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insights, options and possibilities suggested by Tom Haskins

On collective non-intelligenceToday

Ken Allan, aka Blogger in Middle-Earth, left a provocative comment after reflecting on yesterday's post: According to design dictates. I'm republishing it here so subscribers who may have missed will get to ponder Ken's wonderful insights about collective non-intelligence and our individual relationship to design dictates (dna).

For a long time (and it continues) humankind has followed dictates. Oh yes, the form of the dictates has changed over the millennia, but never-the-less the dictates have called the shots.

Some last for a few years, some last for decades, some live out centuries before the dictates are overturned by some sort of knee-jerk reaction by (human) society. I think that it's in our dna.

You have recognised a feature of the effect of dictates. It's not particularly exciting. It simply dictates the status quo.

How often has society waited for that wonderful moment when religion or science or political inertia is about to announce a revelation that brings hope into the arena, only to find that the wait was a waste of time, and energy in hoping?

Somehow our dna prohibits humankind from behaving intelligently en masse. The collective intelligence we hear and read about never puts on its thinking cap when it's really needed.

Yet it can move swiftly an

According to design dictatesYesterday

We always design according to the dictates of the problem were solving. We can redefine the problem or solve a different problem, yet never escape the dictates of the problem we decide to resolve. The inevitability of dictates puts many designers into a state of resignation, denial and self-imposed limitations. It appears there is nothing to do about dictates since they are inevitable and seemingly inescapable.

Some examples of design dictates can be found in what I wrote about incubating a wise decision, freedom via messing around, what happened to you?, and believing in school work.

The effects of design dictates on designers give us "business as usual", "more of the same changes" and "sustaining innovations". Design innovations maintain factory models of organization, command & control methods of management and centralized delivery systems. The system appears to be too vast, complex and costly to fix. The repercussions of ill-conceived solutions are too extensive, damaging and enduring. As far as we can tell, it pays to play by the rules and do what's worked before.

We use metaphors and analogi

Coping with added criteriaNovember 20

When we're designing anything, we usually fall in love with our best solution. We get attached to how well we've resolved the issues, made the tradeoffs and combined some partial solutions into our favored design. We embrace the assumption that we will end up with the best outcome if we stop messing around with what we've come up with at last. We're usually afraid that will throw out the baby with the bath water if we change the design. Considering an added criteria can be very upsetting for these reasons.

Added criteria usually make a design better. It becomes more responsive to it's larger context. It make accommodate more stakeholders It may deal with long term issues in a better way. It can possibly serve the interests of customers/patients/members/students with less expense. Added criteria can even reveal some creative options that had not been considered thus far.

Choosing to reopen the design process can polarize the participants. Some may regard it as a threat as I explored above. Others may see it as an opportunity to do a better job. It depends on where each person sees her or himself. Anyone on the ascending side of life cycle curve will see progress ahead and no place to go but up. Those on the cusp of the curve will be wary of losing ground, entering a slippery slope and going past the point of diminishing returns. Those on the downside will be seeing everything going from bad to worse, catastrophizing about the future and foretelling a seri

Multilingual designersNovember 19

Whenever we design a new course, game, community or business model, we are speaking a pattern language. We use a vocabulary of components we assemble into coherent expressions. We expect our students, players, members or customers to comprehend what we've said in this language. We anticipate they will speak the same language and comprehend our intended meaning.

Any pattern language defines how to evaluate designs. The language defines what is useful and useless, coherent and confusing, or worth keeping or in need of more work. We use the language to comprehend the solutions we've created and anticipate what else to improve about them. We think in terms of the components we're "speaking with" as we conceive of more alternatives to generate and criteria to apply to those innovations.

When we're fluent in a language, we take it for granted. We forget what the language assumes, dwells upon, leaves out and over-emphasizes. We think in the language as well as speak it. We don't realize how we've limited ourselves by the language we've adopted or how it compels us to go to particular extremes. We replicate the premises of the language as we think, communicate and act on the language's assumptions.

As designers, we need to be multilingual. We need to speak the language of SME's if we're sharing their expert content with others. We need to speak the language of natural environments, ecologies and habitats if we're proposing new invasive structures. We

Evolving design criteriaNovember 18

Whenever we evaluate what we're already using to get a job done, we get ideas for something better. The way we see the status quo can limit or extend the possibilities we consider. This applies to both designers of new things as well as their users.

Printed pamphlets, books and newspapers once had their type set by hand. These skilled craftspeople are called typesetters. Some excelled at this craft. They became faster and more efficient at getting the right letters placed in the right order with the right amount of spacing to line up evenly on both margins. Their exceptional conduct defined some design criteria when the typesetting process became mechanized.

The first generation of machines replicated how the best typesetters worked their craft. Mark Twain went bankrupt funding this venture. A second generation design redefined how the work of typesetting got done. The Linotype process eventually became the industry standard. Different design criteria were invented in this process that changed how to judge which ideas were obsolete and which could be improved upon.

A similar evolution occurred with computer printers and fax machines. The first generation of dot matrix and daisy wheel printers used ribbons like manual and electric typewriters. Laser printers with toner cartridges and PostScript printer drivers reinvented how printing occurred. Ink jet printing and other font systems opened the field to many lower cost printers. We now often con