Designing for rest instead of frenzy

This last week I attended Brooklyn Beta, one of two conferences that are must-attend for me. During a late night whisky-thon with Cameron we were talking to several of the web’s most talented and discussing the idea that we should be designing to the best of people instead of the worst. We talked about feeds. The endless stream of new content. Feeds are an over-saturated flow of thoughts, ideas, pictures, quotes, drivel, and opinion—all published to the web.

This can produce franticness, a need to keep up. I heard one of my favorite designers recently suggest, “it’s like Twitter has turned me into a personal PR machine”. We are influenced to constantly keep up with our personal public representation. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, News Feeds, Tumblr, Instagram, and others like them all pulse with activity, building confidence with stakeholders and investors. This is sold to us as a place to connect with people, they are “social” networks. Undoubtably much good has come through these mediums, but at its core are these mediums for community truly good for us?

How do we design for communication that has natural and human boundaries? Boundaries like sleep, life-span and death, hunger and thirst, triumph and failure, knowledge and wisdom, immaturity and playfulness. This summer I re-learned to exercise and diet. I had to take care of my 34-year-old body so that it might last another 40. It’s not good for me to gorge on pizza and beer, though I crave it fortnightly. It’s good for me to enjoy pizza and beer but I must weigh that it has an economic and physiological cost that I have to be prepared to pay.

The cost of digital content is much more subtle. I’m able to rack up immeasurable, fractional, digital debt in the form of tweets, responses, comments, photos, inspiration, reaction, access, passwords, usernames, opinions, ideas, and the list goes on until I find that I have changed. I am becoming what I must be to balance and interact with the content around me or I risk being lost below the waves. I’m enslaved to a system.

But as a designer, this isn’t just a personal question of whether or not I should go on a digital diet. The question is whether I’m serving good to those who use and receive my design. If you’re building products, or making things for the web, I think it’s your question too.

Growing up entrepreneurial

I used to hate that I felt more like an employee than a child growing up in with business parents. We used to have family meetings that would literally be “called to order” - gavel and all, in board room style. My parents didn’t meet all my needs - no parents meet all their childs needs - but they did teach me something that is priceless. They taught me how to take what I have and make something of it. They taught me to be an entrepreneur.

This week I was a little dismayed to learn the public school we’re sending our kids to is using Boosterthon to raise funds for the school and the PTA. Fundraising for public schools is a giant issue in and of itself, but at the core of this particular approach are at least three major problems.

The first problem is that this is distracting my kids from learning. They shouldn’t be involved in raising money for their school, they should be learning. Part of me believes that there might be some learning going on in the Boosterthon exercise fundraiser (Teamwork, goal setting, exercise), but I’m wary of associating exercise and learning with gaining toys for laps on a circuit. My son Brighton was crying yesterday because he wanted a larger toy and was begging my wife and I to give him more money for the program.

The second problem is an issue of economic class in school. I see is that the toys that are earned by children seem to be in direct relationship to the economic welfare of the parent or economic set the child is around. We have a relatively diverse school and so if a child comes from any wealth they can go home with great big prizes like a remote controlled helicopter, while their less fortunate neighbor goes home with a rubber wristband. Aren’t we enforcing unnecessary differences in this situation?

The third problem the cost/benefit relationship of this event. The Boosterthon folks do a ton of work (preventing the PTA or teachers from being distracted and doing this work) and for their efforts they take home 48% of the income achieved. They appear to be a reasonable organization. It was difficult to find out much about their business model, but I didn’t see anything that made them suspect. However, the idea that there is a business that is coming to my kids school to do business (I have every reason to assume they have a profit margin and want to grow) is a little offputting to me. At the very least I’d like to have some transparency in their books. 

I hate problems without solutions.

1) What if we ran our school more like a coop? We could potentially volunteer work to help grow our schools.

2) What if we helped our children run a business and learn all the amazing lessons of entrepreneurship along the way? 

3) Ask for volunteer process designers and businesses to help your school run more efficiently or find ways to leverage the natural resources of children, large buildings, large grounds. Schools often could be rented for community purposes on the weekends or at night. There are legal issues and red tape, but they are not insurmountable.

Got any more great ideas?

The Discipline of Wonder

There’s a rust topped hummingbird rolling his nickel sized head back and forth about 12 feet in front of me. This is as still as hummingbirds get unless they’re asleep or dead. He’s on the lookout for rival hummers who would love a sip from his prized sweet-water feeder. There’s a white shield of feathers just under his gullet that frames his pride and strength. It adds presence that adds volume beyond his size. He’s truly wonderful.

Are all his characteristics necessary? Is his plume or his color a trait developed for safety or reproductivity? What can explain the utility of the whir of his wings or their ghosted shape fanning the air? Has explanation become our first instinct of observation?

This morning, I am content to remember to simply enjoy him buzzing and humming. Fascinated by his efforts to protect his territory. There is a full circus of wonder packed into this miniature creature.

This short experience this morning makes me think I’ve forgotten to seek awe. I literally mean that I have not properly budgeted time for it. It is not hard to find. A simple blade of grass breaking ground is more than enough to shut me up and remind me to stand silent and small before the vast sum of all creation. It’s only when I am placed firmly in that sum – as a handful of dust made living by the magic of a loving designer, standing along side grass, and bugs, and birds, and oxygen, and bacteria – that I can be the designer I wish to be. Its then that I am most able to create with a tenuous marriage of wonder and utility.

I need to return to some kind of discipline, a daily reminder to seek wonder. It’s a more natural part of being a “fine artist”, but since becoming a designer I’ve neglected the practice. This little hummingbird has me thinking about how I might effect a small moment of enjoyable awe in the web and mobile experiences I create as a designer. How can the businesses I imagine and bring to life draw out wonder in those it serves or in those who are employed by it?

When everything in our work is pushing us toward convenience, through speed perhaps, we ought to stand still in the moving stream and reflect whether those efficiencies are making life for people truly richer, better, or fuller? I suspect we have lost some things that the analog taught us as we trudge up this digital path. I’m going to see if I can re-find some of them.

Winning and Losing

He only had one black king left on the board. The South Carolina heat sat at the table with us like an oppressive judge. Only real checkers today, no pulled punches. Brighton had played with real cunning for a near seven year old, but his papa had finally cornered him in an impossible loss. His back turned to the edge of the world, his final king could only proceed up table or down, but both results had the same outcome. Finality. Loss.

I watched Brighton’s face grow solemn and aware and then turn down at the mouth holding back tears. I looked at the board, I peered at my son and I didn’t see a Sunday morning game anymore. For a moment, I saw all the moments I’ve ever sat at a juncture like this, every option only a different way to lose.

I took Brighton’s young hand and pulled his attention to me. 

“Which way will you go?” I questioned him.

“I don’t know what to do papa”.

“I don’t know what to do either Brighton, but sometimes there’s nothing you can do. Sometimes every move you make will cause you to lose. There’s two things I know that might help you. First, we can play another game after this one. Second, the way you choose to lose says a lot about what kind of winner you will be someday.

Brighton moved down table, and in with speed I jumped his king, grabbed him by the face and kissed him.

“Great move Brighton”, I spoke and he beamed, “Well lost. Let’s go swim, and later we’ll play again.”.

My son Brighton asked me to take his little Domukan to San Francisco with me. So I did, and then to the beach at Edisto as well. He’s a delightful guest.

The High Bar

I had hoped to spend some time this morning writing. I’ve been lax about my rule about knowing what I want to write before I wake up. I should probably add some things to my TeuxDeux list soon so I can just start writing quickly.

What came to mind though as I sat here waiting for my french press to be done steeping was that whatever I have to write about had to be good enough to read. This is good for you. This is bad for me. Well, its not quite binary like that, but hear me out. It’s good for you because you won’t have to read a short piece of dung. It’s bad for me because my bar is often higher than it needs to be. I am either frozen in inaction or I’m in fear that what I write, or design, or say will be criticized and I’ll be left seen as a sham. Crazy right?!

I think this kind of thinking or low esteem is prevalent in our little industry. I personally waffle somewhere between the extremes of being a know-it-all and feeling like a slug on a wilted piece of lettuce. Design, writing, Creative Direction, speaking, or any outward activity are all extremely difficult for me to execute.

My point in sharing all this is simply to encourage anyone who needed to hear it, that everyone deals with this kind of thing in one way or another. Press on. Publish. Ship shit. Get it out there. Do whatever good work you can put your mind to.