Why We're All Designers

Photo: Teo Sze Lee, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

I give a talk at MIT’s Sloan School of Management each year to an MBA class on the design and marketing of new products. I usually lead off my presentation by asking, “How many of you think that design will be a big part of your next job?”

About a third of the hands go up, and I take the opportunity to suggest the reality is probably a much higher percentage. The successful introduction of new products, services, environments, etc., requires not just professional designers, but also people who are advocates, builders, marketers and purchasers of the stuff designers produce. These roles are hugely influential in the innovation process, and they help determine whether the results are an academic exercise or a world-changing concept. So as active participants in that process, they'll have the opportunity to be designers themselves.

To illustrate my point I like to recall a memorable learning experience of my own. When I was a graduate student in architecture, I served as a teaching assistant for undergraduates who were exploring architecture through a hands-on design studio course. The professor in charge got all of the instructors together one day and advised us not to view these students as future architects. There was a much greater likelihood, he said, that they would become lawyers, bankers, teachers, or business executives. In other words, they would become the people in our communities who make decisions about design, which in this case meant the design of the built environment. At the very least, they’d be writing the checks.

The idea that everyone is a de facto designer is a sobering one because it is dependent on proper education. Without an appreciation of the design process, it is difficult for someone who has a stake in the outcomes to be a productive participant. Design, and the professions that engage in it, are still pretty exotic to most of the American public. By the time we’re all young adults, we’ve had exposure to professionals such as doctors, lawyers, maybe an accountant, and we generally understand their value. But professional interactions with designers are rare, and an understanding of how they do what they do is a mystery. So when the concept of "design thinking" was introduced to the business world more than a decade ago, it became hugely popular. Designers started promoting the tools of their trade as applicable to core business decisions, and this education has enabled more productive collaborations between designers and their clients, as well as product managers and their bosses. Both translate into better outcomes in the form of successful commercial products.

Today design tools and methodologies have begun to find their way to the social sector, and this is no surprise. Nonprofits are inherently innovative enterprises because most were formed by a social entrepreneur with a vision to change the world. Yet as they grow, they become exclusively focused on the challenges of daily operations. The kinds of continuous innovation activities that are critical to organizational growth and program renewal give way to more basic functional needs. To avoid the threat of stagnant maturity and potential decline, nonprofits must actively develop techniques for better understanding their communities, for taking those insights and refining their programs through iterative prototyping, and for telling their story through creative communications. We cannot afford to rely solely on costly design resources or consultants and do not typically have the means to manage a dedicated innovation project. Social sector organizations must develop the most basic of these skills if for no other reason than to make better decisions about how to proactively direct the use of limited resources for maximum impact.

When such capabilities are widely developed within the social sector, we’ll be able to say that we’re all designers too. To thrive, we’ll have to be.