George Aye: broad & shallow is lame
George Aye from Greater Good Studio in Chicago came to visit MASD last Monday and then a snow storm dumbed Titan hit. However, it turned out that Titan was a joke and so we still held George's lecture. I loved that George began his lecture saying a designer should "earn a seat at the table."
As a former IDEO employee, George has some excellent perspective on social impact, collaborative design, and design thinking. I wish we could have spent all week with him because there really was so much to absorb. Even as a designer himself, his definition of design was super broad.
Design is the tangible realization of intent.
For me, George reinforced that I am approaching my thesis in a sound and sustainable way. He explained that you need access to make an impact—it's the only way you can stand a chance with making a difference. If you involve participants and enable them, you have a much better chance of being relevant. At GGS, the strategy is to go deep with an audience and or client to yield the most return. Something he said in his very pleasant accent...
Broad and shallow is lame!
One thing he touched on, which Mike, keeps bringing up is his model (shown below) of diverging and converging during each phase of the process—research, synthesis, concepting, and prototyping. (Side note: I love that my computer is not reading "concepting" as a real world.) Anyhoo, this model is great because during the course of an entire project you will diverge (go wide) and then converge (pull in & narrow down). You diverge during points of inflection in your work and then converge at that tipping point when you keep seeing the same thing. When you synthesize your research through converging is when you start to define your Theory of Change. Only when you narrow can you truly define it.
Being the daughter of an amateur yogi, I also loved that George touched on his experience as a monk. He talked about understanding behavior with the point of view that one cannot survive without others. The mentality of monks is that you need to have a balance of personal benefit and societal benefit. I find this to be a pretty intriguing concept that relates well to social design.
