Exclusive Coverage of Jump@10 - Provocative thinkers in design and business
Friday, June 27th, 2008Last week was Jump Associates’ tenth anniversary celebration. Jump, being the learning-centric organization that it is, decided to host a mini-conference for the occasion. We still ate fancy cocktail weenies and drank lots of sangria - but only after listening to two days of fascinating presentations from our friends and colleagues in industry and academia. When we approached these people and asked them to present, we encouraged them to bring new material to the party. We figured they were tired of giving the same old presentations that they continually repeat at other speaking gigs. Plus we wanted to talk with them about what was currently on their minds.
I tried to take pretty good notes at the event (I’m honing my mind-mapping skills) and I thought I’d share this wonderful content with the world at large. Click on the image below to download a PDF of all of my notes (12 pages) and see my top-line thoughts below that.
Jim Adams - Stanford ME Professor
He laid out some basic human characteristics (we like power, we like growth, we like order, we operate on faith, etc…) and referenced the Ten Commandments as a way of beginning to think about why people resist doing what they should do. He mentioned that capitalism, because it is focused on constant short term growth, is inherently unsustainable. But attacking or rewiring capitalism is like seeking to change the Catholic church. Capitalism is taken as an article of faith by so many. Major change takes a long time - so have the long term view but enjoy the fruits of the moment.
Michael Fazio - Archideas - Designing for people with autism
He discussed designing spaces for people with autism - a project in which he is drawing inspiration and insights from his own autistic son. He was able to extract out some design principles by observing how his son is fascinated with patterns, loves sitting near open windows when it was freezing outside, and finds particular lights offensive. What it really comes down to is finding safe and effective ways to give autistic people more control over their environment (furniture you can tip over, adjustable lighting, under-floor air, sound, etc).
Sarah Beckman - UC Berkeley - Is Cross Functional Enough?
Companies nowadays are lauding the value of cross-functional teams. Sarah’s research suggests that understanding the learning style of the people on the team, and optimizing the team leadership to play to the strengths of different members of the team (potentially at different times throughout the course of a project) is actually more important than a person’s “function.” The learning styles she talked about were based upon Kolb’s experiential learning model. In general, she’s found that high performing teams converge AND diverge more, have a diversity of tolerances for ambiguity, and allow for fluid job responsibilities.
Keith Yamashita - SYPartners - Seeing: The missing skill in business
It was interesting to have Keith Yamashita speak after Sarah Beckman because they presented frameworks that mapped on top of one another (bottom center on my hand-written notes). Through his experience at Stone-Yamashita, Keith talked about how important it is to help organizations see the world in a new way. He described a SEE…BELIEVE…THINK…ACT loop. Companies love action but their thinking is bound to their beliefs - and the only way to change beliefs is to permit yourself to go truly explore and see the world. At Jump we talk a lot about having empathy for your customers and your employees - and at the end of the day, that’s what Keith was getting at.
Andy Hargadon - UC Davis - The business of design and the design of business
I’d seen Andy talk about the importance of networks and connections in innovation - a major theme in his new book: How Breakthroughs Happen. This talk went a bit deeper into how to understand the network of players and forces that make that innovations successful in the world. He talked about looking for shifts in the networks that are out there already and finding new ways to connect them. Ultimately, you want to be the conduit through which value flows. I especially enjoyed the case study about a fascinating website called MaxPreps, which is the clearinghouse for information and statistics for high school athletics. It’s designed in a way that athletes, parents, teachers, coaches, colleges, newspapers, and even photographers get something out of contributing content to the site. Since it is a win-win-win-win…, it has grown leaps and bounds.
Robyn Waters - RW Trends - Now What?
Robyn used to be the Vice President of Trend, Design, and Product Development at Target. After leaving that job to set off on life on her own terms, she’s spending some time to reflect on where she’s come from and where she’s going. Hers was one of the most personal and impactful talks of Jump@10. She talked about Finding Success, Finding Me, Finding Meaning, and, finally, Finding Joy. She’s a fabulous storyteller and anchored her stories with really powerful Zen koan-like sayings. Some of my favorites were:
“There’s no traffic jam on the extra mile.” (Chinese Fortune)
“He who deliberates fully before taking a step will spend his entire life on one leg.” (Chinese Proverb)
“It’s our choices that show what we really are, far more than our abilities.” (Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
“If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn’t have opened for anyone else.” (Joseph Campbell)
“Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.” (Confucius)
Amy Edmonson - Harvard Business School - Fear & Failure in Knowledge Organizations
Amy started off by talking about how she worked with Buckminster Fuller after graduating from college - and wrote a book about him after his death. Of course, I liked her immediately. Her talk was about how organizations fear and intolerance of failure hampers performance. She rightly claims that failure is mission critical to innovation - and that the real challenge is to learn how to fail intelligently. A requisite first step is creating an environment of psychological safety so that employees feel confident in sharing ideas that will benefit the organization. Organizations need to have a failure strategy and not send mixed messages about failure by telling employees that its okay to fail and then only compensating them for success. She referenced Sim Sitkin’s five conditions for failing intelligently: 1) Thoughtfully planned actions, 2) Uncertain outcome, 3) Modest scale, 4) Executed with alacrity, and 5) Sufficiently familiar environment to permit learning.
Sam Lucente - HP Design - HP @ 5
Sam talked about the challenges and opportunities that have been involved in his quest to use design more strategically within HP over his five year tenure as VP of Design. His Design to Simplify, Design to Differentiate, and Design to Innovate framework created a common language for executives to talk about how design can help the business (driving both top and bottom line results). While HP is an environment that prizes efficiency and appeals to the mass market, he talked a bit about how important it is to not compromise the “story” of iconic products by cost-cutting them to death (”You shall not kill iconic products”). Two of HP’s iconic products are a Voodoo Notebook thinner than the MacBook Air and the Blackbird gaming PC. He then ceded the floor to Debbie Mrazek of HP and Katherine Wakid from Jump to talk about Jump’s ongoing work with HP to better manage and measure the design process (work that I was involved with for over a year).
