Adam Menter’s Blog

I am starting to take a leadership role in the San Francisco professional chapter of Net Impact. Last night we hosted an event at a restaurant downtown in which Net Impact members could sign up to sit, talk, and eat dinner with a thought leader in one of eight spheres of socially responsible business. We had tables for social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, sustainable lifestyles, and non-profit management among others. I sat at, and facilitated, the green design table with Alan Bright from HOK Architects. We had a very interesting and engaging conversation. One high-point for me – and something that was almost out of The Twilight Zone – was when the table got into an impassioned discussion about Wal-mart. And how great it is.

Yes, you read that correctly. A group of professionals in San Francisco who were getting together to talk about how to use business for positive social change were talking about Wal-Mart in a positive light.

What happened? Wal-Mart started to get serious about sustainability.

We had talked how the energy crises had been such a boon to green architecture and contrasted that with how globalization and China, Inc. was affecting product design. Because of the overabundance of inexpensive gadgets, people in the USA are able to buy more with less. And have subsequently filled their lives with stuff – without really thinking about where it came from, what’s in it, or where it will go once disposed of. Digging a bit deeper into the issue we talked about how instrumental it is to educate consumers about the full costs of the products they buy and how critical it is to provide more responsible products that are compelling regardless of their environmental merits. In this realm, Wal-Mart has always been seen as the bad guy. When the W-bomb was first dropped, the folks at the table let out a collective gasp in what was an almost involuntary, conditioned aversion to the retailer (here we go again…let’s beat this dead horse – and beat him good!). BUT - here is where the conversation swung in Wal-Mart’s favor. After a brief moment of sizing up the crowd, we started talking about some of the new things Wal-Mart is doing.

Wal-Mart has been intensely focusing on sustainability for over a year. By using the same efficiencies and economies of scale with which they so successfully reduced prices, they are trying to drive sustainability. They appear to be serious about it, are working collaboratively with NGOs and outside groups, and have set ambitious goals. Their goals are to be a zero waste company (by 2025), use 100% renewable energy, and sell products that are both affordable and sustainable. Purists and skeptics still argue against the retail giant saying that it negatively affects society in so many other ways and still promotes over-consumption. The reality is that Wal-Mart is a natural response to our society and the way we live - we should not expect them to close their doors and become a Buddhist monastery. Wal-Mart has lots of levers to pull and a tremendous opportunity to use them to do good. I am encouraged by their willingness to make tangible changes in their business – and in doing so, drive society and their company towards a more socially and environmentally responsible future.

Here are some things they are doing (check out some of the videos on their site) :

• Reducing the packaging on the products they sell – both realizing distribution efficiencies and reducing waste.
• Reducing the “food miles” of the food that they sell.
• Creating multiple networks to bring suppliers, packagers, NGOs, and other stakeholders together to communicate and work on improving their products.
• Driving more sustainable development in China by requiring better health, safety, and environmental standards for their suppliers.
• Recycling much more in their stores and educating consumers on how to recycle the products they buy.
• Reducing the hazardous chemicals found in the products they sell.
• Ranking the environmental performance of products and holding manufacturers to higher environmental standards. (“The scorecard will reportedly evaluate electronics on energy efficiency, durability, the ability to be upgraded, end-of-life solutions and the size of the package containing the product.”)

The folks at Net Impact knew about many of these initiatives. They were excited about them. They were looking forward to watching them closely – and keeping Wal-Mart true to its word. Talk about a complete turn-around from where a conversation about Wal-Mart would have gone just a year ago! Let’s hope they (and we, as consumers) make good on all of the optimistic promises.

There is an interesting blog post on the Adaptive Path website about design education. The title – “Design Schools: Please Start Teaching Design Again” – is a direct plea calling for design schools to get back to basics. You can almost see the author throwing his hands in the air.

The author claims that “quite a few design schools no longer teach design. Instead, they teach “design thinking” and expect that that will be enough (Frankly, it isn’t.)” He goes on to say that “Thinking without the making and doing is almost useless in the job market, unless you want to work at Accenture or some other big consulting firm.” He then says that “D schools are doing a serious disservice to their students by only teaching them “design thinking” when a class in typography or mechanics or drawing might not only give them a valuable skill, but also teach them thinking and making and doing — all at the same time…It’s harder to execute an idea than to have one, genius being 99% perspiration and all.”

I am relatively new to design, but this rings true – and hits close to home. I have a mechanical engineering degree and I feel like I was only taught “engineering thinking.” I know that accredited engineering programs have to follow strict guidelines – but when the guidelines don’t mandate a course in machining or technical drawing, a key foundational piece is missing. We are graduating mechanical engineers who don’t know how to work with bicycles let alone engines. The excuse is that graduates with a B.E. will be managing the engineers who do the dirty work or that on-the-job training out of school will teach you the skills you really need to know.

It sounds like design is running into the same phenomenon. In our service and information-based economy, theoretical knowledge is more important than technical ability. And rightly so - coming up with great ideas is higher value work. The disconnect is that ideas only become robust when they are backed up by the hands-on, real-world understanding of what happens to designs when they leap off the page or computer screen and into the lab, workshop, or assembly line.

I can’t be too critical because I don’t have too many of those deep hands-on experiences. I can only comment on what I think is a slightly flawed process as I stand at the end of it and look back. For my part, I am currently trying to backfill some of that real-world understanding and get my hands dirty.