Image © Jose & MidJourney
Let’s talk about collaboration, specifically among designers. Yes, we could have a debate on collaboration itself, is it important and necessary, is the data out there is right about the positive vs. negative impact on creativity. But I won’t get into that because, from experience, I believe in the power and impact of well planned and executed collaboration between designers, period. My question is really about how naturally collaborative are designers.
When I was doing my PhD research, some of the people I engaged stated one of the reasons why designers were not more advanced in their careers could be that we are not very good at collaborating, that we tend to be more individualistic in our approaches, resisting alignment on definitions, practices, models, and all other group driven decision making constructs. This ends up confusing all others and creating an atmosphere of division, it also justifies a lack of progress in protection as a class (compared to engineers, marketeers, etc.). I did find research out there that “Individualism encourages designers to be uncommunicative, protective of their ideas, and unable to work as a team or involve clients and the community in the process” Coyne and Snodgrass (1993). Though my research was limited (not the topic of my thesis), and the data is very US centric, there is some evidence which leads to a suggestion that perhaps designers and their individualism pose certain barriers to class structuring and organization.
In the face of an absolute barrage of bad news on LinkedIn about companies letting go entire swaths of designers, Silke Bochat decided to balance it with postings on all the openings for designers she could come across. She has taken her work seriously, she looks at corporate sites, identifies design jobs, creates specific posts for each corporation. Silke and I engaged and discussed other things we would love to know, asked each other several questions for which we had no answers, but Silke went on to dig and find some answers. She published a post on these findings which I will not reproduce, better to follow Silke on LinkedIn and read all about it. Her post generated quite a few reactions and comments, some asking for clarity, some asking for more data. But I didn’t see anyone stepping up to help Silke and all of us become more informed and wiser about the current state of Design. I know there are more people on LinkedIn posting about job openings, probably also interested in creating a positive outlook, building a more balance perspective. I thought it would be great if we collaborated, doing mixed methods research, scrappy mode, on the side, team up and combine elements of existing qualitative and quantitative data so we can better understand, validate or not assumptions, test hypothesis.
I am not the cynical type, but I go back to my initial thought, is this something many of us would consider natural as designers, to collaborate in a mission of enlightening ourselves and have better agency in the construction or reality and perception about design careers? Would it require a leader, and organization, a formal structure? Would we start referring to how hard this would be, how there is so little data available, how some of us might not feel entirely comfortable doing research, and I wonder how much that is an excuse and how much of it is typical to designers.
I did say I have more questions than answers. I am going to team up with Silke and help her progress with her mission, a valuable one for all of us. Thank you Silke Bochat.