Category Archives: leading

Glass Houses

Posted on by

A pretty good Billy Joel album, and a simply great day of design thinking I experienced just the other week at the Philip Johnson Glass House.  I was fortunate to take part in a Glass House Conversation hosted by John Maeda on the subject of Simplicity.  Keen readers of metacool will no doubt recall that Professor Maeda’s book The Laws of Simplicity is one of my all-time favorites (be sure to watch his brilliant TED talk here).  His thinking has had an enormous influence on my work.

Each of the attendees were asked to be the guru for one of the ten laws of simplicity.  I chose the 5th law, Differences, which states that simplicity and complexity need each other.  I spend a lot of my time designing and implementing organizational systems which enable people to do things they otherwise couldn’t.  I find time and time again that solutions that aspire only to simplicity tend toward the simplistic, and those that embrace only complexity veer off toward a morass of complexity.  Balancing the two, and figuring out where to place the complexity so that it creates value, and how to position the simplicity to extract that value, is the art.  Here’s the illustrative example I brought with me to the Glass House, a snapshot of the dashboard from a Toyota Prius (you were expecting something other than a car from me?):

2454820208_f91cda8d46_o

The cockpit of the Prius is one of the simplest on the market.  A digital readout replaces traditional gauges, buttons are few in number and highly considered in placement, and even the gearshift is just about going foward or backward or not.  And yet the Prius is arguably the most complex car you can buy.  Its gas-sipping nature stems from having not one but two motors, connected to the driving wheels by a fiendishly clever transmission orchestrated by a suite of chips of immense processing power.  All of that complexity without a mediating layer wouldn’t be the car that non-car people love to own and operate.  The Prius is a great example of the 5th law.

I saw the law of Differences in action at the Glass House.  Having only ever seen the Glass House in history books, I didn’t have a feel for the complexity of the campus on which it stands.  Over time, Philip Johnson built a family of structures which work together in quite interesting ways.  For example, did you know that the Glass House has a sister structure in the Brick House?  Here’s a view of the two of them:

2454783848_82f7063568_b

All of the mechanical needs of the Glass House are met by the Brick House.  An underground umbilical shaft connects the Glass House to a feed of heat from the Brick House.  The Brick House also contains a bedroom for those times when one might like to engage in… er, some more complex acts of human nature than would be appropriate in a public setting.  A Glass House without a Brick House to power and feed it would be untenable.  Even from a purely formal aesthetic sense, the two houses work better together than apart.  Simplicity and complexity need each other.

I really enjoyed the afternoon of conversation on design, business, technology and life.  I’ve had a fortunate life of exposure to some pretty amazing people and experiences, and this was right up there.  I’d like to show you some photos, not to gloat, but to share some fun stuff from the day in the name of creativity and openness. 

An amazing group of chefs prepared a meal for us in the Glass House.  It centered on themes of simplicty.  Wine was served.

2469207531_66b46aac00_b_2

We sat at table together and talked and ate and watched the weather go from stormy to sunny and back again.  You can’t help but be immersed in the weather in this architecture.

2469253551_53d9387023_b

We had assigned seats.  I sat in a white chair and ate more than my fair share of the edible centerpiece, which was quite tasty in its own right.  This is my favorite photo from the day:

2470064212_d01ed83026_b

Words of wisdom from Jeff Bezos

Posted on by

BusinessWeek recently ran a wonderful interview with Jeff Bezos on the subject of managing and leading innovation.  Thoughtful and illuminating, he had me nodding my head and saying "yes", "yes" and "yes" again.  Some highlights:

On the liberating nature of constraints:

"I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do.
One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way
out. When we were [first] trying to acquire customers, we didn’t have
money to spend on ad budgets. So we created the associates program,
[which lets] any Web site link to us, and we give them a revenue share.
We invented one-click shopping so we could make check-out faster. Those
things didn’t require big budgets. They required thoughtfulness and
focus on the customer."

On cultivating a purposeful portfolio of innovation:

"With large-scale innovation, you have to set a very high bar. You don’t
get to do too many of those [initiatives] per unit of time. You have to
be really selective."

On the right timing for innovation:

"My view is there’s no bad time to innovate. You should be doing it when
times are good and when times are tough—and you want to be doing it
around things that your customers care about."

metacool Thought of the Day

Posted on by

"When I am no longer controversial I will no longer be important.’
– Gustave Courbet

Are people upset with you?  It is because what you’ve done is so bad it is shameful, or because it is so polarizing, so rooted in a strong point of view that all but the most progressive or forward-thinking people don’t understand and "get it"?  Do you want to design for the mass market of today or tomorrow?  Are you designing under the old paradigm or for a new one?

Having a strong point of view, informed by real human needs, is at the core of how design thinkerdoers behave.  They make choices, and thus end up with strategies grounded in the needs of real human beings, real organisms, and the planet, and end up with something whose value proposition is intelligible, which creates real value for a real soul somewhere in the world, and is designed to spread and reach the right people, whether that be a bushel or a billion.

Making choices, taking the route which may be controversial or even painful, is about being willing to live with innovative outcomes. 

Jill Bolte Taylor at TED2008

Posted on by

This is the first of my three favorite talks from TED2008.  Not only does Jill Bolte Taylor use the best stage prop I’ve ever witnessed in a live speech, but she manages to talk about left brain and right brain in a way that helps us understand the power of living with a truly whole mind. 

Her presentation blew me away the first time I heard it, and my second and third viewings have been just as powerful.  I’ve already made some changes in my life as a result of her words.

Director’s Commentary: Amia Chair

Posted on by

Here’s a marvellous Director’s Commentary about the Amia chair.  Thomas Overthun, a colleague of mine from IDEO, and Bruce Smith of Steelcase take us through its genesis.

Watch the video, and find out why an integral part of innovating is being willing to cut everything in half.  It’s all about strategy that makes your hands bleed: I challenge you to find something in your work life that you should cut in half on the bandsaw, if only metaphorically.

Why not?

Adios, WoW!

Posted on by

Diegogyrocopter

Like my fellow blogger John, I recently quit World of Warcraft.  It wasn’t just about saving the $15/month I was blowing on a game I wasn’t playing anymore; many issues played a role in my decision, to wit:

  1. WoW just isn’t as cool anymore.  Ah, you say, it was never cool!  Oh, but it was.  WoW is the most amazing piece of "flow design" — the art of matching challenge to skill — that I’ve ever had the pleasure to use.  Pair its ability to put one in a state of flow with some beautiful graphics and an easy to use platform for social networking, and you’ve got one sticky game.  Cool, even.  But what is hip today soon becomes passe, and I fear that WoW has become a victim of its own success, becoming too familiar and too big.  And, to paraphrase a statement I heard over the weekend, advertising is the penalty companies pay for being uninteresting: I knew I had to quit WoW when I saw the commercial featuring Mr. T.  In its heyday, WoW didn’t need mass advertising.  (cash cow)*(milking it) = uninteresting
  2. Per the wisdom of Bob Sutton, I decided I had enough power, fame, glory, and material wealth.  In WoW, that is.  When you’re a level 70 Hunter and your equipment is good enough to not get killed every five minutes, and you’ve got a pet bear named Yogi who you love like a… dog, and your outfit couldn’t be more Darth Vader, and you finally built that gyrocopter to validate all those hours spent getting your engineering up to 350, there just isn’t much more left to life.  With all of this achieved, I quickly fell off the challenge/skill matching curve and the flow stopped flowing.
  3. Opportunity costs.  I’m all about learning by doing, and I learned a lot from tooting around the world of WoW.  I learned about designing for flow, and got a glimpse of what the future of truly social software may hold.  Enough, even, to get a journal article out of it.  Now that the learning is under my belt, I’m ready for the next thing.  What should I do?  Let me know if you have any ideas.

But I’m more than a little bummed.  I miss Diegoman a bunch already.  Sniff sniff, sniff sniff.