Clarification on Sless comments:
 
Understanding Lab, not NextD works in the realm of enabling knowledge
creation and innovation in the context of large global organizations.
 
The NextD initiative is an experiment that we launched outside of our
Understanding Lab practice. Combined these entities allow us to engage in
and contribute to multiple dimensions of the design community far beyond
what Mr Sless describes as the big end of town.
 
We believe that all of us as individuals have the right and responsibility
to grapple with the age old questions of designer as handmaiden, midwife,
shaman, radical, subversive, wrecker, joker, tinker, etc. It is not likely
something to be legislated from on high somewhere.
 
We believe that each of us also have the right and responsibility to help
move design forward. We do find that it takes much more thought and effort
than sending off an occasional provocative email to various list
communities.
 
We also believe that it is time for design to do some growing up, time to
show less bickering and more direction to new generations of designers who
must face real challenges in a difficult marketplace. The business people in
the big end of town need not be our enemies. We are better than that. We can
do better than that now. We are much more likely to make a difference in how
they think and what they do if we are talking and engaged with them.
 
There is a closing window of opportunity for design to move towards becoming
the force in the world with the skills and tools to maximize diverse and
creative brainpower. Why not take advantage of that opportunity? Its time to
let go of designs divisive orientation and embrace the future.

Time to move to action now.
There is a lot of work to be done!
Wishing everyone good luck out there.

...

GK VanPatter
Co-Founder
NextDesign Leadership Institute
New York

NextD
Who will lead design in the 21st century?
http://nextd.org
...

UnderstandingLab
Still making the complex clear!

http://understandinglab.com

...
> From: David Sless <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: David Sless <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2003 13:18:27 +0000
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: who do we serve?
> 
> David Sless here again. I have been preoccupied over the last week with
> two events of my own: one a conference on 'information design
> histories'; and the other a planning forum on 'health information
> design'.
> 
> So, though separated from you, I have been engaged by many of the same
> issues. But I have not been able to keep pace with all the posts in the
> conference, so my apologies if what I'm about to say has been said.
> 
> I left the discussion on this list just after GK VanPatter entered with
> his 'patter', as it were. A tour de force!
> 
> GK told us
>> We [at NextD] work in the realm of enabling knowledge creation
>> and innovation in the context of large global organizations.
> 
> This is impressive, if you are impressed by that sort of thing. I too
> do some of my work with the big end of town 'enabling knowledge
> creation and innovation', though I would not call it that.
> 
> As you may sense, I may not be impressed, indeed I'm concerned.
> 
> Let me put it in the form of a hypothetical. Suppose the big end of
> town stops taking an interest in design? Is that the end of design?
> Must our services be inextricably linked to the needs and interests of
> the big end of town? Is what-is good-for-business, good-for-design?
> 
> UCI and its proposal‹dependent as it is on business patronage‹may not
> be the best place to consider the alternative relationships that
> designers may have to the world, organisations and individuals, but
> alternative relationships exist and form a large part of the
> intellectual preoccupation of designers. What are we: handmaidens,
> midwifes, shaman, radicals, subversives,wreckers, jokers, tinkers? Who
> do we serve and why? Do we have any purpose beyond our clients needs?
> 
> These are questions that I think have escaped our collective attention.
> If they have not, and I have missed it, my apologies.
> 
> From my little garret in Stoke on Trent,
> 
> 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 1008
> Hawksburn, Melbourne
> VIC 3142, Australia
> 
> UK phone: +44 (0)17 8284 8744
> UK Mobile:+44 (0)79 9072 8465
> fax:    +61 (0)2 6259 8672
> web:    http://www.communication.org.au
> 
> 
> -- 
> 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 1008
> Hawksburn, Melbourne
> VIC 3142, Australia
> 
> UK phone: +44 (0)17 8284 8744
> UK Mobile:+44 (0)79 9072 8465
> fax:    +61 (0)2 6259 8672
> web:    http://www.communication.org.au