When we design anything about the future, we do our best design when we engage principles that support best design both as product (content) and process. The previous two posts feature 14 process and 14 content principles, drawn from a variety of global best practices, that can be used in any kind of design from the design of products to services, buildings to spaces, organizations to communities.

At the end of the day, the quality of what we design will perfectly reflect the principles used to create the design process and content. This is just introductory, substance for my next book, “The Future of the Future.” If you have any cool additions or better definitions, let me know, thanks much.

Design Process Principles

Spiral Design / the ability of a design to emerge through a logical sequence of different versions, where each version is a richer and more practical and efficient realization of the ideal

Appreciative critique / the assessment of an existing or considered design’s strength and descriptions of elements and functions we would also like to see incorporated into the design

Fusion / the both-and (vs. either-or) intention to incorporate conflicting or opposing elements or functions in a design

Creative tension / designing versions of a design while still having unresearched or undecided ambiguities and uncertainties

User stories / detailed descriptions of how users expect and desire to use a design in the future

Diverse designers / the value of designers who represent diverse expertise, disciplines, constituencies, use, and perspectives

Transparency (aka trustworthiness) / the willingness of designers to make evident their respective agendas, dreams, assets, and constraints

Idea funnels / the larger the funnel of possible ideas into the process, the greater the quality of ideas that evolve from the process

Research / the designer’s willingness to inspire designs with historical, current practice, and metaphor related research

Biomimicry / using functionally related examples in nature to design for better functionality, durability, or efficiency in build/use/reuse

Reality-based decisions / the willingness to base design decisions on facts and data rather than
unresearched assumptions

Constraints / the conditions, elements, variables, and requirements that cannot or must not change (the “sacreds”)

Dream Space / the multiple versions of desired futures starting at least 20 years (one generation) out

Impermanence / designing in anticipation of inevitable change, error, failure, disuse, or obsolescence

Design Content Principles

Diverse use / the design is useful and marketable to people with diverse abilities and preferences

Simple & intuitive use / the design is easy to understand, regardless of the user’s experience, knowledge, language skills, or current concentration level and can be used without expert intervention

Communication / the design communicates information and instructions and records and archives information and instructions from users

Beauty / reflecting patterns in nature, design that appears to transcend time and space; the ability of design to be in harmony in relationship to its contexts

Effortlessness / the design can be used efficiently, comfortably, and with a minimum of fatigue

Aspiration / the ability of a design to create what we want to see, hear, feel, and do - the design represents what would delight our senses and user requirements; the ability of a design to inspire irrational attraction - the design inspires people feel compelled to use

Simplicity / design the produces the greatest value using the fewest parts

Packaging / the ability of a design to meet the criteria for implementation and/or funding - the design is ready for implementation, investment, and use

Reuse / the design allows for easy disassembly and reuse in other forms and functions; the design incorporates recycled materials, energy, forms, functions; the design allows users to use the design for multiple and diverse purposes, including self-customization

Intelligent systems / the design adjusts its functioning automatically to the design conditions and learning about the behaviors of the users

Flexible structures / the design allows for the flexible movement and rearrangement of parts

Inclusion/ the ability of a design to invite engagement, collaboration - the design inspires people to connect more with each other

Polyform / the ability of a design to include all aspects of a local living economy - the design supports other forms of local economic sources

Idea Incubation / the ability of a design to inspire new versions, integrations, features, or functions - the design makes possible new ideas for other community experiments, learning, and innovations

Randomness / the ability of a design to accommodate unexpected trends, events, dynamics - the design is adaptable to predictable and unpredictable changes, learning, and possibilities of failure/risk

US school administrators are now cracking down on violators of a new generation-specific offence. Hugging. It appears that our latest generation of youth, gentxt, are offending administrative aesthetics with hugs as common greetings, replacing the banal varieties of high and low fives and other acceptable socially empty affirmative trivia. I’m guessing it’s another classic example of “slippery slope” logic that will turn any community into rampant anarchy. Hugging.

If the so-called adults intend to reflect seriously on anything, it’s on the question of whether they would rather cultuvate a next generation of socially violent isolates or socially affectionate connectors. Imagine communities of people who have the choice of frequent hugs or only selective hugs. We need to be very selective about the school administrators making these choices because they will either foster connection or isolation. May the hugs continue long beyond this generation who seem to understand what it means to be in touch virtually and virtuously.

As part of my work, I’ve spent literally decades coaching teachers (from grade school to post-doc levels) and innovating in education. People like me who have had the luxury of this experience have become clear on one thing: if standards, testing, consequences, and lip service to accountability lead to continuous teaching improvement and innovation, teaching improvements and innovation in any country would be unstoppable and unconstrainable.

But such is not the case. Not even close. And we have the drop-out students, unhappy parents, underemployed graduates, and disenchanted employers to prove it

There is only one thing that drives teaching improvement: mentoring by a teacher with skills and sensibilities beyond your own. Period.

No amount of standards, consequences, testing or lip service to accountability has ever or could ever adequately substitute for good mentoring. Again, if it did, we would be a nation and planet of incredible levels of teaching improvement and innovation.

The old conversations about standards, testing, consequences, and lip service to accountability are not wrong, they simply have no power to bring about teaching improvement and innovation.

Only good mentoring can. Mentoring is the new conversation which should dominate any intention at educational reform. We need to be talking about how to cultivate and network weave teaching mentors and absolutely refuse to allow anyone to teach who either isn’t one or doesn’t have one. It’s the only thing that can ever make the difference. Really.

Anthropologist Pauline Wiessner talks about the !Kung people’s key to eons of survival in the unforgiving Kalahari deserts. It comes down to sustaining social networks outside one’s immediate circle and storytelling. She also attributes the same to the growth and expansion of culture beyond Africa and across the globe. Praising current social media as providing the same tools, she puts emphasis on connecting, gifting, and storytelling as core tender to survival and thrivancy. The message: these will always be figural to any successful future in any culture.

Future local living economies will thrive thanks to 3 core strategies: decreasing lost money to non-local suppliers, increasing the flow of local money between local suppliers and buyers, and increasing new money to the community from non-local funding, investing, and employer sources. Any local investments in any kinds of new businesses or programs need to achieve these strategies and do nothing to distract from them.

We can endlessly use today’s problems to distract and excuse ourselves from thinking about the future world we want to contribute to, participate in, and help create. The problem orientation is simply a thinly veiled disguise for the kind of cynicism that maintains the innocence that keeps us from creating an intentional future. Only by dropping a problem constraint can we breathe life into our own future.

From today’s NY Times Newswire: “A new wave of liberal arts students are heading to farms as interns this summer, in search of both work, even if it might pay next to nothing, and social change.”

Most are motivatied by the personal nature of organic farming, many are unprepared for the non-pampered lifestyle, and they are launching the new synergies between agrarian and knowlegde age passions. It is at these intersections that we will see new possibilities of finally dismantaling the artificial and academic distinctions of so-called unskilled, skilled, and degreed work.

Talked to my buddy Tony Houston this week who is the economic development director for one of the poorest areas in one of the poorest major urban cities in the US. However, I pressed him to realize a figure no one is talking about, that in this community that densely populates a 3 quare mile urban center, the combined personal and business annual income/revenues adds up to $1 Billion, with a B. What if we thought in these terms instead of the being quagmired and paralyzed in the old conversations about the needy, elderly, dropouts, and lost businesses?