Transcribed with Otter.ai
Guest Don Norman
Unknown Speaker 0:02
Hey. Hey everyone. Welcome to unique ways with Thomas Girard, an audio podcast. We have a legend, Don today. He’s the author of design, of everyday things and design for a better world, meaningful, sustainable, human centered. Among other titles, He’s a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego. Please join me in celebrating dawn. Norman, welcome.
Unknown Speaker 0:24
Thank you. So we’re going to diverge a little today and start with question 20 from the questionnaire, which is, how can our listeners keep caps on you? And what’s our call to action these days,
Unknown Speaker 0:38
it’s hard to keep caps on me. It’s hard for me to keep caps on me.
Unknown Speaker 0:43
You know, I’ve retired five times, and I get older and older and older, and I keep retiring. I keep thinking each retirement will be easier and I can do nothing. No, each retirement is busier and busier and but it’s okay, because everything I’m doing is stuff I really like and I think is important, but it’s amazing how busy it keeps me. So how do I keep cabs? I don’t know.
Unknown Speaker 1:07
I have a website, which I used to say what I was doing, and say, here’s where I’m going to be, and here’s what I’m doing, and so on. But I don’t have time to keep it up.
Unknown Speaker 1:18
Okay, great. So let’s move into a couple that wasn’t great, that was pretty miserable, but okay, I’m happy. So a couple of excerpts here. So MIT Press says he calls for a mobilization of the many to change the world into one which success is measured not in money, but in the wellness and happiness of people. Is this happening at all now? And how
Unknown Speaker 1:43
well more and more people are saying that, but it’s still a small minority. The problem is that the whole Western world, and when I use the words west and east and north and south, those are not geographical terms. Those are actually symbols, because in many ways, the modern world, especially in the United States, developed in Western Europe, and
Unknown Speaker 2:10
it’s the economic model that we follow, which is basically, it’s all about making more money. And companies are designed so that actually their bylaws state that they owe their their responsibility, not to their customers, not to their employees, not to the community where they are are located, but to the shareholders. And it’s all about in the shareholders today are mostly huge corporations themselves or or financial institutions, and what they’re interested in is money period, money period. And so therefore they take short term interests over long term and the likelihood the livelihood of people and the destruction of the world, that’s irrelevant. It’s all about bringing in money. And it’s the western model. It came from Western Europe. It’s been adapt adopted all around the world, and the United States is clearly a part of it. Australia is a part of it, even though it’s in the south and it’s not in the west to the east. So that’s the problem, and it’s really difficult to change anything because of that. But more and more companies are becoming not an S corp or not a C Corp, but what’s called a B Corp, which I abbreviate as a better Corp. That is to say their requirement is to
Unknown Speaker 3:39
make their employees happy, make their customers happy, make the community in which they exist happy. Do not destroy the environment. Do not destroy cultures. In other words, create a better world, one that’s more enjoyable and better for all of us, except for the people who are in power, who no longer will have quite so much power. They won’t be billion billionaires or even trillionaires. We’re almost there.
Unknown Speaker 4:06
They might just be comfortable. Gee, what a shock.
Unknown Speaker 4:11
Great. And you kind of just answered this, but the next one is from jnd.org and it says, dive into a world where design transcends esthetics and technology becoming a tool for societal enhancement. And again, I’ll ask you, is this already happening, and how
Unknown Speaker 4:28
it’s not really happening? And I think because designers keep claiming that that’s what they wish to do, but in fact, they don’t know how to play the game, and so most of them are stuck in mid levels of corporations or even in the university, the design school was never considered the top school. Well, in a general purpose University, seldom is it considered the top because designers are so proud of their methods and proud of their ability to do beautiful objects and proud of their ability to make.
Unknown Speaker 5:00
Make things. That’s not what design is about. First of all, design is a way of thinking, of solving important problems, of making sure you solve the the under my underlying causal issues, and second of all, making sure that it meets the needs of the people you’re designing for. And the best way of doing that is don’t be a colonialist. Well, colonialist did. Let’s take India. Let’s take Britain, for example. In India, it went into India and said, You people don’t know how to govern yourself, so we’ll help you. We’ll govern your COVID. You will govern for you. Did the Indians like that? Absolutely not. Indians were treated like second class citizens in their own country, and we’ve done the same all over the world. We, I mean, the Western powers, including the United States. We send in people to democratize countries, even though they don’t understand the notion and they’re not really ready for it, and it’s not necessarily what they how they would govern themselves. So why is it we force our economic model on others? So a critical part of design is to realize Don’t always try to figure out the best idea and give it to people, because your best idea is not necessarily theirs. And so what we have to do is go in and yes, observe what what people are doing. But you know, we don’t have to tell them what their problems are. They know what their problems are. They just they even have started to solve them. The problem is that many problems are fairly technical, simple problems they can solve for themselves.
Unknown Speaker 6:37
For example, China said it’s really time that we must stop the pollution of the streets, and so all the all the small vehicles have to be electric. And what happened was the people said, yeah, it’s a good idea. And so they started electrifying their vehicles. They they put electric motors and batteries on the rickshaws. They put electric motors and batteries on their bicycles. They, they they changed the motorcycles by themselves, and that’s the way it ought to be done. In this case, it took the government to sort of push them, but once, once they got pushed, they did it by themselves. And so we need to go into communities and say, if you need assistance, we’re here to help, because some of the things you need to do. You need government support, and we can help you work with the government, or you might need experts in medicine or public health or sanitation or education, and we can bring you those experts who can help you do what it is you wish to do. And so that’s a big change in in design. The other thing is, designers are not at the top of the of the decision making pile. So very few companies, large companies, very few of them, have Chief Design officers, people at the C suite, where they reported the CEO or they they can actually say what the company ought to be doing. No, mostly designers are in the middle level, and they can only do what they’re asked to do. So why don’t designers get promoted? Well, because they don’t know how to speak the language of business that they think that they can just tell people, Look, I’m a great designer, promote me. No, the company says we’re glad you’re great designers. That’s why we hired you. But you know, we we have other issues we have to worry about in the company. It’s not just your skills. You have to understand about profits and margins, and you have to understand what keeps the company in business. You have to understand its impact upon the world and supply chain matters, and you have to understand political issues.
Unknown Speaker 8:37
So most of the people say, Well, I don’t want to know about politics. Well, okay, you don’t, you don’t have to, but then don’t complain that you’re not able to get things done, because it’s in the political sphere where things get done. That’s a long answer to your short question. Great, I love it. So let’s move to some important topics. Here your newest book. Tell us that wasn’t important. Come on. Oh,
Unknown Speaker 9:03
equally, less, more important topics, your newest book. Tell us what we should know about it.
Unknown Speaker 9:10
I just gave you a beginning, because what happened with the newest book is, well, I just retired for the fifth time, and now I’m 88 years old, and I’m saying, well, then I wasn’t I was 86 or 85 and I’m saying, what else should I do with my life? And
Unknown Speaker 9:30
I realized that I needed to keep active. And when you retire, if you don’t keep active, you sort of die. And no, I don’t intend to do that, but all my other books are about how to make things understandable and usable, and that’s all very good, but it doesn’t take care of the problems that the world is facing today. So I asked myself, well, what can I do about the problems? And I thought about them and read about them. And.
Unknown Speaker 10:00
I said, there’s nothing I can really add. The problems are really well understood. Everything. I just told you about the economic problems and so on that’s well understood. Lots and lots of really good, important people have have diagnosed the current problems and explained what’s wrong and suggested alternatives.
Unknown Speaker 10:19
And I said, Well, maybe the problem is the solution. We understand the problems. What about the solutions? And I read all the solutions that people are suggesting, and I said, yeah, those are good. So what’s the problem? The problem is they’re not being done. And the more I thought about that, I more I thought, gee, that’s all about human behavior. And so maybe that’s something I understand. Because if you look at my career, I started off as an engineer, two degrees in electrical engineering. I then became a psychologist. So I understand technology, I understand people. Became a cognitive scientist as he’s even more because that combines both technology and people. And then when I moved to industry, I began to understand the way that business works. And so yeah, I was an industry executive and understood the world of business. And I would travel around the world and meet people from all around the world. I was at Apple, and of course, we were a worldwide company. And so yes, maybe I can talk about why people are not changing, why the behavior is not changing. But what’s also useful to actually partially answer an earlier question you asked, more and more people are thinking this way. More and more people are trying to aim for a better life, not just a business life. Why do we spend more life, more time with in the business, than we spend with our family? Do we have to always be in such a rush? Must a company really grow and grow and grow? Is that really necessary? Isn’t it okay to have a company that’s doing really good work and is profitable so it can stay in business but stays the same size? Why not? And so rethinking everything, why can’t we work at home partially, when my job doesn’t really require that I be present all the time, it’s important to be present periodically, because you want to bond with the people you’re working with, but not all the time, etc, etc, etc. So thinking about these issues are what was important, and that’s what I cover in the book. But also I try to look, I don’t try to criticize unless I have an answer. So for every problem that I discuss, I give you alternative ways of doing things that work to my opinion, not only just as well, but work better.
Unknown Speaker 12:42
Perfect, and now your charity. Tell us what we should know about that.
Unknown Speaker 12:49
Well, one of the things I wanted to do was to get more people involved in doing this. And the people who matter really in the world are not the academics. It’s the people are out there doing things. Now the academics are critically important because they’re the ones who train the people who are doing things. But I wanted to reward people doing things, and, well, a group of my friends wanted to give an award out in my name
Unknown Speaker 13:16
to honor me, but also we would find some very significant person who’s done a lot of good work over their life, and give them an award. And I said, No, those people don’t need awards. They’re already have lots of awards. In fact, you give them another award and the trophy, they don’t, Oh, where am I going to put it? I don’t have any room. It doesn’t change what they’re doing. And I know because that’s happened to me. It’s really nice to receive these big awards, but it doesn’t make any difference in what I’m going to do. No. So how about an award when someone is just starting out, when you need an award most, when you need some recognition, when you probably are full of doubts, and you’ve struggled to do what you’ve done, and it’s really not that much you’re just starting, but somebody says, Wow, you’re on the right path. That could make a difference. And so the basically,
Unknown Speaker 14:12
the if you ask me what kind of a designer I am, I’m really an educator. So I design designers, and I reward good work. And so what I’m trying to do here is say, Yeah, I want the people out there who are doing something for societal good to be rewarded. That’s the best education you can give them, is that what they’re doing is in the right direction. So that’s what this charity is about. It’s called the Don Norman Design Award. And
Unknown Speaker 14:42
summit on the summit, I’ll tell you about in a minute. So first of all, you have to be
Unknown Speaker 14:49
I don’t care what your training is, I don’t care how old you are, but you have to have just moved into the area of doing good for society in the last two or three years, and you can’t have done more than two.
Unknown Speaker 15:00
Previous projects in this arena, so you’re still early in the game. Second, you have to have evidence. So you have to show that what you’re doing is making a difference. Now you probably, if you’re young and early, don’t have much money, you haven’t made much of a difference, but nonetheless, we can see the promise, and that’s what we’ll reward you for. And the reward will give you a little bit of money, but it will also make it probably easier for you to get real funding.
Unknown Speaker 15:31
In addition, we wanted to reward the educational institutions, not necessarily colleges and universities, but startups and boot camps and into a lot of the informal groups, or sometimes formal online education groups, and reward them for training people to do these kinds of projects. So those are those two components of the award, and
Unknown Speaker 15:55
that the hope. And what are the kinds of projects? Well, they’re just take a look at the United Nations list of 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and basically the first 16 give you really good examples of what you can do. And at that runs the whole wide gamut of stuff like electrification, like this, destruction of the climate, destruction of the ecosystem. Good teaching, good clean water, good food, no hunger,
Unknown Speaker 16:27
education, public health. So those are, those are the kinds of things we’re aiming at. And actually, number 17 is basically what we are doing. Number 17 says they’re, they’re sustainable. Gold 17. You know, this is such a huge, big set of problems that the only way we’re going to make progress is we all band together to accomplish this. So first of all, I’m trying to find other groups that I’m working with. And right now, the major group I’m working with is Aga Khan Foundation, which is based in Geneva and works primarily in Africa and Asia, but they’re expanding their work. And most Americans have never heard of them, but people in in Europe have, and people in Asia and Africa certainly have. And so they’re a really great partner. And so we have a summit, so which is a yearly conference, basically where we bring together, first of all the people who are getting awards, but most importantly, all the people in the world who wish to come, who are working on projects like this, to share their knowledge and what they learned. And what I want is not the traditional practitioners conference where people say I did this, it isn’t wonderful, and then I did this, and isn’t that wonderful? Oh, and yes, and then I also did this one, it isn’t that wonderful. No, I want them to say I did this, and doesn’t that look great? Well, actually, it was a complete failure. And let me tell you what happened and what I learned from failure, because you learn from failing much more than you learn from being from good projects, projects that succeed. When projects succeed, you don’t know really why it succeeded. You just assume, well, I’m really good at this, but when you fail, you think very hard about what caused the failure and what could I do in the future, and how do I overcome these issues? So we want to emphasize failures. And the Aga Khan foundation loved that when I went to Geneva to talk to them about it, because they’re doing work all around the world. A lot of is very, very successful, and a lot of it is not. And talking about what they’ve learned from the ones that didn’t work, they felt was much more important than the ones that did work. So that’s what this we have a charity. We have we have enough money to keep going the first year, but we’re hoping to have enough money to make this an annual event, and applications are already pouring in.
Unknown Speaker 18:55
Perfect Well, let’s close there. You know, thank you so much for joining today. You’re living legends. Miraculous to have you here. I’m so grateful. Thank you so much.
Unknown Speaker 19:05
Okay, you’re quite welcome.
Unknown Speaker 19:07
You.
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