Thanks Ken.
I will follow up and see for myself what I think of the list.
Best wishes,
Toni
Toni Roberts
Hatchling Studio
+61 (0)413 455 414
www.hatchlingstudio.com.au
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ken
Friedman
Sent: Thursday, 16 January 2014 12:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Questions about design thinking
Re: Questions about design thinking
Dear Toni,
It does not seem to me that GK's response was considered. All this chatter
about divisions and antagonistic strategy is overheated rhetoric.
The recent post from GK refers to the largest design thinking discussion
list on the web. This is the LinkedIn group at:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=37821&trk=groups_most_recent-h-logo
Paula Thornton convened the group six or seven years ago. Paula is a
management consultant with deep and serious engagement in user experience,
experience design, and related design issues.
http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=513180&goback=%2Egmr_37821
Paula is the person GK labels as a "moderator who is not surprisingly, not
from a design education background."
GK is mixing half-true facts with falsehoods.
Paula Thornton's original education was not in design. Paula got her
bachelor's degree in business in 1980 at University of Washington. For three
decades since then, Paula has worked extensively in the design field. Her
deep engagement includes user experience design, service design, and
different kinds of research into how users experience processes, systems,
and organizations.
The focus of the Design Thinking group is design thinking. Design thinking
is an approach that designers of many kinds use to facilitate and improve
design outcomes. Design Thinking is not a discussion list about design
activity, design methods, design process, or design outcomes, particularly
not specific design work in fields such as graphic design, architecture, or
the like. Paula asks people to remember the group focus.
It is odd that GK is complaining about Paula's reminders to focus on design
thinking. GK often comes here to post his call for a focus on the two orders
of Dick Buchanan's four orders of design that deal with organizations and
systems. (GK calls them Design 3.0 and Design 4.0.) That's what Paula is
doing on the list she moderates.
Stranger still, GK announces often and loudly that the dynamics of the
marketplace are superior to those of an academic research forum. The design
thinking list shows the marketplace in action. It has attracted more than
24,000 members. Paula must be doing something right.
Now I don't myself believe that the marketplace ought to determine what we
do in a research group - each of these two groups does very different
things. I joined the group when GK suggested I expand my online interactions
into professional discussions. I was surprised and interested by what I
found. Anyone interested in the LinkedIn Design Thinking group ought to join
to read the conversation for themselves.
My opinion of the group differs to GK's opinion. I see no evidence of a
strategy to sets anyone against what GK calls the design community.
The list has many articulate and interesting members. They're struggling
with questions and issues on design thinking in a serious way. Discussions
vary in quality as they do here, but there is real value on the Design
Thinking list.
As for GK's post, I don't see the value of coming to a research list such as
PhD-Design to complain about another group established in a different
community for a parallel but different purpose.
But GK enjoys his complaints. He drifts from group to group like an angry
prophet or an old-time revival preacher. He moves from town to town on a
regular circuit, setting up his tent to handle snakes, preach doom, and
demand that we repent in dust and ashes.
GK once again states his concern for design education and the design
education community. This time, he specifically complains that someone lacks
"a design education background." This makes me curious about GK's education.
What universities or design schools did GK attend? What degrees did GK earn?
What is GK's purpose in complaining to the PhD-Design list about a
professional list populated by apparently skilled and successful
practitioners? This list focuses on doctoral education, research training,
and research. Worrying about the marketplace isn't our concern.
What does concern me is GK's continued complaint about design education and
the design education community. GK has been trying to get design schools to
hire him and Humantific since 2005 or so as a curriculum advisor or an
adjunct instructor of some kind. He has had many conference invitations and
done a number of apparently successful workshops. There has apparently been
no interest in a more durable relationship. As nearly as I can tell, that is
the extent of GK's involvement in design education.
GK claims to have ideas about what universities and design schools ought to
do and what design education ought to be. He has no interest in articulating
his ideas clearly, and he has no interest in publishing his ideas where
people at universities read them. He is only interested in voicing his
complaints in Internet discussion groups or self-published Humantific
pamphlets and books on Issuu.
Lately, GK has gone on a series of rants against some of us who did not wish
to hire him. Speaking from first-hand experience - and from conversations
with people at other universities where GK has tried to get on - everyone
has been reluctant to work with GK for the same reason. There is no evidence
that GK has the expertise or experience to work with university-level design
curriculum issues of any kind as a permanent or contracted staff member, nor
as a consultant.
GK has now raised his critique of others to a new level by suggesting that
the moderator of a professional list lacks competence and judgment because
she lacks a design degree or "a design education background."
So I'd really like to know the basis of GK's ability to judge these issues.
What universities or design schools did GK attend? What degrees did GK earn?
It's 41 degrees Celcius in Melbourne, possibly headed for 44. It hit 45
recently. (That's 106 degrees Farenheit, with a recent high of 113 degrees.)
I don't need to top this up with GK's overheated rhetoric.
As for Paula Thornton's Design Thinking discussion list, make up your own
mind. Go to the list URL and ask to join:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=37821&trk=groups_most_recent-h-logo
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor |
Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia |
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Mobile +61 404 830
462 | Home Page
http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/people/Professor-Ken-Friedman-ID22.html<h
ttp://www.swinburne.edu.au/design> Academia Page
http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman About Me Page
http://about.me/ken_friedman
Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University |
Shanghai, China
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