The place of design thinking in the new economy

Design thinking as a process and approach to problem is no more the privilege of large corporates but a revolution which will be self-generated at social level. The social revolution by design thinking has to be framed and encourage by corporate and society for the benefit of the world economy. Business and society leaders need to adopt a ‘prosumer’ approach of business; become facilitator of change rather than change maker.

Many companies have already demonstrated that it is possible to align our deep aspiration as human been with efficient market offer and profit generation in a single goal. However rare are those companies who broke the traditional frameworks of producer to consumer.

In the future ecosystem here above presented, values will be generated and self-sustained by people and communities. Business and society will be providing tools, process and solutions to encourage individual and community initiatives. As avatar individuals may want to associate with a multitude of projects cheer to them. Bring their insights and values to the project. The fact that business ventures are built over personal inspiration in a co-creative environment insure the interest for the project. Thanks to crowd sourcing we have tools to assess the ongoing viability of a business rather than relying on stakeholders’ subjective opinion. Individual projects may be connected to larger networking projects under an umbrella of self-learning solution.

In the ideal economy Value Absolute, Value Relative and Profit would be aligned as a single goal for people, business and society.

They will be 3 groups of players in the making of values:

Consumer may want to associate with a particular ecosystem and benefit from it simply as consumer. They are likely to share values generated by the group project as we share values with brands today. The environment provided will invite a few to move from the consumer group towards the leader.

Leader are those who masteries the values shared by the group. They are passionate, specialist, self-motivated, guru, scientist, researcher, etc. They have the leadership profile to involves other into their cause and generate the interest of the general public.

Start-up converts value generation into business venture with the support of business and society leaders. They create the link between the industry and the leader to manufacture, edit and implement solutions.

Business & Society would increasingly become omnipresent and support individuals in their own walk of value creation without interfering. Their role is not to generate changes but facilitate change in society by providing the platform for business.

A democratic approach of innovation accessible to all not in term of consumption but production; which has rightly given the birth to the portmanteau word ‘prosumerism’.

Design thinking will have a dual role. First, it has to help business and society in creating the right platform for the people to develop values of their own. Second, it has to help people in developing their aspiration into profitable values for them and the society.

The disappearing of market trends to assess quality creation

Well I have always been a strong advocate about social trends usage in design thinking. We need to accept that trends does not work the way it used to work. And that contemporary consumers are increasingly versatile. The Internet has so fractured us (people) globally that we no longer are looking for mass-culture experiences earlier provided by public leaders and international brands. The internet is a kaleidoscope of color  design and lifestyle experience which has become the common’s man culture. The best stand next to the worst, the real next to the unreal, and the truth next to the false. It is an incredibly cacophony on which none would find a clue to assess what is right to go with.

"In the old days, style used to be the prerogatives of a small group of people. Now it is a national sport. Ticket sales are exploding. People are pouring into the arena in such vast numbers that none of us can keep track of the rule book. Et voila! Nobody is keeping score. All bets are off. Anything goes.”

Simon Doonan creative director at Barneys upscale 2010

The notion of style or design is not restricted to physical artifact but from a much holistic perspective to the complete ecosystem that surround the usage of a product, system or social organisation. Product and system of all kind are charged of historic, philosophic and anthropological insights that all together describe people’s art of living. As design was made for specific social trends belonging to specific culture and nation; things were simple. Product, system and solution were made for a specific scenario. Today’s consumer are so versatile that design is thrown to an extremely wide range of socio-type who at one particular point of time feel like been receptive to a specific design. Sizing market and assess leading consumer segment behavior become near to impossible. Marketing scholar call it the Generation Z, a generation who’s origin is in constant mutation.In this context no companies, politic, artist or brand would ever find the strength to re-generate the mass culture movement of the past. New tools and technologies are needed to empower consumers in their search of satisfaction.

STC Conference - Social trends analaysis

In august 2011, I was invited to the STC conference in Bangalore, India for a talk in Social Trends and Innovation.

Other speakers were from: Human Factors, IXDA, Yahoo!, Welingkar, balsamiq, FUSEBO,  loop, MK, O'RELLy, Optimal Workshop, Rosenfeld, STC,  Write Concept, etc.

Here is the presentation I have given. The videos of my talk are on Youtube.

Social Trends and Innovation - Patrick Roupin from STC India UX SIG

The reason for me to come back on that presentation is the radical shift we are facing today in analyzing social trends. In fact, we are many designers and trendsetters thinking that trends analysis strategy and process will face radical changes soon.

The fact is that, consumers are increasingly versatile and multi-identity in their behavior. For years we have been stressing on consumer trends as the key factor of user acceptance. Today we realize that even if consumer trends is still the prominent factor of design penetration. It has become increasingly complex to explore.

Consumer trends is between global trends and Industry trends. It is the most sensible aspects of design as it touch people values and behavior to the most. It describe their philosophy and lifestyle. 

Today's world is over saturated by information; people temps to quickly change their moods and desires. The trends market become inconsistent leaving people in a very pluralistic behavior.

The trends tools we are developing may have to embrace the diversity of co-identity that exist in a single individual. For years have been stressing the importance of developing design that reflect consumer lifestyle aspiration in a mono-axial direction. Today's consumers are chameleon, hipper connected, fully networked. Maintaining consistency in their identity become increasingly complex; the impact on product and service design is imminent.

Signs of failure of design thinking in the present economy

In spite of a well-organized design thinking strategy projects often goes to failure due to unpredictable user resistance that cannot be accessed by stakeholders. This fact is commonly accepted by a large majority of design firms in every vertical of the industry. Scholars have been advocating the importance of accepting and celebrating failure in the corporate world to rebound with success.

Encourage people in taking risk seems to be a positive change however the possibility of exploration would continue to increase has the mass consumer market dismantle. Keeping track of success and failure would become irrelevant considering the unique character of each business cases. User resistance factors are increasingly volatile and cluttered.

The three factors that would make business exploration and assessment increasingly complex and expensive are:

• The end of mass consumption and mass culture.
• The spread of specific technological solutions at every end of industry
• The development of emerging markets that would grow the overall amount of consumers and form new clusters.

In that context; corporate companies are required to make a large amount of live test projects, equips themselves with assessment process and develop generic business development solution.

That ecosystem would require a symbiotic relationship between consumer and producer which clearly announce the era of ‘prosumerism’.

End of mass consumer trends to assess the market

In the past decade, we have seen the media industry metamorphosed by entrepreneur journalist of all kind. The development of blogs, social network and unstructured reporting disassembled the news and media industry forcing then in moving from the print to digital format with even more targeted content. The entertainment and musical industry had to run competition with Google, YouTube, Torrent and other video sites who give the chance to anyone to become a user and a creator. Those very few examples prove that content and creation become accessible to all and that the world is getting empowered not by corporate but people who individually create with different level of professionalism. Technology is responsible for the democratization of information in terms of viewing as well as creation.

Since 2008 the number of things connected to the internet exceeds the number of people. By 2020 they will be 50 billion of things connected to the internet. By 2012, 20 typical households will generate more traffic than the entire internet in 2008 - Source Cisco

How long would it take for a typical household to become a micro-industry who create replicate and network values of all kinds. Technologies like 3D printing are on the way of democratization  It gives a chance to contemporary artisan to manufacture their creations without complex outsource. Today lots of people convert their passion into livelihood through the internet. As the rate of unemployment continues to grow, people will continue searching alternatives to the streamline economy. Small scale initiative have the advantage of been socially integrated, flexible and highly personal which allow closeness to the needs of targeted market segmentation. Business and society have the interest in encouraging people in their endeavor of value creation; by providing business platforms to streamline their interest into economic reality.

Design thinking empowered by crowdsourcing

Today’s society face huge disruption caused by the spread of social media technologies, the urbanization of the planet, the rise and fall of nations, global warming, and overpopulation. The continuation of consumerism and the way we encourage consumerism through design thinking is questioned; a large portion of the design community aims for a new relationship between design and society.

Several alternatives to consumerism have been advanced with more or less of success. One retain my attention particularly, it is the concept of crowd sourcing revealed by Jeff Howe who advocate that the power of the crowd is driving the future of business. Howe present hundreds of case studies on which the crowd has been determining to the drive of business. Howe does not only defend crowd sourcing as a mono-directional relationship from crowd to business. He present crowd sourcing as a bipolar relationship on which people and business create new arena of development for the benefit of both ends.

Howe was one of the first scholars to use the term “prosumerism’ to define the relationship between people and business in the process of co-creation. Like Howe I believe in the power of people and their ability to craft tomorrow’s industry. As connected individuals, people can leads business and development politic for a better world.

The profile of contemporary individuals

From a sociologic perspective, Professor Jacques Paitra announced in 2004 the raise of the ‘society of autonomy’. He depicts a modern society on which individual temps to gain autonomy and become vibrant social players, by taking initiative of all kind to fitful their passion and aspiration. With the raise of social networking Paitra’s prediction has never been so truth. Any individual in the world today can manage his social network at the finger touch connect with their pairs and create vibrant projects. That new social construction is impacting politic, social and economy.

The definition of “Self” is continuously involving and studied by anthropologist, sociologist and philosopher to the benefits of corporate and society leader. The University of Toronto promote extensive research with regard to the hybridity of the contemporary culture. “Hybridity, neither stranger nor familiar” was the name of an international research project they conducted in 2010.

The amount of research dedicated to the theory of self are still limited and mostly explorative. Here is a personal finding I have been using for the past 6 years to justify my research process is several projects.

Self-identity involve with the development of technologies and society. Here is a chronology of ‘self’ identification moving from Nation to Tribe and then Avatar from 1938 till date. It may be representative of the evolution of “self” in the contemporary culture.

Nation: Individuals identify themselves with respect to their culture, religion and nation. The boundary of identification is clear and structured. I associate the date of 1938 to the creation of the Volkswagen Coccinelle by Ferdinand Porsche who represents le National-Socialism of Hitler. The notion of ‘Self’ is therefore associate to the nation, its code and artefacts.

Tribe: As globalisation took place the term “tribe” were extensively used to describe connected individuals across the globe who share the same values regardless their nation and culture. The boundary of identification is fuzzy by nature since people come from diversified cultural background to embrace new code and value. The date of 1968 refers to the social revolution during which traditional values have been questioned. The hippie formed communities with new ideal of society. The notion of community identification still remains important.

Avatar: As people get extensively exposed to hybrid identity, they self-identification involve rapidly and deeply. This is accentuated by the culture of autonomy described by Paitra. The Generation Z require instant way of responding to identity issues and temps to fall into “Avatar” identity. The avatar is a unique individual who change his identity and the way he present himself instantly with regard to environment and life situation. Initially popularized by video games, the avatar culture takes all segment of the society with a multitude of possibilities individuals can switch from in real world as well. The avatar culture is bound to grow as geo-cultural distances continue to collapse. I retain the date of 1992 for the emergence of the Avatar culture; it is the birth of Internet for the general public and the beginning of 3D video games with Avatar. Gamers have an active role on the world they project themselves. Similarly the internet becomes a virtual universe of signs that make sense to the user leading him in re-shaping his own identity.

We are now 20 years, from the beginning of the Avatar culture. Since 2012, The MTV Show – Catfish initiated by Nev Schulman beautifully present American people leading several fake identities over the internet for years. It is not rare to find people today who have no social connection with their surrounding and an active social life with the virtual world. They may keep their real identity or been ‘catfish’ (fake identity). The fact is that people find online values that may not be available in their physical neighbourhood. Without falling in the extreme of fake identity, the catfish phenomenon is representative of changes in society. People are more likely to lead an isolated identity within the hyper connected world on which they find repairs more that in reality. The development of ecommerce also encourages people in reaching niche markets that respond to their personal aspiration.

Globalisation both merges and singularises individuals in a contradictive effort. This complexity of “self” identification is on the heart of every individual and is one of the greatest challenges for the future of design.

Design thinking to open new world

People have the tendency of believing that nothing can be invented and that the role of designer is reelected to innovation.

It is questioning me why the word "Innovation" has become so predominant in the past decades whereas our forefather were speaking about "Invention".

I believe the real issue is not about the weakness of the designer not been able to "invent" but the weakness of the innovation ecosystem that does not allow him to be inventive. To become inventive a company need to move out of the comfort zone of innovation and open new area of development that are outside the work-frame of business.

Our role as design thinking specialist is to help companies open the way to new area of business development. That challenge require the opening of a "New World". Opening a "New World" sound scary from a business perspective as we are used to structured process to achieve business success.

Does it means that the business is going to be taken into dream, or imaginary solution?

As fare the dream is limited to conceptualization and idea there is no harm for the designer to be taken into dream. As business design specialist we have solution to take back the dream into reality and create tangible solutions that can be implemented to create successful business solution.Thus, How to open the new world?

Opening the new world require the knowledge of the existing world, his rules and limitations. However design thinker should be prudent not to restrict the new world to an extrapolation of the existing world. Opening a new world require creativity and audacity.You may gather data on the existing business, demographic data, social behavior trends or any artistic experiment that give meaning and substance to the new world.

How to get my team into the new world?

If your company has a proper brand and innovation culture. Getting people into the new world will be easy. In fact, if you company has a culture on innovation, they understand its rules and force of motivation. Getting into a new world will be like playing an other comedy in another scene decoration.However, if your company has a weak brand culture creating a new world can be little challenging. Sharpening your team brand culture will help. Simple exercises like scrap-booking, visual trends, visual mapping, can help you in developing that culture.As people get confident with classified insights the new world take shape as a creative environment to share idea.The workshop moderator will insure everyone get the chance to develop and present his ideas. Contribution to each other ideas and collective spirit can help, however competition can also become a factor of motivation. The moderator will be able to judge what the best solution is.Remember that at the end of the day, we are working towards a collective success and individual contribution may not be so important.

Exploring the new world can be a never ending source of idea. Design thinking moderator will know not how to classify ideas, but how to classify family of idea. In such way that the new world can be re-open again and again.That stage of information classification is most probable the most critical aspect of a successful design thinking workshop.In fact, there is many design team (organisation) who never open new world, but also never close them. They work on "inspiration" what means that they bring to the business new ideas as it goes. Such unstructured way of working only en-up into asphyxia and rarely translate into success.

A team comparing solutions and concepts before closing the world.

You and your team would never feel unsatisfied if you know how to close the world of idea. You have tools and solutions to continue alimenting the innovation ecosystem throughout the years. A regular meet up would be more than enough to re-open the world and productively access new insights without complete introspection.