Ideologies and Design

I can thank the History Channel for about 90% of my knowledge in World History. I make this disclaimer with the only intention of letting the reader know that I am by no means a History expert. With this cleared out, I want to dedicate this posting to the subject of Sociology. I will dedicate the next posting to Developmentalism, an ideology that flourished in the 20th century.

The subject of Sociology came up during a work discussion about the skepticism we encounter with some clients in the business world who are not familiar with the approach to research that user-centered designers take. When comparing the user-centered research methods against market research, we face such questions as "Is your research statistically valid?" or "Do you expect me to make a product decision based on your interviews with a few people?"

I guess we can thank Sociology for paving the way to this type of thinking in the Western World. To get myself acquainted with the subject, I bought a short book called "Introducing Sociology" by Richard Osborne and Borin Van Loon. The book is part of the "Introducing... " series, which takes a graphic approach to explaining some complicated subjects, such as Philosophy and Cultural studies. This series is definitely a good reference for people who, like me, are trying to get their toes wet without jumping into the pool.

Anyway, the term Sociology was coined by August Comte. He wrote a book in 1822 named "Plan of the Scientific Works Necessary for the Re-organization of Society." This was the first step to explaining human social behavior as a science. However, almost 200 years after the publication of Comte's works, Sociology has been unable to produce anything that scientifically resembles a natural law, and opposers claim that it is impossible to 'observe, verify and deduce general laws about human interaction.' According to the book I am reading, Sociology has been reduced to six types of generalizations, one of which is the claim to express generalities about human behavior. Again, these generalizations do not add up to any acceptable scientific, valid universal law.

So, going back to the types of questions that business people and market researchers ask user-centered designers, my answers would be: No, the user-centered approach is not statistically valid, and neither does it intend - or claim - to be, but that does not disproof its value... And, yes, insights from customers and users of products and services will give a client enough confidence to come up with a great idea on how to improve their experience. These insights bear much more value than statistics, tables and pie charts because they come from human beings, and not from somebody's very abstract interpretation of data that other people collected via surveys or focus groups.

If you are a user-centered designer or a market researcher, I kindly invite you to leave your comments.

Strategy courses in MBA programs

The last MBA course I took before leaving Chicago was titled "Strategy and Leadership." For the length of the course I was very uncomfortable with the rigidity of the syllabus. To start, we all had to adhere to Michael Porter's "Five Competitive Forces that shape Strategy." No offense to Mr. Porter - his forces are quite useful, but what if I wanted to use another author's approach, let alone my own to strategic thinking? But besides the fact that the class had to use Porter's forces, there was something else bothering me...

Well, I recently picked up a copy of the book "Strategic Intuition" by William Duggan. The first chapter of this book finally gave me the insight I needed to answer this question for myself. Here is a quote from Mr. Duggan's book:

"The European version of strategy spread from the military to business in the nineteenth century and then to government, nonprofit agencies, and professions at large in the twentieth century... But as strategic ideas spread from the military, flashes of insight were lost in translation. The leading ideas in strategy today leave them out completely. For example, in the 1980s Michael Porter's competitive strategy became the reigning paradigm in business. It tells you how to analyze your own strategy in light of your industry and your competitors. But it does not tell you how to come up with a strategic idea: that's a creative step Porter leaves out."

Finally I get it. My MBA course on strategy did not teach me how to have an 'aha' moment when a strategic idea is born. It taught me how to analyze that idea. The analytic part is great, and if that were my only goal out in the business world then I should be fully equipped. However, the analytic approach is not too useful for those MBA students who want to be the authors of the 'aha' ideas. This, from my perspective, is definitely an area where business schools can learn a great deal from design and art schools. Whereas the analysis of a strategy has borrowed methods from math and other sciences, the actual creation of a strategy is like a blank canvas that should know no boundaries.

Welcoming your input

Hi everyone -

As many of you know I recently accepted a position with 2nd Road, a consulting company in Sydney, Australia. 2nd Road combines conversation and design to help clients create strategies as well as to help executives in these organizations ask the right questions and access the right type of reports to facilitate strategic decision-making.

I joined 2nd Road because of my combined education in design and business, and my experience working for a large multinational corporation. Part of my role at 2nd Road is to help business-minded individuals realize the value of design beyond the cosmetic or aesthetic value that has been traditionally attributed to most design disciplines. Think about it as "design thinking" or a design-oriented approach to strategy. On the flip side, I also believe that designers need to understand the basics of business decision-making and protocols to earn our seat at the strategic table.

In hope to continue this dual educational goal, I thought about reaching out to those of you who are either designers trying to answer this question or non-designers who already realize the value of design. Through this process I eventually hope to gather enough stories and frameworks to write an essay that can be published or presented at conferences.

To begin this journey I will post the first question:

What lessons should management schools borrow from the design field as part of their curricula?