Summary from the Front End of Innovation Conference in Boston, May 2007.

Buxton began his presentation on design thinking with by questioning infrastructure. If Mozart’s father hadn’t owned a piano, would Mozart have become a great sausage maker instead of a composer?

Social ecology is about how you shape the issue. Mozart and Gates are freaks of nature. It is the environment that permits them to happen. With Mozart, the world of music was in transition. The harpsichord was being replaced with a new technology – the piano. Mozart exploited the opportunity to make transition succeed.

Innovations require new and broader infrastructure. None of this was set up for Mozart. Europe’s existing infrastructure favored journeyman musicians. Unlike the harpsichord, the piano could project sound. A concert tour for a harpsichordist was limited to country houses. Music halls did not exist. The innovation of the piano created a need for larger venues, architects and designers who understood acoustics, conductors and orchestras that could accompany the pianist.

Mozart and infrastructure prospered in collaboration with each other. The Archduke of Saltsburg funded the development of new concert venues just as the Medici family funded the Renaissance. Societies or industries that do not invest do not reap the rewards. Design is a critical function of management – an ecological perspective, a collective Zeitgeist.

There is a strong need to view business as design. The University of Toronto is contemplating a Master of Business Design as an alternative to their MBA program. Buxton cited several books as evidence of the trend toward design thinking in management: Managing as Business. Managing as Designing, and Business Design.

The first day Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he invited analysts to hear his new vision. He explained that Apple would “Do it by industrial design.” The analysts didn’t understand his point until 18 months later with the introduction of the iMac. Apple stock spiked 6-8 times.

The turnaround used design to leverage the same talent that was already on staff through the previous decline. Sculley had taken the helm at Apple’s peak. It was a crime, in Buxton’s estimation, to have paid full price for staff talent and to have failed to exploit it. Instead, Apple produced a string of undifferentiated products. Jobs took same staff, applied executive vision and design thinking to push the company to new highs.

Our perception of the computer changed as new colors and shapes appeared. The dot bomb soon killed their growth. Apple still produced failures. But, those failures guaranteed future successes. If a company is successful every time, it’s not shooting high enough.

For most of its early history, the Mac was a financial failure. The Apple II carried the company. But, with the release of the iPod, Apple not only soared, but redefined the company. The iPod is third in its class as a music player. But around it, Jobs, like Mozart, was able to realize an ecological shift. Napster’s problems contributed to the iPod success. iTunes and supporting infrastructure, culture, legal department, advertising and distribution all contributed to the ecosystem. It was a phenomenon because its design was appreciated and understood at highest level of the company. This is an example of the potential of a chief design officer with executive authority.

The definition of a skunkworks is people doing what they shouldn’t be doing in order to save the company. Design thinking must start at the top. You have to permit failure.

Engineering are vertical thinking problem solvers - conclusive thinkers. Design thinking is expansive. It comes into a situation with at least 5 viable lateral thinking-based solutions.

Buxton supports sketching as a quick, flexible, non-threatening conversation starter for exploring alternatives. Sketches represent hair brained, incomplete, malleable, collaborative exercises for idea development. It is the incompleteness of conceptual sketches that invites interaction, greenhousing, advancement of the idea. It’s an investment is the process versus the product. He also cited the “critique” as a vital missing element in non-design thinking based decision making. The critique is a common function of all art and design school interaction. It is used to explore what is and what isn’t present in an idea. It is not necessarily negative. More often, it adds to the value or potential of the idea. Respectful criticism is a vital form of social exchange best experienced among colleagues than from the public after the product is marketed.

Sketching is impersonal. It’s not about me. It’s about the sketch. It is so fundamental, Buxton couldn’t believe how little attention it gets in books on creativity. It’s a form of visualization.

He further cited the visual and design backgrounds of some of the most successful business leaders of the past few decades:

    Harley Earl - engineering
    Walter Dorwin - graphic design
    Henry Dreyfuss - theater set design
    Raymond Loewy window display and fashion design

Cultures change values to reflect collective set of values that improve society. We can and must as responsible citizens. We must approach business decisions with design thinking as an essential element of the process.

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