DOING STUFF: On Innovation, Invention and Creativity in the Present

DOING STUFF: On Innovation, Invention and Creativity in the Present Iain Kerr In collaboration with:​ Jason Frasca & SPURSE 2017 NOTE: This document is a very much a work in progress, and as a such it is not intended for public distribution as a finished document. I share this to begin a discussion. Sections are incomplete, many ideas are not fully worked out, and most citations are missing. I apologize in advance for this. Please contact me directly if you wish to quote from this text in any form (​[email protected]​ ). I welcome any and all feedback as this document evolves. Iain Kerr retains all rights as the author. Copyright 2017. INTRODUCTION 4 Innovation Design 4 Sources 6 FROM CHANGE TO WORLDS 7 Creation Creativity & Innovation 7 Change 7 Worlds 10 Worlds and Change-in-Kind 12 The Processes 12 EXPERIMENTATION 14 1. Getting out of your head 14 2. Turning Towards Things 15 3. Catalytic Probes 19 4. Problems 19 5. Systems 20 DESIGN 23 The Fallacy of Direct Design 23 Responsive Design 24 Developmental Design 24 Sympathy & Empathy in Design 26 1. INTRODUCTION Innovation Design is the name that we have given to a set of practices for producing change. These are practices for developing novel outcomes. It is intended to be a set of pragmatic​ skills and techniques for creativity, innovation, and design that are applicable across a wide variety of fields from ecology to entrepreneurship, from philosophy to politics, and from basic education to advanced biology. The core focus of Innovation Design is to help you develop processes that allow for genuinely novel possibilities to emerge in the face of difficult and open-ended problems. Perhaps the most important and wondrous aspect of creativity and innovation is that reality in all of its aspects is creative. Creativity and innovation are not exclusively -- or even mainly, human practices. It is our strong sense that the contemporary logic of innovation needs to fully embrace this insight. Human driven innovations emerge in a reality where at every moment something is doing something wondrous and new ​without an author or a plan​. We create in world in which complex systems are spontaneously self organizing and doing things at all scales. It no longer makes sense to talk of creativity as an internal human property, ​it is an environmental phenomenon​ that we can skillfully participate in by collaborating with dynamic systems and emergent phenomena. Innovation Design practices are first and foremost processes of attunement and experimental engagement with these worldly events of ongoing creativity. As you read this document it would be very easy to mistake Innovation Design for a capital ​M “Method.” Innovation Design is ​not​ a Method, but a set of pragmatic tools and procedures. Why bring this up? There is an easy dogmatism and false sense of security in Methods, which in their one-size-fits-all exuberance can all-to-readily squash curiosity, difference, possibilities and ultimately innovation. The philosopher A. N. Whitehead, who coined the term “creativity” in the early twentieth century says it well, ​“Some of the major disasters of mankind have been produced by the narrowness of men with a good methodology.1”​ Today Methods of innovation abound. Design Thinking and the Lean Canvas are just two of the most popular Methods being taught on a global scale such that their limits and problems as Methods have become obvious. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, they remain an entrenched dogmatic force in the world of innovation. Innovation Design, as a set of skills, should not be mistaken for a one-size-fits-all Method. We are trying the best we can to avoid the limits and blind spots of Methods -- whether historical models or more recent user-centered models such as Design Thinking, by offering ​an open and flexible set of practices combined with a philosophical outlook​. What looks like a Method in this document is an attempt to do two distinct, and possibly contradictory things, (1) develop new creative processes for innovation and (2) find a way to teach these in a simple manner. (If you wish to insist upon calling it a method then it is only in the sense Melville claims for himself, “There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.”) 1 Whitehead Citation Our aversion to Methods should not be a mistaken for a willingness to offer a laissez-faire approach. Innovation Design has a distinct philosophical take on creativity and innovation: Innovation Design puts experimental ​worldmaking​ at the core of innovation in contrast to most western models of innovation and design that have focused on generating ideas, and solutions. We believe that innovation, at its most creative, is a worldmaking and not an idea or product making practice. Innovations are assemblages of novel deeply embodied practices, tools, implicit mentalities, concepts, environments and goals. It is this assemblage is what we are calling a “world.” Experimental worldmaking is a fundamentally ​engaged​, responsive and emergent practice that re-orients creativity towards an embedded, co-evolving, problem producing, worldmaking and systems based practice. In short it is a hands-on worldly and experimental action-oriented collaborative approach. This philosophical critique and alternative focus is not about winning an intellectual debate about the definition of creativity, it matters deeply because our most pressing issues today from climate change to equality are complex, dynamic, systemic and open-ended problems that ​cannot be effectively addressed​ (and have often been caused or exacerbated) ​by narrow, linear solution centric methods of design and innovation​. Ultimately we see Innovation Design as an experiment: a set of pragmatic practices that are open to your changes, revisions, substitutions and evolution. This document is a ​toolkit​ which you can enter in a number of different ways: you could just read the first section to get a new philosophical sense of innovation, you could skip over everything and jump to the exercises, or you could go straight to the glossary. The table of contents is designed to give you a sense of the multiple entry points. Experiment freely. However you proceed, don’t ignore the glossary: while we strive to use simple everyday language, there is a downside to this: we need to use commons words in very specific ways. The glossary is meant to help clarify our tools and concepts. As you read the text you will find the first use of the words that appear in the glossary are ​underlined​. Innovation Design’s utility can be judged by whether it works for you. How will you know if it works? ​Try the practices,​ do they lead you somewhere interesting? In doing so you will change these practices and make them your own. Try things out: experiment and evolve things and if you like what you discover in your experiments be in touch, share what you discover -- let’s continue this journey as partners. Sources Innovation Design​ draws upon a whole host of fields from Complexity Science to Evolutionary Theory (see below). We have put this diagram here at the beginning of the text, not to ground and lend authority to what follows, but to open what follows to the rich and discordant fields from which these concepts and tools first emerged. FROM CHANGE TO WORLDS Creation Creativity & Innovation To create is to make. Everything is made and everything is created. Creation is the process of making from the big bang to human gestation. Creation, ​creativity​ and making are all around us and happening all the time, they are not some uniquely human property or process, and if anything, it is we who need to wake up to the wonder of this. “Life is invention, unceasing creation2”, as Henri Bergson reminds us. All creation involves ​change​, even if it is very minimal. Change is a constant. “Sameness” is just a process of change where everything is changed for something nearly identical. To say creativity is to just stress the newness that is inherent in all creating. In this way creativity, making and creation are synonymous. In our culture it is very easy to fetishize the new and the novel as superior to all else. ​Creativity or novelty is not better or worse than sameness, it is just a form of change that produces something different. ​Difference​ and repetition are not in opposition--they are simply ​contrasts​. We need to be skillful in participating in both. Innovation​ is a novel act of creativity that “sticks.” Innovations are forms of novelty that are resilient enough to allow the novelty to have a lasting and transformative impact. This is no easy task. Most events of radical creativity simply disappear as quickly as they emerged. The world in some manner had no place for them. The real craft is in nurturing the novel into becoming a “difference that makes a difference3.” This is the core task of innovation. Change Creativity and Innovation are practices for producing a ​change​. A change is simply when something ​different​ occurs. It could be a slight difference or it could be a major difference. This is where things get interesting: small differences and big difference are two​ very distinct processes​. A big change is not the same as thousands of small changes done all at once. A small incremental difference is called a “change-in-degree”. The term “in-degree” refers to the nature of the change: it is the same thing as before -- only a little bigger, stronger, sharper, hotter, etc. It is a numerical and incremental transformation. Most of the change and creativity we see around us is of this kind -- it is ​a variation on what already exists​: a bigger camera, a thinner device, a faster processor, etc. When we are frustrated by our boots leaking and we develop​ a ​better​ boot we are making a change-in-degree. 2 3 Bergson Citation Bateson Citation In contrast big differences involve a ​disruptive​ change​ ​that changes the whole game​. They are qualitative​ and not simply quantitative. This is termed: change-in-kind. A change-in-kind is the production of a truly new and novel ​world​ -- it is the making of a world that has not yet existed (see below). Changes-in-degree lead to different ​things -- ​variations, while changes-in-kind are ​not​ new things but ​new worlds​. This is a critical distinction, something totally novel does not add to an existing world but makes a new world. The car did not simply come into being as an improvement of the horse -- it made a new world emerge in which the horse had no place as a form of transportation. The car did not just appear as a discrete product, but displaced the ​world of the horse and replaced it with a total novel infrastructure: the car but emerged alongside the evolution of roads, oil-fields, gas stations, an ethos of the “open road,” the production line, etc. -all of which collectively constituted the world of “cars.” Change-in-kind is a disruptive worldmaking practice in which things ​do not improve​ but, become otherwise​. Improving a product (idea, practice, tool, etc.) is an entirely different skill set and craft from the practices of world-rupturing and worldmaking. Improving is a form of “Developmental Design”, which is something we do everyday -- we are constantly developing things with small fixes, and improvement hacks. Worldmaking, on the other hand, is a rare process in our daily lives. More often we meet distinct worlds when we travel to other cultures, or experience experimental artistic events. While we teach the skills of Developmental Design (Design Thinking and Lean Startup are version of this), we sadly do not teach worldmaking as a fundamental skill. Innovation Design sets out purposely to fill this void and put worldmaking into the core skillset of design. While change-in-kind and change-in-degree are two very distinct forms of change ​they are not in opposition​: you can go from change-in-degree to a change-in-kind by incrementally changing something so much that it crosses a ​threshold​ and becomes something quite distinct. Water reaching its boiling point and transforming into a gas, or a village growing into a city are examples of this. Each crosses a threshold where they become ​qualitatively​ different. Searching for thresholds and pushing processes across thresholds are critical to innovation (see below). And vice-versa a disruptive change-in-kind can lead to a process of incremental development (change-in-degree) see below. Afterall, a new world is only as good as you can develop and improve all of the parts. Having a vision for an ultra-high speed train is easy but making this become something that works (an innovation) is an altogether different beast wholly dependent on one's ability to shift from disruptive worldmaking practices to developmental practices. In summary:​ To understanding creativity, a clear grasp of the distinction between degree and kind is critical. Real innovation begins by knowing the difference between disruption and development (see below). A robust facility with innovation develops by understanding the passageways between change in degree and change in kind. In this way innovation begins with a ​conscious decision​: am I interested in disruption or development? Worlds Once we have a good grasp of the difference between quantitative and qualitative change the next critical concept to understand is that things, processes and ideas do not exist independently -- they are always part of a “world” (an assemblage of practices, environments, objects, concepts, and subjects). A quick example: A hammer is not an object floating in the void. The hammer is part of a way of life that has deeply held values and practices and well as a whole host of very tight connections to other practices and products. Hammers need nails, saws, cut trees, etc. Hammers need arms and hands. Hammers also need a logic for building in a certain manner. The saying “when you hold a hammer everything looks like a nail” gets at the ethos of this world. If you enter a culture without hammers and nails you will quickly notice be a very different sensibility to everything (think classical Japanese houses). Every object, idea, and process is tightly enmeshed in a world. Things emerge from, develop, and return back into their world (see below). Worlds in their most important aspects are wholly implicit and invisible to those living in the world. Much like a fish cannot understand “water” we who dwell in a world have a very difficult time seeing that it is ​a​ world and not ​the​ world. But this does not mean that worlds are immaterial things -- they are not “worldviews” in the sense of an immaterial mindset. Worlds involve a tightly entangled set of tools, concepts, environments and practices. Some of these are explicit, but much of what matters in any world is implicit and invisible. What is implicit is not mental but more embodied in users and distributed in the environment itself. A chair implicitly shapes its user in unspoken and rarely conceptualized ways. Much of this is simply “lived” we embody​ the perspective of a world. Underlying any problem is a series of unspoken assumptions that give the problem its true shape. Prior to creatively transforming a problem one needs to understand the implicit world that shapes and gives rise to the space of a problem and our ways of conceptualizing solutions. This is a difficult and profoundly destabilizing task, for it asks us to challenge our deeply help assumptions and change one's perspective and practices. This can be quite radical and involve a major paradigm switch, but this is not always the case or even always necessary -- at times this can be as simple as a transformation of one's current problem framework. What is critical, is that whatever scale of change and innovation we are working on, disclosing a world and working at the scale of the world needs to proceed the taking on of the problem. ​Worldmaking innovation precedes problem creation. Note:​ The concept of world is not about shifting to thinking that creativity only happens on a massive​ scale. Worlds occur at all scales and cut across scales. In everyday speech we use the word in this manner, “in the world of Louisiana bass fishermen…” or “in the world of rockclimbing…” Worlds and Change-in-Kind Disruptive or Transformative Innovation begins by disrupting an existing world and bringing new worlds into being: Transformative innovation always involves a process of understanding an existing world (1), such that one can step out of it (2), and develop an alternative world (3). See above. A world is always at the heart of our existence. Things cohere. Meaning is of a whole. The whole is other than its parts as Gestalt Psychology makes clear. We don’t begin by noticing details and adding them up into a picture of a person, a room, or an event. The whole comes first: a person, an office, a parade. We are worldly beings. And so to is it for innovation. At the heart of innovation is worldmaking. One we can see the interplay of worldmaking and change we open ourselves up to new possibilities as innovators. The Processes There are three key processes to innovation: (1) Disclosing an existing world, (2) Deviating away from this existing world, and (3) experimentally helping a new world emerge. We label these three phases (1.) Disclose, (2.) Deviate, and (3.) Emerge (see below). NOTE: ​you go backwards to go forwards. Understanding that these three processes come from our two core ideas (1. Change comes in two forms, and 2. Things are part of worlds) is critical to grasping the total space of possibilities when innovating. One simple way to think of this is that much of everyday life is lived on right side of the diagram (see below). This is where we use, adapt and develop ideas, processes and things directly while implicitly living in a world. This is where most teaching and learning happens (how to do things in a world, without question the world). As we move to the left we leave everyday life and become more critical and reflective and begin to search for what underlies what we know and what we do. As we go further to the right we move into the unknown -- the world of re-making and reimagining what anything is and how we could become differently. This is an experimental space where things as yet do not exist. There is no better or worse in this view. We should not fall prey to the idea that disruptive innovation is the answer to everything. All three aspects of life and change matter, what is important is that we understand each and develop useful pragmatic tools to work well across the full universe of change. Thinking of these processes as a sequence of phases is powerful both in terms of learning and applying creative processes, but it can also become limiting if we get habituated to the idea that creativity and innovation follows a clear linear step by step path. Seeing these three abstractions of Disclosing, Disrupting and Developing as general headings that are available to us at any time and in multiple manners is most helpful. Developing a facility at moving between all three in the moment in a spontaneous manner is ideal. With this facility comes the ability to see and flip through worlds and frameworks, develop blockages and leaps while staying comfortable with deep uncertainty, and quickly develop things in fast collaborative give and take manner. EXPERIMENTATION From this basic understanding of worldmaking, change and the three process of Disclose, Deviate and Emerge we can start to put this Innovation Design process to work -- which is to say we can begin to concretely experiment. But, what does it mean to experiment in this context of innovation? At the core of Innovation Design is a unique approach to experimentation. Here are five key aspects of experimentation: 1. Getting out of your head In the western tradition innovation has historically been assumed to begins with ideas -- great ideas that come as fast strikes of lightning -- those eureka moments, or as carefully worked out ideas involving years of lonely struggle. Either way, thinking is assumed to be something that happens both separate from and prior to making (see “The Fallacy of Direct Design” below). This is a type of “god model” of ideation--a god who is all powerful, outside of creation, and knows everything in advance. Luckily, this is not true for us mere mortals. But, none-the-less we as a culture are deeply attached to the classical ideal that first your need a great idea and then a plan to make it. While this might work to develop or improve an existing product or idea, it is totally wrong for radical innovation. A radical innovation is something genuinely new and as such it categorically ​exceeds knowing​. ​You cannot have an idea about what you cannot know because that novel thing does not exist. It is profoundly important to understand that the ​new cannot be known or thought because it does not exist at the beginning of an innovation process​. Knowledge is always a backward looking form of abstraction while innovation is a forward facing evolutionary process. This is hard to grasp given that we one one hand value knowledge above everything, and have told stories of great innovations from the perspective of the idea moment so often and for so long. But these stories turn out to be distracting myths created after the fact to make a messy innovation process fit the god model. A close look at the history on any disruptive innovation is to see a long period of uncertainty, experimentation, and collaboration. The radically new emerges via a long series of iterative actions, which are never exclusively or even ​mainly​ mental. Innovation involves critical periods of experimentation guided by tinkering where vague hunches, material cues, perplexity and intuitions play critical roles. During the early experimental phase of innovation ​making cannot be separated from thinking​. ​Making is a form of thinking​, because of this we need to challenge the lofty role of ideas even further: Innovation involves unknowing & ​non-knowing​. If novel ideas only emerge via a process of engaged experimental doing then pure ideation techniques which are far removed from experimentation such as brainstorming do not play a significant role in the early stages of innovation. What is critical is developing an immersive experimental practice that favors implicit and embodied forms of knowing and doing. This is what is best understood as ​Know-how4. Know-how -- those embodied skills precedes knowledge -- ​Know-how ​(embodied skills, hunches, and experiments), leads to ​Know-what ​(clear ideas, concepts, and frameworks)​. ​This not to say ideas are bad or play no role in innovation, far from it, they are necessary but they 4 This draws upon the work of Varela (Citation) neither come first nor come clearly. ​Doing -- making-sensing​ is at the very core of all radical innovation. And it is only late in the process that “the idea” can be articulated in any clear fashion (know-what). Hunches:​ The new begins non-conceptually, thus we need to follow, join, probe, push and in general experiment in ways that put doing far in advance of clear and distinct ideas. We often talk about this as “having a hunch” -- this is a far better way to describe things than saying “idea” for it embraces the vagueness and uncertainty of the thinking involved early on in any innovation process. Something in the process is shaping us to have a vague idea -- a hunch. What does it mean to say this? 2. Turning Towards Things Getting out of your head means quite simply: a renewed paying attention to things. But, this not an easy task. What matters just a much as the paying attention to things, is ​how​ you pay attention to things (disclosure): Step one: ​see things as having agency and being active. ​The materials, objects and things that we use, make and that surround us are not just passive they push back and even shape us. Often we imagine that the objects we make are simply our ideas given form and as such they are simply our intentions materialized. Nothing could be further from the truth. Matter has agency. Take a sheet of paper for example. Will it do anything you want? Not really, but as you handle it it will begin to ​communicate​ with you: it will reveal that can crease and hold a three dimensional form. Or that when creased it can tear neatly. Now if you are sensitive to this (and not just your ideas) you can begin to work with the active nature of the material to jointly develop ideas. This sympathy for how things communicate and shape other things is not some flakey idea about the soul, essence or spirit inside of things -- it is the simple realization that things have ​agency​. The great theorist of technology, Marshall Mcluhan put it this way: “All things work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered… Any understanding of social change is impossible without a knowledge of the things work as environments.” Think of the smartphone as an example of this--how much of our very being has transformed? Deep Collaboration not heroic individualism: ​This tuning and working with materials and their situational agency is collaboration in its most basic form. This is also the wellspring of ideas--they emerge for the middle of such collaborations and neither you nor the material can claim credit. Innovation happens in a world in a collaborative manner. Collaboration needs to be seen as extending beyond and prior to human-to-human collaboration​. We are always in collaboration with tools, processes, accidents, environments -- even when we think it is just “us” removed from the world having a lonely genius thought... None of this is to ignore the great importance of human collaboration, it like our collaborations with materials, is a constant and ever present truth of being human -- we simply are always more than one and always in collaboration--the trick is to become aware of this and actively work as a willing collaborator with others. Step two: ​Disclosing unintended possibilities. ​Turning towards things as agents is also to see that things exceed at every point and in every way their intended purposes. That things exceed their purpose is the reservoir of open-ended possibility that is the key source of innovation. In evolutionary theory the non-adaptive potential of things is termed “exaptation”. Exaptation means literally outside aptation: that which is outside purpose. All features of all organisms began as exaptations--ears, eyes, hands, wings -all of it is an innovation that began as the utilization of something in an unintended manner. Exaptations XXXXXXXXXXX This reservoir is the positive contribution that joins the important negative contribution of disclosure and blocking to allow genuine novelty to emerge. If disruptive innovation requires disclosure of frameworks (so as to block them) it also requires disclosure of unintended possibilities. XXXXXXXXXXXXXX Step Three: Following/Co-evolving:​ Innovators, when they are innovating, are followers​. If things are active and novel ideas only emerge from the in the midst of experimental collaborative forms of doing then it follows that the act of creation is a form of following and co-evolution. How did origami emerge? Someone ​followed​ paper and co-evolved with the paper into developing the world of origami. Paper, techniques, habits, and worldviews transformed and evolved in the process. In the end it is hard to say who followed who. Innovation is the experimental act of working with and following systems to and across ruptures, shifts, transformations and emergences into newness (the unknowable). You need to be a follower before you can be a leader if you wish to innovate5. 5 The diagram below draws directly upon the work of Ingold (Citation) This process of following is stranger still: you are following a path that is only emerging vaguely in your act. The path or direction does not pre-exist. The experiments are opening up possible paths that might be real if you follow them in the right (experimental) way. “Following” is a form of way-finding in way-making as a collective act. It is only after “you” have walked a path into existence, and you then look back upon it does it look obvious and real. See below. 3. Catalytic Probes If the things we make have agency and can push back upon us in ways that will surprise us, then, for the sake of innovation, it would be best not to think of them as “products” but as “probes.” If during the innovation process we treat as a product we will tend to see it only in terms of our ​intentions and goals​. By doing this we have jumped over the object and the open process of experimentation and are simply left with forcing an object to become our ideas materialized. Let’s return to our example of paper. Paper was designed to be written on, and if we focus on it as a “writing product” we will focus on a limited range of its capacities and potentialities. In doing so we do not pay attention to how it wrinkles, folds, tears or any other unexpected possibility. But when we treat the sheet of paper as a “probe” we are open to where it could take us that goes beyond our intentions. For innovation it is important to see that outcomes (products) are not ends or even temporary solutions -- ​they are probes​. Outcomes (things) are catalyzers and probes that can shift systems into new states. Feeding forward and feeding back. Innovators make probes, not solutions. Think of the Wright brothers multiple bikes, kites, gliders, models, motors, and early planes as probes and you can see why the succeeded while others failed. They probed while others rushed to build final products... 4. Problems Disruptive worldmaking innovation does not solve existing problems — ​it makes existing problems irrelevant​. Here is a favorite example: One of the major problems of horse transportation in the 1800’s was that they shat everywhere. The introduction of cars did not “solve” the “shit problem,” in fact it did not even address the problem, the shit problem simply became beside the point. To simply focus on solving existing problems ​directly​ is to renounce the greatest space of creativity: ​the invention of problems​. Great innovations do not solve problems before they​ invent​ a problem worth having for a world worth making. Normally creativity and innovation is understood to be the development of the most novel solution to a given problem. But to only focus on solutions is to radically limit the scope of innovation (this is what we term “solution thinking”). Much better is to start with reframing the problem, and ​even more creative​ is to invent the problem. This act of “problem producing” is at the heart of Innovation Design. How does one go about inventing new problems? Disclose, Disrupt and Emerge. See below. 5. Systems Nothing in this approach to creativity will make any sense if one does not understand that innovation and creativity are not “things” but processes that are systemic. Far too often, either explicitly or implicitly creativity is talked about as if it were a thing that someone could possess. Terms like “creatives” and phrases like “unleashing your inner creativity” are entirely beside the point if creativity is actually a process. Creativity is not a psychological property of creatives but something fully of the world. “Life is invention, unceasing creation”, as Henri Bergson reminds us. Given this, innovation is best understood as a “more-than-human” process. Innovation is a design process of making that is embedded, evolutionary, responsive, emergent and systems based. The three sets of processes (Disclose, Deviate and Emerge) are not only human processes but ones that we can see across all systems from the emergence of single cell life to language to ipads. Human creative processes are most effective to the degree they can join with other worldly ongoing processes and systems. No one owns these processes, people can be great -- even gifted -- at creative processes but thats it. No matter how hard anyone tries to find “creativity” in the brain it will not happen. It is a foolish as trying to find “flight” by dissecting a bird wing. To really sense creativity as a process we need to recognize that reality is composed of systems. When we look at the world around us: it is all about systems. Reality is not composed of a series of discrete objects that are in direct relation to each other (that could be innovated and transformed one at a time). Reality is totally and absolutely relational-- it is a dynamic system through and through. Innovation is not the making of new products ​but new systems​. Making paper only makes sense if there are also pens, a written language, reading, and a vast network of other key components -- a world of nested systems. All innovation that has ever happened was and is a systems innovation. Underlying the problem of “solution thinking” is the worldview of “thing thinking” -- we need to shift our worldview to a systems based worldview through and through. Here are five key features of systems to keep in mind as we approach innovation6: 1. Systems are not neutral. ​Systems are not just a set of things working together. The system itself has a logic and a point of view that shapes and transforms everything that is part of its universe. Worlds and systems are connected. 2. Systems are processes. ​Systems are processes. developmental processes -subjects/things are outcomes -- individuations. Pay attention to process over product. Relations over things. Qualities over quantities. Systems make a ​field​ of possibilities emerge. Zoom out to the meta-state of a system. 3. Systems work via feedback loops and thresholds. ​To understand a system you need to look beyond the players to the implicit rules of the game. The “unit” of creativity is the system... (this does not mean work at only one scale). Work at the level of the system: while working on “components.” 4. Systems have emergent properties. ​The whole is greater (and different) than parts: The behavior of a system cannot be known from only knowing the parts -- it is more than the sum of its parts. To understand this we need to understand ​emergence​: Emergence is the technical term for a process of coming into being that exceeds and supersedes its inputs. Once a set of things functions as an emergent systems they can cause their own behavior, make their parts, and are no longer de-composable. Emergence is a form of non-linear and non-incremental change (change in kind). Radical Innovation comes about not via some mysterious or mystical internal process but via the process of emergence. 5. Change happens via restructuring the system. I​nnovation needs to take on the structure of the system to develop any form of change-in-kind.​ Pay attention to structure, behavior (emergent), interconnectivity, and boundaries. 6 Donella Meadows Citation DESIGN “Design is a method of action” Ray & Charles Eames Design refers to ​all​ the active ​processes​ involved in ​every form​ of making. Design is necessarily conflated with making, never separate, just as making and change never end, neither does design. We need to mutate Ray & Charles Eames famous definition: “Design is the action of making shaping itself. ” Let’s unpack this. Making is creating. Creativity is making from the perspective of creating novelty. Innovation is approaching making from the perspective of making creativity stick. Design is approaching making from the perspective of developing and engaging the ongoing processes. ​Design is the design of the processes inherent to making in all of its forms.​ This means the big bang = design, Black Lives Matter = design, Clean water = design, a chair = design… Design, as should be clear from this introduction, is not just the making of some cool object. This is only a very very small area in the vast ecosystem of design. All making involves the historical development of processes that make things happen, and this is design. Design comes in many forms and a whole host of processes--processes that are continuously evolving, and disappearing as novel ones emerge. Good design is critical to all of our lives -- we need processes to design ethics, environments, concepts, and tools. When designing an object the goal of design is no different than designing something more nebulous-- design is about no more and no less than ​making something happen​. Design is always about events, and actions. A good chair catalyzes events and actions: sitting, working, napping, attending. The form of an object is always the ​form of an event or action​. The Fallacy of Direct Design Even when we understand design as far broader than just making a cool watch, we can still fall back into understanding the​ processes​ of design in a very narrow and problematic manner. It is worth taking a moment at the beginning of introducing design to look into one of the biggest and most problematic traps to designing for creativity and innovation: ​The Fallacy of Direct Design. This is something that we already touched upon: the concept of “idea first,” “idea centered” or “the god model” of design. This model haunts the very idea of (western) design. Part of the problem with design and designing is how historically we in the west have understood the steps of the design process. Design is an old term coming from the latin meaning “I mark.” For the longest time the ​process​ of design could be accurately summed up by this phrase. Let us take a moment to unpack this phrase as being a shorthand for a process of design: 1. You have an idea, 2. You ​mark it ​out in a plan/model, and 3. You make it to resemble exactly the original mark/idea. This is Direct Design. It is a model of design where a fully realized ​idea wholly ​precedes​ making. We term this model ​Direct Design​ because it imagines making to involve a ​direct line from idea to product​ via a ​plan​. Direct Design works via a closed loop: How will I know if my idea is perfect? If you make exactly my idea. ​As such it has great difficulty allowing for any outside forces to influence the design in a positive manner.​ Everything is determined in advance! Making becomes viewed as a losing entropic battle: If only I knew how to draw better! If only I had more money to hire really good craftspeople then my vision would have been realized! What you think in a clear enough manner to model is what you get, and sadly thinking clearly means not experimenting towards truly novel and unrecognizable forces. Direct Design ultimately substitutes knowledge, control and vision for sympathy, responsiveness, collaboration, innovation and novelty. Direct Design is not so much an actual method as an ​illusion​ of a method. It is a fallacy. ​It is not possible to go directly from idea to outcome​. All reality and all making is complex, responsive, and multi-sourced. Direct Design perpetuates an illusion that we mere humans can aspire to be some form of god who could have an idea and say “make it so”. This is never a useful illusion. Direct Design as a process is still far too often the default way to do design. When we say “Design” or “Designer” we think of the ideas or idea person who is comes up with the design prior to making​. While this logic might have some use in designing a minor improvement in a coffee mug, imagine trying to design a new education system this way: you have a fixed idea of what education should be, you articulate this, and then have some school system carry it out. This is a recipe for a disaster. There is no room for consultation, feedback, discovery, mutation, evolution and real innovation. Despite the obviousness of these massive problems far too often we resort to this “god model” of design without even realizing it. Responsive Design The way to step out of the fallacy of direct design is to see that all design is responsive. There simply is no way to avoid outside forces -- in the end all systems are open and all forms of making are responsive, thus all design that avoids Direct Design is a form of Responsive Design. Developmental Design While Direct Design is still far too widely taught and applied, during the twentieth century many alternatives proposed. The major current alternatives to forms of Direct Design are variations of User Centered Design. These are all in one way or another (1) more responsive to users (and outside forces in general), (2) understand design to develop iteratively, and (2) see design as being bigger than product design. See below. Design Thinking is a very popular variety of user centered design. It is justifiably popular for two reasons: (1.) it takes design out of the very narrow world of product design and rightly places design at the center of all activities, and (2.) it takes on the false image that innovation is done best by a singular designer (Direct Design). This second move towards participatory design involves putting empathy into design which is the critical to User Centered Design. Empathy in design can be a game changer. It moves design from a closed process to an open one in which the world is invited to participate. The problem with Design Thinking is that despite stressing its three big differences from Direct Design, deep down it is not all that different. Design Thinking is essentially the Direct Design method with empathy tacked on at the beginning. See below. While Design Thinking needs to be credited for popularizing the ideas that (1) design is not just for products and (2) design begins with empathy, as a specific methodology it leaves much to be desired. A revised Direct Design is still Direct Design. Both Direct Design and Design Thinking have their place for they are two useful, if limited, models of ​change-in-degree​. Direct Design is most useful when one notices a simple improvement that can be made to something. It really runs into trouble when the question at hand is bigger and more complex for it has no processes for internalizing outside feedback or iterating into novelty. Design Thinking and other forms of User-Centered Design are best at responding directly to user problems by improving and developing existing systems and products. But they are very poor processes for developing genuinely novel approaches to questions -- for this one needs both a process of Disclosure and Deviation (see below). Design Thinking, and other forms of User Centered Design are best understood as forms of Developmental Design (see above)​. They understand innovation and design to be focused on developing​ and improving existing products, processes and systems. Developmental Design is most powerful the further it moves from an idea centric model and towards an iterative, experimental model of co-production. Developmental Design techniques are powerful and useful -- if one understands how they fit into a larger landscape of design processes for Disclosure, Deviation and Development. Sympathy & Empathy in Design Making is an inherently responsive processes. All making happens embedded in a world, collaborating with others, iteratively, and outside of full control or prediction. At the core of being responsive is ​empathy​. With empathy we recognize the other as being a distinct being with its own world, perspective, agency and goals. Empathy lets us respond instead of mandate (Direct Design). Responsive Design ultimately needs to goes ​beyond empathy towards sympathy​. Empathy as it is used in design today is a psychological concept: we have empathy for the users of things that are designed. This is User-Centered Design in a nutshell. But for innovation to happen we need to go beyond the human and have empathy towards things, events, habits and concepts themselves. For it is only when we empathize with things that we can see them as exceeding our intentions, goals and ideas. And it is only then that innovation can begin (see above). Empathy is the first step into allowing things to have agency. But we need to go further. Empathy needs to lead to sympathy.​ Sympathy is, as the designer Lars Spuybrock puts it, “what things feel when they shape each other7”. Sympathy is at the very core of disruptive innovation: we are allowing things to change us. It is in feeling as we are being shaped that we begin the process of know-how becoming innovative know-what. The world of innovation emerges in caring for those very fragile moments when things exceed purpose and we let go of intentions to actively follow them. This is what we need to design. 7 Citation *** Design is about developing processes to make things happen. When this involves novelty we are in the terrain of Innovation Design. Now let us turn directly to the processes involved in Innovation Design.