Hope everyone understands if we gather up some of the statements made on this lively public thread and quote them in our future conference presentations and in updated versions of the Teaching CoCreation Now story now being translated into 3 other languages. There have been some rather electrifying statements on this thread that are certainly worth sharing with wider audiences.

Regarding the hilarious dangerous cult insinuations: Of course in the spirit of thinking ‘outside the box’ one could call any organizational entity with organizational leaders a cult. One might say this discussion list is a cult. One might suggest that all of the schools, departments, programs and organizations represented by the various humans here are cults. In the same imaginative spirit we might also think of such entities as space stations, knowledge centers, factories, organic farms, circuses, academies, research labs, military units, search engines or swimming pools. These are well-known, rather simple, mental exercises for those days when nothing much is cooking.

Whether we call them cults, space stations or circuses, for us what makes a difference is whether a cult-ures output is constructive or not.

Does it exhibit constructive or destructive values and behaviors. Is it in the world in a contributing, constructive way and of course that is often debatable from one cult-ure to another. Sometimes one cult-ure might be advocating change that steps on another cult-ures view of themselves. That dynamic can generate some heat. Of course each of us decides every day which cult-ures we want to subscribe to or not, which broadcasters we listen to or not. No big news there.

From the Humantific perspective we have no problem being among the many cult-ures interacting in the world around a few central themes that we have been working on for many years. We continue to be delighted with the way we are active in that world. We interact in a way that adds value and that we can afford to do from a platform of practice and practice based academy.

For better or for worse we let our work stand on it’s own so we are not always running around defending every nuance of it. Days, weeks, months and even years have gone by when there has been no defense. Sure we are certainly capable of defending when necessary, sure we can hit back but defense is not our focus. Unlike students entangled in academia our orientation is not one of seeking approval for theoretical notions but rather sharing what is already in motion, what has already been realized. This might not align with everyone’s expectations. So be it.

In a competitive world every cult-ure focused on change making generates detractors intent on undermining efforts in ways that better suit their interests. Any rules of the game change inevitably runs up against forces that perceive themselves to be the most honorable gatekeepers of the existing rules. One can see those forces in action every day, in many industries, not just the design education industry.

In doing what we do certainly there are moments when we see behaviors from detractors that we would not subscribe to. It is no secret that from time to time, one can see such behaviors exhibited in this “PhD Design” discussion cult-ure. Some of it gets to the point of being just plain nasty. With the exhibition of such behaviors in mind some individuals here on this list no doubt have individual values that we would not and do not subscribe to. So be it.

Detractor storms come and go with various degrees of force. That is all part of the territory. What we do is not for the faint of heart. Our work continues.

There are moments when we grow weary, particularly when we come under direct personal attack but our focus is never on whether one comment or another is libelous or not. Sure there are moments of sadness. We have young people inside Humantific who read comments here and we talk about what is going on, or not going on as the case may be. On the bright side what we notice is that always in parallel we have people reaching out to us to say lets do something together, that their cult-ure is in the same universe as our own, or they would like it to be. 

However veiled in properness, it does not really matter if a few individuals run around posting that we are dangerous. People are smart. They can see what that is about.

Part of what we are doing is exploring, inventing, modeling design in the strategic space, upstream from product and service creation. A lot of so-called design thinking, design education is extremely tactical. Some have vested interests in keeping it that way where they are themselves most comfortable.

All kinds of odd behaviors start coming out at any suggestion that design might change, needs to change, has already changed in the direction of encompassing more upstream capabilities. After ten years we have seen every conceivable acting out possible, repeated many times over, some of it rather nasty stuff. Frankly speaking, stories of some of it would peel paint of the walls. None of that phases us. We do what we do regardless. We keep going. We stay focused on construction and the already arriving future whether everyone sees it, likes it, or agrees with it or not.

Good luck to everyone.

Thanks again for the quotes.

Have a good day all..:-)

 

GK

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GK VanPatter
Co-Founder

Humantific
SenseMaking for ChangeMaking

NEW YORK / MADRID

6 West 18th Street, 9th Floor
New York City, NY 10011
T: 212-660-2577

http://www.humantific.com 


Follow Humantific on twitter: http://twitter.com/humantific

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Teaching CoCreation Now!

Moving Beyond the Teach Each Other Model

http://issuu.com/nextd/docs/_nextd_teachingcocreationnow