...non periodic oscillations...

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...

A key takeaway from the last post, Design Thinking_Einstellung Effect , according to a dear friend who is an architect, was, “Don’t try to innovate when you’re tired”. I couldn’t agree more. How does one innovate when the mind, body and soul are feeling crushed by fatigue? There is another perspective to this situation though – famously depicted by Bill Watterson – last minute panic. source: http://bit.ly/2AcnKtY “Last minute panic” is a design world favourite because it justifies (even if only to themselves) all the chaos, disorganisation and quite often, half-baked design solutions that most design firms love to revel in. Yes, business realities and external factors will always impact the process. Every stakeholder will have an influence on the job on hand and yet, if you look at the inner workings of most (not all) design organisations; the chaos and disorganisation are self-inflicted. There may be a number of reasons why those who are entrusted with organising our world...