DESIGNING FOR A CONVIVIAL FUTURE
Uday Dandavate
Co-Founder & CEO
SonicRim Ltd. San Francisco, USA
Design in the Past
The origin of
contemporary practice of design is often traced to the Bauhaus (1919 to1933) in
Germany. Bauhaus founders were driven to restore the esthetic sensibilities
that guided the imagination of craftsmen and artists prior to the industrial
revolution. The Bauhaus movement was led primarily by artists and architects
who set the tone and boundaries of contemporary design discourse around the
idea of reconciling mass-production with the individual artistic spirit.
However, while creating a platform for artistic expression, Bauhaus championed
rational, objective, and minimalistic design over emotional expressionism,
which is more commonly associated with the field of arts. As the field of
design developed, an average person had begun to associate design with a
connoisseur class of brands and products, designed for consumers with
discerning taste. Media has also contributed to propagating a celebrity status
to a few designers and their designs.
Changing relevance of design practice:
Design Today
Design Today
The field of design is in
the process of being redefined. Progressive organizations from both private and
public sectors are developing a keen interest in design thinking, design
research, and co-creation. Designers are beginning to discover the potential of
their skills in inspiring the imagination of a team, organization, or
community. Today, clients from both for-profit and nonprofit sectors are hiring
designers to apply design thinking to translate social, cultural and
psychological values into public policies and macro-level innovation
strategies. Design schools have always trained students to become generalists
(as opposed to specialists) in order to help them become integrators and
cross-pollinators of ideas. However, two important emotional skills necessary
in an effective integrator are missing in design education: humility and
empathy. While acquiring skills for observation, creative ideation, and
integration, most design graduates enter the workforce with a large ego and low
empathy. This egocentric mindset can get in the way of designers gaining acceptance
in a team as effective integrators of ideas and facilitators of a co-creation
process. To manage complex issues of contemporary life, organizations need
subject matter experts and integrators. Increasing dependence on experts has
resulted in an unmet need for integrators who can make expert knowledge
accessible and actionable across silos. Designers have the necessary conceptual
skills to serve this largely unmet need, and thus many are recognizing the opportunity
make a greater impact on organizations as integrators rather than as celebrity
designers. They have begun to take a lead in helping their clients tap into the
creative potential and wisdom dormant within their value chains. However, by
and large most design schools are still stoking the egos of their students and
nurturing in them the dream of becoming a celebrity designer.
Future of
Design
The future of design will be radically different from the present. The vision of the future of design will not be articulated in the classrooms of design schools, nor in state-of-the-art studios of design consulting firms. The new model for design will evolve as a response to the changing behaviors of everyday people who are actively looking for and using new tools, business models, and services that allow them to participate in conceptualization and production of paradigm shifting products, services and ventures. In the future, participatory models will challenge the top-down model of management.
The future of design will be radically different from the present. The vision of the future of design will not be articulated in the classrooms of design schools, nor in state-of-the-art studios of design consulting firms. The new model for design will evolve as a response to the changing behaviors of everyday people who are actively looking for and using new tools, business models, and services that allow them to participate in conceptualization and production of paradigm shifting products, services and ventures. In the future, participatory models will challenge the top-down model of management.
For instance, we are already witnessing increased preference for participator
tools such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter over traditional broadcast media.
Participatory modes of creating and sharing content and increasing dependence
on social networks will lead to new models of planning, management and
production. It is becoming clear that designerly ways of observing, sensing,
learning, discovering, and inspiring imagination will become foundational
skills for every team. Visionary leaders will need to cultivate in their teams
the capacity to innovate and build resilience to change. Designers have the
opportunity to guide the imagination and the values of a new society and
economy by conceptualizing new models of engaging users of design in creation
of design. The future will bring to designers opportunities for leading
transformative change in an organization, a community or society. Designers’ responsibility in the future will be to
take design back to the people by training and encouraging creative thinking in
schools, colleges, and workplaces. Instead of building products and services,
designers will build tools and institutions for training everyday people to
engage their imagination, express their ideas, and collaborate with each other
to find solutions that meet their needs.
The future of design in India
is tied to the dream of an average Indian. It is tied to how the youth in India
dream about shaping their future. As the generation of Indians that fought
against the British rule step down from leadership roles, and the youth seeks
new ways to find meaning in life, they will challenge old systems and beliefs,
and innovate new approaches to every sphere of life. Twenty years ago, India
turned away from its socialist ideals and opened its doors to multinational corporations.
Now India is searching past its fascination with the Wall Street model of
liberalization and globalization, which brought global brands into the Indian
marketplace and injected enthusiasm for entrepreneurship and pursuit of wealth,
especially amidst its middle class. Craving for intellectual fulfillment while
going through everyday struggles of life has traditionally drawn the middle
class to participate in social transformation processes and to champion the
cause of the weaker sections of society. However with liberalization of
the economy the middle class has abandoned its role asthe ideologues of the
nation. Some have got caught up in pursuing opportunities to become rich and
the rest are being pushed to the wall, unable to keep up with the pace of 21th
century capitalism in India. The greed for wealth has resulted in increase in
corruption, and a feeling has crept into the minds of the weaker sections
of society of being abandoned by the middle class – who in the past championed
their cause.
Poets, artists and writers have always inspired the imagination of
a society and united it around a common cause. Albert Einstein once said,
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Today, there is an opportunity
for designers to take responsibility for shaping a vision, a common cause, and
building tools to engage the imagination of people. In every organization and
community people felt alienated from the value creation process because their
innate creativity was neither acknowledged nor engaged.
I would like to cite
Ivan Illich’s thoughts on tools for conviviality:“Tools are intrinsic to social
relationships. An individual relates himself in action to his society through
the use of tools that he actively masters, or by which he is passively acted upon.
To the degree that he masters his tools, he can invest the world with his
meaning; to the degree that he is mastered by his tools, the shape of the tool
determines his own self-image. Convivial tools are those which give each person
who uses them the greatest opportunity to enrich the environment with the
fruits of his or her vision.”Bauhaus championed design for reconciling
mass-production with the individual artistic spirit. In future, design can help
reconcile society’s current craving for wealth creation and consumption, with a
new participatory spirit of collaborative construction of tools for innovation,
tools for responsible living and tools for everyday people to live the life
of their imagination
