Sometimes I think about where my life would have led me if the Portland option had become true, and the reason I keep going back to this “fork in the road” is because I have not stopped thinking and dreaming in systems and, every time I go to a design gathering, the topic keeps on coming up.
THIRTY-EIGHT
I have come to believe there are human qualities that supersede any training for people leadership, I believe some people are just more natural at it, and while we can all improve in every domain, I believe natural and organic people leaders have an invisible advantage. When you are lucky to have a good people leader you know it, you feel it, your life improves, you learn and you evolve, you grow and many times you will end up moving on, and those people leaders will be a part of your life.
THIRTY-SEVEN
There is something about a crowd of 40,000 people singing at the same time, you look everywhere, and you capture the ecstasy via their shining eyes, you relate and connect with other human beings in this shared experience, independently of who they are, what they eat, who they vote for.
THIRTY-SIX
But I remember this particular occasion, because one morning after partying night, we were ‘asked’ to be in a meeting space at 8am. Needless to say, we were all still heavy headed and in need of plenty of water, a gentleman who by the tone of his voice had not been partying the previous night, had 4 different newspapers taped to the walls, several pages of different newspapers, with large red markings on them, all in all it must have been 20 newspaper pages, and we were afraid he’d make us read out loud!
THIRTY-FIVE
I want to think that those that choose to work on those complex problems have their hearts in the right place, and have sound business and people skills, and understand the impact of their decision in people, families, businesses and cities for years to come, people trained in dealing with the utopia and the dystopia of cities.
THIRTY-FOUR
I’m staying at a beach I call ‘my beach’, my grandmother used to come here, my mother used to come here, and now I try to come every year. I did so with everyone that is important to me, both my kids have photos here since they were born, and I just had a couple of old friends over for a couple of days. Does that qualify as my beach, beyond an expression?
What are the main conclusions of your research?
This research, the findings and insights, combined with experience has led to a framework of needs to be addressed, by designers and non-designers. This framework is focused on the underlying biases and assumptions each side has of each other, unspoken but yet prominent and present in such a way that it prevents companies from making […]
10. Ethos – What makes a designer a designer is at the same time seen as an asset and a liability.
We have used Ethos to describe what makes a designer a designer, an association of values that generically characterize designers, and though some attitudes and behaviors observed in designers might correlate with their ethos, there is no implicit or explicit causation. We have described these as a balance between two sides of the continuum, tensions […]
9. Advice – Management consultancies and advisory boards don’t influence CEO’s positively about the value of design.
This insight resulted from a discussion with some design executives on the reasons why in so many cases design is ill positioned to change the fate of the company by design, and the fact that many executives, members of the BoD and management consultancies don’t understand and advise on design adequately. The term widely used […]
8. Flexibility – Designers tend to stick to design, no experience in managing other areas.
This insight describes an argument that designers tend to stick to design, they have little to no experience in managing other areas, and this being something that defines the necessary flexibility for anyone to get a position in the C-suite of a large corporation. It’s the example of CEO’s that started in a low wage […]