,000 of prize money
away. So we have a really big mission,
but that's all great. They're all awards and yeah.
Yeah. And so I'm really excited that
the Academy launched last September when you and I met
because I, I think I, I think as someone who's been at the
intersection of business and design my whole career, that
designers really do themselves a disservice because they don't
speak the language of business. And historically, it's kind of
been OK, but it's increasingly not because the world is run by
money. And frankly, the business, I
mean, certainly coming from an NBA, like the, the business
people don't really care what the designers think unless
they're a certain kind of business leader, right?
Who has that empathy, that creative mind?
And I think that they're two different sides of the brain
that are used. And increasingly, for the world
to be better, we need design to be better and we need it to be
elevated. And so when we think about why
we launched the IF Design Academy, it's in order.
Again, the primary mission is to support the international design
community. And the way to do that is to
ensure that designers of all levels are better educated, not
not in design, they're educated in design, but in how about
things like, you know, personal development, personal growth,
you know, how to be a better leader.
How do you, how do you develop your leadership identity?
How do you speak the language of business, right?
Like increase your business fluency Like that one is to me,
like super passionate. How do you operationalize in
scale design? You know, how do you build an
internal design team at scale if that's what you're being tasked
with, you know, and then how do you lead with insight towards
the future, whether that's about AI, whether that's about other
emerging texts? And how can we support designers
from around the world in getting these skills in short order so
that they're better positioned to be able to to have the
conversations that actually matter today, which really
increasingly are conversations about, you know, cost.
Is this necessary? You know, why do that?
And, and we don't want design to be relegated to those terms.
We want design to be, you know, forefront at the table and and
for designers to be able to advocate for a design in
themselves. Yeah, You know, that's something
that comes up a lot here at AIGA.
We have this long time partnership with the Yale School
of Management called Business Perspectives for Creative
Leaders. And one of the things when we
talk about that program is, you know, it's meant for like mid
career to fairly senior creative leaders is that the skills that
help designers get to where they are in into leadership positions
like that gets you so far. But then there's this other
stuff, as you were mentioning, Lisa, about like leadership or
understanding systems when it comes to to ability that is not
necessarily taught in design school.
Or maybe you don't need that until you reach a certain stage
of your career, right? And so this life long learning
and having different options of finding what's right for you and
is modular, you know, without having to everybody go back to
school for a degree is so important.
Completely. And I mean, it's so interesting
because what you just said is what I what I hear a lot, what
we've been hearing a lot, which is you get to a certain stage in
your career and what got you there is not what then is going
to make you successful going forward.
Totally. And then you are also dipping
into AI stuff in your curriculum as well.
So leadership leading AI strategy and design, I believe
is one of the upcoming topics for the Academy.
Can you give us a teaser for that?
You totally I am so excited about this one I'm excited about
it for a whole bunch of reasons. I'm excited because it's truly
for anyone and frankly it's for design leaders, but I'm like I
don't I don't think you have to be a design leader to want to
take this class right. I think you could be a business
person who wants to understand how AI can be used in design not
to cost cut not to get rid of jobs.
Please give me a break to actually really like be used
well and effectively because it's coming for all of us
etcetera and what are the tools? What are the structures?
So I'm really excited for that reason, but I'm also really
excited because it's a different format than all the other
courses we're testing. It's only week long instead of a
seven week, you know, multi touch point course, which is
also phenomenal with these, you know, the the former head of
design at IBM and all sorts of, I mean, really amazing people
who are teaching. This is a one week Sprint.
It's also with an amazing leader.
His name's Tay Bannerman. He's a former partner and head
of design at McKinsey. He's an AI.
I hate the word guru, so I won't say it, but AI expert.
He actually was on the podcast right before Halloween.
We, we did a really spooky episode on the future of being
replaced because he's like wants to talk about like why AI is not
going to replace you. So we did a future of being
replaced. It's gonna happen in June.
It's a one week course. It's called AI Strategy for
Design Leaders. And it's really about how do
design leaders make confident decisions about AI?
And it's for leaders who need to evaluate AI opportunities,
understand their organizational readiness, which is, you know,
is it ready for adoption? Is it not?
Yeah. And speak really, most
importantly, credibly about AI in any room.
So it's, it's gonna be awesome. I would say it's probably going
to sell out really fast. And so people can go to sorry
for the shameless bug. IF designacademy.com to to to
check that out and register as soon as registrations open,
which I can't tell you when that is, but it will be soon if it
hasn't already opened. Sounds like a great summer
school kind of experience for creative leaders.
I think so, and it's all. It's all online, so no one has
to displace themselves to to get to a class.
So Lisa, in your Fast, Fast Company piece called where are
all the designers you mentioned and the designers are still
being under represented in the strategic decision making and a
lot in the C-Suite teams they're lacking designers.
Do you feel that the companies a couple decades ago have embraced
the design thinking methods and framework mostly democratized by
IDO and and and so on, and then they drift back to the old
models? Did you feel this shift to
everyone adapting and understanding and valuing design
as a discipline and as a professional and then now kind
of going back to old models or not?
How do you see this change? It's a big, big question, Julia.
I'm not sure that I am as qualified here to, to answer,
you know, such a big question. But I'll, I'll share my
perspective, which is, I think you use idea as the example.
They kind of democratize this idea of design thinking.
And about 3 years ago, I had an interview with someone who was
at RISD, is now at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
And the topic of the conversation ended up being the
future of complexity. But the conversation that was
joking was, should it be the future of design thinking?
And his response was design thinking's dead.
And he wasn't the only one right who feels that way.
And this is a designer, of course, and an educator and an
independent creative. And I think what's happened is,
as always, the bottom line rules out or rules and wins out or
rules. I think, I think from my own
experiences, very candidly, money has always been the
driver. And there was a moment in there
when Apple was surging, when Steve Jobs came back in, when he
had just come out of a very successful run at Pixar and came
back into Apple. And it was all the Ridge.
I mean, you know, valuations were off the charts.
You know, stock prices and dividends, restoring consumer
loyalty was everywhere. And you say, like, this is all
about design. And it was, that's actually not
changed. It's just the perception and the
way people talk about it and the appetite.
Steve Jobs got it, right. Like he understood that you
create an integrated ecosystem and not only is that going to
increase your sales, but it's going to build loyalty because
it all works better, you know, and, and, and, and, and, and,
right. I mean, there are also some
downsides that I'm not going to get into.
Tesla tried to do the same thing when they started building out,
you know, like their plug their their electric grid across the
country and across the world, except that it wasn't with the
same attitude of consumer first. It was for the money, it was for
stickiness and it didn't work right.
So I think what's happening right now is that there is a
real sour taste in people's mouth.
That design thinking failed. That design is somehow expensive
and frivolous. I can't come up.
I can't speak trivial and frivolous mixed into one word.
That was where I was going with that.
That's cute. But yeah, I think that's, I
think that's really what's happened and I don't think
that's true. And so when you think about the
under representation of designers in the C-Suite or any
strategic decision making table or room, there's a problem.
This is true at the policy level too.
When you think about it right, at the policy level, you don't
have design thinkers. There are no solutions being
formed. There are tactics and short
termism. You know, fundamentally design
is everything. I mean, Lord Norman Foster said
that he was our second lifetime achievement award last year and
he said design is everything and everywhere.
We all believe this. I just watched the film
Modernist Inc. It was a 2023 movie about Elliot
Noyes. You know who's one of the
Harvard Five and one of the amazing designers, cross
disciplinary designers of the world who created the IBM logo
plus all sorts of the IBM products, Mobil Oil, I mean, you
go on and on. And their logos are still in
place, right? Since their 50s and 60s.
And they created an identity that connected consumers with
corporate entities and made them believe in ways that still exist
today. Like design is not frivolous.
It is not a cost center. It is not a nice to have.
It is how you find solutions, right?
It is a design thinking is problem solving, right?
There's no designer who's like, oh, yeah, I already know the
answer. It's like, well, what was the
question, right? That is.
And when you're talking about branding, whether you're talking
about a book design, whether you're talking about a magazine
layout, it doesn't make any difference what you're
designing. It could be a whole city.
You know, you're, you're getting designers think bigger.
They think in systems, you know, and we have to celebrate that
because that's what the world needs today, not just on the
sustainability front, but on fundamental economics.
If we're going to do better and survive and if we keep just
building stuff that's like meant to maximize your quarterly
profit, I mean, we're just going to end up in a race to the
bottom, which is kind of, you know, a very sad place that I
don't think that serves the business people either,
ultimately. Yeah, sorry, that was a 2 box
and 1/2. I wanted to build off of that
design thinking point. I think design thinking was
almost a victim of its own success in a way, in the way
that it became like such a buzzword.
Like I was involved in taking these trainings up to the level
of like teaching these trainings, you know, in
boardrooms to non designers. And it was great in terms of a
learning experience. I think it was sometimes
oversold or it was kind of sold as just a training without
actually operationalizing, which we can talk about now applying
to AI as well as sustainability, right?
Where it's like, OK, this becomes such a big thing that
everyone's talking about, people want to learn about it.
They do learn about it. And then there's still that like
application step of like, how do you operationalize it?
And often times it was just, you know, companies were willing to
invest in the design thinking trainings, but not really think
about how they change their way of business, doing business.
Absolutely. And, and look, I, I spent time
after Business School at the Boston Consulting Group in
management consulting, right? I mean, that was a strange,
hard, hard left pivot in my career, but it gave me insight
after having been kind of sequestered in the world of high
fashion luxury retail magazines into the big challenges that big
companies face at a global level.
And I am forever grateful for the experience because of the
unique position I had there, which was sitting with some of
the senior leadership in the consumer practice and the
regional practice and really getting to see what was best
practice for these big companies and what were the challenges
that they needed solving. And this was 2008, 2009, so
right after, you know, kind of Great Recession timing.
And I think what you just said is true and what that lesson
taught me. And then going to Adidas, where
I was in charge of some change management, did a lot of change
management in my career. Subsequently, you know, if you
lift a rock in any of these big corporations, you know, you
think that you're going to just turn over the rock and then
you're going to fix what's underneath.
And and then all of a sudden I, it's a nasty visual, but like
it's true. Like all the critters go
scattering totally and you're like, Oh my God, what have I
done? Like, because every single one
of these companies and we come back to Elliott noise, like in
the 50s, IBM, it was a transition from father to son
taking over. It was, it was a business
growth. You know, you were starting to
think about mainframe computers being used for like, you know,
mathematical computations at scale, but they were like
mainframes that were like as big as, you know, a Walmart, you
know, and, and that's changed. And so in order to adapt to the
times, these companies, I, I joke it's like architecture, you
know, they started as a, you know, a central hallway, you
know, colonial. And then they built on like, you
know, the, the neo revivalist, like, you know, addition.
And then that like started collapsing.
And so they added a modern wing and then they added the second
story again. And then, you know, it just
became something that if you open one door, you kind of have
to take it all down. And that's of course not viable.
And so there's a lot of patching.
And of course, in the public market, you're incentivized only
to think in terms of quarters. You are dinged on the public
market for capital investments unless capital expenditures,
unless the market deems that worthy of their money, right.
And so privately held companies have a lot more opportunity to
to kind of integrate much more deeply the the design thinking
if they so choose. And I think that's what you've
really seen is it was a victim of its own success.
I think business people were like, oh, cool, this is cute
with like the sticky colored sticky notes all over the walls.
But they didn't get that systems are what matter.
They're like, we want it solved now because that short termism
is, is the way that you are efficient and effective in cash
is king because that's what you learn in Business School.
And I know I'm a little cynical, but I think that we really do
have these houses or buildings that have been constructed with,
you know, kind of like completely Frankenstein at this
point. And, and in order to not lift a
rock and have a million critters scatter that you have to then
fix and put back and figure out, it requires design thinking, but
it requires systems thinking and cross disciplinary, cross
functional cross industry, cross regional, cross geographic
collaboration regulation used to help with that regulation is no
longer really helping with any of it, unfortunately.
And so it's the onus is on the organization's themselves to I
think re embrace design thinking for the future.
And the design thinking for the future really has to be like,
how do we, how do we figure out a system that supports
efficiency, productivity, profitability, sustainability,
like all the abilities, right, employability, consumer loyalty,
so. So Lisa, as someone who is
interested in the future you, you brought a little bit about
more about the the IF Design Academy programs and the AI
course that is coming soon. I think in June.
You mentioned how do you think the next generation will learn
design skills and how do you think they can balance becoming
fluent in AI without compromising their creative and
critical thinking? We have to do we have a do we
have a couple of hours for this? I.
I think we have to sign up for that week long course.
Yeah, I know. I think that we need a symposium
on the topic of like the, the, the teaching, the youth, because
the youth will teach us as they always do.
But there are two major risks right now, which is the critical
thinking, right? The curiosity and the critical
thinking. Because AI is a tool, right?
If you believe everything that AI tells you and can't discern
the difference, that's no longer critical thinking.
Your creativity will die on the spot because you're accepting
something that is fact that isn't necessarily it.
Also, I I heard it described by designer the other day really
nicely. Like AI makes everything kind of
perfect, kind of flattens everything.
But like, where's that human? Like where's the roughness?
Like when people used to go to design school and I'm even old
enough for this to have been how people learned in design school.
You didn't models you like worked with your hands, right?
Like you have to build my kids like, you know, one of the
biggest architectural firms in the world just recently
announced that they're closing their model department, right?
Like they're not even building models, right?
And and so that's where we learn.
I mean, you can't learn if you're not touching it.
And people can argue and they will, right?
I mean, the young people listening to this will be like,
she doesn't know what she's talking about anymore, like if
they ever thought I did. But I think that there is a
tactile piece to learning that's a feedback, It's a visual
feedback. And there is scientific evidence
over and over that when we engage our five senses together,
things stick better. We learn better, the information
integrates better. And if we just plug it into a
machine and it spits out some version of something that is
like a hybrid of what we're thinking, but we accept it at
face value without pressure testing or knowing even what
questions to ask of it, I think we risk both critical thinking,
but also creativity. So how they're going to learn
it, you know, they have to want to, they have to recognize that
it's something that they might actually have a blind spot to
and be willing to listen to their elders, which could be
only five years older than them, to be honest, at this point.
And their teachers and and hopefully get out in the street
and roll around in the mud and build a skateboard and smash
their lip and like figure out that like the wheels didn't work
the way they thought. And, you know, whatever that
example is, you know, cut your finger off with an exacto knife.
Like learn what it takes to make things.
I think is part of this. Yeah, reminds me of that, I
guess classic, but maybe going away framework for design
education of head, heart and hands, right.
It's like, oh, you've got to think critically.
You need to have that empathy with your heart and then the
hands of just like the hands on craft part of it.
And I think if we lose that, like losing even more of a grip
on reality, right, when everything is so mediated
through screens and simulations and and AI models.
I mean, Lishan, you just said something also, I mean, yes,
absolutely on the hands, but also on the heart.
If you don't know what's real and you don't question, how do
you develop empathy if you're only listening to a machine?
Like you need to get out and talk to and listen to and engage
with different kinds of perspectives and different
experiences in order to develop that empathy, that heart muscle.
And it is. It's a core piece of, of, of
being a great designer. Yeah, I think for me, what the
tension that I'm feeling on my end here is mostly like, if you
think a couple decades ago we used to write more with our
hands, right? And now it's all typing and and
yeah, we barely use pens anymore.
And so as a society, I think we there is some collective
agreement, agreement that we don't need to write with our
hands anymore so much because that's somehow an unlearned, we
unlearned it. They don't teach kids cursive
anymore. Exactly.
And so now I'm thinking like, what are we as a society with
all these AI tools that are now, you know, booming?
What are we deciding that we are going to unlearn?
Because of course there will be some, some some big changes on
that. And that's a little bit of my my
conflict and friction here on yes, we're going to adjust many
things, but what are we deciding to, you know, unlearn in a way?
I I, I love because there's only so much room, right?
There's only so much time in the day or room in our heads or I
don't know what the answer is. I think it's a really
provocative question, Julia, of like, what are we going to
unlearn in order to be able to learn what we need to learn for
the future? And I think that cursive or just
handwriting in general is an example.
And if you played that out, like in terms of like, if people
don't need paper anymore, right? Like, I mean, are people going
to stop being able to read because they listen And like,
you know, on and on and on it goes.
And like the post office, you actually need to send things if
people aren't like, whatever. I know those are like
extrapolations, but they're the first ones that come to mind.
It's again the lift, the rock and a million things go
scattering. Like I wonder what we're going
to unlearn and then what the ramifications of that are going
to be that in 5-10, fifteen, 5500 years we couldn't possibly
know. And that, to me, is actually a
fascinating question and and worthy also of its own own
conversations. Yeah, I think it definitely
deserves like a whole symposium. As we wrap up our time together
in this conversation though, Lisa, we like to end with a few
sort of rapid fire questions to get to know more about you and
how you think. So the first one is if there's
one thing that you could redesign from scratch, it could
be a product, a service, a space, whatever that is, what
would it be and what are some of the changes you would make?
Social media. Yes.
Yes, social media. I mean, in every way I would
have accountability. I'm just gonna, can I just stop
there? Social media.
Yeah, I think that, yeah, definitely.
And then who is a person, whether a designer or some other
kind of professional, from the present or from history, who
inspires you for not just their work, but like who they are as a
person? I mean, they're there are so
many people on a daily basis who I come across who are inspiring
and throughout history, of course, also, I think that's
kind of what keeps us all hopeful are are the people who
just see through or are courageous, who I don't know who
make a difference. But one of my favourites, not
certainly at the top of all, but she always comes to mind is
Madeleine Albright. Madeleine Albright to me, I
mean, first of all, she was a former Secretary of State, but
she had she did so much and you know, she didn't even start her
career until she was in her mid 40s.
She'd been a stay at home mom. You know, she'd escaped from,
you know, kind of Nazi East Germany or Eastern Europe and
came to the States, got educated, became married and
mother and then started her career late.
And it comes back to my geeky, like, political science
background, you know, but she was a brilliant, brilliant
leader and strategist and critical thinker and, and
frankly creative, out-of-the-box teacher.
I mean, she educated those around her through her heart,
her and her and her head and her quote, you know, specifically
feminist quote. But there's a special place in
hell for women who don't support other women.
Has always been one of my mottos.
I think women really need to step up for other women always.
And not only women, but I just think that's actually, I think
there's a special place in health for people who don't
stand up for other people in general, regardless of, of
gender or race or ethnicity or, you know, I don't know anything
else. So I'm that's probably who I'd
have to answer. Love it.
And to wrap up Lisa, we wanted to hear from you.
Like if you have anything that has been inspiring you lately,
that could be a book, a film, an exhibition, a music, an album
that is currently feeding your your creative soul.
I mean, I always answer this question there, there.
I could go on and on and on. I mean, I'm pretty like I'm
putting lots in my brain all the time.
My guests for future of XYZ. Every single one blows my mind.
Every participant and juror and the I Have Design award.
But honestly, my greatest creative inspiration is always
nature. I call it my religion.
Nature's my religion. I I whatever this season,
wherever I am, like taking a deep breath of fresh air and
seeing a flower or seeing a blade of grass or a tree and or
mountain or ocean or river, whatever.
It's just small or big. It's that's that's always my
creative inspiration. Love it.
Yeah, that what a great way to wrap up this conversation.
Lisa Grolnick is the managing director of IF Design USA and
the global head of sustainability and impact at If
Design. For all of you listening or
watching this, if you're watching it on YouTube, please
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You can also e-mail us at podcast at aig.org.
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Bye.