Digital Digressions

Microsoft Photosynth: 3D Image Browsing

Although you may have stumbled on my reluctance regarding Microsoft in some posts in this blog, this new technology championed by Microsoft Live labs is so cool I'm prepared to put aside some of my bugbears just this once. The technology in question is called Photosynth and is a kind of 3d tagging system for photographs, which means you can search the web for a picture and instantly have related pictures be aligned into a 3d environment around the source picture so you can navigate the area as if it was a 3d world. Sound weird? You betcha - until you check out this little film and it all makes sense.. if I was Adobe I would be very worried... very worried indeed as this is a kind of technology which would be great for the next generation of Photoshop, not the next generation of Microsoft Photo Editor.. just a personal preference. Anyway - have a look and be intrigued!

[Microsoft] [Youtube] [Computers and Internet] [Internet] [Photography] [Software] [Technology] [Web]

Running Creative Brainstorms: A Collection of 'Non-method' Methods

Recently I was yet again faced with the prospect of running a series of brainstorms to generate new product concepts. This time, with a team of people I had never met before. Aside from being a slightly daunting prospect, it got me thinking about the role of the catalyst in such situations - what is it that brings out the best in us and stimulates parts of our accumulated knowledge and insights and turns it into great ideas we felt we had all along, but struggled to articulate.

At the start of the day I was asked what methods I was intending to use and must say I struggled to name specific methods. Having worked in the same concept team for about 5 years and occasionally also with other teams, I've come to the conclusion that one needs to pick the good bits from a range of different methods and use them where appropriate. Sometimes it is about combining them to create a totally new method. Ultimately the discussion about methods can be very distracting though, because methods can be restrictive - they can disrupt the flow of a conversation, because it doesn't quite follow 'the method' one is intending to use. Methods can also be coercive in terms of making a team feel insecure about contributing, particularly if some team members are more familiar with the method being used and others less so - and the best brainstorms in my experience are sessions where discussions flow freely, one sticks loosely to the topic, but there is laughter, the atmosphere is relaxed and ultimately it feels more like play than work.

Find a Safe Haven
Brainstorms are seldom productive in stuffy office environments. I must say I have very seldom come across an office environment where all the chairs, tables and computers don't mount up to creating an oppressive atmosphere - even if you are blessed with beautiful interiors, designer chairs and a goldfish in a bowl. Ultimately I don't blame office environments, but more what offices do to us psychologically. Offices remind us of work, which reminds us of our positions and internal hierarchies and also sometimes about competitiveness within teams and departments. None of these are conducive to creativity and being open, wacky and wild. Brainstorming is very much like playing and kids are picky about the places they like to play. We are the same, even if we are grown up.

Awaken the Child Within
Creativity goes hand in hand with the ability to feel comfortable playing and listening to our inner child. As we grow up, we often lose touch with our inner children because of the pressures at work, responsibilities, hierarchies, mortgages, you name it - but if you have a passion whether it is steam trains, cars, motor bikes, cycling, flying remote controlled planes or whatever - whenever faced with something that reminds you of this passion your eyes light up, a big smile stretches over your face and your heart races just a little bit - this is the kid inside waking up. This kid is also the one who will be the most helpful in a brainstorm, but he needs to feel comfortable and accepted.

Play, according to Arthur Koestler, is about an ability to bisociate - which means you are able to perceive a situation or idea in two self-consistent, but habitually incompatible frames of reference. For a kid it means he can be in his bedroom and simultaneously be Batman hiding in his Batcave. These are two (to adult minds) incompatible frames of reference, but to the child - it is just play as normal. When kids play they collectively engage in this activity and negotiate among themselves what the rules are to the imaginary world and props they have invented - trust is at the heart of it all and everyone plays their part, much like in improvisational theatre.

Brainstorms, when successful are much the same - to engage our imagination it is important to sometimes part with reality, the politics and hindrances that are in our way and simply boldly dare to imagine, express thoughts and ideas - however wild, to in turn awaken new ideas in our colleagues. Many people feel awkward about saying crazy things, but it's often less about the crazy ideas than the effect they have on loosening up our imagination, and the thoughts they spur in others, when listening openly and without judgement. When brainstorming we need to create an atmosphere where saying even the craziest thought will be accepted, so our inner kids gradually can get coaxed out of hiding.

Think of the Ingredients before cooking the big dish
Often great ideas don't simply appear in a puff of smoke, but are in fact made up of an ideal balance and mix of the right ingredients. Brainstorms can easily grind to a halt if the topic picked is simply too enormous. For instance, we have frequently found it difficult to think of the greatest new toy concept in one sitting, ideas often don't work like that - instead it is about thinking about the ingredients to what make something great. Trying to pick apart things we like, why we like them, what was fun about them, what made them work really well.. you end up with ingredients, much like what you start with when making a dish. The ingredients on their own aren't necessarily as tasty as when they are brought together in the right amounts and applied in the right sequence. Concepts, I find, are often the same and brainstorming to me is an effort to find the constituent components and constructing concepts that are bigger than the sum of their parts from that balance of ingredients and their sequence.

Re-Creations (Re-Purpose, Re-Configure, Re-Assemble)
Going back to the Play analogy - sometimes it is about taking known things and playing with them, turning them on their head, using them for something completely different. Kids have an amazing capacity to use objects in ways not even imagined by adults - a wheelbarrow can become the roof of a lair, steel bars for safety become a climbing frame etc. Being relaxed and free in our imagination allows us to look at familiar objects in new ways, reconfigure their use and purpose and again, create something completely new.

Displacements (Pretend, Project, Time Travel)
Pretending to be someone else for a moment is also a useful excercise, whether it is being a kid, disabled person, your boss, member of the management team, your customer etc. Flexing your point of view allows for new things to be seen and discussed - again familiar elements in children's play, but an ability we use less and less when we get older.

Time alone, Time Together
Sometimes you just need to collect your thoughts - many things have surfaced in discussions and ideas are brewing - you can feel it, but struggle to articulate them in a group. This is a good time to take a few ingredients, or a topic and find yourself a private spot where you can sit, undisturbed and simply organise all the thoughts flying to your mind into ideas that make sense. Initially it will feel confusing and quite difficult and your mind can easily start wandering off, but as you persist - things will begin taking shape in your mind. Come together after 20 Min's or an hour and share your thoughts, this will again spark more ideas in the minds of others and ultimately move the conversation on much further than just sitting in a group all the time.

 

And now for something completely different
Breaks are as important when brainstorming as is the brainstorming itself - don't attempt to do more than hour and half maximum at a time - people get tired, discussions run in circles - allow people to stretch their legs and move about, have a break and come back. A pause helps everyone gather their thoughts and also move away from ideas they might have got stuck on. Sometimes things still get stuck and that's where the Monty Python-esque 'Now for Something Completely Different' comes in - find a fun activity, whether it is playing with some toys, bouncing on a trampoline, whatever - but preferably a little physical at least - do it for half and hour to an hour just to break up the day, make people get rid of some nervous energy and encourage them to laugh and have fun. Laughter relaxes us and doing something completely different jolts our brains from whatever groove we got stuck in and helps us think more openly and freely again when we get back into a brainstorm.

So there we go - my list of important 'non-method' things to do to get people's creative juices flowing - and remember, if you have to think of fun concepts - it is impossible if you are not having fun yourself!

Secret LEGO Mindstorms Movie

As some of you already know, the cool LEGO Mindstorms robotics invention system has received a much-needed face lift and a whole host of new and improved features. The new Mindstorms is actually a product of co-creation by some of our most avid fans and the LEGO group and is due to launch world-wide in August.

Having seen the many iterations the team have gone through to arrive at this perfect blend of open-ended building and also a revolutionary open-source programming language to encourage users to share their own creations and programs - Mindstorms is continuing as a trail-blazer in the field of robotics. It is one thing to be able to buy a robotic toy that walks, talks, reacts to sound and can pick things up - it's an entirely different matter to be able to decide for yourself what your robot looks like, what it does and how it reacts to stimuli in the environment. Check out this article in Wired Magazine on the new Mindstorms: Geeks in Toyland

More importantly - to get in the mood for the new Mindstorms launch, open the JPG below to see the instructions of how to find the secret Mindstorms movie hidden on LEGO.com!

Play with Your Walls

I seem to be on a bit of a roll here with groovy interfaces of late, but no harm sharing cool stuff. This is an interesting twist on projections, where rather than merely providing a bigger view of a screen - the projection on the wall actually comes alive, reacting to gestures from people around. Have a look!

Forget Keyboard & Mouse: Use Fingerpainting Instead

Regardless of far computers have come in the last decades, we are still using a pretty archaic form of input: keyboards. Mice aren't that intuitive either, at least not when you are trying to draw - so we have Wacom tablets and styluses instead. What if we did away with all of that and went back to a more child-like way of interacting with things? Touching, pointing, pulling our fingers on the screen? What if that actually meant commands for the computer to execute? Have a look at the video below:

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Creative Mess on Your Desktop

I don't know about you, but when I'm busy working on something, you can tell. My desk invariably overflows with paper, sketches, prototypes, old cups of coffee, sticky notes everywhere, water bottles, toys... the list goes on. To the untrained eye this looks like complete chaos, like a bomb's gone off, but if something gets moved - I can immediately tell. The piles of paper are actually organised according to a pattern and as I have a photographic memory, scattering things helps me find them. This, at least is what I tell people who question my need for a mess. The insights behind my messy behaviour are also what have inspired the geniuses at BumpTop to make computer desktops more intuitive and user-friendly. Have a look at the video below:

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Pong Piano

I feel a bit guilty for not having kept up my steady supply of musical digressions for you to sample and this of course is down to a very mundane reason: I have been to snowed under with everything going on recently. As I'm beginning to get my head around the concept of co-creation I thought that rather than give you another installment of my own creations, I'd instead point you to this magnificent little program that let's you create your very own experimental music and evolve it using a combination of gravity, colours and the game pong. Sound intriguing? Give Pianolina a spin and see what you come up with!

The Beauty of Doing Things Right

Before settling for my new job, I spent the last few months seeing potential employers, being interviewed, but also trying my best to interview my potential employers in return to try to find out whether the job on offer really was going to be all it was cranked up to be. It's easy to be star-struck, particularly when going for interviews with companies one is passionate about, or admires for one reason or another, but in these cases it is even more important to ask some difficult questions too, in order to separate reality from one's dream of what the company is.

Often it can be disappointing, if not outright surprising, to discover that the success the company has enjoyed is more or less down to sheer luck, and throwing money at production with the rationale that something will be a hit eventually. Success by probability rather than strategy. I have been taken slightly aback by the realisation how many companies, despite all the literature, courses, best-practise case studies and whatever are out there - still can't get their head around how to do things right.

What is the right way? I'm inclined to think that despite the explosion of books on innovative business practises and leadership, the best and clearest findings are still free, courtesy of The International Standards Organisation (ISO) who works relentlessly to share best practises in a range of different fields, and publicising their findings freely and widely. In that respect we really don't have an excuse - this knowledge is out there so let's more use of it. The following text is an integral reproduction of the content of the document "Quality Management Principles":

Principle 1 Customer focus

Organisations depend on their customers and therefore should understand current and future customer needs, should meet customer requirements and strive to exceed customer expectations.

Key benefits:

• Increased revenue and market share obtained through flexible and fast responses to market opportunities.
• Increased effectiveness in the use of the organisation's resources to enhance customer satisfaction.
• Improved customer loyalty leading to repeat business.

Applying the principle of customer focus typically leads to:

• Researching and understanding customer needs and expectations.
• Ensuring that the objectives of the organisation are linked to customer needs and expectations.
• Communicating customer needs and expectations throughout the organisation. Measuring customer satisfaction and acting on the results.
• Systematically managing customer relationships.
• Ensuring a balanced approach between satisfying customers and other interested parties (such as owners, employees, suppliers, financiers, local communities and society as a whole).

Principle 2 Leadership

Leaders establish unity of purpose and direction of the organization. They should create and maintain the internal environment in which people can become fully involved in achieving the organization's objectives.

Key benefits:

• People will understand and be motivated towards the organisation's goals and objectives.
• Activities are evaluated, aligned and implemented in a unified way.
• Miscommunication between levels of an organisation will be minimised.

Applying the principle of leadership typically leads to:

• Considering the needs of all interested parties including customers, owners, employees, suppliers, financiers, local communities and society as a whole.
• Establishing a clear vision of the organisation's future.
• Setting challenging goals and targets.
• Creating and sustaining shared values, fairness and ethical role models at all levels of the organisation.
• Establishing trust and eliminating fear.
• Providing people with the required resources, training and freedom to act with responsibility and accountability.
• Inspiring, encouraging and recognising people's contributions.

Principle 3 Involvement of people

People at all levels are the essence of an organization and their full involvement enables their abilities to be used for the organization's benefit.

Key benefits:

• Motivated, committed and involved people within the organisation.
• Innovation and creativity in furthering the organisation's objectives.
• People being accountable for their own performance.
• People eager to participate in and contribute to continual improvement.

Applying the principle of involvement of people typically leads to:

• People understanding the importance of their contribution and role in the organisation.
• People identifying constraints to their performance.
• People accepting ownership of problems and their responsibility for solving them. People evaluating their performance against their personal goals and objectives.
• People actively seeking opportunities to enhance their competence, knowledge and experience.    * People freely sharing knowledge and experience.
• People openly discussing problems and issues.

Principle 4 Process approach

A desired result is achieved more efficiently when activities and related resources are managed as a process.

Key benefits:

• Lower costs and shorter cycle times through effective use of resources.
• Improved, consistent and predictable results.
• Focused and prioritised improvement opportunities.

Applying the principle of process approach typically leads to:

• Systematically defining the activities necessary to obtain a desired result.
• Establishing clear responsibility and accountability for managing key activities.
• Analysing and measuring of the capability of key activities.
• Identifying the interfaces of key activities within and between the functions of the organisation.
• Focusing on the factors such as resources, methods, and materials that will improve key activities of the organisation.
• Evaluating risks, consequences and impacts of activities on customers, suppliers and other interested parties.

Principle 5 System approach to management

Identifying, understanding and managing interrelated processes as a system contributes to the organization's effectiveness and efficiency in achieving its objectives.

Key benefits:

• Integration and alignment of the processes that will best achieve the desired results.
• Ability to focus effort on the key processes.
• Providing confidence to interested parties as to the consistency, effectiveness and efficiency of the organisation.

Applying the principle of system approach to management typically leads to:

• Structuring a system to achieve the organisation's objectives in the most effective and efficient way.
• Understanding the inter-dependencies between the processes of the system. Structured approaches that harmonise and integrate processes.
• Providing a better understanding of the roles and responsibilities necessary for achieving common objectives and thereby reducing cross-functional barriers. Understanding organisational capabilities and establishing resource constraints prior to action.
• Targeting and defining how specific activities within a system should operate. Continually improving the system through measurement and evaluation.

Principle 6 Continual improvement

Continual improvement of the organization's overall performance should be a permanent objective of the organization.

Key benefits:

• Performance advantage through improved organisational capabilities.
• Alignment of improvement activities at all levels to an organisation's strategic intent.
• Flexibility to react quickly to opportunities.

Applying the principle of continual improvement typically leads to:

• Employing a consistent organisation-wide approach to continual improvement of the organisation's performance.
• Providing people with training in the methods and tools of continual improvement. Making continual improvement of products, processes and systems an objective for every individual in the organisation.
• Establishing goals to guide, and measures to track, continual improvement. Recognising and acknowledging improvements.

Principle 7 Factual approach to decision making

Effective decisions are based on the analysis of data and information

Key benefits:

• Informed decisions.
• An increased ability to demonstrate the effectiveness of past decisions through reference to factual records.
• Increased ability to review, challenge and change opinions and decisions.

Applying the principle of factual approach to decision making typically leads to:

• Ensuring that data and information are sufficiently accurate and reliable.
• Making data accessible to those who need it.
• Analysing data and information using valid methods.
• Making decisions and taking action based on factual analysis, balanced with experience and intuition.

Principle 8 Mutually beneficial supplier relationships

An organization and its suppliers are interdependent and a mutually beneficial relationship enhances the ability of both to create value

Key benefits:

• Increased ability to create value for both parties.
• Flexibility and speed of joint responses to changing market or customer needs and expectations.
• Optimisation of costs and resources.

Applying the principles of mutually beneficial supplier relationships typically leads to:

• Establishing relationships that balance short-term gains with long-term considerations.
• Pooling of expertise and resources with partners.
• Identifying and selecting key suppliers.
• Clear and open communication.
• Sharing information and future plans.
• Establishing joint development and improvement activities.
• Inspiring, encouraging and recognising improvements and achievements by suppliers.

Quality Management Principles

Humble Leaders - An Oxymoron?

Someone once told me I was too polite to be a great leader. Asking people to do stuff and saying 'please' was apparently not a sign of setting strong direction and providing uncontested leadership. 'Women often do that... apologising for giving orders' they continued. Their argument was that 'please' opens things up for discussion and that is the one thing you don't want when leading people.. apparently.

To me this conversation was a leaf out of 'command-and-control-R-us' school of management thinking, where the presumption is that none of your reportees will have relevant, or even useful input to whatever direction you are setting. A way of behaving, which is further augmented by the 'knowledge-is-power' mentality of not freely sharing available information, but hoarding it instead to gain an advantage later.

Can we even recognise the appropriate traits in our leaders?
Interestingly, when asked her sentiments after the verdicts of Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, Sherron Watkins, the Enron whistle-blower, stammered something about being satisfied that justice prevailed, but unable to put into words the sense of sadness of what could have been. (Time Magazine, June 5, 2006). She openly wonders if we recognise and value the appropriate traits in our leaders. As she puts it: "We want honest leaders, who are decisive, creative, optimistic and even courageous, but we so easily settle for talk that marks those traits instead of action. Worse, we often don't even look for one of the most critical traits of a leader: humility. A humble leader listens to others. He or she values input from employees and is ready to hear the truth, even if it's bad news. Humility is marked by an ability to admit mistakes."

Level 5 Leadership
An excellent report in the Harvard Business Review by Jim Collins Level 5 Leadership - The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve seems to support this. Collins argues that the key ingredient that allows a company to become great is having a Level 5 leader: an executive in whom genuine personal humility blends with intense professional will. These leaders attend to people first, strategy second. As Collins puts it ' they get the right people on the bus, move the wrong people off, usher the right people to the right seats - and then they figure out where to drive it." Level 5 leaders also confront the most brutal facts of their current reality and take full responsibility for it, yet simultaneously maintain that they will prevail in the end. They hold both disciplines - faith and facts - at the same time, all the time. Instead of lurching back and forth with radical change programs, reactionary moves and restructurings, level 5 leaders also maintain a relentless, but consistent push forward until momentum takes care of the rest.

The Hedgehog Concept
Ultimately, Collins identifies what he calls the 'Hedgehog' concept to be behind the level 5 leaders' stewardship of companies that have managed to transform from good to great. The concept actually stems from a famous essay by the philosopher and scholar Isaiah Berlin, where he describes two approaches to thought and life using a simple parable: The fox knows a little about many things, but the hedgehog knows only one big thing very well. The fox is complex, the hedgehog simple. And the hedgehog wins. Collins' research shows that breakthroughs require a simple, hedge-hog like understanding of three intersecting circles: what a company can be best in the world at, how its economics work best, and what best ignites the passions of its people. Breakthroughs happen when you get the hedgehog concept and become systematic and consistent with it, eliminating virtually anything that does not fit in the three circles.

A Culture of Discipline
Collins puts emphasis on level 5 leaders' ability to engender a culture of discipline: disciplined people, disciplined thought and disciplined action. When you have disciplined people, you don't need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don't need bureaucracy. When you have disciplined action, you don't need excessive controls. When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great performance.

The Yin and Yang of Level 5
Collins identifies these as personal humility mixed with professional will. Personal humility demonstrates a compelling modesty, shunning public adulation and never boastful. A level 5 leader acts with quiet, calm determination and relies on inspired standards rather than charisma to motivate. S/he channels ambition into the company, not the self and sets up successors for even more greatness in the next generation. Level 5 leaders take responsibility themselves for poor results, never blaming other people, external factors or bad luck. The professional will of level 5 leaders is demonstrated by an unwavering resolve to do whatever must be done to produce the best long-term results, no matter how difficult. S/he also looks to apportion credit for the success of the company to other people, external factors and good luck.

Do these leaders exist? Jim Collins thinks so and in his fantastic report spanning 5 years of research into what makes companies consistently great, he not only identifies the key factors, but also gives us examples of leaders who have done it. This gives me hope. And determination to not only aim to be one myself one day (I can hope!), but also hope that I will be blessed by working for such a leader. Truly inspired!

Are you too old?

Did you know that mountain bikes were invented by kids who wanted to ride downhill on their bikes? When their regular bikes broke, they started making modifications to the frame, brakes and using trial bike tyres for the wheels to create sturdier bikes. Call that a shining example of user-led innovation.

What about sending text-messages on your mobile phone (sorry! cell phone if you are in the States..). This function was apparently included in the early day phones as a mechanism to let engineers test mobile base stations and antennae and as a means of sending quick-fix software patches around. No doubt anyone turning up at one of the big networks' headquarters would not have been taken seriously if they had proclaimed that this little piece of functionality will herald the dawn of a new form of communication pioneered by young people, leading to an entirely new kind of 'language' - txting?

Recently newspapers have run the story about the Mosquito ring tone, a high-pitch ring tone kids have been programming their mobiles to use during class - but inaudible to the teacher. How's that for framing a problem and designing a solution around it? Are you too old to hear it? Try it! Alec Saunders Log offers not only links to the original NY times article, but also to the NCH Tone Generator application. This is used by audio engineers to generate various different kinds of tones ranging from square waves to pink noise to sine waves, and a bunch more. Alec has generated a host of tones in different frequencies, all of which I can hear too apart from the 18khz one. What about you - are you too old to hear them?

Don't Box Me In!

So these things happen. You go to a wedding, get asked the regular question of - ' what are you up to these days?' and end up explaining you are in the process of changing jobs. Always a dangerous discussion starter, as people invariably feel the need to offer their take on what you should do, regardless of whether they understand your industry or not. All of course with good intentions, but it gets a bit tiresome after a while. I'm sure you all know what I mean.

In my case things are on the up, just accepted a new job, which will to some seem like a radical departure from what I was doing so far (product development), but to me is simply widening my knowledge, business understanding and strategic thinking. What I'll be doing next is focusing not so much on product development in the traditional sense, but instead developing services, events and experiences in partnership with the fan community. Interestingly, I touched on the topic of community-driven innovation in an earlier post about The Conditions for Thriving Innovation as well as the design maturity of an organisation in Decoding Apple's Success: Why Only Great Leaders Know the True Power of Design - both critical factors in taking a company beyond the commodity trap and into an experience-driven realm. Summarising design maturity of an organisation:

Download design_maturity.pdf

1. No use of design. In these companies, design is a hidden aspect of product development. It is  generally the task of nondesign disciplines to develop the functionality and aesthetics of a product.

2. Design as styling. Design is seen as the final styling of a product. The task may or may not be undertaken by professional designers.

3. Design as process. Design is not an end result, but rather a work method adopted at an early stage of product development and requiring the involvement of several different disciplines, including design.

4. Design as problem-solving. Design finds new opportunities by solving existing problems.

5. Design as strategy. Design has been adopted as a central aspect of the company's business base, used as a means of encouraging innovation, for instance.

Of course it not just about how a company sees the use of design, it is also how designers themselves behave, Lazlo (1992) differentiates among five generations of designers:

1. The first generation designer is considered an expert and specialist in the design process. She studies the situation of the group and decides which is the best solution for them. 


2. The second generation designer is akin to the classical consultant who asks for information from the members of the group, and then analyses it and gives them a solution according to her perception of their needs. These two first generations design for others.  In contrast, the last three generations of designers design with others. 


3. The third generation designer gets the group involved in the creation of alternative solutions, but at the end of the process, she nevertheless selects the best alternative for them. 


4. The fourth generation designer works to create an adequate group environment that facilitates the processes of generating alternatives and selecting solutions. 


5. The newest generation, the fifth generation, not only involves the group in the design process, but also helps the group to learn how to learn to facilitate.  A group that does so can sustain the continued design process by themselves (Banathy, 1996.)

For me, it's about maturing as a designer. Invariably, if you are doing design as a freelancer or consultant, you get stuck on levels 1-2 as companies have a pretty defined idea of what they want you to deliver and don't want you asking the big questions. Often, because there is not a process in place in the company for asking the big questions, without being perceived as challenging management and clients seldom want to be seen to be rocking the boat.

Going full-time invariably means that you may be hovering around Levels 3-4 (if you are lucky), but still seen more as a doer than a thinker and even if you are in-house, your task is invariably to solve problems others have defined. This is not to be discounted as an exercise, but it tends to produce iterative, incremental improvements to product lines rather than cutting-edge innovation. Level 5 innovation can only really happen if the company management is populated by Level 4 leaders i.e Strategists, who generate organisational and personal transformations or even better, Level 5 leaders, commonly referred to as Alchemists, who generate society-wide transformations. Both are rare, and level 5 leaders even rarer (companies who have caused society-wide transformations are Apple, Amazon, EBay to name a few).

Design is about a desire to create meaning
Back to the wedding and the discussion about my next move, I got asked - 'isn't design for you about the passion of form and function of objects?' and I had to reply no. Design is bigger than that. Level 5 design is about framing the challenges that face the organisation, setting an agenda, outlining the boundaries and axes of interest, and moving design from executing strategy to shaping strategy. Or to put it more bluntly, what drives me is a desire to create meaning. Meaning is beyond simply obsessing about the form, finish and function of an object - it is about the meaning we assign an object in our lives. Companies like Harley-Davidson, Ducati, Apple to name but a few have created transformational products, products that have such meaning to their fans that the products have become part of their identity. These products have meaning, which is greater than the sum of the parts. As a designer aspiring to mature to higher levels, it surely must be about understanding ALL the elements that come in to play to create such a transformational product, rather than simply obsessing over one or two parts of it?

Ironically, it is not my design colleagues who have given me a hard time about my decision. Everyone can see the value of it, understanding how designing with users creates better solutions than merely designing for them, instead it is the people outside the design industry who have voiced their concerns. This leads me to thinking that part of the difficulty in creating a culture within a company conducive to successful innovation is the tendency of other disciplines to want to box in designers to having a very narrow role in the wider creation of a product solution. Whether these people idealise designers and envy their skills, or simply see them as yet another discipline that needs to have input on a product, in both cases we are talking about design as part of a process, often devoid of greater meaning. Check the hilarious photos below!

How do we take the complex task of creating a service or product, split it up into it's constituent 'boxes' (i.e people who almost like automatons, are expected to perform a very specific part, but are frequently discouraged from thinking about wider aspects of the problem they are trying to solve)  and orchestrate all these to create something greater than the sum of its parts?

Users and fans create meaning, they fall in love with products that have meaning. Surely designers should aspire to working more closely with them and creating frameworks for including them in the design process? That is want I want to do. I believe it is possible to reach level 4 or level 5 of design maturity specifically by creating mechanisms for empowering the fan community to have a greater say in the definition of their products. It won't be easy and I have a lot to learn, but God forbid if I ever end up in a job where I have very little to learn - boredom will not be far behind!

Photos courtesy of Hemmy.net