#spring15sec11

[pfpsfieldguide]

“Why are we living in a society where we’re willing to tolerate car crashes?” --Larry Burns, Professor of Engineering @ University of Michigan & former GM head of R&D

The right kind of question to spark the kind of change that saves lives, land, money, the environment, and allows us to begin really re-imagining community design as we've known it for the last century. #neverseenaparkinglot #valetforeveryone

--Submitted by William Morgenstern

[pfpsfieldguide]

I found myself in a cafe in Oakland before school one afternoon and I was surprised to find that the cafe had a rather specific policy about wifi and mobile devices. I was happy to realize that I was there on a day where wifi and devices were allowed but I was also impressed with the notion that on certain days of the week, there was an expectation that patrons of the cafe were going to interact with each other rather than spend hours staring at a screen and tapping away at a key board. The cafe designed their rules to create an engaged social space that would attract some customers and turn off other customers. I found the decision to be interesting and I will probably be back to the cafe the next time I have plans to meet friends in downtown Oakland.

[pfpsfieldguide]

Transforming the Symphony

http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/03/22/sf-symphony-entices-new-audiences-with-soundbox-venue

http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2015/03/27/playing-in-the-soundbox/

  Faced with declining attendance, the San Francisco Symphony created SoundBox, transforming a rehearsal hall into an intimate concert venue to attract new patrons to the Symphony.  Unlike the more rigid symphony hall, the 500 SoundBox attendees have a more casual experience with videos, shorter programs, and longer intermissions combined with drinks and food.  Using an open space that can easily be transformed in different configurations, the Symphony can test new formats of performing classical to learn what new customers like using an unconventional space.

 -Cassie Sapiro

[pfpsfieldguide]

“We want more disruptive innovation and less planned innovation. To do this, we had to let go. We thought, what if we removed the obstacles that are stopping people from innovating? What if we gave them the resources? There are no rules or constraints.”

After taking PFPS, I wondered what my companies approach to innovation was.  I was delighted to see we recently started a program called Kickbox. Inside this little red box is $1000 and everything you need for to ideate and rapidly prototype an idea.  You can request a box without manager intervention, there are no deadlines as to when you need to present your idea, and there is no judgement if the idea does not pan out.  Ultimately, it is a way for the company to make tons of little bets instead of making large financial commitments to a single idea.  This process allows you to just go and see what happens instead of having to start by pitching an idea and having the idea squashed in its infancy.  What a great way to explore new ideas.

[pfpsfieldguide]

Benjamin Bratton's Provocative, Insightful "TED" Talk

Bratton delivers a scathing indictment of TED talks, taking aim at the core fallacy of the genre: that by embarking on journeys of personal realization ending in epiphany, innovators can design their way out of the problems we face. While this design process may help bring about the next Apple Watch or Fitbit for Dogs, it actively prevents us from addressing the much larger, hopelessly complex economic, environmental, and social problems the world faces. To Bratton, the idea that we can solve these problems by “keeping calm and carrying on innovating” is not just delusional, “it’s harmful. It diverts your interest, enthusiasm and outrage until it’s absorbed into this black hole of affectation.”

To address these problems in a serious manner will require huge structural changes in the way we live our lives. Our approach to solving these problems will need to match the “complexity of the systems in which we are embedded and which are embedded in us.” Issues like genocide and global warming are far more nuanced and intractable than an inspirational 15-minute talk would have you believe.  ”Problems are not ‘puzzles’ to be solved. That metaphor assumes that all the necessary pieces are already on the table, they just need to be re-arranged and re-programmed…’Innovation’ defined as moving the pieces around and adding more processing power is not some Big Idea that will disrupt a broken status quo: that precisely is the broken status quo.”

While innovation is important and useful, we must dig deep and really challenge ourselves to bring about the change we want to see.

http://www.bratton.info/projects/talks/we-need-to-talk-about-ted/

-Nick Orton

[pfpsfieldguide]

VP of Strategy at from talking about PFPS methodologies are used daily to solve their clients problems

[pfpsfieldguide]

Finding the right problems to solve

http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell

In this Ted Talk, Malcolm Gladwell tells The Strange Tale of the Norden Bombsight, where the US Government spent billions on a technology that didn't solve the real problems of the people using it and was used for solving problems that didn't exist, too (perfect sighting on a nuclear bomb is not an essential).

In our daily lives we see people, institutions and governments continually inventing sights those can find the pear barrel 20,000 feet below, even though we don't need it. We continually seek solutions to the wrong problems, at great expense, and build things we, and the users of the things, don't need. And finally, we develop a strong capacity for building success around the wrong metrics to justify our bold, but wrong, decisions.

But, Sara Beckman’s design thinking model, gives an opportunity and a methodology to find the real problem, understand it, observe it and most importantly validate it by learning from real users. So, no more solving things that don’t require solving.

We should, instead of creating this generation of problem solvers, people who can solve imaginary theoretical pseudo problems really well, we must help carve out a generation of curious continual learners who want to find the next great genuine problem that needs solving.

[pfpsfieldguide]

In class we conducted ethnographic interviews to understand peoples' food choices and how they eat “on the go”. It’s normal to hear descriptions about taste, cost, and the overall “experience” of eating at restaurants. I expect that few people would describe the sounds they hear at restaurants to relate their dining experience. That’s why it’s so interesting to consider how Larry Levine introduced the fajitas to his chain of Chili’s restaurants in the 1970s. I imagine that he watched how heads turned from every table when a server walked through the restaurant with a hot skillet of sizzling fajitas, and realized that he'd found a winner. The Chili's fajita demonstrates how the experience of eating can appeal to all our senses.