Returning to first principles

What I notice about design is that it’s a lot about finding balance or harmony. The Venn diagram for desirability, viability and feasibility is a familiar one used. That’s about balancing people, organisational needs and what’s possible to do in the time. Another helpful balancing act exists between individual and target population needs. In design, we use qualitative research to learn about the needs of individuals. That’s because each of us, our lives and our experiences are unique and diverse. I’ve never met anyone that’s exactly like anyone else, even identical twins! Also, we use quantitative research too - so we can know more about what is happening at a population level. We need to know what works for everyone we’re designing for, not just the few.?

And this goes beyond products and services. Political systems are alike. We criticise Capitalism, for example, for placing the needs of individuals above our society. This can foster aggressive competitiveness and a lack of compassion for those that can’t “make it”. It can lead to extreme inequality with only the few ultra rich and ultra powerful calling all the shots. This often leaves the majority living powerless and in poverty. We also criticise Communism for placing the needs of our society above individuals. It opens the door to stifling our individual expression, ingenuity, creativity and diversity. This can intensify to the extent it becomes tyrannical. At such a point, unique individuals are coerced and forced to conform to the whole. Otherwise they may face ridicule, isolation and at worst extreme atrocity from a centralised force. History appears to show us that when there’s extreme individualism or extreme collectivism - it’s bad.?

We can see another part of the balancing act too is with the environment or natural ecosystems that we are a part of. We are integral to the local ecosystems that we inhabit. They all connect. They embrace our entire world - countries, nations, states and all communities too. Our ecosystems are rich in flora, fauna and also people. But we are now witnessing these lands we inhabit, stripped of their natural diversity of life. We see our forests, oceans,?grasslands and soil diminishing in diversity. We experience more scarcity with less and less availability of the life we depend on. We can’t keep prioritising our individual and/or our collective needs above all this. The first people of this place we call Australia knew the land as sacred. They lived in harmony with our natural ecosystems for, some say, 65 thousand years or more. Bruce Pascoe in Dark Emu writes about first Australians’ farming practices. He discusses how they built large villages and stayed in one place contrary to what many are led to believe. This rich culture with thousands of language groups, stories, rituals and customs, remains today. To be frank, not engaging the people with proven stewardship of this land is a sign of our hubris. An acknowledgement by itself lacks substance if such an engagement is absent.?

So what should we do about it?

It’s clear we need to reimagine how we partake in these core relationships we are an integral part of. A popular service designer I follow, Marc Fonteijn, asked the following question on LinkedIn that is relevant to this topic:

What important question are (service) designers not asking, which they really should be?

I followed up with this question:

How are relationships between people at a group and individual level and connected ecosystems better because of this?

But I later added this:

...there's a more self-reflective and related one. So, considering the butterfly effect, we might ask ourselves... how do I influence the context of this service in a way that's not in service to or aligned with those core relationships? In other words, what's my part to play in the current state of affairs? That might help us shift gears towards having less hubris and more humility. So, for me, that's the more important question to ask and one often not asked.

So then, how can we start to reimagine all this?

Products, services, organisations, even political systems are like our models crystallised into reality. A product, like a toaster, is a model encoded with actions and rules into a physical object. It has an outside appearance and inner workings. A service, like that of a concierge, is also a model encoded with actions and rules. It has an outside appearance and inner workings too. We can imagine a company in the same manner. A company is like a model with actions and rules, an outside appearance and inner workings too. We can imagine our political system in the same way as well. All these share something core and in common. They consist of direct relationships between people at a group and individual level. They also share a direct relationship with everything in the environment. This includes our built and natural ecosystems that nurture us. These are the core relationships that make up the real economy.

We can begin to describe how our models work well in harmony with all these or how they don't. So the success of a model is to the degree in which it serves these core relationships. We then ask, how do our products, services and organisations bring balance to these relationships? Do they enhance or break these relationships? If they do, do we need to reimagine the model? How do we move towards harmony and away from harm?

Sure, call them models but how does that help??

Reimagining our products, services and organisations as models, steers us towards first principles. Thinking from first principles helps to reverse-engineer complicated problems towards creative possibilities. When we strip back complexity to basic underlying rules or first principles, we ask more holistic questions. This also marks a shift from designing to meta-designing. Metadesign is about redesigning how we design. This is crucial, as design by itself is not enough. This is more and more self-evident today. Many of our "wicked problems" are in fact “by design” - either intended or unintended. Often unintended and harmful impact starts by designing with isolated focus, instead of a more holistic design approach. At some point, we need to acknowledge we can't design this way for much longer, we are not isolated. We can't contain what we do and how we design. Every harm reverberates far and wide and comes back to bite us. Call it karma if you like. The reverse is also true.?

So how do we move from harm to more harmony by design?

There is a simple not so simple answer. To be continued in the next post. For now, check out these resources for more inspiration:

• What is good design (part 3): https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/what-good-design-part-3-david-berigny/
• Metadesigners - Meta-design: https://metadesigners.org
• Transition Design: Transition_Design_Monograph_final.pdf
• Ethical Fields: https://ethicalfields.com
• Design Principles for Permaculture: https://deepgreenpermaculture.com/permaculture/permaculture-design-principles
• David Mowaljarlai - Yorro Yorro: https://www.booktopia.com.au/yorro-yorro-david-mowaljarlai/book/9781925360059.html?
• Bruce Pascoe - Dark Emu: https://www.booktopia.com.au/dark-emu-bruce-pascoe/book/9781921248016.html?source=pla&gclid=Cj0KCQjwxJqHBhC4ARIsAChq4aulHNMCQkXmBlLS7hJ5boehJpi0T45UZtd2FGgiisZBND8x_7E14JIaAgavEALw_wcB