On Apr 25, 2008, at 8:42 PM, Scott Berkun wrote: >> "Christopher Fahey" wrote: >> There is basically little to no invitation for actual designers to >> become business players. Designers -- we, the people who practice >> design and actually design things -- are simply not an integral part >> of the design thinking school of thought. > > I followed much of your argument until the mention of invitation, > which gave > me pause. A much better question is why most designers (completely > unsupported claim based on my anecdotal observations) who start > companies > start design consultancies rather than complete entrepreneurial > concerns > (e.g. a software or web-service company). There is no need for > invitation or > permission from anyone, business pundit or design-hating CEO, if a > person > starts a new company themselves. > ... > Would you make the same observation? Namely that few designers even > attempt > to create their own companies in the industries that frustrate them?
This is an *excellent* question. At first blush, I thought you had me there. It seems evident that few accomplished designers seem to make the transition into corporate leadership -- and instead, as you say, they simply start design-focused service companies. But, if you'll indulge me a little, let's broaden the category of "design" to mean all of those people who are directly responsible for the user or customer experience of a product or service. The people who dream up and decide what the touchpoints will look and feel like. These people are distinct from those people who are responsible for the management of a business, the business's finances, the marketing and sales of the product or services, legal, infrastructure, and other critical business functions that don't immediately touch the user experience. I would go so far as to include many types of engineers in this category, especially if you consider the fact that, until recently, for many products there has been little or no distinction between design and engineering. If you broaden the definition of design in this way, then it's clear that countless companies were founded by and/or eventually helmed by designers. George Eastman (Peter Merholz's hero!) was a consummate user experience designer -- he was an engineer who in his youth merely sought to build products for people to use, as were many other corporate titans of the last century. Many of the heads of the biggest entertainment companies are people who rose up through production, making experiences for audiences. The fashion industry is filled with corporate leaders who are literally designers who built global empires from their sketchbooks. On the other hand, let's ask another question: How many Fortune 500 CEOs are card-carrying MBAs? According to BusinessWeek, less than a third. It seems that what it takes to run a corporation is explicitly not something you have to learn in business school. Maybe understanding the widgets themselves, and how customers use them, is (and always has been) a valuable skill in the CEO. How well have CEOs performed who know a lot about mergers and acquisitions but nothing about the widgets the company actually makes? One of the issues here is simply the human lifespan and the paths we take as professionals. To build a business often takes years, and several failures and false starts. For someone deeply interested in making great design happen and building great user experiences, sometimes the most reliable path to success is through increasing their worth and skills as a designer, moving from design position to design position, starting a design consultancy. Those who do make the transition into business leadership may usually do so early in their careers, before establishing themselves as a professional designer, so we don't actually notice it when a real designer starts or assumes control of a business. Finally, to get back to the Design Thinking "invitation" issue: I don't mean to sound like a poor hapless designer who is stewing in resentment over not being invited to the grownup business table (in fact, I am invited fairly often). I was merely objecting at a gut, emotional level to the seeming *arrogance* of the Design Thinking school of thought in their appropriation of the *style of design* but not the *substance*. My point is that Design Thinking may not ultimately be relevant to designers at all -- for any decent professional designer to, say, take a course in Design Thinking would be like giving training wheels to Lance Armstrong. What designers need is business experience, and as you say we need to reach out and grab it more often instead of waiting for it to be given to us. Whether Design Thinking is helpful for a CEO without design experience is another matter, one on which I have no opinion. Cheers, -Cf Christopher Fahey ____________________________ Behavior biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com me: http://www.graphpaper.com ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
