#NeoCon10 Keynote Reflection: The Design of Business...

Monday afternoon at #NeoCon10 Dean of the Rotman School of Management in Toronto, Roger Martin led a very  informative presentation with straight forward tools that are said to result in a successful design and business collaborative when implemented. The seminar is entitled "The Design Of Business: Why Design Thinking Is The Next Competitive Advantage". Jim Hackett, the President of Steelcase introduced Martin and in doing so states at some point that, "Design is a competitive weapon". I believe this to be true. Shortly there after, Mr. Martin is applauded to the podium and says, "There's thinking patterns in modern organizations that don't allow there to be as innovative as they would like". I also believe this to be true.

"Everything in life starts out as a mystery." -Roger Martin

So design is a competitive weapon, like a cannon with a bunch of ideas stuffed inside just waiting to be launched. Big corporations as Martin explains it are not so quick to jump on the bandwagon of new ideas because a new a idea does not have a proven record of being successful. Well of course big corp! Who can predict the future anyway? It is better to believe in the future with only the expectation of possibility. The deemed terms that Martin uses throughout the lecture to define these two very opposite methodologies are Analytical Thinking (the reliability factor) and Intuitive Thinking (the validity factor). The best of both worlds would be abductive logic (a creative lead of the mind and then testing the idea).

"Prove it, is the biggest destroyer of innovation, because you cant."

Because corporations believe that designers are a bit too free and designer feel sometimes that corporations can be fire breathing dragons, Roger Martin has strategized these 5 Productive Steps that are said to help the two industries of business and design come together and make magic:

DESIGNING In: Hostile Territory

1. Take design unfriendliness as a design challenge.
2. Empathize with the "design-unfriendly elements"
3. Speak the language of reliability
4. Use analogies and stories
5. Bite off as little piece as possible to generate proof

"The trick is to turn the future into the past."

Leveraging Design In Business 

1. Take inattention to reliability as a management challenge
2. Empathize with the "reliability-unfriendly elements"
3. Speak language of validity
4. Share data and reasoning not conclusions
5. Bite of as big a piece as possible to give innovation a chance

#NeoCon10 Keynote Relfection: Green The Ghetto and How Much it Won't Cost,

#NeoCon10 starts off this year's WTF with an amazing message from Majora Carter, an Environmental Activist  from the Bronx, greening one ghetto at a time. Cheryl Durst, IIDA Executive VP introduces the Keynote. She starts off by saying that Majora's presentation could set the tone for our day and possibly change our lives. Being that this was the first time I would be encountering the "force of nature" that is Majora Carter, I was all eyes and ears for the seminar "Green The Ghetto &How Much It Won't Cost". I would think the overall idea of it would be received by us awaiting #NeoCon10 attendees exactly how it sounds.

Born and raised in the Bronx, Majora's green mentality didn't actually take form until she moved back home after college. This was during a time where in the 60s and 70s, New York was heavily impacted by redlining, the method that big bank corporations used to weed out what neighborhoods they chose to  invest their time and money into building up and restoring... And the ghetto was not on the top of their lists, and probably a long shot from making it. After Zena, Majora's pooch, took her for a "jog" near the Bronx River one morning, the sight that she would see was as life changing as Cheryl Durst sought her presentation to be. What she was thrown in front of was a city dumping site that actually used the Bronx River as a final resting place. Her question was why and how had this been done to her neighborhood. My inquiring mine wondered the same, as well as, if so much energy could be given toward coming into the Bronx to dump waste, why couldn't the same amount of energy be put forth to build up the city?

A known fact: Because banks refused to loan into redlined areas in the Bronx along with very high unemployment due to exported local manufacturing jobs, led many landlords to torch their buildings to collect insurance payouts (via Majora Carter Group Communications).

And so the environmental activist was born. Majora's beliefs are that the ghettos are considered politically vulnerable locations, which has set them up for a long history of voiceless communities as a whole and a people that haven't considered the benefits of an environmentally sound...well environment. Also explaining why factories that pollute the air and manufacturers of hazardous materials are dead smack in the middle of low income housing communities.  Through the implementation of green solutions, Majora created this whole rolodex of ways to green the ghetto and at the same time educate those in the community; an educational system that is designed to help people create their own jobs.

Some of her many affiliated organizations include  Sustainable South Bronx, Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training (B.E.S.T), Majora Carter Group, LLC, American City Farms, and Uptown Girl Power.

I believe the best message of the whole seminar, and what could also be considered the platform for Majora's movement is that, "you don't have to leave where you are to live better"

Visit her Majora's official site for more info on her green journey http://www.majoracartergroup.com/