| The
interesting aspect of design, as a disciple, is
that
proof of concept rests entirely on the outcome. The
question is: can you take a set of ideas or desired
characteristics and build them into a process and artifact
of some kind that produces the desired result -
and
is that result useful? The answer is yes or
no; either the goal is accomplished beyond some defined
threshold or it is not. If the result it accomplished
or not does not say anything definite about the veracity
of the basic concepts that were used. It is true, however,
that some concepts are better than others for getting
results.
Skill in the design process involves selecting the
right ideas to try out. There is a tight relationship
between
the ideas, goals, materials and means in the cycle
of Design/Build/Use. |
| Creative
people, universally exhibit certain habits. Working
long and intensively (and to the exclusion of nearly
all else) during the incubation of an idea or work,
is one example of a ubiquitous habit. These habits
can be stated as rules. In this case the rule of: Focus
intensively during the incubation period of an idea
or design to the exclusion of all else.
These
rules can be considered to be “command language”
in the mind of an individual or organization; they
can be “embodied” in a system-environment
by a series of means (protocols, work processes, technology
tool-kits, models and language, physical architecture
and symbolism, and so on). The sum of these
as embedded rule-sets, make up what many call the “culture”
of the organization; I prefer to think about this as
the Operating System (OS) of the organization and
the
physical expression of its art. |
| It
is possible to employ Rapid
Prototyping, FasTracking
and Design/Build/Use
cycles to explore ideas and concepts, translate them
into rules, embed them in working environments, operate
these environments, and employ documentation
and feedback (of a complex kind) to make this
a self-correcting system. This meta-process is what we
have been doing at MG Taylor for nearly a quarter
of a century. The means of creating our
System and Method is our System and Method.
This is why I refer to it as an ENGINE of
creation. At each step of creating a facet of it,
the Zone
of Emergence architecture is used. Complex
systems are not predictable; they are emergent;
minimal intervention
into the specific arena in focus is necessary to minimize
unintended consequences. Thus, the System and
Method
is a bootstrap operation using the best existing version
of itself to create an improved version of itself
-
one discrete step at a time. |
Use
feedback with skepticism, craft and deliberation; Focus
intensively during the incubation period of an idea
or design to the exclusion of all else: Let passion
drive you and express it appropriately; Execute with
high
levels of process control and precision; Employ eclectic
learning methods (modes); periodically explore a broad
content range; and bring this content to carefully
selected subject areas related to your work; Sustain
high physical energy levels; focus this energy during
intense work periods; punctuate work periods with appropriate
re-creation; Practice a technical discipline
at state-of-the-art levels; Follow your Intuition; Document
your progress; Practice work-living integration and
24/7/365 work-flow; Rule out failure as an option; know
when to retire from the field; keep the long view; Develop
and use your “reset” button; Employ a “hands
on” approach to product creation; Challenge
Convention; Work in rapid iterations - ship a product
- again and again; produce a rapid series of working
prototypes; Create a language around your field of interest
and creative work; Hold context and keep goals intact
on a lifetime scale; employ ritual; maintain the “observer;”
Invest everything; Message broadly; communicate intensely
with peers; build functional networks; Serve a higher
cause; Create a community; Organize your workplace so
that it works for you. |
| Taken
together, these make up a strong and comprehensive instruction
set. No matter how different, from another, one human
“agent”
may interpret these “commands,” there remains
a clear direction that is stated and the things-to-do
are unambiguously implied; in total, a mandate is established.
Non-human agents, require a less ambiguous instruction
set and language. How these commands get embedded in
non-human agents varies from kind of agent to kind of
agent, and, the agent’s circumstance and use.
The interesting thing is, that as the environment of
the human agent is increasingly made up of other agents
thus “commanded,” any ambiguity in the human
“command” language is consequently diminished.
It takes this “embedding” of non-human agents
to bring precision, without interference, to the human
communicated instruction set. As humans practice these
creative habits, in the space, there is a feedback loop
to the inanimate environment that, through morphic
resonance, brings the inanimate alive thus completing
the loop and reinforcing the efficacy of the entire
system. The total environment emerges, as a system,
through a series of transformations. |
| How
to build creative agency into the total environment
(made up of agents of various kinds) of the human agent,
to create a coherent embedded message of these creative
rules, is the subject of the following comments. |
| There
are a great number of agents, that make up the environment
of a human agent, that can represent, in their actions
and messaging an instruction set (and capacity)
of immense
power. Conversely, as is too common, the environment
can be filled with opaque, contradictory, confusing
and competing messages. Even though each human
will respond differently to each of the agents (messages),
individually, the SUM is almost certain to
work given proper execution of the components - if produced
by an effective process design, and an adequate understanding
of symbolism. Each of these agents can be thought
of
as having a voice. One of our axioms for setting
up a Taylor environment is “everything speaks.”
These voices may be graphic, sound or written language;
the modality may be denotative or connotative; the
message
may be conveyed through form, texture, rhythm, space;
the content may be transferred intellectually or experientially;
it may be in the form of a metaphor, a model, a proof,
data, mathematical statement; the media may be electronic,
paper or modeling materials; and, of course, all are
intermingled with a high variety mix of other human
agents engaging in the space, all other agents
and each other. The environment is embodied dialog. |
| In
the past, architecture, learning, information, experience,
facilitation, work processes and media, were seen as
different things and processes; in this approach they
are ONE; all engaged in an entrained
creative process/artifact that makes strong
memory as a deliberate consequence of the experience
of working within it. |
| How
is it done? It is done by a thousand intentional design
decisions that makes the desired condition
become real; it is BUILT. This building is
a conscious act of putting idea into process, structure
and form. It is the act of creating real (i.e.
in fact) architecture. In a practice, the results
of these acts are experienced, evaluated and the work
proceeds anew; iterative, recursive, feedback driven
- a deliberate process of bringing THERE (the
vision) to HERE (the existing condition),
making something, and then recreating
the vision. This is, essentially, the ACT
of art brought to all aspects of work and life. |
“The
Characteristic phenomenon of the contemporary epoch
is this:
“Scientific-technical
advancement is not longer anteceded, even less induced,
by new spiritual-philosophic cognitions as in previous
ages. Instead, science and technique advance autonomously,
without the moral control and intellectual preparation
that religion and philosophy provide. Each new phase
in the rapid transformation of the contemporary physical
environment meets man unprepared and hence remains
outside his full control.
“As
a result, new scientific-technical achievements no
longer address human sentiment. Consequently, they
not longer assume the role of art as in previous ages,
when all creative manifestations of man were within
popular conception. That is to say, science and technique
- the two major forces that shape the contemporary
environment - are without art and the humanizing force
that art gives.
“This
alienation is evident in man’s emotional indifference
to the forms created by science and technique. It
is apparent in his failure to grasp the new dimensions
conquered in space and energy or to imagine their
meaning for the human race on this planet. Indeed,
science and technique - the two most efficient instruments
of human progress - now virtually endanger the very
existence of mankind.
“The
challenge of the present, thus, is not discovery of
the new but the total comprehension of the existing
and its integration into contemporary ethics; hence,
its human application and aesthetic appreciation.
The tragedy of the present is that any such spiritual
search or the meaning of man’s existence in
the contemporary epoch is no longer a noble expression
of Man’s inner desire for enlightenment, but
a necessity forced upon him by technical-scientific
progress.
“The
challenge exists also for the architecture in the
industrial society. for even through building technology
lags far behind other industries, it has, nevertheless,
progressed so far that its forms remain largely neutral
to human emotions. Not being incorporated into the
universal order of contemporary thought, architecture
constitutes still another alien and inhuman element
among man’s scientific and technical creations
and, especially in residential architecture, revives
an unrealistic escape to romanticism.
“Therefore,
it is not the improvement of technical, economical,
functional hygienic or visual factors of building,
but the establishment of organic relationships between
man, society, technique, and shelter within the total
framework of contemporary ethics that is the task
of contemporary architecture.
“For
this universal theme the residential architecture
of japan, more than any other, holds instructive comparisons
and discloses basic problems. for in Japan the spiritual
order of the epoch was successful in an unique way: |
it
brought man into intimate emotional relationship to
most simple shelter and most humble living;
it
gave aesthetic meaning to an architecture that was
a pure expression of necessity;
it
humanized an environment that was largely standardized
and prefabricated;
it
established an accord between feeling and thinking.” |
Heinrich
Engel
1964
The Japanese House
A Tradition for Contemporary Architecture |
|
| Below
are a few examples of embedding creative habits as rules
in the workplace. The possibilities are endless.
The
7 Domains Model can be useful as a frame of reference
to facilitate the process that is implied by these
examples. |
| There
is no question that the following ideas and actions
outlined are far easier to carry out in a
NavCenter; after all, they are designed to
do this. It is important
to know that requirements of the creative life are
such that all living and work environments (process,
physical place and tool-kit) should embody these
rules in an appropriate manner. Creativity does not
take place exclusively in the work environment; it
takes place in life. And, it becomes clear
upon reflection, the work environment has to be made
more like non-work
environments if we are to advance toward the goal
of enhancing creativity everywhere. The dichotomy
between work, play and other aspects of human life
- this creature of the industrial revolution - has
to be closed. Indeed, how we partition our time,
our attention and the values and basis buy which
we consider things to be true and by which we govern
our selves is the single greatest factor that determines
the creative profile of our society. The focus here
is the workplace and that means everywhere where
productive thought and activity takes place. |
Focus
intensively during the incubation period...
| Most
people’s life experience is broken into arbitrary
fragments that do not match the
character of time required for true creative
work and leisure. Each kind of work, by the
nature of it, requires a different period of
work-time
as
well as a distinct mental set. Each individual’s
personal requirements will be somewhat different
in response. There are, however, general patterns
that are broadly shared. Among these, the intense
period of work focus, essential for the incubation
of an idea or major project phase, is the most
critical. This is true not only for the formal
work aspect but also in our practice of leisure
which is a concept that has almost totally
disappeared from our social reality. Today,
families plan leisure time as if it were a
military campaign. The activities that most
support a creative life are equally missing
from the home as from the workplace. Work-life
style “balance” has become a competition between
two pressure-driven, manic environments that
seem designed to make sensing, thought, intimacy,
learning and concentration impossible. Added
to this is the constant stimulation of media
which
is remarkably devoid of real content but extraordinarily
high in fear-driven meta-programming that presents
a world in perpetual crisis. Too much drink,
food, self-induced stress, drugs and environmental
pollution have resulted in a variety of health
problems: failing immune systems, declining
physical energy, chronic diseases and abnormal
mental behavior. It is interesting, in this
the most
affluent
and
technically advanced
civilization in known history, to read the
statistics related to over-the-counted and
prescription
drugs. The abuse of socially acceptable and
not-acceptable drugs goes without comment.
Conditions that once were associated with middle
age now
visit
our
children. Much of this is not new or excusive
to our era. What is new is that the habits that
promote these conditions are actively promoted
with billions of dollars by both advertising
and entertainment while, at the same time,
innovation is now become a major goal of everyone
in the workplace. This would be amusing if
the financial consequences were
not so serious
and the human costs so tragic. |
|
Document
your progress...
| In
the typical workplace, “executives” rush
from meeting to meeting without the aid of
proper
preparation and documentation. This contributes
to meetings being used for information exchange
rather than collaboration, co-design and formal
decision making. knowledgeworkers often document
in relationship to their specialty and specific
work focus but rarely in regards the whole
system of which their work is a part. “Hands
on” workers virtually never document
except to the extent that this activity is their
task - and then rarely in a way that that
connects and synthesizes. Even professionals,
who may keep logs and every scrap of paper,
religiously, too often fail to maintain the
ability to easily retrieve, reuse, annotate
and file, creating what can be characterized
as an active archive. Files fill up as do hard
disks until stored somewhere; electronic media
becomes un-retrievable; many organizations,
now, deliberately purging record to avoid liability;
the mind of
the organization suffers systematic memory
loss. Almost never is there information
about the information that somehow escapes
oblivion; all is treated the same; a world
awash in data overload with individuals mostly
left to their own organizational resources
and innate ability to remember. It is almost
all there, of course, for the army of investigators,
the occasional researcher and historian which
means long after a crisis or a time of greatness
we are provided a useful model of what happened.
And, data mining systems now feed information
into automated systems designed to track your
activities, restrain your actions or sell you
something. These do little, in real time, to
support the creative processes of individuals,
teams, organizations or our society at large.
Those who do document well often fail to publish in
a way that makes their hard won learning and
work products, produced along their journey,
available to themselves
and others. Only a few of the famous get documented
for broad discrimination. These conditions
deprive individuals and society of the useful
real-time feedback necessary to creative work.
Magazines (unfortunately isolated by specialty)
partially fill this gap. What is left over
from this process of collective amnesia is
often put through the “spin-game” until
what is real is distorted to express someone’s
agenda not truth in any way that the term can
be understood.
On the level of the individual to the entire
society, the critical “dialog” between
the incremental steps of an idea coming into
practical
form, and the many people, teams and organizations
who can participate in this interaction, is
lost. |
|
Employ
a “hands on” approach to product creation...
| Work
has become abstracted and removed from consequence
and feedback. This results from the
overspecialization of expertise and work, the
structure of organizational hierarchy, and
the way the “market” perceives
and compensates for individual and corporate
contribution. The cap between thinking and
doing has become progressively greater in the
last century. Few workers can say they make
anything, they perform a step that has been
rationalized, segmented and governed my criteria
that only loosely relates to the end result.
Few use what they make nor have any true control
of what they do. |
|
Serve
a higher cause...
| A
system that does not reference another “larger”
system has no framework. It functions without
vision. We are not a society lacking in the
ability to be creative on the incremental level
- the sheer weight of talent and numbers insure
this. We are a society that lacks creativity
that is healthy and harmonious
for the individual life and sums up to a sustainable
social whole. Today, we seem to be making an
economic steamroller whose sole purpose is
to to feed and grow itself; we are creating
an economic machine that
has become, by default, the human context rather
than a tool (among many) as a means to
human happiness. We have not answered the Theory
of the Leisure Class ( or society),
we seem to have played much of it out by promoting
an ever growing glut of induced consumption
that we claim
defines the
basics of necessity
and happiness. It is doubtful that those icons
that stood in the past for various
causes will serve our contemporary needs. We
need to re-create (recreation?)
our vision and we must do this on the individual
level
as well as the many dimensions (recursions)
of our social networks. How an individual
creates the purpose of his or her life is their
greatest act of creation from which all other
value follows. The same is true of a society.
This “cause” is an invention;
it is creating
the problem at the scope of of a lifetime
and, for some, on the scale of a society. Care
must be taken here; on one end of the scale
lies hedonism and boredom - a
wasted lifetime; on the other, fanaticism
- the greatest
danger
there is. Our time is notable for its lack
of healthy, life promoting, vision. As a consequence
we teeter between irrelevance and and globally
destructive consequences. Our creative natures
have become the slave of an unhealty materialism
rather than the maker of a sustainable, ever
delightful social and ecological landscape. |
|
Create
a community...
| Specialization
and the remains of social and racial discrimination
causes the majority of us to live in functional
ghettos.
If the
ghetto is rich in amenity, we do not recognize
it
as such but we remain impoverished by the
experience nevertheless. Every field of work
has its own built in (structural) epistemology.
These are the embedded rules and assumptions
that
make
up
the art.
These fields select members and ideas for certain
traits and reinforce these traits though training
and subsequent career choices
of their
members. In some cases this leads to extreme
“adverse selection” - a risk that
insurance companies fear and try to avoid for
good reason.
These intellectual ghettos
stifle variety and stimulus; they become
dull and stagnant; they even determine, in
many instances, where people live and what
social organizations they join - and, of course,
visa versa. Communities are necessary
to humans’
mental
health and efficacy. Communities are formed
- there is no escaping this fact. The question
is: based on what criteria and rules-of-engagement?
For
all of our
societies’
superficial individualism and celebration
of the bazaar, we are by and large a docile
and herd mentality. The is not the way (Dogu)
of the creative society. Communities, today,
largely happen; they are the default consequence
of old social habits, a media induced consumer
society, and to some extent, a political slight
of hand - we are a society designed by distraction
and social programming far more than by self-aware
intent. |
| We
all make the social world we live in. Until
recently, with the exception of rare individuals,
individuals tended to develop within the community
they were born into. The industrial era’s military,
college and large corporations
progressively
expanded
this base of most. “Networking” became a topic
by the late 70s and with it the notion that
intentional
virtual communities were both possible and
essential. Communities of practice models emerged
in the mid 90s; since then, the Internet has
provided the tool and researchers like
Albert-Laszlo
Barabasi (LINKED
- The New Science of Networks)
the theory. Intentional
communities and cooperatives have
long been a fringe but important element of
American society from the beginning. The notion
of deliberately building a global network,
as
an individual strategy to
enhance work capability, is still a radical
one. We are still in the early stages. Even
with the recent melt down of Internet stocks
and business strategies, a revolution still
lurks in the idea of the “network
effect.” From the old “good-old-boy” networks
to the technology augmented virtual, special
interest networks of today, a new social organization
strategy is emerging. We call these ValueWebs and believe they represent the next phase of
social organization. |
| The
issue then, in regards to creativity, is the
deliberate act of designing networks to accomplish
defined goals be they for learning, resource
acquisition or implementing work. |
|
Organize
your workplace...
| In
the environment where most people work this
seems to be
an absurd statement. The same can be said for
the schools they attended. Was creating an
environment
to promote creative work ever taught? How many
have any effective control of any aspect of
their
work environment? Is there be any
relationship between the sterile pigeon
holes called workstations and the stagnant thinking
that predominates in many organizations? No,
we were not taught this and yes we do have control
over
our environment - we have chosen to delegate
this control to others (who have turned it
into a commodity) and we have to take this responsibility
- and our environment - back. |
| Organizing
one’s environment - nesting -
is an essential ritual as well as a logistical
necessity
of an individual’s creative process. In
the specific, everyone works differently;
left hand, right hand; standing, sitting; pacing,
not; work spread out, put away; open access (prospect),
quite niche (refuge); sparse setup, abundant “mess;”
and in addition, there are a wide variety of
work modalities and processes that vary greatly
from
person
to
person. The workplace should adapt to people;
people should not have to adapt to the workplace.
The workplace should reflect human values
and the character of each individual not the
false
standardization and misguided attempt to make
the place of work into a simple machine. Each
phase of the creative process requires a different
framework; each individual response to each phase
differently. When our work environments reflect
this reality, we will know that we have begun
to create
creative places. |
| How
is this rule EMBEDDED? First by making
a place that is flexible and adaptable based
on
an understanding and practice of defined and
tested protocols; put control of
this environment in the hands
of
the those working within it. Create standards
and examples of productive environments, as
models,
provide the tools so that users can build and
truly use and continuously adapt their own
workplace. Facilitate knowledge
workers and client through work
processes that produce value, educate and entrain
new habits. Bring beauty, symbol and quality
back
into the workplace. Respect the fact that people
spend half their life in their work environment.
Populate
the space with books, toys, models, graphics,
plants and examples of the work being produced.
Celebrate creativity in every THING that
is present. Make variety; constantly
change the arrangement and the things that
are
in the space; bring in living beings: plants,
animals, children; pay attention to pattern
language; infuse your soul and intent
into the place as a work of art; don’t
ever stop this process and let the place
become static,
common and dull; pay close intention to the feedback
of what the environment is saying to you
and telling
you to do; engage the place in a dialog. |
| Things
are made. As such they are the result of intent
and a rule-based process. Nothing is philosophically
or artistically neutral. Everything is
the expression of idea. Every object denotes
meaning and connotes meaning. Observe
the world around you and reverse engineer
what you see. Then, use what you learn as rules
to guide actions that change your environment.
Experience the result. Do the process again. And
again. The environment you work in is you.
The environment we all make together be it a community,
city or our global
“spaceship” is us. We are
part of GAIA.
There is no escaping this fact. What we do matters
(becomes matter). |
|
| The
modern
workplace does not WORK very well. It is
tolerated; I know few who actually say they like
it. This presents a great opportunity to remake it into
a far better expression of human values. Today, it is
a somewhat more pleasant vestige of the medieval structure.
It has to become far more participatory and democratic.
It has to embrace moral (not moralistic) principals.
It has to be made physically and emotionally healthy
for today it is not. The cult of efficiency and utilitarianism
has to give way to creativity and art; dogma has to
give way to work processes based on real results not
on old, left over, worn out deeply embedded practices
that do not rest on evidence but on unchallenged habit.
The sharing of wealth produced has to become much more
equitable. It has to become, in its process and product,
economically
and ecologically
sustainable - today it is neither. The root of the ills
of the workplace is its lack of creativity for creativitity
is, by deffinition, the exprssion of the human; this
lack of creative impulse can be seen in how it is made,
in how it is conducted, in the products that emanate
from it. We have, today, an abundance of incremental
invention and innovation; a proliferation of technique
practiced by legions of over-trained and under educated
hired guns. These are mostly, in my expereince, highly
skilled and dedicated people who do not know what they
do not know and who, because of their inate humaness,
long to do far more and BE better than the
system in which they presently exist allows. Unleash
this genius and an abundance of true wealth will result;
chain it and the system will, with the power that has
been unleashed, self destruct. It seems like a simple
choice. |
| I
am not saying that there should be a greater integration
between our culture and the place where we manufacture
it; that integration already exists. What comes
out of our present system is the product that it was
designed to produce. If you question this consequence
in any way; if you wonder what another decade of the
same will produce; then, change the machine that has
ceased to promote life and replace it with what does.
We create our environment - and then, it creates us. |
|
Matt
Taylor
Elsewhere
November 28, 2002
|
SolutionBox
voice of this document:
INSIGHT • POLICY • PROGRAM
|
posted
November 28, 2002
revised
December 6, 2002
• 20021128.611390.mt •
20021206.202209.mt •
(note:
this document is about 25% finished)
copyright©
Matt Taylor 2002
note: aspects of the processes described in this document
are patented and patent pending by iterations
|
|
|
