Title: Designer Duds: Losing Our Seat at the Table
Context: First no one in business listened to designers. Then they all did. Now only some do. But really, they all should.
Synopsis: For a while there it looked like designers were about to take over the business world. Every hot new organizational trend, every luscious new startup, every corporate recovery plan seemed to start and end with the same idea: the designers were here and they were ready to save your ass. The MFA was the new MBA and the CEO would soon be reporting into the CDP (Chief Design Person). Now, these things—or some less revolutionary version—may still come to pass but the reality is, design is not the silver bullet guaranteed to slay all of your growth/diversification/market expansion demons for 1 very simple reason: design is hard. Design is a process and an art and requires faith and skill and may or may not work sometimes or never will. It is this very uncertainty which makes design such a surprisingly powerful business differentiator on occasion, and a eye-rolling disappointment on others. But fret not! Reality is not the end of the designer’s role in business success, merely the splash of cold water everyone needs to create a more rational dialog over the inherent value of design as a true business differentiator.
Best Bit: “Wanting users to spring for DSLRs and learn how to shoot their kale salad with a shallow depth of field so that the very lovely new app you’ve built isn’t ruined by their tastelessness is exactly backwards.”
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