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/ghewgill/5046616680
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 later
in all of Europe before Gutenberg
“...there were perhaps 30,000 books
“Gutenberg’s Legacy”, University of Texas

http://www.flickr.com/photos/humblog/452238876
nothing short of revolutionary
the knock-on effects were
standardisationof
spelling
spreadofknowledgein
locallanguages
developmentofformal
grammar
wideraccesstoknowledgefor
womenandthepoor
fewerbooksprintedin
Latin
democratisationof
knowledgev.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 ideas
and while viruses can be contained,
thisisactually
bacteria...

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

http://www.flickr.com/photos/misbehave/2352753067
have only amplified this
always connected devices
portable, always on,

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

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mccun934/2899155411
on a global scale
...or causing chaos
market crash 2011
economic crisis 2008

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmv/3371886
create entirely new situations..."
converging and influencing each other to
at 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

http://www.flickr.com/photos/z_wenjie/5602616401
with some decidedly unique challenges...
designers, (or anyone who makes products)
this new environment presents engineers,
nathan road hong kong

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenny-pics/5661879987
the balance of power
is shifting...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/3275235423/
program our consumption is becoming
“The idea that someone can
obsolete, and fast.” - Seth Godin
“The extraordinary revolution of media choice”

http://www.flickr.com/photos/arenamontanus/3496433929
to interact with our creations
we can no longer expect customers
in a linear, exclusive, or
predictable manner...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ncanup/3526550845
to create experiences for them...
users no longer have to wait for us

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jessehull/163703252
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/bramus/5222185714
...enhance it

http://twitter.com/#!/joindiaspora
...even compete with it
Shopping mallapp
store
Curation&tech
support
Socialdiscovery
Serendipity...(andfun!)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/faircompanies/4955025544
be able to go much further
...very soon, they will
3D printing
makerbot thing-o-matic

http://www.flickr.com/photos/salty_soul/4737350118
necessarily a bad thing
...this is not

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiseb/13541804
people don't necessarily want the perfect product..."
counterintuitive but there is growing evidence that
incomplete, and possibly even substandard seems
"Issuing your customers with something that is rough,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/emerson12/2682480262
around the edges that they can adapt or improve."
"...they prefer to deal with something ragged
Loose, Martin Thomas

the end result is
behaviours such as this...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bombardier/5456285991
“…if you have an Instagram account, you can slap a tag
on anything, take a picture of it, and sell it...”
– Fatima Al Qadiri, Mousse magazine

you know--hacked products.”
She sells dried fruit. A friend’s cousin is selling
weird potted plants...people are creating,
– Fatima Al Qadiri, Mousse magazine
“...even my grandmother has an Instagram business.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/qilin/3923289556

it’s also worth noting the
companies that have succeeded
designing products with a pragmatic mix
of beautiful, and “good enough”
IKEA
https://www.flickr.com/photos/yto/4923423098/

¥799 (£83/$130)
basic but fun plastic case
stock MediaTek MT6589T chipset
8 Mp camera
dual SIM w/ dual standby
highly customized MIUI ROM
Xiaomi Hongmi
fancy Gorilla Glass

https://www.flickr.com/photos/52526343@N05/4843218498
“We want to give customers
the kind of satisfaction that comes
out as ‘This will do,’ not ‘This is what I want’.
It’s not appetite, but acceptance.”
Kenya Hara, Designer

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carbonnyc/2206470413
behave in a generally homogenous way...
we've often tended to presume users
in our quest to create perfection,
caricature
personas
scenarios

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/3832910201
far from the truth
...this is increasingly
complex vs. complicated

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexnormand/5913845927
of a product into society...
of 50 million to mark the "penetration"
marketers often use an audience

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerzombie/5173624489
(which was usually a good thing)
historically, market penetration took time,
traffic 1963

http://www.flickr.com/photos/highwaysagency/4542411761
of how a product might fit into our lives...
development of social norms and an understanding
with time came stronger mental models,
traffic 2011

http://www.flickr.com/photos/anachronism_uk/853247355
those embarrassing mistakes...
time also enabled us to work out
sinclair c5

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vvvracer/4436798901
time is now a luxury...
forbetterorworse

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vvvracer/4436798901
stability
creation of new
infrastructural
technology
followed by
rapid
disruption
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

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vvvracer/4436798901
stability
creation of new
infrastructural
technology
followed by
rapid
disruption
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

http://www.flickr.com/photos/houseofsims/5510707992
a market penetration of 50 million...
it took radio 40 years to reach
Source: ReWired, Larry D. Rosen

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahreido/4566354684
10 years to 'adapt' to television...
by comparison, we had only
Source: ReWired, Larry D. Rosen

while the iPod took only 5 years...
iconic
Source: ReWired, Larry D. Rosen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPPj6viIBmU
less than 6 months...
and YouTube,
Source: ReWired, Larry D. Rosen
star wars kid

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-project-real-life.html
in less than half this time...
Google+ reached that milestone
Google+infactreachedthismilestonein
about3months...tothetuneof2million
newusersaday!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/3156948184
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

http://www.flickr.com/photos/57123627@N04/5818687047
...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

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smaedli/5953114412/
limited to our children...
these changes are not
- @aral
and looked for the search box."
"I just opened my Moleskine

- @rossmonstr
a Kindle as a bookmark?"
"Can we all take a moment
to appreciate my mother using

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

http://www.flickr.com/photos/studiobeerhorst/5929704093
in a slightly different way...
and engaging with products
each of us experiencing, understanding
interpretations

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sparker/460227098
interdependent systems of experience...
designing multi-layered and tightly
while companies such as Apple are successfully
still
apple store

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cdharrison/2407640646
most touch points and interactions...
their ability to control and contain
their success relies in great part on
magic kingdom

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanj/4432327487
have this luxury...
most products will not
android china
rubber ducks lost at sea

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tim_and_selena/5051157647/
be the first to fail...
orchestrated products may in fact
today the most perfectly
OLPC
design by committee
mental models

http://www.flickr.com/photos/magnus_d/3162046451
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

http://www.flickr.com/photos/zyphbear/446780548
that have become all too common
to the abrupt changes in environment
...reducing a product's ability to react
fuel costs
union UPS handbook
carbon costs
volcano UPS delivery

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hendry/3053419265
are not exempt from this challenge
products with
a software component

internet connected fridge
meet Samsung’s
(including 8” LCD and Android apps)
Samsung RF4289HARS
Source: Unknown (please advise if it’s you)

http://www.theconnectivist.com/2013/04/how-smart-do-we-need-our-homes-to-be/
the but of design jokes
“smart” fridges have long been

$3400 (£2700) price tag,
yet despite its
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewmalone/2355592191
consumers seem to genuinely
“...the wife loves cooking...she looks up recipes and listens to
Pandora while cooking. Wi-fi was easily connected. I particularly
like the calendar feature so we can view each others schedules.”
“My wife and I love the refrigerator,
having the weather displayed on
the LCD screen is great.”
“The touchscreen control panel is nice and we
look forward to really enjoying the features,
which are perfect for this household.”
“...the 8" LCD screen absolutely sealed the deal. It was
easy to connect to my wifi and is very fun. All my
friends and guests love it.”
love it...

but when they do complain, it’s usually
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewmalone/2355592191
“[why can’t I] send the Pandora sound out via aspeaker jack on top of the refrigerator...or [you could]add Bluetooth or DLNA playback to transmit toanother device. Give it that feature in the next model!!!
about a lack of interoperability between the fridge
and other services or devices
“...Samsung needs to incorporate the ability to "print" shopping
lists from the software on the fridge via the wireless router, or at
least send it in an email to print...what is the use of adding great
features if you can't utilize them...”
“...speaking of apps, though- I don't really like
the Pandora radio. I think iHeart radio would
have been a better choice.’

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22179048@N05/5211091279
in fact be the simplest–or most flexible...
the most successful products may
in an increasingly complex world,
bodum
french press
bialetti

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tocaboca/5523734441
experiences they create for themselves...
meaning and enrich their lives, through
enabling pathways for users to find
toca boca

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hodac/2243470147
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 technology
the most valued products may be designed to live

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dalbera/3151369718
with no primary context at all...
they may even be designed

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carbonnyc/466394182
should not absolve us of responsibility...
but letting go of 'experience' as we once knew it
domino falling

http://www.flickr.com/photos/seier/2455551478
responsibility than ever before...
in fact, as designers we now have more
anddevelopers

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 through
andtheInternet
segway

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaykayess/4294959440
Douglas Rushkoff
–a design for our collective future."
"We are creating a blueprint together

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ghewgill/5046616680
and API becomes a part of that future...
each design, meme, pattern, metaphor
minority report interface
natural ui
twitter URLs

http://www.flickr.com/photos/clickflashphotos/3393880262
wish to create?
...what future do we

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stickwithjosh/5288115744
we do will have an impact...
there's no guarantee that the work

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carbonnyc/3543419506
that it may...
but there's the very real risk

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ghewgill/5046616680
Marshall McLuhan
thereafter our tools shape us."
"We shape our tools and

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tinou/453593446
hello@yiibu.com thank you
http://www.slideshare.net/yiibu/letting-go-9109114
many thanksto the
amazing photographerson
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0
http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/by-2.0
licensed under
available on
@yiibu
contactus
at