Don has argued his case for a few years now, in "our court" and in
conferences such as IIT's Design Research. I'm surprised at the extent to
which our colleagues continue to act amazed that paradigm entrenchment is
not the case in design and social sciences research. Let me add a pragmatic
view.
Picking apart Don's statements also shows a regretful lack of understanding
of Verganti's long-standing argument made in Design-Driven Innovation.
Verganti promotes increasing the variety of "interpreters" in an innovation
setting so that signals and trends from outside the immediate domain can
intervene. This sensitization process is not a typical social science-based
method.
As with any well-reasoned argument, nobody is stating that good exceptions
don't happen. Sometimes we get the right opportunity. But if rapid
ethnography, or even lead user innovation can "discover" next generation
breakthroughs from everyday human practices, there would not be any
disagreement. Social sciences based research requires we study a unit of
analysis related to currently performed activities. User behavior studies do
lead to incremental innovations and significant improvements in practice.
But these are not Bell Labs-level breakthroughs.
We've developing curriculum in an MDes Strategic Foresight and Innovation
program, and I have to agree with Don's point here. The purpose of foresight
research in innovation is to push beyond the immediate temporal bounds of an
innovation problem. In theory this is easy enough to do. In practice, it's
hard to win over sponsors for long-reach innovation studies - these studies
(and especially social fiction ideas) are speculative, ambiguous, often
unconvincing and can seem unproductive to clients, even when initially
convinced. Large foresight projects are more often sponsored by
non-traditional design clients - government, foundations, research
institutes. Corporate clients are interested on occasion, but how many
"future of banking" projects did the major financial firms do before 2008?
Did they accept or deal with the social future of the possible societal
rejection of large banks? Or were we stuck in our own paradigms even in
futures research?
I know of more cases of functional fixation (followed by regret) than of
designers that actually tried to warn their high-end clients that a 1930's
anti-bank environment could occur again.
Peter Jones
Peter Jones, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Faculty of Design
Sr. Fellow, Strategic Innovation Lab (sLab)
OCAD University, Toronto
Product innovation generally wants good economic prospects in the short
term. If we have clients, we have to compromise to some extent. That means
short term, current paradigm, with a slight break into next generation. We
get used to it. If we teach ideals that are completely unreachable, we may
Well, I stand by that statement. I believe it is justified through an
incredible amount of existing psychological research. I believe it applies
to my own work as well: I have to make a strong effort to avoid being
captured by existing paradigms.
If some of you wish to discount that, it is your right. But it would be
useful to see some evidence.
Don
On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 5:56 AM, Eduardo Corte-Real <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I Terry, it is interesting that Cameron asked for "qualification, if
> not evidence" and Don answered with quotations. That's a good example
> of what you are saying.
> Best,
> Eduardo
> Corte-Real Dr Arch. Professor IADE
>
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