Dear All,
It’s the weekend and time for reflection.
I spent most of last week in conversation with people interested in the outcome of my current design project. Confidentiality agreements prohibit me saying anything specific about the project, except that it is for a major government agency. But here is my take on pictures, big and small.
Reading through the accumulated phd list emails from the week, I was struck by the metaphor Terry used to describe a systems level view: THE BIG PICTURE.
In the early 1970’s I was fascinated by systems thinking, cybernetics, information theory, etc and became enamoured by the BIG PICTURE view it offered of the interconnected nature of complex social and organisational systems. This way of thinking was at the heart of the Design Methods of that period.
At the same time I was investigating the predictions that designers made about the effects of their designs, the assumptions that mass media communications professionals made about their audiences, and the beliefs that rhetoricians and advertising agencies held about the effectiveness of their craft.
Anyone, and there were many of us, who examined these different views of our world, noticed a massive conceptual and empirical disjuncture between what we thought we saw at THE BIG PICTURE level and what we thought we saw at the micro level of individuals and organisations acting ‘within’ the system. There were many responses. Interestingly, Stafford Beer and Chris Jones were among those who ended up seeing poetry and metaphor in themselves as a way of dealing with the disjuncture. Some took the view that THE BIG PICTURE was the only reality, not realising that it was a ‘picture’ like any other, and moreover, from a particular imaginary point of view. Others took the view that we are all embedded IN the world and we had better get used to it! Indeed, those who take this view often sound more like authoritarian preachers of the one true faith rather than sensitive embedded thinkers, but that’s another matter.
But there is yet another way that I have found useful, and that is to work with metaphors that enabled us as embedded participants to make a small difference in the world we work in. In what we call the scoping stage, we begin by inviting people to make pictures of the world from their position in the landscape.
And so, back to my current project. I spent last week meeting people with an interest in my design project and inviting them to contribute pictures of the world from their point of view. Some of the pictures are big, some are small, some are similar, but all are different. My job, as a designer, is to create a new picture, as it were, that will be useful in their world.
Next week I will be collecting more pictures.
David
--
blog: http://communication.org.au/blog/
web: http://communication.org.au
Professor David Sless BA MSc FRSA
CEO • Communication Research Institute •
• helping people communicate with people •
Mobile: +61 (0)412 356 795
Phone: +61 (0)3 9005 5903
Skype: davidsless
60 Park Street • Fitzroy North • Melbourne • Australia • 3068
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