Comments on: White Week reflections – the Kaos Pilots’ Design Material http://nextandmore.com/white-week-reflections-the-kaos-pilots-design-material/ Moving The Edge Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:56:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Martin http://nextandmore.com/white-week-reflections-the-kaos-pilots-design-material/comment-page-1/#comment-727 Martin Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:24:51 +0000 http://nextandmore.com/?p=111#comment-727 Hi 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. <a href="http://www.ottoscharmer.com/" rel="nofollow">C. Otto Scharmer</a> 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 <em>re</em>active. 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. Hi 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.

]]> By: Michael Doneman http://nextandmore.com/white-week-reflections-the-kaos-pilots-design-material/comment-page-1/#comment-726 Michael Doneman Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:14:00 +0000 http://nextandmore.com/?p=111#comment-726 Thank 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. Thank 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.

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