The Power of Design

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Digested First Pages:.

Introduction by Richard Farson Welcome all to our new conference on design, a field I have come to regard as perhaps the most promising of all our disciplines in addressing the most pressing and often most stubborn human problems. As a social scientist I have come to have great respect for the work of designers, and increasingly see the applications of design well beyond buildings and advertising to the possibilities of actually reducing the indices of social despair such as crime, mental and physical illness, addiction, divorce, child abuse, and suicide and to achieving the higher order human prospects of collaboration, community, creativity, and love. I trust this and many other implications of design will become clear as this conference progresses. Along with examining those possibilities, we will also look at the barriers to such advances, many of which may have been constructed by the design professions themselves.

I would like to issue a special welcome to the invited guest participants. You ILF Fellows have already been told who they are, but to facilitate interaction right away, let me introduce all of you to each other. Here then is a list of the design-oriented ILF Fellows I approached specifically to participate in this discussion, followed by a list of the invited guests:

International Leadership Forum Fellows:

James Cramer, Co-chairman, Design Futures Council, Editor, Design Intelligence, President, Greenway Group, former CEO, American Institute of Architects (AIA).

John Maeda, graphic designer, computer scientist, author, Professor, Media Lab, MIT

Richard Saul Wurman, author, information architect, founder, TED conferences, founder, Access Press

Michael Crichton, physician, author, filmmaker

Jane Poynter, author, President, Paragon Space Development Corporation, former Biospherian, Biosphere II

Julian Beinart, Professor of Architecture, Director, Joint Program in City Design and Development, MIT

Adele Naude Santos, Chair of the Department of Architecture, MIT

Guest Participants:

Tom Fisher, architect, author, Dean, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of Minnesota, former Editor, Progressive Architecture

R. K. Stewart, architect, Principal, Gensler Associates, President, American Institute of Architects

Carol Jones, interior designer, Principal, Kasian Architecture, Interior Design and Planning, Ltd., former president, Interior Designers of Canada and International Interior Design Association.

Kate Schwennsen, architect, Professor and Associate Dean, School of Design, Iowa State University, immediate past president, American Institute of Architects

Scott Simpson, architect, author, President and CEO, KlingStubbins Architecture, Co-Chairman, Design Futures Council.

Thom Penney, architect, President and CEO, LS3P Associates, Ltd., past president, American Institute of Architects

Ralph Caplan, author, design writer and critic

Jennifer Luce, architect, President, LUCE et Studio, formerly with Architectonica

Richard Swett, architect, author, former Congressman, New Hampshire, former U. S. Ambassador to Denmark.

Bill Longhauser, graphic designer, Director, Outside Institute, UCLA, former professor and department chairman, University of the Arts, Philadelphia.

John Seiler, former faculty member at both Harvard Business School and Harvard Graduate School of Design.

1:1 Richard Farson It's common to begin a conference with a definition of the subject to be discussed, even though I've seen many times when that bogs down what might have been a vigorous interchange. Nevertheless, partly because this conference will include ILF Fellows other than those design-oriented people I listed above, and because the word "design" calls up so many very different images in people's minds, I think it would be worth at least recognizing that design can be much more than buildings, plantings, furniture, machines and drawings. Indeed, if we are to pay attention to the definition given by ILF Fellow and legendary graphic designer Milton Glaser, it would seem to be much broader indeed:

"One definition is that design is the intervention in the flow of events to produce a desired effect. Another is that design is the introduction of intention in human affairs. A third rather elegant description is that design moves things from an existing condition to a preferred one. This last one reduces the complexity of the idea, but I like all three definitions. Design doesn’t have to have a visual component. Ultimately, anything purposeful can be called an act of design."

But if design is everything, how can it be something special, focused, and usable for leaders? To clarify this we need one more definition: Design is the creation of form. Why is form so important? The short answer: In human affairs, form rules. For example, form always wins over content. How you say something dominates what you say. A written message carries more weight than a spoken one, a printed one weightier than one that is typed, which is weightier than one handwritten, even though all the words may be identical. These are metamessages, sent by the form of the message, and they are powerful.

A clear example of the victory of form over content is seen in education. As effective as our schooling may have been, we all tend to forget what was in the curriculum. Seniors at Ivy League colleges, given a multiple-choice test comparable to a seventh grade history exam, achieved an average score of 53. Tried solving a problem in square root recently? We all once could. We just forget. But, as the late social critic Ivan Illich pointed out long ago, we never forget the lessons we learned from the form of education. We learned to raise our hands, obey adult authority, stand in line, take turns, not talk about certain subjects, and many other lessons now indelibly ingrained. Those lessons are not in the curriculum. The form, the ritual, the social design of the classroom, teaches them.

What do all of you make of these definitions and examples of the power of design?

1:2 Douglass Carmichael A very important conference. I raise three issues.

1. There is a difference between making and growing. I hope we include the organic in our discussions of design. It occurs to me that we humans have never designed anything as complicated as a blade of grass. Technology is the replacement of the complex by the simple. Future design should be a blend of growing and making.

2. Design, as a master science of technology, needs to grapple with the fact that in our globalized world, money creates and uses tech, and creates and uses design. Getting to a healthier sense of design--and helping it find its significant place in the future--requires taking this dependence of design on money, and the dependence of money on ownership, seriously.

3. Much of the world lives in very dense new impoverished cities. What can we offer these folks while sustaining other values of design? (See the impact of commerce on Sophia at:

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-05-25-boyadjiev-en.html

For a larger view, "the city as stage for upheaval" at

http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-05-25-eurozineeditorial-en.html )

I should say a bit about myself. I think most people want to live in a place that is a balance between nature and civilization. Why aren't we using our design and technology to go there? So I am writing a book called GardenWorld Politics and need this conference to help me out. I am also working with Jack Warnecke on the possibility of an institute for the future of architecture.

1:3 Richard Farson Doug, I'm sure the organic will be a key element in our discussion, and your perspective on the idea of technology replacing the complex by the simple and the importance of blending growing and making is helpful indeed. Believe me, we will be getting deeply into the money issue, because as any designer will say, "great design requires a great client" and the consequence of that perception has been increasing subservience to the corporation and the market system.

The newest project undertaken by our colleague architect Richard Saul Wurman is what he calls 19/20/21 referring to the 19 cities that will exceed populations of 20 million by 2021. These are the cities most representative of the desperate slum conditions you point to. I know he is traveling to Italy now, but will be back and I hope will inform us about what he is up to.

Thanks for introducing yourself, Doug--you forgot to mention that you are a psychologist and psychoanalyst and organization consultant and social critic.

I hope you are successful in your work with Jack.

1:4 Kip Winsett As a web designer for the last several years I've had to grapple with design as something that must satisfy owners and viewers--not an easy task. One thing that I've learned from working in web design however is that there are many different viewing platforms (different operating systems, different sized monitors, different display systems (browsers) different individual settings, etc.) This means that while a bunch of people may see what I see there are many others who see something different. And I have no way to know that unless they describe to me what they see. Which they usually don't, because they assume I see what they see.

That assumption is dangerous because of the technological sophistication of today's world and the diversity of groups using it.

Asia and South America have been very innovative over the past decade or so in designing innovative urban centers and solutions. On the surface, at least, it seems that vibrant economies tend to produce more innovations in design. The USA seems to be caught in a rather stodgy economy.

So far as I can tell design does, in fact, "serve money" so until and/or unless the corporate world decides that there is a significant potential for profit the use of design to improve conditions for anyone is unlikely. Except, of course, for the occasional experiment to show a "progressive face" to the world.

1:5 Lisa Kimball, Group Jazz I've been part of some intriguing discussions recently about implications of a "decision attitude" vs. a "design attitude" in a variety of contexts including education and management. This idea resonates with the broad definition of design that connects it to human purpose.

The illustration below from The Central Office of Design adds a graphic explanation of design thinking.

Figure 1: The Design Process from a great height

They explain on their web site that they "start each project assuming nothing, especially about what the solution to the problem might be, and embark on the process with empathy for the final consumer of the solution. Whether it is an employee, child, or mother of three."

Professors Richard Boland and Fred Collopy from the Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherland School of Management have done a fair bit of work in this area.

1:6 Richard Farson Thanks for this, Lisa. How do they characterize the "decision attitude?" Several of us who write about leadership and management, like my friends Tom Peters and Richard Swett, are increasingly employing the design approach to management.

1:7 Richard Farson Welcome to new ILF Fellow, Adele Naude Santos, who, after teaching and deaning at Rice, Penn, Harvard, UC San Diego, Berkeley, is now Professor and chair of the Dept of Architecture at MIT.

1:8 Douglass Carmichael I love Lisa's drawing!

I remember at the World Bank in the ‘70s a team of anthropologists wanted to understand how decisions were made. So they arranged to attend and take notes at meetings called "decision meetings." But in fact the meeting's real purpose was just to ratify a "decision" made deeper down in the bureaucracy over a long period of time--weeks, if not months. The result was that the "design" of the "decision" reflected the bureaucratic structure as the sole design criteria. For example," Village participation" meant asking the villagers where they wanted the hospital rather than asking them what they wanted. Participation was a way of rationalizing what was predetermined as what the bank knew how to deliver. Hence we got decisions without design.

1:9 Richard Farson Design achieves its power because it can create situations, and a situation is more determining of what people will actually do than is personality, character, habit, genetics, unconscious motives or any other aspect of our individual makeup. Nobody smokes in church, no matter how addicted.

1:10 Bill Longhauser Richard: I like all three of Milton's definitions fro design but especially the last one: "design moves things from an existing condition to a preferred one". Because "condition" does not refer to a product or market and "preferred" suggests improvement. Those words (condition and preferred) make me think of your email to us sighting the article in the NY Times: the fact that playgrounds no longer appeal to children aged 8-12 who are leaving en masse because playgrounds today have been designed to respond to widespread parental fears over safety.

I feel that fear has become an exaggerated and manipulated condition that threatens the quality of our lives. From my standpoint, a preferred condition would be to design playgrounds that provide safety but do not remove the risk inherent in being alive.

Douglas: Could you elaborate on how "technology is the replacement of the complex by the simple."

1:11 Douglass Carmichael Bill, a few suggestive examples. A bird's wing is much more complex than an engineered wing. For example it remains a living tissue and can grow new feathers. The difference between the LA river, concrete and pointed downhill, compared to a real river, with its complex ecologies, for example the salmon, where the death of the salmon create the carbon on the banks of the river or stream, and feed the plants, that shade the edges, which protect the newly hatched. A crutch and a leg...make sense?

On playgrounds: is the radical separation of play from work part of the problem? The playground designer designs what the child must adapt to. When children play in say small towns much of the play is on things the children have found, like old barns, and they feel their creativity in inventing use

1:12 Richard Farson Bill, we are living in a state of fear now, especially among parents, that has nothing to do with real dangers. It's created mainly by the media seeking ratings. So now on the Today Show they interview the leader of Center for Missing and Exploited Children who uses a statistic like "every 37 seconds a child is missing" implying they may be kidnapped, which would number more than 800,000 a year, when the FBI statistics for real kidnappings (where a stranger takes a child overnight) are about 100. Now, because of this new state of fear, adults in the US cannot now talk to children, let alone button their jackets, or push them in a swing. But in Scandinavia, children are taught that adults are their allies, and to run to them if they are ever in trouble. What's happened to journalism is what I'm afraid is happening to design. We can talk about that as the conference develops.

1:13 Richard Farson Doug, as you know, child specialists are deeply concerned that children in the US cities, and even in outlying areas, are growing up without hardly any opportunity to explore their world, play in vacant lots, dig caves, build forts, jump off garages, etc. A combination of homework, now beginning in kindergarten, plus many organized after-school programs, plus the new, and terribly oppressive, ideas of "parenting"--a word never used until the last couple of decades, meaning the technology of parenthood, make such exploration almost impossible.

The design of playgrounds communicates our society's regard for children, which tends to be quite negative. We love our own children, but resent children in general. So we design children out of our society, and children's scale is found only in places where we want children to be, which are schools and playgrounds ...almost nowhere else.

1:14 Bill Longhauser Thanks, Douglas. Your example is wonderful. It also clarifies something very important related to design and technology. The bird's wing may be more complex but it is also fascinating and "alive". Clearly, the manufactured (designed) wing, of a plane for example, does not require this complexity but it is informed by the bird's wing none the less. As a teacher of design, my experience has been that technology has created a barrier between the student and the direct experience of observation that makes "seeing" the bird's wing almost impossible and the wonder of its complex structure is replaced by a virtual wing produced instantly by the push of a button.

My problem with technology has less to do with simplicity and complexity than it does with its mission to remove resistance (and direct experience) from the design process. Creativity requires resistance. Without a river there would be no bridge.

Richard, on playgrounds: In 1975 I visited the small village where my Grandmother was born in Hungary. There was one child in the village and not a single toy. I invented a game throwing a stone into certain designated areas defined by sticks we aligned horizontally at varying distances. He was completely engaged and excited to be "playing". Equally important was the interaction between the two of us playing together. This is a far cry from the image we witness so often today with individual children clasping there devices with both hands staring into the screen. Isolation rather than interaction.

1:15 Lisa Kimball, Group Jazz Awhile back I studied a "movement" in playground design called Adventure Playgrounds http://www.arunet.co.uk/fairplay/facts/adplay.htm where envrionments were created with a lot more "danger" (and, therefore, more fun) than we usually tolerate--especially in public projects--in this culture. All the fun is kind of designed out for the sake of safety.

Going back to the notions of decision vs. design attitudes Boland and Collopy make the distinction this way:

"This [decision attitude] approach uses mathematical and scientific approaches—economic analysis, risk assessment, multiple criteria decision making, simulation, and the time value of money—to choose among alternatives. It starts with the assumption that the alternative courses of action are ready at hand—that there is a good set of options already available, or at least readily obtainable. The design attitude on the other hand assumes the best alternative may have to be invented."

1:16 Douglass Carmichael Choosing among options is nowhere nearly as creative as creating options.

How much do we need the words "best" and "better?" Aren't all betters also worse in some way? So we need to be tolerant of partial solutions and mistakes. That is, under climate change, population migration, energy price shifts, land use problems, and new local needs (such as sustainable food growing) we need to design not for "right" but for flexibility. I sometimes think that architecture, the realm of the solid, needs to shift to the almost ephemeral.

1:17 Richard Farson And, of course, for that creativity we need to encourage more risk taking, and that means accepting failure, even demanding it, as managers in Silicon Valley do---"You are not failing enough. I want to see an 80% failure rate."

1:18 Richard Farson I'd like to tackle the issue of design's increasing definition of itself as a business. Let me approach it by reminding you of a moment in a conference on wisdom we had some months ago. When I asked the group why we seldom see the word wisdom in the same sentence with the word leadership, ILF Fellow Ray Alden, the former president of Sprint, told us that "Leadership and wisdom may be incompatible."

He was referring, of course, to corporate leadership, and to the special definition of wisdom as the ability to consider the larger implications for humanity of any decision. Clearly, leaders of highly competitive private sector organizations who must satisfy stockholders every quarter cannot afford to be distracted by larger social concerns. Ray Alden's point is supported by the words of Nobel economist Milton Friedman, "The only social responsibility of a business is to make a profit." That seemingly harsh statement was explained by another ILF Fellow in the conference, Yale economist and political scientist, and world authority on politics and markets, Charles Lindblom (whom we know as "Ed") who made it clear to us that while the market system is mindless and brutal, it is necessary for a democracy. Without a thriving market system there has never been a democracy.

On the other hand, when one thinks of a profession, one imagines that those who practice it would put humanitarian issues first. We seek their advice because we trust that their judgment would be based upon the special kind of wisdom that cannot be exercised in business.

The question then arises, "Is design a profession or a business?" I think that most designers would answer, "Both," because they may not be fully aware of any ethical incompatibility between the two. Indeed, it seems to me that in recent years architecture and design have become more business than profession. Because they believe the corporate world is where their financial futures lie, they have come to share the values of that world. No longer do they expect to fulfill the social responsibilities they may once have cared most about. No longer do they offer wisdom before service.

I believe this is why they agree to design giant prisons they know will create more crime, housing developments they know will not be communities, and structures they know are not respectful of environmental concerns. Having abandoned a professional posture, they cannot decline such opportunities. But the ability to say "no" to a plan they are confident is not fully responsible is the very definition of a profession. We expect that exercise of wisdom from our physicians, lawyers and engineers, but do corporate leaders expect it, let alone demand it, from designers?

1:19 Bill Longhauser Richard, it's an interesting semantic problem. As an educator, it has been my experience that most graphic design programs prepare students for a seamless entry into "the profession". The term is used but what the curricula and most of the faculty are actually preparing them for is to function professionally in "the business" of design. The term "professional" in this case is defined by a close relationship to "the real world" and has nothing to do with social responsibilities. Under this model, the client is king. The word "business" is less attractive therefore "profession" is used as a replacement.

1:20 Bill Longhauser Douglas, in 1:16, you said: "Choosing among options is nowhere near as creative as creating options." I could not agree more. And this is exactly the dilemma facing us as we continue to rely more on the computer for design. It reduces a narrative process of invention, perception, and discovery into a game of multiple choices.

1:21 Kip Winsett There has been a trend over the past several years to somehow bring the elements of "play" into the workplace, typically via artifice. The underlying idea is, I think, inherently flawed. To play is to engage in an activity with no real regard for the result. When we "try", using various schemes and formulas to be playful while still focusing on a desired outcome we set up a conflict that results in a lack of "flow".

This is the other side of the coin where adults bring the elements of work, of a desired outcome, into the arena of play for the child. The play becomes structured toward some particular end and thus it becomes constricted, and not creative.

Is America becoming overly focused on a constricted sameness of thought, of beliefs and of action? Are we deliberately designing creativity out of our culture--or at least making it the province of only a few who have demonstrated their box office draws?

1:22 Richard Farson Exactly, Kip. Parents are now unbelievably burdened with the "parenting" model, which holds that they must see that everything that happens to their children must be good for them, by some expert's definition. So playgrounds are designed to make such parental management a little closer to possible. And independent, creative play, which really is important for development, is increasingly ruled out.

1:23 Richard Farson Admittedly, to the extent that designers care about social responsibility, they try to convince the private sector leaders to care also. The fact that such an effort has proven overwhelmingly futile has not deterred them from continuing to place their confidence in the eventual raising of social consciousness in that sector. What they fail to appreciate is that Friedman has a point. The private sector’s first responsibility is to create a healthy, vibrant economy. So give the private sector its due. It makes our democratic freedoms possible. But do not expect it to be socially responsible. The rare cases when a corporation does so oblige us do not show us the future, but provide the exceptions proving the rule. Of course now there are new green markets opening up for them to exploit--such as ethanol--which could make matters even worse. A few affluent companies, or their CEOs, will always make some socially responsible efforts, and some will capitalize on the current mood of America to "greenwash" with a PR effort, but to count on the system of private enterprise to accommodate our hopes for social responsibility fails to appreciate what fundamental service they render...indeed it in fact jeopardizes that service.

I keep hoping designers will recognize that they cannot function as professionals as long as they are dominated by their clientele, that they will see the ethical problems of being only market-oriented and that they will choose to return to their professional roots. I hope they will see that the opportunities to fulfill their own sense of social responsibility are much more likely to be found in the public sector. It is the public, the taxpayers, who benefit from lowered crime, better community life, less environmental degradation. The chance for designers to create a better world for millions of slum dwellers and others without adequate living circumstances is a public concern. Because they design situations, experiences and relationships, architects and designers are better able than any other profession to reduce the indices of despair—crime, illness, school failure, addiction, domestic violence, etc. That is public business.

We need the wisdom, ideas and programs of designers not just to overcome the bad but to make possible the good. Designers can foster creativity, community, security, effectiveness, understanding and affection. Other professions such as medicine and education do not hold the promise of design, yet they are funded in the hundreds of billions. Their planning is in the trillions. That should be the future of design.

1:24 Douglass Carmichael Bill mentions the design limitations coming from the computer. I am impressed with the linearity in design favored by computer generated spaces. Second life is texturally boring for this reason. I compare it to Chris Alexander's approach in The Nature of Order, where he shows that people prefer, given a choice, what looks alive, aliveness.

1:25 Bill Longhauser Kip, play is one of those words/concepts that has both positive and negative ramifications to the design process depending on how it is defined and within what context. "Playing around" with no limitations can be a meaningless form of procrastination but if play is defined as uninhibited experimentation, it can create unpredictable and meaningful discoveries.

Paul Rand wrote a wonderful article on this subject in 1965 called "Design and the Play Instinct". Well worth reading.

1:26 Michael Crichton Dick, without even looking at the article, the playground issue is not parents or design. It's lawyers.

1:27 Richard Farson You've got a point. One accident now is enough to actually close a playground permanently.

1:28 Michael Crichton Well, here's a question. Why hasn't every company noticed Apple's success and paid similar attention to design? Especially in industries like computers or cars where there is really only marginal differentiation in the products themselves, design can represent real value added, and consumers know it. As an early adopter, I have every iPod version ever made, and the interface got a LOT better with time. Real kaizen.

Jobs knows how to make it simple and Microsoft, year after year, doesn't. Duh!

But then notice I said Jobs and not Jonathan Ive, who is the actual designer.

Not a slip of the tongue, no?

1:29 Richard Farson Good question. No, it's not a slip of the tongue. It's the fallback position of designers throughout history--great design requires a great client. Jobs is especially good--he thinks "design is the fundamental soul of a manmade creation." Target is another example of the success of good design. The International Design Conference in Aspen was founded on the Walter Paecpke principle of good design is good business. That was 56 years ago. What happened? Why is it still rare? I think part of the problem is that designers have given over their power to the client. No profession can do well if it is dominated by the client--see journalism, for example. It's the mistake that all the professions are making now, buying into the market system. I would like to believe that great clients are not just born, but can be made through education and consultation with professionals who are able to say no.

1:30 Michael Crichton All true, although I have been thinking the reality of journalism these days is twofold: we now have upper-class journos who went to Ivy schools and who hobnob with the pols, whom they see as of the same class and therefore wish to stay friends with. Not like the Jimmy Breslin days when reporters were scrappy uncouth guys.

And second: good information-gathering is expensive, and these days networks don't want to pay for it. It was always a loss, but in the early days of TV it was a source of prestige to the network owners like Paley who were personally invested in their network. Now it's giant corporations and nobody cares. And nobody is willing to pay the cost of good information, so of course the public won't tune in.

In that sense, what we see is the reverse of market forces. The "market" (the public) isn't buying because it isn't any good. I still believe that if I could get a really accurate source of information I would pay a lot. I already pay a lot when I add up newspaper subscriptions, magazine subscriptions, internet costs, cable TV costs. But I don't get anything worth having. I am just paying to find out what people are talking about.

And in the case of areas I care about, so I can keep up with the latest lying arguments.

The question of whether the professional controls the client is a curious one. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was in medical school, where they said, be yourself and let your clients sort themselves out. You will lose some but you will get the ones that like a doctor such as you. In that sense, we have plenty of clients who want suck-up professionals who will deliver cheap design. And plenty of professionals willing to do the equivalent of spec housing.

1:31 Richard Farson The problem you mention with Ivy League journalists sucking up to the politicians is serious, and nowhere more evident than in the Washington press corps.

1:32 Michael Crichton Yes. What is interesting to me is that there was a level of detached professionalism that is genuinely gone. They attack Republican presidents as idiots, and Democratic presidents as fuckups. But in every case, they attack. People forget that Whitewater began with the NY Times. And heaven help us if they ever mention an issue.

1:33 Richard Farson And we seldom see the Breslins now. But when Paley had the "Tiffany" of news broadcasts, his key people were not the Breslin types, but were elegant--like Eric Severeid, Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, etc.

1:34 Michael Crichton Yes, though that generation all came trained from other journalism areas, broadcast or print. Unlike now. And I don't think that that generation had the elitism of now. Severeid was an elegant guy, but I feel that someone like David Brinkley, who had plenty of class and a kind of aloofness, still does not come near the show-offy what-a-hot-shit-I-am behavior of a Brian Williams or for that matter Geraldo Rivera, who grows hairier and more talkative by the minute. And how often does Bill O'Reilly talk about his Harvard time? (While being a man of the people.)

And how, exactly, did Katie Couric ever, EVER get that job? She has no background in news at all.

1:35 Richard Farson (I wonder if that was Paley or Frank Stanton who made CBS the best--do you know?)

1:36 Michael Crichton It was Frank.

1:37 Richard Farson Yeah, the expense. But in the old days news was a cost center, not a profit center.

1:38 Michael Crichton True, and they swallowed it because it was prestigious and a public service.

1:39 Richard Farson Now the Today Show is the most profitable program NBC has. That's why there is almost no news after the first few minutes of a three hour show. And the Dateline program is all about entrapping pathetic would-be "sexual predators." So it's really worse than just a paucity of investigative news. It is dangerously misleading. Now no adult will talk to a child for fear of being identified as a predator. I hope Matt Lauer is satisfied by that consequence of his journalism. He goes ahead with interviews presenting statistics like "every 37 seconds a child is missing" without saying that that adds up to more than 850,000 a year when the FBI kidnapping statistics (where a child is taken and kept overnight) are around 100.

1:40 Michael Crichton Yep. What should we do about it?

1:41 Richard Farson All the systems are interdependent, of course. Part of the problem is that our education system doesn't prepare people to understand a news report, or care about one. As one journalist said to me long ago, newspapers treat the readers as if they are stupid but well informed, when it is just the opposite.

1:42 Michael Crichton Mark Twain: If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, and if you do read it, you are misinformed.

1:43 John Maeda I was at a Conference last week where the progenitor of the Long Tail philosophy of how media distribution is changing--Chris Anderson (Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine)--was talking about his new book/project entitled "Free." His point is that we live in an age of abundance and plenty. We can do anything; make anything; buy anything. It was exuberant in a way that starkly contrasted the whole eco-trendiness of the world--use less carbon, etc. The more news one has access to, is he/she necessarily better off?

1:44 Douglass Carmichael Michael asks, "What should we do about it?"

What if we created an organization…?

Good news can be assembled by putting together conflicting stories and telling the reader what the hidden issues are. A small amount of targeted original reporting would help. Developing a set of scenarios (like reigniting the cold war) would help bring a critical focus; Robert Steele's open source provides some method.

I find my favorite source of news at the moment is a cross between Financial Times and Asian Times (atimes.com) Huffington and talkingpoints are showing the way but they are too ideological… Juan Cole is good but not critical, and too much alone.

Isn't this doable?

1:45 John Maeda "cross between Financial Times and Asian Times (atimes.com)" –I like this idea of a mash-up approach to our conventional media access points. Maybe there is a way to imagine all kinds of media mashed-up based upon consumer preferences. CNN Headline News delivered as a M*A*S*H* episode, etc.

1:46 Richard Farson John, I clicked on your link to the conference notes you made, and found them unlike anything I've ever seen, and most interesting. And eco-trendiness is a good word, because I think the ecologists of fifty years ago would be dismayed at the religiosity of today's green movement. And your tongue in cheek mash-up carries infotainment to its absurd conclusion, consumer preference and all.

But seriously, consumer preference is where I get derailed. A profession should not be mindless about consumer preferences, but surely not dominated by them. We're talking about journalism now. It was, and to some extent, is a profession still, but as a profession it should tell us what we need to know, not just what we want to know. Business deals with wants, professions with needs. Design has slipped the same way journalism has. Both have adopted the idea that they must be commoditized--journalism because they are owned by mega-corporations, and design because it is convinced that it must invent itself to be more saleable. Commoditization is taking a sacrosanct institution like medicine, ministry, law, journalism, art, architecture and turning itself into a marketable commodity. Design has bought into that model hook, line and sinker, I'm afraid. Obviously, nobody knows this better than John.

1:47 Richard Farson My favorite example of the problem of commoditization is broadcast journalism. When the Downing Street memo incident happened, where it became clear that the pre-war Iraq intelligence was "fixed," conceivably an impeachable offense, the three TV networks presented a total of six news segments covering that story. At the same time the Michael Jackson trial was taking place, and there were 465 news segments. That is commoditization.

1:48 Richard Farson In answer to your question as to whether more and more news would be helpful, I suppose that it is similar to being confronted by many options.....it can be anxiety producing and paralyzing. I suppose that has to do with whether the information is just to expand one's knowledge, or if it is supposed to lead to action.

1:49 Farhad Saba I am just joining this discussion after a conversation with Richard, which is always inspiring and motivating. In our graduate program at San Diego State University we train instructional designers. I use the word "train" purposefully, sine we offer them a specific systems approach to instructional design that will place them in a human resource development division of a corporation, or a government agency with a very high degree of certainty. Some of our best alumni have very responsible positions. One managed the training program of the Transportation Security Administration before he moved to the Library of Congress. Another alum was just appointed to be the training manager for the US Navy Seals here in San Diego. Many are employed by SAIC or the Navy for developing hundreds of courses on every imaginable topic ranging from how to be a good bank teller to how to maneuver an aircraft carrier out of the San Diego harbor. However, I am envious of those who work for the Zoo and the Sea World. They have the fun jobs.

Absent from our program is a discussion of design and its purpose. The approach we teach our students is almost 40 years old now. Our students are very reluctant to become engaged in something that they consider "theoretical speculation." I believe that that is exactly what they need. But I cannot argue with success; we train and place students very successfully, while the world is changing around us.

1:50 Richard Farson Fred (Farhad), welcome to the conference. (By way of introduction, Fred was head of educational broadcasting in Iran under the Shah, and is now a professor of Educational Technology at San Diego State University.) I recall your telling me that this approach your university has taken is demanded by the students and alumni. Again, regarding students as consumers. Some universities call their students "customers."

Design may not be doing all that well with its current tack. Take architecture for example. It's been estimated that architects design only 2% of the custom buildings in America. When I went on the board of the AIA I was told that only 50% of the graduates had decided to become licensed architects....by the time I left two years later, I was told the number was 30%. I recently gave a lecture to a conference of architectural students, and one outstanding graduate came up to me afterwards to tell me that her investigation indicated the number was 12%. And she had decided to become a kindergarten teacher.

1:51 Bill Longhauser In reference to John’s question (The more news one has access to, is he/she necessarily better off?): Earlier in the conference, in relationship to our discussion about playgrounds, I made reference to a trip I made to the village in Hungary where my grandmother was born. That same trip relates to our current focus on news.

Periodically (I forget how often), a siren would sound and residents would diligently come and stand in their front doors and listen to "the news". I have no idea if they agreed or disagreed with the content of this broadcast but everyone in the village accepted this as their source for news. The implications of such a single source of news (there were no newspapers in the village) are obvious to us all and are clearly frightening but the question remains, is the current situation we are experiencing of having endless sources of information masquerading as news any better?

"Yes" is the obvious answer but can the same Iraq war be going so well (Fox News) and so badly (most others)? If both are possible, what is news? Food for thought...

1:52 Richard Farson Isn't discovering, generating and communicating the news a design issue?

1:53 Richard Farson From the beginning of President Bush’s call to war, the media inadvertently reinforced his objectives, helped foment a war fever, and contributed to gross misunderstandings that led the American people to back an invasion. This was done, not by the content of their reporting, but by its form. By its design, if you will.

I refer not just to broadcast journalism’s recent shift in emphasis from news to entertainment, and the obvious appeal of high ratings that war stories bring. Nor to the consistent drumbeat to the war given by the Fox Network. There is a more pervasive and insidious aspect of the media coverage of the lead up to the Iraq war that is less well understood. It is the domination of form over content.

It is the form the media takes that unintentionally contributed to our entry into the war. That consequence has been accomplished in three principal ways: repetition, graphic design, and rules of coverage.

When we repeat a message often enough, the repetition itself becomes more influential in gaining acceptance of the message than does its content. Take for example, the reporting of statements by President Bush on his intentions to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction and remove the tyrant Saddam Hussein from power. With almost no variation in that one-line message, it was repeated as front-page news practically every day from August 2002 to the end of combat. Granted, there is some obligation to report the words of the president, but to repeat that message, over and over again, as if it were news, and as if the statement were based on fact, was clearly both powerful and irresponsible.

Consider the paradox of the twenty-four hour radio and television news format. Instead of using that time for in-depth analysis, which one might reasonably expect, reporting is often more superficial than that of the half-hour network news shows. The round-the-clock format essentially repeats only the headlines, over and over. Constant repetition of quotes suggesting the possible connection between Iraq and 9/11, for example, when every journalist suspected there was no evidence of such a connection, eventually led forty-two percent of Americans to believe that Saddam Hussein was behind that horrible act. Small wonder they supported invasion.

The graphic designs introducing the coverage, with dramatic slogans made into eye-catching war logos, served to validate and legitimize the war. The presentation of catchy phrases such as "Showdown with Saddam" when incorporated into striking logos, gave the prospective war not only appeal, but also legitimacy. Just as a printed message is usually weightier than a spoken one, a logo communicates solidity, reality, and in this case, inevitability—all combining to unconsciously convey a kind of tacit acceptance, even approval.

Policies governing what kinds of stories and photos can be presented are again illustrative of the power of form in making the war palatable, and acceptable. Rules of form essentially prohibit reporting civilian deaths, or showing maimed victims or dead bodies, for example from the first Gulf War. In one sense these are understandable policies, because showing the true horrors of war can be sickening. But the effect of leaving out that dimension is to sanitize war, again contributing to its acceptability.

Finally, journalism’s requirements for balanced reporting, which requires that every investigative report include an opposing view, even if that view has little or no substance, continually led the journalists to include alongside any depth analysis the administration’s unsupported statements in a pro forma attempt at supposed balance.

Yes, the first casualty of war is truth. But long before the beginning of this war, truth became lost in the overwhelming power of the form, the design, in which it was buried.

1:54 Bill Longhauser Yes, but here is where the power of design is being used in a negative way.

If we return to Milton's first definition of design (1:1): "One definition is that design is the intervention in the flow of events to produce a desired effect." the words "desired effect" are loaded and require careful elaboration. What effect? And who desires it? And for what purpose? Manipulation—political photo-ops (selling a preemptive war & mission accomplished) or real communication that serves society in a positive manner?

1:55 Bill Longhauser Sorry, Richard. My last comment came before reading your interesting and in-depth entry 1:53. I need to digest your latest words before responding.

1:56 Bill Longhauser There is no question that the power of form and design are overwhelming. It is no accident that as Bush criticizes Hollywood, he hires them to create his sets for photo-ops as they did when they brought in the klieg lights to a darkened New Orleans without electricity to properly light his performance (sleeves rolled up for action-hero effect).

But I feel the endless repetition of the twenty-four hour radio and television news formats are less a design issue than the fact that there simply is not enough real news to fill that amount of time. This 24 hour design format removes and rejects the significance of negative space from the equation and the trivial is suddenly elevated to essential.

As to your question: Isn't discovering, generating and communicating the news a design issue?

Perhaps, but who actually is "discovering, generating and communicating"? More often than not, news reports are simply verbatim references to articles in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, or some other source that has already done the real work.

1:57 Douglass Carmichael The news tends to be just that--new-s. Design should include always a way of presenting frames.

(Tentative)

-Big questions, e.g., "Are we restarting the cold war", energy and climate; findings and initiatives, etc. To do this a set of robust scenarios, like the Hawaii scenarios for 2050, would be beautifully presented graphically, such as:

http://hawaii2050.org/images/uploads/futures_scenarios.pdf

-Then some history, say of western civilization, the emergence of commerce, the rise of the nation state, the role of money, the nature of corporations, etc.

-Then the news of the rolling present (a day to a week)

-and some analysis by putting contrasting views together with guiding hyperlinked comments.

This is a team-based way of working, requiring constant conversation, and a desire to get the larger questions rather than to get the right answer.

And it is a design issue where content plays a key role. The typical newspaper web page is more concerned with presenting existing stories than designing for deeper thinking with broader perspective. In the future, web pages will be on walls where we live, work, and play. They will need to be much more interesting and interactive than today's small screen approach.

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