I just saw his speech again and this time, I really understood his perspective on what harmony is about. He is talking in context of story telling but I believe it applies to the creative process for brand building, design and business in general.

He never says but rather assumes that harmony is what we need to look for in a creation , not perfection. (That is genius right there).

He explains that harmony is not about seeking resolution, it is more about the acceptance of contradiction. A good story is told at many different levels and it is OK if the elements of the story do not jive together perfectly. Every loophole does not have to be closed. Even in some of the great Hollywood movies, the creators compromise the intellectual quality just to provide a complete resolution at the end.

We, the agency folks, do the same thing only at a much stricter level. Because of the noise and competition out there, we have gone crazy with  ‘follow the brand guidelines’ thing. We are not being creative, we are just being the brand police. Sad. As Shekar says, “We prepare too much. We think too much. Knowledge becomes a weight upon wisdom.”

NIKE. Just do it.  — Think of all the levels this line plays at; emotional, political, mystical, good, bad, … who care? Let it be. That is the acceptance of contradiction. That is harmony. That is genius.

Here is Shekar’s speech. If you have not seen the movie Elizabeth and you do not have 21 minutes, you can skip the first few minutes:

Now, this is sort of a crowd-sourcing event on IDEO’s platform. I am more interested in the platform itself and its concept. The navigation is simple and sequential. I had the rare “I get it” feeling within seconds and I love the concept.

We have to wait and see how it goes. I am sure IDEO will figure out a good outcome even if it does not yield any original creativity. Or may be it is designed as a PR stunt to “raise awareness.” It would be interesting to see if 584 inspirations and 194 concepts are any better than a few people brainstorming in a room.

I think the problem of bias of order is still there. Ideas are listed one after the other. The threads of conversation are not random. Or even if the exposure of ideas is randomized, pure serendipity is missing because I don’t think pure serendipity is random (different debate but you get the idea). Also, in live brainstorms, really bad ideas get killed right away, no matter how much you try to avoid it. (I think that is a good thing as it reduces clutter.)

What do you think? Here is the link:

http://openideo.com/open/how-might-we-give-children-the-knowledge-to-eat-better/evaluation/

There it was! I found it!

For a long time, I have been wanting to eliminate the confusion that creative people deal with. Is it art? Is it a science? Both? Let’s be clear we are not talking about advertising. We are talking about visual design or interactive design.

Recently I pulled out a book that I had read back in 1995, Designing Visual Interfaces by Kevin Mullet and Darrell Sano. Great book! It states what I consider to be the best definition of visual design process. The author compares it to the typical engineering methodology:

“An initial understanding of the problem based on a thorough background research is followed by an iterative cycle of generation and evaluation until the solution that best meets the requirements is selected for production.”

Can’t say it any better. Love it!

When I ask a recently graduated Interactive designer about his/her web design curriculum, I always get the same response. They’ve taken a course in HTML and one in FLASH where they built a “project” and designed a “website”. Try and ask them about their thought-process on information architecture or usability or a simple question like as “How did you come up with the navigation?” It often leaves them fumbling for some sort of response.

Don’t get me wrong. These students are usually very talented. I would just stay away from evaluating their potential based on this school project.

At these schools, besides HTML and Flash course, the rest of their time is usually spent on making a spinning 3D robot because that’s one of the media in “multimedia.”

To any design school instructors or administrators reading this: please realize that an Interactive design program should be similar to an Architecture program where the guiding principle is “form follows function.”

Students need to spend their time learning about information design, usability, visualization, iterative design, prototyping, wireframing, behavioral profiling, heuristics, ergonomics and knowledge management. Good web design is not just about Dreamweaver and FLASH skills.

Also, enough with the “multimedia”. The industry doesn’t need a 3D game developer, video editor and web designer packaged into one career. That time is gone. Give us analytical, creative thinkers who know the real meaning of user-centered design.

We need fresh talent that’s savvier than today’s school kids. This is the one area that I don’t feel we are ready for the mobile revolution. As if there is no user-centered design, there is no mobile revolution.