...non periodic oscillations...

Image source: http://bit.ly/2ZAGiQ0 I have heard a lot of people talking about the virtues of “hard work” wherein sacrificing everything else in life is considered normal and almost always, expected. In my limited experience, I have learnt that nothing can be further from the truth. While I have never shied away from responsibility, I have generally ignored such “well meaning advice”. Recently, I came across two posts that brought this thought to the fore again. The glorification of a sixty or eighty hour work week or similar nonsense is the clarion call of those who are terrible at managing their work or are generally clueless about what their priorities in life or work are or believe that employees should be available at their beck and call or worse, plain exploitative. I have personally suffered at the hands of those who loved to schedule team meetings on holidays or wanted to have a discussion after six in the evening or regularly set unrealistic deadlines to ensure tha...

I attended the Better Water campaign launch in Shanghai by Green Initiatives (https://bit.ly/2DMnuDC) and I was very happy to see the level of engagement from the audience. I believe that lack of safe and hygienic public drinking water sources is one of the biggest contributors towards sale of bottled water. We must work towards engaging governments and businesses to setup safe drinking water refill points for people who carry their own reusable water bottles. This will encourage more people to reduce their consumption of single use plastic bottles, improve community engagement and raise awareness about the dirty business of bottled water. #architecture #design #sustainability #innovate #business #water #community

#Entrepreneurs and #Business owners: it is absolutely fine to feel pride in the business that you are building or have built but please stop "talking" about setting up #systems and #processes within your org if you think they are only for your team/staff/employees to follow. Stop talking about #accountability, #delivery and #results as if only the team/staff/employees are responsible for it. Stop talking about #attrition, lack of #passion or #enthusiasm unless you are willing to #introspect, and honestly at that. Stop believing that all #rules, #policies and #regulations are only meant for the team/staff/employees while you are not accountable to anyone. Your accountability to “yourself” is pure #convenience, so let us not even go down that path. Stop #blaming everyone else. If you pay #peanuts, you will get #monkeys. If you encourage #sycophancy, you will get your #shit worshipped. If you treat your team with #disrespect, you will be left with #unmotivated and #pass...

This very interesting piece of research - "The business value of design" ( link ) by Benedict Sheppard, Hugo Sarrazin, Garen Kouyoumjian, and Fabricio Dore, published by McKinsey Design - talks about how design affects a company's bottom line. What I found interesting while reading it was that I have seen a lot of organisations whose core business is design yet they do not understand it entirely. They make the same mistakes or lack the same commitment towards a design led approach to their own business as mentioned in the article. Design organisations get tied down by the lack of design in their own internal processes and business outlook, all the while trying to sell a “design product” to a client, claiming how it will improve their life or business. This is one of the main reasons why most designers live a chaotic and disoriented life, taking pride in their utter inability to streamline even the basics. This attitude is sold to the world as the romantic...

“He/she looks like an educated person. How can he/she do that?” This is a phrase that I hear often, from a variety of people, in response to a variety of stupid or uncivil behaviour that people exhibit in everyday life. It is almost always delivered with an expression of disbelief.  Quite honestly, I have never understood this strange correlation (in people’s mind) between being “educated” and the expectation of better behaviour from other human beings. It seems that for whatever reason, people believe that education is supposed to instil better sense and behaviour. It is supposed to make one a better human being. How? By attending Moral Science classes in school? It is my firm belief that our education system is deeply entrenched in an industrial process of converting human beings into employable zombies who will obey orders. The standard recipe of study hard, good grades, good college, good job, etc. is designed to make us subservient and obedient. The sole aim of the d...

Design Thinking is an interesting phrase. I keep seeing it referenced a lot and yet I wonder if most people using it understand it? I have heard it from successful “designers” who seem to practice the exact opposite of what they keep harping about. This morning I came across a very well written article Minimizing the Einstellung Effect in Design Thinking: How to Arrive at Innovative Solutions by Diminishing Cognitive Bias by Dana Mitroff Silvers . The author talks about how, instead of focussing on innovation through design thinking, design teams tend to focus on the “tried and tested”. In an atmosphere of intense competition and cut throat fees, design firms are constantly trying to cut down on the process and focus more on the deliverables. Whether the design solution works for the given design problem or whether the team “fall in love with what is front-of-mind, thereby missing opportunities for fresh, new ideas”, designers need to pause and introspect. In the race to pr...