Most simply, ‘present shock’ is the human response to living in a world that’s always on real time and simultaneous. You know, in some ways it’s the impact of living in a digital environment, and in other ways it’s just really what happens when you stop leaning so forward to the millennium and you finally …
These approaches combine inward reflection — reflective practice — with an openness to the data that comes in around them without imposing an order on it a priori. The orientation is to the data and the lessons that come from it rather than its directionality or imposing values on what the data might mean at the start. It means slowing down, contemplating things, and acting on reflection not reacting based on protocol. This is a fundamental shift for many of our activities, but may be the most necessary thing we can focus on if we are to have any hope of understanding, dealing with, and adapting to complexity.
All the methods and tools at our disposal will not help if we cannot change our mindset and orientation — even in the temporary — to this reality when looking at complexity in our work.
The language of design is geared towards birthing products and services, but rarely about their sustainability and life over time. What else might move the dialogue from studio to ecosystem?
As the holidays approach, the days get shorter, and the number of demands increase, I am reminded about the benefits of coffee beyond the warmth it brings and how, with time (and maybe a little sugar), it can do wonders to stoke innovation.
We have this remarkable paradox where the demands for more, better, appropriate, timely knowledge is greater than ever on problems that are becoming ever-more complex with more tools to generate and sort this information, and no time to actually use it effectively.
