Outlook
Intersection is the result of a personal journey. Jumping from one engagement to the next, first as freelance designers and then with eda.c, we found the same challenges again and again. They were all related to the perceived scope of design work, the alignment among different professionals and departments, and the difficulty of giving the project a strategic dimension. These experiences resulted in a constant expansion of the aspects that we considered relevant to making a design initiative successful beyond ornamentation.
There is a lot to be done. In every project or program we are involved in, we find elements that don’t fit together, and conditions that prevent good relationships from developing. When relationships fail, it is rarely a single issue that can be blamed. It is the interplay of all the parts which, together with the circumstances at hand, lead to a complex picture of problems and shortcomings. Turning this statement around, it is also that interplay that needs to be transformed to have an impact on the enterprise.
We strongly believe that applying design strategically to enterprise can make relationships much more humane, and enterprises less awkward or alienating. To do so, the practice itself will have to reflect and evolve, further expand its scope, and develop new approaches suited to this new dimension of design work.
Without any doubt, our house will gradually become more and more humane. The closer the machine gets to perfection, the better it hides behind its role.
Antoine de saint-Exupéry
Instead of solutions for problems programs for solutions.
Karl Gerstner
The Enterprise as A Program
In design history, there have been many proponents of a modular, systematic approach to creative work. They favor methodologies that result in systems of elements, in rule-based programs, grids, and modular forms that can be recombined to create new configurations, uses and renderings. Instead of working on just one artwork, object, or solution, the designer would develop a program that generates the outcomes by applying the rules as defined.
For design in enterprise ecosystems, such approaches become more and more relevant. Regardless of whether we are working on buildings, brand identity, web portals, or other types of design artifacts, the rising complexity demands the creation of programs rather than individual solutions. In light of digitization, social networks, and the shift from perception to participation, the role of a designer shifts to creating frameworks for others to configure and adapt. It means giving up control, favoring the flexible over the finished, and providing a space for others to fill with life.
We believe that strategic design work will necessarily have to adopt such a generative approach. It involves designing the enterprise as a program of framework elements, key components, and rules connecting these bits to form a coherent whole. Applied, it moves design work to the place where it can provide the most value, and takes into account the reality of a social age.
The Social Enterprise
Most of the content in Intersection is linked to the world of business. Questions of strategy, operationalization, or customer focus are the typical themes of commercial organizations. Looking at other areas, we find the same issues and opportunities also in non-profits, public bodies, educational institutions, and other forms of enterprises.
Just like a company, any kind of organization has to develop a vision of where they want to be and follow a strategy to make it reality. It has to embed it as a shared idea with the stakeholders in its ecosystem—all of this is the essence of what an enterprise pursues. Moreover, we find new companies emerging which, while clearly making profits, have chosen a wicked social problem as their enterprise.
In most cases, it is not the a question of commercial orientation that makes a difference. In a talk at TED Madrid, designer and entrepreneur Harry West even made the case that the commercial aspect can act as the most important lever that gives an initiative the impact it needs to drive cultural change, by basing a solution on scalable and repeatable options and leveraging market mechanics. More than that, it is the choice of design challenge, researched in a design process and addressed with its subsequent problem-solving activities, which can give an enterprise a social dimension.
If man is to survive, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life’s exciting variety, not something to fear.
Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek
Enterprise — The Next Generation
In my youth, I watched a lot of science fiction series and movies. One that I enjoyed in particular was Star Trek: The Next Generation, where the crew of Captain Jean-Luc Picard embarked to explore the galaxy, keep peace, and have adventures. The future envisioned by Gene Roddenberry and his co-creators has many elements of a utopia. On its mission, the crew of the USS Enterprise acts based on altruistic values, and solves problems on an interstellar scale.
Today it strikes me how close we are to this vision—working and communicating anywhere in real time, handing each other tablet devices, travelling faster (although not yet instantaneously), and talking to our computers. But also how far away we still are from the humanitarian side of the vision—eliminating poverty and misery, saving our planet, and living together peacefully.
It is unclear who designed our universe, or our planet, along with all the things that surround us. But as far as the human race is concerned, a large portion of our reality is being continuously designed by us. I hope this book has given you the thinking, vocabulary, and approaches to make a part of this change your enterprise—to tackle the world’s most challenging problems, and to redesign our reality for the better.