Why Design is Critical and Needed?

I firmly believe that we are living in a time of radical change. Our economy is shifting at a rapid pace. Jobs are shifting to China, India and Eastern Europe where the routine can be done at a fraction of cost.

(see “The World is Flat“, “The Next 100 Years” – great books, highly recommended)

We feel the shift in our jobs and companies. We cannot expect our companies to take care of us or keep us “safe”.

Nor is it good to be scared and put our heads in the sand.

Automation and abundance (Daniel Pink – “A Whole New Mind“) has pushed us to reconnect to our right brain. It’s no longer important or needed to memorize and retain raw data, computers can do that. It’s no good to do routine work that can be outsourced or programmed. What cannot be programmed is:

• 1. Empathy
• 2. Story Telling
• 3. Aesthetics and Design
• 4. Feelings
• 5. Pattern Recognition and Synthesis
• 6. Architecture

If your job can be stripped to a list of instructions it is absolutely at risk. If you create a software product that users dislike (difficult to use, ugly, disconnected from their life), someone will create a better product for a fraction of the cost.

You have choices in this new environment:

1. Learn the automation skills that are in demand

“Teach yourself Java, HTML, Flash, PHP and SQL. Not a little, but mastery. [... I used the word mastery to distinguish it from 'familiarity' which is what you get from one of those Dummies type books...]“

- Seth Godin, “Graduate school for unemployed college students”

2. Become an amazing story teller and learn to engage customers

“How do we get people to act on our ideas? We tell stories. Firefighters naturally swap stories after every fire, and by doing so they multiply their experience; after years of hearing stories, they have a richer, more complete mental catalog of critical situations they might confront during a fire and the appropriate responses to those situations.”

- Dan and Chip Heath, “PRINCIPLE 6: STORIES”

3. Share empathy to grab the whole story about a customer

“What does it feel like to be old in America? At the Westminster Thurber Retirement Community here, Heather Ramirez summed it up in two words. ‘Painful,’ she said. ‘Frustrating.’”

- NY Times, “Simulating Age 85, With Lessons on Offering Care”

4. Design joyful products that customers feel an emotional connection

- Apple, Apple.com

It’s important that people gain the skills to remain competitive in this new economy. We teach the automation skills.