White Week reflections – the Kaos Pilots’ Design Material
Friday i talked at the Kaos Pilots(KP) here in Århus – in their second annual invited mini-conference White Week. This year the theme was Design, so Simon Kavanagh, study-coordinator for the KP had asked me to say something about design.
On the that rather broad brief I decided to give a talk about what I currently call the “Design City Map” – which is nothing less than a complete mapping of the entire field of design ;-)
The map and the talk centered around the notions design-thinking and design-doing – as positioned between material and context (doing / what you work with), and between logic and aestehtic (thinking / how you perceive the world and discover the New). Without going into detailed depth with the framework or map, I can just show you the finished map after each direction and quadrant is explained:
After the presenation I had an interesting conversation with the audience on, if we see kaos pilots as a type of designers, then what is then their design material. I think that the notion of material is shared throughout the different design disciplines, but I was unclear to me how the kaos pilots would define their particular approach.
There were several suggestions; maybe it is ‘time’, as the KP are process designers, then what they basically manipulate is the time and process that they facilitate others to go through. Another suggestion was that they, by their own example, facilitate people to see their new potentials. Maja argued that Margaret J. Wheatley has made an image of facilitators building bridges for people to walk into new possibilities. Following that image the KP – and other process facilitators’ design material – becomes the dreams or visions they are able to create, tell and ask people to join. Altenatively – following the same metaphor – the facilitators’ design material is themselves. The facilitator must work hard with him or herself in order to navigate tiny detail in the process facilitation.
For me this is a very interesting discussion- Not because I am overly concerned with how kaos pilots define their field of expertise, but because the design field is evolving rapidly into fourth order design (Buchanan) and one way of describing the design field of fourth order is ‘design as facilitation’. As a researcher and as a practitioner I find it immensely important that we explore where competences and expertise is to be founded for such new development. I am especially interested in the mindset of the designer – meaning how we think while designing or – in a more elaborate way; how we position our consciousness while facilitating creative change processes… – Now that’s interesting.
Concerning the issue of whether Kaos Pilots are or should be considered as designers. Michael Donemann argued no. And proposed that the profession of kaos pilots is that of Animateurs – I’m not completely certain what he means, but I made the link as good as possible, and the imagery that the word generates in my head works well. Denouncing the ever-popular and stigmatized concept of ‘designer’ and using/making up a new category might actually be a good idea for the KP’s. However…
But it makes me think whether it actually makes sense to talk about a designer in fourth order of design. Also looking at the on-going debate on design thinking as design-used-by-(non)-designers-in-strategic-business-context, it might actully be stretching the word ‘design’ too far?? If the fourth prder design’s material is himself, then are we actually talking bout a designer anymore, or are we talking about a group coach? A group coach that can draw a littel better than normal??
Martin said,
October 14, 2009 @ 8:24 amHi Michael.
Yes, design is spreading as a buzzword to many places where other concepts would actually be more appropriate. I am uncomfortable with that too – also in relation to the KP. I appreciate your notion of ‘appropriate response’ as an alternative to design in the context of KP, process hosting and facilitation. And I think it works if design is seen as a process where the designer is the leading participant of a collaborative effort that is basically based on needs in context. However design is also about bringing visions into the world in some material form, and by that going beyond what the people you are designing for can see or make themselves – hopefully, in an appropriate way. I still think that the core of design is to make the future: which means projecting visions into the future and then negotiate and describe them back to the present.
This is actually thoroughly confusing, since design in that sense really do start to look like process facilitation, especially when design is based on user-centered and user-driven processes, which most present-day design is.
C. Otto Scharmer talks about leading from the future, which – to a designer like me, anyway – is starting to sound like design and process facilitation brought together. I am thinking that this was what we were talking about as kaos pilots being some kind of guides/designers in processes – leading the way by their example, and their example (perspective) emerging from living a new paradigm of a collaborative world.
Removing ‘design’ from our vocabulary would be very interesting. Today ‘design’ is just the fall-back option when explaining a creative, left-brain approach to problem solving. I think that ‘vision catalyst’, ‘seer’ or ‘facilitator’ might be alternatives to ‘designer’, and ‘sketching’ is still a core activity in design, as it entails a trial-and-error oriented playfulness in the creative process. Design does have a baggage of power, if you see vision-making as imposing human will. However, I usually see design-work as proposals for futures, which then facilitates other people’s participation in the process.
‘Appropriate response’ might actually be slightly off in the sense that design is not always only reactive. Design also needs to proceed ahead and create new ‘tracks’ that people can discover as being attractive.
- I don’t know if these comments made us smarter, but I do think they pretty much lines up the edge of design and the discussion going on in the entire field.
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Michael Doneman said,
October 14, 2009 @ 12:14 amThank you for such a thoughtful reflection on this part of the White Week. To add a further reflection, on the topic of ‘design’ I recall a little thought experiment I made for myself during the week. I found myself uncomfortable with the word ‘design’ assuming some kind of mastery and mastering of the world, an imposition of human will on the world.
So, what if the word ‘design’ was removed from the English language? Could other words or phrases be imagined, with less of the baggage of power?
Top of my list is ‘appropriate response’. In this way of thinking, design is responsive, it focuses on a kind of bricolage, an opportunistic bringing-together of available tools and resources to give a human context to objects and events. The designer’s challenge is to effectively serve a need in a context.
And this is the realm of the animateur, as I discussed it – and thanks again for your perspective and thoughts.