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Puppets and pandas

 

taiwan
This summer is off to a unexpected start!

I’ve been advising a good friend and colleague, Michael, on a new business he’s starting. It’s based here in Oakland but with an office in Taipei. He asked if I would go with him on his next trip, which was only a few weeks away, and I jumped at it. I’ve been looking for ways to shake things up in my work and life anyway. Why not see what a couple of weeks in Asia kicks loose? It would also give me an opportunity to piggyback a few days to see family in Tokyo.

The company is confidential, so I can’t say much about that. And I couldn’t possibly cover everything we did and saw in Taiwan. But I can tell you about pandas and gondolas and marble gorges:

Puppets!

puppetsMichael was over the National Museum after several visits, so our first day there we powered through jet lag and heat exhaustion to go to the Puppetry Arts Center instead. It’s a fantastic little museum packed with inventive, delightful, and even creepy puppets of all kinds. And on the way we visited the beautiful Xingtian temple. It was an inspiring start to our adventure.

Gondolas and pandas

gondolaAfter a business meeting downtown later that week we hustled out to the Maokong Gondolas, only to be foiled by a thunderstorm. It was, frankly, a rough day. Let’s just say mistakes were made and neither nature nor transit were on our side. But serendipity graced us, leading to the famed panda born at the Taiwan Zoo. (Which we could see without waiting since it was 100 degrees and raining. Yay?) And we did eventually get to take our gondola ride at sunset later that day. It was worth the wait — gorgeous and serene. Except for those screeching monkeys after dark.

Taipei 101

taipei101Something I love doing in big cities is taking in the cityscape. In Taipei, you do this from the observatory at the Taipei 101, one of the tallest buildings in the world. The city is simply huge! It stretches in all directions up to the edges of mountains and rivers. Taipei is a little dreary at ground level, but from above it’s stunning. After the sunset faded we capped our evening with dumplings at Din Tai Fung. Beyond delicious. I’m still drooling over that meal.

Taroko and Sun Moon Lake

tarokoWe left the city for a few days and saw a prettier side of Taiwan. We started by driving down the eastern coast to Hualien, where we found a great night market and the “coffin bread” I’d been hunting for. The next day we drove across Taroko National Park, starting at sea level and making our way up to the peak at 10,000 feet – where the cool air was a welcome break from the oppressive heat – and wound our way back down and over to Sun Moon Lake in the center of the island. Taroko Gorge is made of marble! Beautiful scenery. Crazy, white-knuckle driving conditions. Michael is a brave man.

Cute overload

My inner 9-year-old was giddy over the omnipresent Hello Kitty. (And my inner brand manager was agog at the volume of licensing deals.) She is everywhere, all the time. As were a million other mascots and characters; clearly the culture of cute rules here. Even the Taipei 101 has a mascot, the “damper baby”, a character based on its spherical wind damper. And Din Tai Fung has a dumpling mascot. Seriously. More on this to come.

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Are you ready for the design-led revolution?

Over the past year I’ve been fortunate to collaborate with the sustainability team at Autodesk to envision their support for the design-led revolution. Haven’t heard of it? You may not know the DLR moniker, but you’ve seen revolutionary design in action. From affordable prosthetics to solar robotics, high-impact solutions are emerging everywhere. And just in the nick of time!

The reinvention needed to make our planet livable for 9 billion is immense, and I love that Autodesk is committed to helping designers, architects, builders, engineers, and entrepreneurs reshape our world. We need more companies like this leading the way.

Their aim isn’t only to raise awareness about epic challenges and inspire people to do what’s right, although that’s certainly a big part of it. It’s also about helping designers and companies get ahead of  the inevitable resource shortages, urbanization, and climate change coming our way. To stay relevant — and profitable — in the future, you must start thinking differently now.

So, how will you design a better future?

Credit where credit’s due: The awesome folks at Free Range are the storytellers behind the design-led revolution video, manifesto, and hero case studies.

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Subversive landscapes

In the Hung Liu retrospective Summoning Ghosts at OMCA, her emotional, insightful paintings hold unmistakable power. But it was a room of tiny, impressionistic landscapes that riveted me. The room info reads:

“In Maoist China, art was required to support revolutionary ideology and ‘serve the people, heart and soul.’ When Liu began studies in Beijing in the early 1970s, she would often go out alone to the countryside to paint for pleasure. She used small canvases that could fit inside her painting box that she carried in a bag. These bucolic paintings of landscapes, railroad bridges, old factories, and even trash cans and public toilets were kept hidden during the Cultural Revolution for fear their lack of political content could be used against her.”

I love experiences that take what you know and turn it inside out. Historically, nature was a safe subject for artists, containing little social or political commentary that might upset a patron. Artistic style itself has been known to cause a ruckus – just ask the Impressionists that these landscapes coincidentally channel – but, in message, the most a simple landscape might hope to convey is glorifying nature or the pastoral life. Hardly a major offense.

But under a regime that banned intellectual pursuits, art’s only allowed purpose was as propaganda. Not carrying commentary was exactly the problem. Amazing.

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Back to 1968

The 1968 exhibit at OMCA is so packed with facts and experiences I needed a second visit to take it in. As years go, it’s hard to imagine many more momentous in modern U.S. politics and culture than 1968, considering the assassinations of King and Kennedy, a pivotal election, the Vietnam War, and countless civil rights clashes.

Balancing the social upheaval were charming artifacts of my childhood. The living rooms were comfortingly familiar, complete with glass grapes on the cabinet TV, mid-century furniture, and World Book encyclopedias. Between the homes of my family and neighbors, every single item was familiar. There were also fun collections of advertising and, naturally, plastic.

For me the biggest highlight was the TV nook, a nice mood lifter following the Vietnam War exhibit. It doesn’t sound like much on paper — cartoon-like MDF television frames housing clips of movies and shows  — but in execution it was a fantastically engaging, seamless symphony of audio and video. There’s a particularly nice moment in the beginning of the loop where Planet of the Apes melds into the Star Trek voiceover, drama contrasted by the gentle ending of Mister Rogers promising us a smile and a hello tomorrow.

OMCA creates relevant, contemporary exhibits that inspire me. I’m so privileged this is my local museum!

OMCA 1968 RFK

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Earthquake mashups

Shawn Clover, 1906 + Today: The Earthquake Blend

This photo mashup series by Shawn Clover that merges images from the 1906 earthquake and San Francisco today is a fantastic concept, with stunning execution.

From the artist:

To put these photos together, I first create a catalog of historical photos that look like they have potential to be blended. Unfortunately most of these photos end up on the digital cutting room floor because there’s simply no way to get the same photo today because either a building or a tree is in the way. Once I get a good location, I get everything lined up just right. My goal is to stand in the exact spot where the original photographer stood. Doing this needs to take into account equivalent focal length, how the lens was shifted, light conditions, etc. I take plenty of shots, each nudged around a bit at each location. Just moving one foot to the left changes everything.

I am in awe.

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What Do You Think?

Over the past few years I’ve seen many museums trying to create reflective, interactive experiences for visitors. This is an important effort considering the pressures on museums as they fight for financial resources in a downturn, not to mention mind share in an age of digital entertainment.

The effort is there, but often the interactive components are not integrated into the exhibits or the museum experience. At the Shanghai exhibit at the Asian Art Museum there was  a small lounge with a few activities such as the prompt pictured, but it was tucked away — nearly hidden — on a separate floor of the museum. Other times, “interactivity” is limited to sending a free postcard or posting a note on a wall.

The best interactive displays I’ve seen locally are at the Oakland Museum of California. My favorite at OMCA is the “Is it Art?” lounge because it addresses an age-old question with a wink. Visitors are lured in by comfortable seating, then challenged to consider their point of view and vote if various objects ranging from a Native American basket to a pink furry thing are “art”. And because you can see the vote tickets in clear plexi containers, you get a sense for the general opinion as well as your own.

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West Coast Green Coverage

This year I wrote about West Coast Green for Triple Pundit, a site devoted to green business news and ideas. Links to my posts:

“Green” Marketing Lessons from the eBay Box

Backstory about the development of the reusable eBay Box, tips from an intrapreneur involved in the project, and the importance of community engagement.

Madrone League: Open Source Sustainability Education

Hunter Lovins’ vision for affordable sustainability education that would be global, participant-driven, and collaborative.

A Look at Women’s Leadership in Sustainability

Wrap-up of a panel exploring how women lead and how that leadership style can benefit sustainability.

The Social Entrepreneurship Era of Burning Man

The Burning Man community’s values and innovation are generating social ventures that have potential to address global problems.

The Valuation Trap: How ROI Can Undermine the Case for Sustainability

While measuring outcomes helps sell sustainability initiatives, emphasis on quantitative proof can have unintended consequences.

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Transit Art

I love public art, and this new series of surreal scenes on (and about) BART is charming.

A few weeks ago I snapped this poster of the little girl and the duck at my local BART station, wondering what it was. Other than the station scene, the poster offered no clues to the purpose or message.

Fortuitously, a Facebook friend posted a link to this article about the posters, which are whimsical stories created by Josh Ellingson. In each scene a child’s fantasy crosses over into reality — a boy with the undersea-themed backpack spots a deep sea diver with a squid, a boy with a toy rocket sees rockets zooming past through the window, and a girl with a toy duck passes a duck with a toy girl. While they celebrate the adventure of travel, in keeping with transit poster tradition, they are mostly just plain fun and avoid seeming like ads.

Transit art is my favorite type of public art because it adds much-needed lightness and beauty to what is so often drudgery. Years ago while commuting on a bus in Chicago, I saw an excerpt of a Mark Strand poem about a snowflake that affected me so much I was inspired to jot down the name and buy the book. (And I’m not even a poetry fan!) Recently on the Metro light rail in Phoenix I also spotted mosaic sculptures built into platform shelters.

There is currently a MOMA exhibit of London Underground posters from the 1920s-40s, including pieces by E. McKnight Kauffer (one of my favorites of the era) and László Maholy-Nagy. Unfortunately this kind of poster has largely disappeared, replaced by commercial ads, but sometimes we get lucky and find ones like the new BART series or the iconic national parks posters by the amazing Michael Schwab.

I hope to see more art like this popping up. The Bay Area has a tremendous wealth of artists and stories to tap into, and in these tough times we could all use more beauty and levity around us.

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DMI Recap, Part 3

Wrapping up my thoughts on DMI Re-thinking…The Future of Design, I have a few final thoughts on pushing the design thinking discussion farther. I came away from the conference feeling there is still a lot of talk about the theoretical application of design thinking, but not much about the actual practice of it.

A critical comment was made during the wrap-up, wishing there had been more conversation around applying design thinking outside of design disciplines. I couldn’t agree more. I already live in the world of design thinking for designers, and I want to learn more about design thinking for more traditional business domains such as finance and corporate strategy.

David Butler and Chuck Jones were edging around that conversation, stating that as executive design leaders they were being invited to business planning meetings and the like. That is exactly what I wanted to hear more about, and what I hoped to find at this conference. How are those interactions going? What are they able to bring to those discussions, or finding they are unable to bring? Are they doing anything to actively advance the case for “designers” moving beyond conventional perceptions and becoming business partners within their organizations? I’d like to see some tactical discussions about what it took to get to those positions and what they think design thinkers need to know or learn to succeed.

On the other hand, as much as I would like this guidance, Valerie Casey made the point that she’s tired of designers asking for “5 steps” to make things happen. She argued that we’re designers, our job is to use our imaginations to solve problems. We should be able to figure things out for ourselves and not need everything spelled out for us, and she isn’t entirely wrong. We can’t wait for someone to tell us what to do, we have to just jump in.

That’s what I’ve been doing for years and while it does work, it works very slowly. It would be nice if there were more institutional track being laid to draw connections between disciplines and change job descriptions to reflect our more complex world. For instance, I’ve seen articles discussing universities cutting liberal arts majors due to a lack of interest because of job placement fears, and yet I know plenty of anthropology and philosophy majors today who have amazing jobs as design strategists and researchers. The universities aren’t doing enough to draw lines between their humanities programs and the design thinking type jobs that value those skills. And, they could be better preparing those same students through integration across disciplines including business courses.

My last thought is that we did get one real-world example of organizational design thinking from Katie Taylor of the Four Seasons, but it wasn’t universally recognized as such. After the conference was over, I was engaged with a gentleman who felt that her presentation did not reflect design thinking. It’s subjective, but I believe the elements of design thinking that are most valuable to business are: user-centered principles, systems thinking, and prototyping. Her story sounded a bit simplistic at times — the best design is often obvious, after all — but describing how they assess and adapt to guest needs, understand the entire customer experience, and empower employees to try out new solutions certainly met my criteria to qualify as design thinking.

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DMI Recap, Part 2

More from DMI…

Silver buckshot

Soundbite of the day: There is no silver bullet, but there is silver buckshot. (Valerie Casey)

Interdisciplinary takes work

Being interdisciplinary involves more effort than simply assembling a committee. It requires training in how to work collaboratively, and — more importantly — how to communicate your values and point of view in a way that is understandable and compelling to others.

Oh, the humanities!

Roger Martin says integrated thinking starts with critical thinking, and is bolstered by a well-rounded education in the humanities. My mom’s insistence on a BA instead of a BFA is looking pretty good right now! It is true that while I lost out on a more rigorous education around concept and craft, I gained a better education in all the things that help you understand who people are, where they are coming from, and how they think. There will always be someone who is a better visual artist than I am, but I am a better critical and abductive thinker than most.

Define winning

David Butler of Coca-Cola talked about the importance of clearly defining “winning” for the organization, to give structure to decisions and resolve conflicts. I’m sure there isn’t always such organizational clarity and selflessness, and it called to mind Joel Kashuba of P&G who spoke at CCA last semester. When we were at dinner he said his first question in any collaboration is to ask how they are rewarded, meaning what success means to them (and their boss). This is simply the personal definition of winning — is it patents, a bonus for meeting a target, career growth? Once you know what it is, make it a design requirement and things will go much smoother. It’s obvious, but we rarely think to ask explicitly and then wonder why our projects get mysteriously derailed.

Project ROI

Butler also brought up something I should make my personal mantra: Focus on the highest-value offerings. There are infinite projects that are interesting or fun or relevant, and it’s easy to get distracted by them especially when you are passionate about your work. Use finite resources and time intelligently to get to winning faster.