Corin just returned from California where she conducted project research.  Here is her online journal of interesting sites and scenes. 

A herd of chihuahua in Orange County.

This is one of the “anti-malls” in Costa Mesa. One is called Camp (outdoor sports/vega shops) and the other The Lab (galleries/Urban Outfitters/specialty stores).

The Camp’s stairs and parking lot having positive affirmations.

The Camp’s building are sustainable and designed with gathering spaces in and around them.

The building used to be a facility where they tested nigh-vision goggles and now includes a fire pit and SCUBA training center.

They owners say they’ve recycled the space into an “enclave of local creative and one-of-a-kind entrepreneurs.” 

With the exception of Urban Outfitters, most of the store are boutiques.

Surfside in Laguna Beach on the boardwalk.

The 3 Minute Ad Age for September 18, 2008 http://adage.com/brightcove/lineup.php?lineup=1266084202 featured Marti Barletta, CEO of Trendsight Group and recent keynote speaker at the Industrial Designers Society of America’s annual conference.  Barletta challenged designers to meet the consumer needs of women by designing products and services that speak directly to this powerful purchasing group.  Ami Verhalen, Design Concepts’ director of industrial design responds:

I agree that often times, focus on the female consumer is not considered as much as it should be.  However, as a product developer, I can say that it seems almost proportionate for ANY user of any product.  What we are talking about it the need for TRUE empathetic design rooted in ethnographic research, and the corporate backing to take risks that don’t follow the norms of the industry.  Yes, women do a lot of shopping, but c’mon, there are a ton of poorly designed products for men, children and the elderly, too.  

I think any skilled designer, no matter the gender, can design great products for either gender.  We have to be smart enough to have a deep discovery process and a diverse project team.  All that said, if the client isn’t ready for great changes, it is still somewhat out of our hands.  We’ve all had clients lead us down a less than exciting path because that is what they are ready for. 

Ultimately, as product developers, it is our responsibility to be ADVOCATES for the end user and our environment.  However, we have to be client advocates, too - it’s a delicate balance that we can all continue to get better at. 

In my experience, discussions like these help raise awareness, but personally, I don’t feel like it is an issue of men or women - but the process and skills we use combined with the corporate tolerance and the budget for innovation.  

Truth be told, there are more male designers that can always step it up.  But I don’t think that decreases the need for us female designers to step it up also.  We’re all in this together after all. 

I guess I’m saying less blame, and bring on your A game.

 
This is not a political endorsement…

I read an interesting article in Technology Review about Obama’s economic advisor, Austan Goolsbee.  He’s a prof at the U of Chicago and talks about creating “choice architectures”.  The term resonated with me and I feel there is an application of the philosophy in concept selection reviews.  There is an assumption that the person or institution creating the architectures has some expertise or knowledge that allows them to “make the right choice”.  I’ve found that our clients want us to advise them in many cases, and pushing them in a particular direction, with rationale to support that direction, is preferred over agnostic presentation of many options.  I’d be interested in other opinions, as this may seed a presentation for an internal training workshop.  Something like, “Concept Selection, Sorting, and Choice Architectures”.

For those that are interested, the original article is online here, but requires a login: http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/21220/?a=f

The relevant exerpt:

“What does all this have to do with Barack Obama? Much of Goolsbee’s writing is more technical than Freakonomics and Nudge, and his own research focuses on taxation, the Internet, and network effects; but in his policy prescriptions he’s very much of the new Chicago school of economics. When our tendencies to make irrational decisions are understood, the Chicago econo­mists argue, we can design “choice architectures” (Thaler and Sunstein’s phrase) so that people default to better choices about matters like investment or taxation. Hence Obama’s proposal that companies offering 401(k) retirement accounts should enroll their workers automatically, making participation the default option and opting out a conscious choice. Thus, too, Goolsbee’s plan to simplify income tax filing for that majority of Americans who take only the standard deduction: under Goolsbee’s scheme, the IRS would send all those taxpayers a return with the relevant information, so that signing the prepared form would become the default choice–saving taxpayers 225 million hours and $2 billion in preparation fees.”

 
As designers, we’re used to working on really tough problems, or so we think.  So what happens when designers try to tackle the planet’s toughest problems?  That was the question presented to a group of design leaders who met recently in Bellagio, Italy for a workshop investigating design for social impact. 

Initiated and sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, the workshop explored ways to connect the world’s best designers with the world’s most challenging problems:  poverty, disease, conflict exploitation and social injustice, to name only a few. 

It might seem the ultimate in hubris, or perhaps naïveté, to assume that designers can make meaningful contributions to these intractable problems.  The design challenges we face are often within commercial enterprises where the stakes are principally fiscal and the rules governed by free markets.  For better or worse, capitalism is the scorecard we use on a day-to-day basis. 
 
Our friends at the Rockefeller Foundation are embroiled in a completely different calculus: addressing poverty and social issues of a global magnitude through targeted philanthropy.  Big problems, with no easy solutions - perhaps no solutions at all.  The kind of issues we often see as someone else’s ‘job’- someone with the special drive necessary to “fight the good fight.”

What business do designers have in this area anyway? 

Interesting choice of words… business.  In his groundbreaking work “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid” C. K. Prahalad argued poverty eradication starts with a focus on entrepreneurial activity and a respect for Bottom of Pyramid consumers.  He argues for a “process of co-creation assume(ing) that consumers are equally important joint problem solvers.”

And suddenly, addressing the problems of the world’s poor begins to sound like conventional design problem solving.  The intersection between poverty and design thinking begins to emerge. 

By applying design thinking, we can begin to alleviate poverty by treating the poor as an underserved consumer group.  We can provide appropriately designed, high-value, low-cost products and services to improve their quality of life, rather than trying to “donate” people out of poverty.  Efforts such as Paul Polack’s International Development Enterprises http://www.ideorg.org/ and Martin Fisher’s Kickstart http://www.approtec.org/  are dedicated to ending poverty by helping the poor invest in their own success - an idea that has delivered tangible results to millions.

Such initiatives move away from a paradigm of imposed solutions to one of collaborative solutions addressing problems within the context of the consumer’s culture and society.  Examples include Design for Extreme Affordability, Design for the other 90% and Design That Matters. 

Arguably, it may be a fine line between viewing the poor as an emerging market and exploiting those who are the least able to withstand it.  The difference lies in seeing the individual as a ‘user’ - an empowered, informed constituency with specific needs that can be met with socially responsible, culturally and economically appropriate solutions. 
                                                                                                                             
Superbly organized and facilitated by the innovation and strategy firm Continuum, the workshop examined successful intersections of design and social issues including Teach for America, the Ad Council, the Hippo Roller and Kickstart Money Maker Pumps. 

An analysis of concepts and methods reinforced our collective belief that designers can have a substantial impact on problems of social significance by using many of the same tools and techniques that we use in our conventional commercial work. 

We agreed on the need for education, adaptation and understanding.  Designers need to learn about a new “client” - not just the poor but agencies and organizations already serving in these areas.  In turn, agencies can be educated about the role that design and design thinking can play in social problems. 

We identified a crying need to communicate lessons learned in efforts for socially significant design.  The development of global design labs, an information clearing house and design briefs could all help build a common knowledge.  Ultimately, the group created frameworks for a network of interaction between designers and those working on social problems while establishing commitments for continued action and collaboration on this topic. 

I am left with a renewed sense of purpose and optimism firmly believing that design and design thinking are important tools for combating the world’s most horrific problems.  While there are numerous significant challenges, there is hope, promise and sparks of success which make continued efforts in this important realm meaningful and appropriate.  It is a both a higher calling and a challenge that is worthy of our time and best efforts.