Design x Convergence

On May 12th, 2018, I attended the Strategic Design Conference: Design x Convergence at The New School. This full-day conference was dedicated to design strategy and organized by the Parsons School of Design's Strategic Design and Management Master's Program. The conference focused on creating strange proximities and unexpected conversations. The focuses also went beyond what the industry is doing today, but how it all effects and motivates today's thinkers.

Their definition of a design strategist:
"Is to design for convergence, guiding disparate parts into a shared and impactful trajectory"


& to tie it all together, while each speaker was presenting, there was a designer on the sidelines bringing all of their words. to life in true CONVERGENT fashion. 


TAKEAWAYS

The most impactful statements came from the keynote speaker Kevin Bethune. As he told his story, he mentioned how wide his work background ranges, and how the multiple disciplines shaped who he is today. He began his career has a mechanical engineer, then moved into business strategy, then product creation process excellence, digital enablement and industrial design. While his beginning and his ending seem to have nothing to do with one another, all of them together have given him amazing opportunities at top brands (such as Nike) and pushed him to start his own business (DD+L: Dreams, Design & Life). Thus creating what he calls The Trifecta: Business, Design, and Technology.


His technological / business background, plus his love for creating makes him a curious creative. And he expressed how amazing it is to see people wearing his designs. But the biggest takeaway, was during his work at Nike when he had to combine two classic sneakers, he realized that bringing old stories together to create new stories are the most impactful. It's the history that is what keeps people engaged and makes products emotional and personal. Afterall, Nike is known for its iconic sneakers, so why wouldn't they blend their icons together to make the ultimate icon.

He wrapped up his speech on a more inspirational note, ensuring everyone to have confidence in themselves because no one knows your heart better than yourself. He told everyone, to listen to their own voice first, and to embrace creative risks. He also specifically stated that, "curiosity is the defining thread." In order to grow, you must always experiment outside of your day job.


SO HERE'S TO BEING MORE THAN A JOB TITLE!


Then there was....
The most interesting panel:



The Human in the Room: Making Tech Emotional

Panelists:
Carol YanIBM iX
Chris Macpherson, Frog
David Mendlewicz, Butterfly.AI
Morgan Howard, Patriot Management
Moderator: Noah Robischon, Conde Nast

The panel started off by focusing on the latest tech news released from I/O Google 2018 which happened the same week. (Because how can you talk about tech without talking about Google?!) What did they mention? Google's Assistant having the ability to make calls on "her" own to book appointments and even more. But the question was, what does that mean for us as people? While we are creating smarter and smarter tech, at what point do we go too far?

Chris believes we create this tech because: "humans are bad at predicting the future, but are really good at creating/designing it." Which insinuates that we are mindlessly creating without thinking about the impact it will have on the future.

Carol mentions that the whole point, "is about robots taking jobs we shouldn't be doing anymore so we can have more time to do more cognitive thinking." & of course the whole purpose of technology is to make lives easier BUT

as Morgan puts it, "we should understand that there are limits and we need to understand that at the end of the day, these are robots." Which I believe is the turning point that leads the conversation into ethics.

Should technology be more emotional?

This question definitely had two opinions because on one spectrum we must continue to grow our technology and ensure they are as perfect as possible, but on the other hand how do we know we aren't crossing a line that we never knew existed. 

According to the panelists, there were regulations made for technology, BUT these regulations were created at the VERY beginning when there wasn't even a tech industry to talk about. 

So now, David mentions that he believes "we should have the same regulations on tech that we do for medicine." Technology has become so advanced that there should be a code of ethics for tech. Because we wouldn't want to end up like the countless movies created where, "we wouldn't want something to get into the wrong hands" OR robots take over the world.

The first step, is determining specifically what type of company you are. While Google is an AI company, Amazon is a client first company. And yet they both could be considered to be tech companies. But in order to truly determine what type of company you are, you must determine who you are servicing as a company. Are you servicing people? Or are you just trying to create the latest and greatest tech?

It's amazing to see how products that could never even be dreamed of a couple of years ago, become products that we, as humans, could never live without. But as our parents might say, are we going too far? 




While it is amazing to create, when thinking of the capabilities of technology, it puts a lot of things into perspective. Such as, morality and ethics, which is something that I (surprisingly) as some who keeps up with tech announcements have never thought of. Many of us are always into what is bigger and better, but it could be possible that although it is more advanced, it is not better for our lives. While the panel definitely sent me down a spiral of what ifs... the keynote was extremely encouraging and makes me want to ensure that I become an expert in the Trifecta: Business, Design, and Technology. As someone who gets bored easily, it is reassuring to hear someone say that it is okay to do more than your regular job, because it is your curiosity that pushes you forward. My main goal after this is to ensure I take risks. So -fingers crossed- that I do so.



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