Rethinking Design
Embrace The Coarse Process
Mark Rolston
Chief Creative O cer

“Writing about music is like
dancing about architecture.”
Elvis Costello
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The Fog of War
"The great uncertainty of all data in war is a
peculiar di culty, because all action must,
to a certain extent, be planned in a mere
twilight, which in addition not infrequently
— like the e ect of a fog or moonshine —
gives to things exaggerated dimensions and
unnatural appearance."
Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian military analyst, 1800’s
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“The implicit assumption that thinking
is somehow removed from the act of
design itself. That is, if we get some
really smart folks together to ponder
and brainstorm paradigm shifts,
great stu will come from it.
This is mildly delusional at best.”
Bob Brunner, in Fast Company
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embrace the coarse process
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The market for innovation:
What do we have and what do we want?
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what we had
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what we wanted
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what we had
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what we wanted
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what we have
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what we want
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“so then, a modern strategic design
program should do the trick, right?”
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The era of design superstars
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The big idea
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But the problem has changed
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We want simplicity
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MEX: Personalization © 2009 frog design. Confidential & Proprietary.

MEX: Personalization © 2009 frog design. Confidential & Proprietary.

MEX: Personalization © 2009 frog design. Confidential & Proprietary.

The physical object
loses functional identity
© 2009 frog design. Confidential & Proprietary.

it can be anything
you want it to be
Open Systems
Invite Innovation
© 2009 frog design. Confidential & Proprietary.

phone = computer = netbook = MID...
general computing / communications / lifestyle / entertainment...
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A white box
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A white box
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A white box
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agnostic in form, time, place, and purpose
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what if there is no box?
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a ordance overhead
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a ordance overhead
Randall Munroe xkcd.com
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how can we innovate in this new context?
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embrace the coarse process
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design by intent is waterfall thinking
(determinism)
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who wants to be standing here?
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A map may have a structure similar
or dissimilar to the structure of the
territory.
A map is not the territory.
- Alfred Korzybski, 1931
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design with intent is working in the
territory, not trying to perfect the map
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jump in, get dirty!
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craftsmanship
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craftsmanship
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“We consider that the architects in every
profession are more estimable and know
more and are wiser than the artisans,
because they know the reasons of the
things which are done.”
Aristotle
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craftsmanship
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Plato observed that although ‘craftsman
are all poets…they are not called poets,
they have other names”
Plato
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craftsmanship
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“The hand and head divided”
Richard Sennett
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We discover elegant solutions
more e ectively than conjuring them
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tacit knowledge
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Soviet and Japanese models
of craftsmanship
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Soviet Construction Industry
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Japanese Total Quality Control
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While Marx dealt with “the worker”
The Japanese dealt with “the work”
Text
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designing with the material
rather than upon it
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Technology
People
Processes
material Politics
Money
oh, and actual
”materials”
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failure points
discover design deliver
strategy and design research then development team
folks do their thing, defining the vision, then the designers design it (software and hardware)
the solution, and the requirements builds it
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discover design deliver
strategy and design research then development team
folks do their thing, defining the vision, then the designers design it (software and hardware)
the solution, and the requirements builds it
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!
insight design build
convergence of convergence of
insight with design design with development
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!
insight design build
convergence of convergence of
insight with design design with development
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Best Business/Productivity Application,
People’s Choice Award
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my recommendations:
(six of them)
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encourage tacit knowledge
(Plans are no substitute
for the real thing)
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create a culture of doing
as much as, if not more,
than thinking.
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embrace the discomfort
and ambiguity of the
creative process
(the fog)
...even the chaos
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you don’t know shit.
(demand perpetual curiousity and
the willingness to course correct)
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remember there is a point to all this...
process is a means to an end.
Our purpose is to create.
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Embrace The Coarse Process