The Animal Instinct

I’ll start from the conclusion, just to turn things around: are we more animal / less civilised than we would like to admit?

I’ve been thinking about the last month, what I’ve learned and my feelings after the impact with the MACE, and the more I think the more I realise that it’s always and all about People and relationships.

My thoughts are used to dancing in circles, coming and going like people at an open party; therefore, I tried to hold them together mapping my reflections and, even though I’m sure it will look incredibly messy to most of you, it clarified a lot to me.

The Frieze Art Fair we visited a couple of weeks ago made me realise that the value was not in the Art works themselves but in the overall experience of the Fair as hub for cross-pollination.

As I wrote in my essay for Mapping the Creative Economy, it looked like a proper Ecosystem where people gravitating towards the world of the Art Industry – Critics, Curators, Artists, Galleries, Audience – cooperate in building an evolving meaning.

It’s a herd. We are influenced by the society we dive in, we feel the need to understand and to be understood, be part of something bigger, share rules and problems for many different reasons. The designer’s hand – from the first tool created by the first man –  is driven by people.

Prototyping, as a conversation between mind and hands, reminds us once more that we approach the world better when we have something tangible to gather around. It’s our fire; as pitching and storytelling it’s our way to share meaning though symbols.

We need to built friendships fostering trust and playfulness to collaborate to modify the world around us. It’s the only way to overcome the fear of judgment and discuss pre-existing patterns, as Tim Brown explain in his amazing performance at TED:

We need mentors as we needed leaders and guidance, it’s once again the need to share meaning and be encouraged (as Dr Sugata Mitra proved us) that can make the difference.

Moreover, after our panel discussion last Friday about funding and how to get the investors’ attention we realise that “People buy People”. Investors are looking for Good Teams rather then perfect products. Our speakers suggested to find a way to build a personal relationship attending networking events. Once again enter a community and share. It’s about trust and balance and passion, something far from the cold and inhuman world of banking and finance as we imagine.

It turned out that if your business fits your personality, if you do what you love following your ethics people around you can feel it and this makes a difference.

My opening question could has been a bit above the lines, I was trying to wind you up. I’ll be honest.

We look at ourselves as emancipated animals and indeed we are, but there is a huge share of instinct in our lives. We are fighting and embracing unconsciously and at the same time our being “animals” and I think this is exactly what makes us unique.

Thinking. Feeling. Doing. We can accomplish anything.

Designing worthy conversations

During the last week we have been introduced to Sir Ken Robinson and Dr Sugata Mitra‘s theories about the traditional Educational System, its shortcomings and how to implement it to keep up with the current society.

Tu sum up (not to trivialise), they claim that our schools are built on old needs and academic basis killing creative thinking and the natural instinct for testing and innovation that belong to every child. Kids are told that there is always a “right” answer and to get stick to set paths to do the “right” thing avoiding mistakes.

They don’t mention how a clear distinction between right and wrong is reassuring but I think we could read it between the lines.

“Someday the other museums will be showing this stuff” – at the Design museum entrance

I visited the London Design Museum this weekend and I found it surprisingly not-human-oriented. I was looking for the process, explanations about how that brilliant designer went through research and prototyping, keen to know why he choose those materials etc. but I found just technical explanations of a series of successes.

Ettore Sottsass – Logos Olivetti (one of my favourites)

After my visit I asked myself the fateful “why”. I don’t believe this approach to be intentional, but just tuned on the general practice.

As in the academic environment, in every field – from law to architecture – there is a technical language that contribute to cut out anyone who is not a professional. The feeling that there are things many of us can’t understand – knowledge we haven’t been introduced to – ends up drawing elite circles in which only some like-minded people are allowed to take part to the conversation. Everyone else stays outside scared to make mistakes.

Innovation comes from inter-disciplinary collaboration, from discussions with people with different backgrounds. Innovation in design comes also from emphaty, it’s made for people researching people’s needs.

It’s not about building walls but reevaluating human capacities: on one hand, the capacity to understand beyond scholastic notions and take part to the conversation with different point of view that worth listening; on the other hand, the capacity to put oneself ideas into discussion and to change.

This needs courage and humility and it’s scaring because leads us to potentially “wrong” unexplored paths, but I guess it’s the most effective way to innovation.

The KFF team experience: innovation is contagious

I’ve been thinking about the last week, the MACE 4 days full-immersion and the Lean Start Up experience with Dan Lockton last weekend. As I often do when something get stuck in my mind, I couldn’t stop myself to talk about it with basically anyone who liked to listen.

I also spoke with my mom, she’s a nurse. She was impressed by this approach: adapt the environment to meet needs. Your first thought could be that, since she is working in an hospital, taking care of someone would probably be something she sees everyday set as first priority but it’s not. She meets everyday people in need (patients) and on the other side people who don’t pay much attention to these needs (many doctors). Bureaucracy and medical procedures replaced the human dimension and empathy ends up to be a luxury.

Then the miracle happened. She told me that observing patients she noticed that, sitting on a wheelchair, they felt uneasy about having someone they couldn’t see driving them somewhere (not very funny places mostly) as baggages. It makes difficult to communicate and they keep turning round. So she just googled the problem to find the solution: a wheelchair with rear-view mirror. Simple.

I know that Google is not the final answer, but what surprised me is that giving people a different prospective can actually encourage them to be innovators and framing problems.

With the Lean Start Up workshop and the “blind/disability” exercise we did earlier happened something quite similar. We have been asked to look for a question before to answer, to observe and to be emphatic and communicative doing research and as a group.

This is the video blog of our experience:

We confronted ourselves with someone else’s attitude and point of view, it was not about us. Testing the KFF (Kingston Friend Finder) we found out that we needed to adapt our idea to each new need we discovered in the next interview. It can be a never-ending process, we can make mistakes and admit that it is not working and start all over again, but even this is a vital part of the thinking process.

There is not just one way to address a problem but seeing it and keep going deeper is the first step. As this was our first week.