The current discussion clearly indicates that our colleagues looking for a
common ground come from very diverse substantive areas. In such cases, the
only way to find a common ground is to go up to the highest levels of
abstraction  and engage in philosophy of design. That is level of common
principles and only there we can look for a common ground. All complaints
against abstraction practically sabotage the quest for common principles.

However, we are also very diverse in terms of degree of affiliation to
design or science. This makes the task for finding a common ground even
more difficult. If philosophical level is one possible solution for
scholars, it might be not the best option for designers.

Difficult task -- finding a common ground. Ken might post an award
announcement again. I don't remember who won the last award. Anyway, was
there a winner?

Regards,

Lubomir

At 12:37 PM 10/8/2002 +1000, davidsless wrote:
>John
>
> > My own view is that the design community, design educators in particular,
> > were discouraged from the systems perspective by the hard systems
> > methods introduced in the late 1950s through the 1960s.
>
>I think this is correct, certainly in Information Design.
>
> > this experience led to the development of soft systems methods through the
> > 1970s/early 1980s.
>
>Yes, we did too, but it didn't work very well for us. The same
>'cause/effect' logic applied and we found it extremely difficult to
>discriminate between hard and soft situations. When were we dealing with
>something that would lead to predictable outcomes, if only we had the right
>methods or understanding, and when were we supposed to accept that we were
>dealing with a soft system that could not lead to predictable outcomes? It
>became impossible for us to answer this type of question. Moreover, we found
>ourselves dealing with many situations which were outside of 'cause/effect'
>logic. These were not so much unpredictable as 'non-predictable' (See my
>Common Ground Paper)
>
>The solution was a radical paradigm shift (See my paper 'Transitions in
>Information Design' http://www.communication.org.au/html/paper_26.html
>
>This happened to us in the mid-eighties and it took us into a very different
>kind of space. Dick Buchanan mentioned in his recent post something he said
>in his 'Common Ground' paper:
> > that the design community needs to explore arts of rhetoric and dialectic
> > along with logic and grammar in order to build the field.
>I think Dick is absolutely right. This was the different kind of space we
>moved into in the mid eighties and we have moved a long way into that space
>since then. By the mid nineties we took an even greater transition and we
>are still working our way through the practical implications of that,
>particularly as it relates to government regulation of design (See my paper
>'Transitions in Information Design'
>http://www.communication.org.au/html/paper_26.html. But nothing stands
>still. Unless I am mistaken, I think we are about to make another radical
>shift which I foreshadowed in my Common Ground paper.
>
>Where this leaves design education, I don't know. And I find it quite
>worrying. Bruce Archer at the Co-designing 2000 conference spoke of a thirty
>year gap between research findings and professional training and practice.
>At the InfoDesign ed 2002 conference a week after 'Common Ground' Liv
>Nielsen from Oslo University College spoke of a major government initiative
>to make Business and Government more aware of design, and she spoke about a
>30 year time frame. I asked her what we would have to do if we wanted to
>shorten that time frame by 15 years. Her answer was that the design
>professions would need to get involved in all levels of the initiative.
>
>I suspect that is what some of us on this list are doing by being involved
>in these discussions. It worries me, however, that many of the potential PhD
>proposals I see, and some of the PhDs I get asked to assess, are
>recapitulating the findings and thinking of the last thirty years rather
>than building on those achievements. Much of this has to do with the highly
>fragmented nature of our field (certainly this is true in information
>design). And I'm pleased to say that we are collaborating in a number or
>initiatives that will bring together much of our scattered knowledge. But it
>all takes a long time and, of course, money.
>
>I mention once again. We are looking for funding to make many of our case
>histories of the last 15 years publicly available (some 200 projects). If
>anyone knows of sources of funding, we would be delighted to hear from you.
>
>David
>
>--
>Professor David Sless
>BA MSc FRSA
>Co-Chair Information Design Association
>Senior Research Fellow Coventry University
>Director
>Communication Research Institute of Australia
>** helping people communicate with people **
>
>PO Box 398 Hawker
>ACT 2614 Australia
>
>Mobile: +61 (0)412 356 795
>
>phone:  +61 (0)2 6259 8671
>fax:    +61 (0)2 6259 8672
>web:    http://www.communication.org.au
>
> > From: John Broadbent <[log in to unmask]>
> > Reply-To: John Broadbent <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2002 07:15:53 +1000
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: Building Research Communities
> >
> > Dear Cameron,
> >
>   As noted in my
> > Common Ground paper 'Generations in design methodology', this
> > experience led to the development of soft systems methods through the
> > 1970s/early 1980s.  These methods seem well suited to dealing with
> > the 'wicked' problems so familiar in design practice.  We are introducing
> > soft systems methods into our industrial design program here next year,
> > to respond to what we believe is a significant gap in methodology at
> > present.
> >
> > Kindest,
> > John Broadbent
> >
> > Senior Lecturer,
> > Faculty of Design, Architecture & Building,
> > University of Technology, Sydney,
> > Australia.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Cameron Tonkinwise <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Friday, October 4, 2002 11....................