Rediscovering IDEO

I started reading Fast Company pretty regularly from issue 1 and so I was ready to learn aboutIDEO when I stumbled upon “The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm” their while browsing books at the small branch of the Ann Arbor Public Library.

I’d never really considered design as something I could do and second, because IDEO is about the coolest company on the planet. And, they’re going to be in my back yard soon. Wahey! here’s an interview from several years back with Tim Brown, an interview with David Kelley and a more recent blog posting from another IDEO fan at Not an MBA (”Study business without the crap!”).

As a textbook Sag, I am constantly looking for something new and interesting to do with my mind. That’s why it’s so hard to settle down and do one thing,–there are too many things to know and understand. I can’t draw a straight line, but am pretty good at designing process. Now that I know more of what I don’t know, it’s getting to the point where making a positive social (but, oh so capitalist) contribution is paramount.

That’s why the mind-body connection and programming fascinate me. In the former, the “human element” makes everything taste better,–even when tragedy strikes. In the latter, there is the effective way and then there is the elegant effective way. People spend their lives trying to figure out how to survive,–but surviving in elegance (NOT the same as opulence) is rapidly becoming the goal of the spiritually-impoverished middle class. Code words: “green,” “simplicitly,” “rational.”

The rational thing is to build fungible adobe huts for sleeping with a field of communal Borders-quality bathrooms every 1/2 mile. For those who can’t make it, we give them bio-degradable underwear that they can simply take off and drop in the Borders-quality toilets, pick up a new one and keep on trucking. Hmmm?

As a result of reading this book, I took courses on the human brain, dug deeply into human interaction from the perspective of conflict and began paving the way for a return to study of human communication across culture. The pathway I’ve chosen was fortuitous,–the convergence of technology and brain science to create a flattened world is well on its way to becoming accepted doctrine [yeah, well, I have a very strong dislike for the word "meme"]. Sorta like “semaphore” or “heuristic.” Gag.

Anyway, so I made the decision in my 30’s not to hold back, to learn as much about whatever I wanted to know as possible. I figured that when the time came to be serious, I needed to know a few things deeply and a lot of things tangentially. Blame it on Harvard, but that’s the way I am.

Having found this book and the IDEO card deck concept, I decided that there WAS something to be done about the way in which we use the law to resolve conflict and one area is the re-design of customer interaction systems. The way we use law in America is TERRIBLE, matched only by the way the Japanese use the law. The French have a leg up, I think, but they don’t have a leg over, so it’s alright. ))

So, part of my work how that I’m well settled into middle-age is to do something about the design of legal systems. At least sections that can have real impact.

I tried a little experiment called the Prison Services Project and was very encouraged. Prisoners loved it, but getting attorneys to buy in was another story. To be expected, so like water, I’ve decided to re-tool the project in a way that makes attorneys optional. That will be complemented by “Early Release Vote,” an attempt to bring social justice to the concept of parole. Cuz’ Lord knows there ain’t a lot of it there now!

Law is nothing more than what we call “ground rules” in mediation. So, there’s something to be said for doing more than lip-service to “plain English.” Speaking in “plain English” does you no good if you’re saying something stupid. Scalia writes really clearly. Nuff said.

This thinking is also the guiding light for the design of “Human Trigonometry” “Semantic Law” and “Semantic Lawyers.” The idea is to actually communicate and to build the “machine” so that communication can be presumed, rather than accidental. More to come on those.

So, today, I will spend a bit of time on LinkedIn and other social networking sites to see whether there is a connection to anyone at IDEO, because if I could spend a week shadowing someone in their “knowledge sharing” department, I’d be in heaven.