letting go

http://www.flickr.com/photos/basheertome/5557362895

on design in a time of disruption

Letting go...

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tinou/453593446


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been on a quest for perfection + control...for much of human history, we have

napoleon bonaparte



started with this...much of it

http://www.flickr.com/photos/purdman1/2875431305

movable lead type



http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmwk/3517373312

gutenberg parenthesis

there were as many as 10-12 million"printed his bible...less than 50 years laterin all of Europe before Gutenberg“...there were perhaps 30,000 books

“Gutenberg’s Legacy”, University of Texas



http://www.flickr.com/photos/humblog/4522388767

nothing short of revolutionarythe knock-on effects were

standardisation of spelling

spread of knowledge in local

languages

development of formal grammar

wider access to knowledge for women and the poor

fewer books printed in Latin

democratisation of knowledge v.1

http://www.flickr.com/photos/whiteafrican/2938685296

might be a finite thing...also led us to believe that knowledge

store, and constrain knowledge,but our ability to capture,



http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/4127624763

"the truth" about all sorts of things...long enough, we could discover

...that if we experimented



http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigbirdz/4507266406

to do just about everything......and "the best way"

iso certified



http://www.google.com/patents

claimed them as our own...we protected ideas, and

google patents



http://www.flickr.com/photos/siliconbeachtraining/3925458997

duplicate what we'd learned...we created processes, enabling us to

six sigma

design thinking



http://www.flickr.com/photos/fungleo/4771589650

globalisation further amplified this...industrialisation, automation and

chongqing china



http://www.flickr.com/photos/scobleizer/3009516045

something you can scale it...once you can duplicate



http://www.flickr.com/photos/daverugby83/4478007023

you can make money...and if you can scale it,



http://www.flickr.com/photos/chadmagiera/265752353

much of this is starting to unravel...thanks to the Internet,

bruce mau massive change



http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/5129303018

important than that of any the network are now more

but the knowledge + power in...scale is still important,

one group or individual...



http://www.flickr.com/photos/28misguidedsouls/5522310921

spreading messages and ideas...social networks act as "amplifiers"



http://www.flickr.com/photos/ricardoalvarez/229045487

and it's likely to grow...let a product, or idea loose online,

crazy frog



http://www.flickr.com/photos/ricardoalvarez/229046257

they self-replicate and evolve...but ideas don't just grow,

the annoying thing



http://www.flickr.com/photos/eneas/3479302322

is normally associated with viruses...often at a pace and intensity that

swine flu mexico



http://www.flickr.com/photos/ricephotos/2679758872

the network sets in... once the power of

it's impossible to contain ideasand while viruses can be contained,

this is actually bacteria...



http://www.flickr.com/photos/altemark/39593706



http://www.flickr.com/photos/misbehave/2352753067

have only amplified this

portable, always on,

always connected devices

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nebraskasc/3659328702

you have the perfect storm...combine all these things and



http://www.flickr.com/photos/randysonofrobert/311744213

feedback loop...an endless, often over-connected



http://www.flickr.com/photos/yghelloworld/4965465016

ideas to greatness...propelling unexpected

angry birds



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IcVyvg2Qlo

enabling new voices...

it gets better



http://www.flickr.com/photos/ahmadhammoudphotography/5410375058

...accelerating change

egyptian revolution



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on a global scale...or causing chaos

market crash 2011

economic crisis 2008



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create entirely new situations..."converging and influencing each other toat us faster or with less predictability; they are"events, threats and opportunities aren't just coming

require unprecedented degrees of creativity""...these first-of-their-kind developments

Capitalising on Complexity - 2010 IBM CEO Study



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with some decidedly unique challenges...designers, (or anyone who makes products)

this new environment presents engineers,

nathan road hong kong



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the balance of power is shifting...



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program our consumption is becoming“The idea that someone can

obsolete, and fast.” - Seth Godin“The extraordinary revolution of media choice”



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to interact with our creations we can no longer expect customers

in a linear, exclusive, orpredictable manner...



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to create experiences for them...users no longer have to wait for us



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if something doesn't suit them...



http://www.flickr.com/photos/24763767@N03/3907937027

...they can change it

kindle teleprompter



http://www.flickr.com/photos/johanl/4818276266

...they can improve it

flipboard

readability

instapaper

@killdozer

that has now been renderedwork with Instapaper, and stuff"The world is split into websites that

irrelevant to me.”



http://www.flickr.com/photos/bramus/5222185714

...enhance it

http://twitter.com/#!/joindiaspora

...even compete with it

Shopping mall app store

Curation & tech support

Social discovery

Serendipity...(and fun!)



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be able to go much further...very soon, they will

3D printing

makerbot thing-o-matic



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necessarily a bad thing...this is not



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people don't necessarily want the perfect product..."counterintuitive but there is growing evidence thatincomplete, and possibly even substandard seems"Issuing your customers with something that is rough,



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around the edges that they can adapt or improve.""...they prefer to deal with something ragged

Loose, Martin Thomas



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behave in a generally homogenous way... we've also tended to presume users

in our quest to create perfection,

caricature

personas

scenarios



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far from the truth...this is increasingly

complex vs. complicated



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of a product into society...of 50 million to mark the "penetration"

marketers often use an audience



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(which was usually a good thing)historically, market penetration took time,

traffic 1963



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of how a product might fit into our lives...development of social norms and an understanding

with time came stronger mental models,

traffic 2011



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those embarrassing mistakes...time also enabled us to work out

sinclair c5



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time is now a luxury...for better or worse




stability

creation of new infrastructural

technology followed by

rapiddisruption

years

S curve - stable over decades

stability

Source: The Big Shift by John Hagel, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison

as coined by John Seely Brown

...the big shift




stability

creation of new infrastructural

technology followed by

rapiddisruption

years years

S curve - stable over decades the present (and likely future)

many new infrastructural technologies

frequent disruption

smaller periods of stability

stability

Source: The Big Shift by John Hagel, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison

as coined by John Seely Brown

...the big shift



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a market penetration of 50 million...it took radio 40 years to reach

Source: ReWired, Larry D. Rosen



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10 years to 'adapt' to television...by comparison, we had only




while the iPod took only 5 years...iconic


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPPj6viIBmU

less than 6 months...and YouTube,


star wars kid



http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-project-real-life.html

in less than half this time...Google+ may reach that milestone

Google + in fact reached this milestone in about 3 months... to the tune of 2million new users a day!



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at a pace that was once unheard of...technology adoption is creating 'generation gaps'

researchers are discovering that our rapid



http://www.flickr.com/photos/tocaboca/5523598823

Lee Rainie, Pew Research Center, Internet and American Life Project

experiences with technology."are having completely different"People two, three or four years apart




...but this is different.tastes than our siblings

we've always had different



http://www.flickr.com/photos/rafaelrobles/4791344184

She was holding my Kindle e-reader."recently with two words: "Daddy's book."

"My 2-year-old daughter surprised me

The Children of Cyberspace: Old Fogies by Their 20s, NY Times



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limited to our children...these changes are not

- @araland looked for the search box.""I just opened my Moleskine



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

really had it easy...and those blind men with that elephant

add to this the global nature of the Internet,

information deficit

different perspectives



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in a slightly different way...and engaging with products

each of us experiencing, understanding

interpretations



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interdependent systems of experience...designing multi-layered and tightly

while companies such as Apple are successfullystill

apple store



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most touch points and interactions...their ability to control and contain

their success relies in great part on

magic kingdom



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have this luxury...most products will not

android china

rubber ducks lost at sea



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be the first to fail...orchestrated products may in fact

today the most perfectly

OLPC

design by committee

mental models



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nespresso coffee

for each layer of experience

there will be trade-offs

in complexity



actors in the ecosystem...and an increasing reliance on other

http://www.flickr.com/photos/flavouz/3137171590

recycle nespresso capsules

george clooney nespresso

nespresso vs

cost of aluminium

fair trade ethics



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that have become all too commonto the abrupt changes in environment...reducing a product's ability to react

fuel costs

union UPS handbook

carbon costs

volcano UPS delivery




in fact be the simplest–or most flexible...the most successful products mayin an increasingly complex world,

bodum

french press

bialetti



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experiences they create for themselves...meaning and enrich their lives, through

enabling pathways for users to find

toca boca



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stop short of fully defining the experience.""the best designs will set the stage, but

Adam Silver, Frog Design

cardboard box play



http://www.guardian.co.uk/open-platform

they were originally intended for...beyond the device, context or technologythe most valued products will be designed to live

newspaper publishing

print media process



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with no primary context at all...they may even be designed




should not absolve us of responsibility...but letting go of 'experience' as we once knew it

domino falling



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responsibility than ever before...in fact, as designers we now have more

and developers



Video Games and the Human Condition, Jonathan Blow

with every product we create."to the number of people we may affect

"A responsibility that is directly proportional

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterkaminski/181721075

to consider the implications of our work...our lives, the more important it will be for us

the more technology weave their way throughand the Internet

segway



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Douglas Rushkoff

–a design for our collective future.""We are creating a blueprint together




script and API becomes a part of that future...each meme, pattern, metaphor, gesture,

minority report interface

natural ui

twitter URLs




Marshall McLuhan

thereafter our tools shape us.""We shape our tools and



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wish to create?...what future do we



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we do will have an impact...there's no guarantee that the work




that it may...but there's the very real risk



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Albert Einstein

is not to stop questioning."hope for tomorrow. The important thing"Learn from yesterday, live for today,




[email protected] thank you

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many thanks to the amazing photographers on

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http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/by-2.0

licensed under

available on

@yiibu

contact usat





mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

letting go

Design

lang davisonas

john seely

john hagel

big shifthttp

big shift

infrastructural

power

knowledge