Change Ahead Book, by Carola Verschoor
Published 2015
Find it on Amazon
Contribution co-written by Laura Melissa Williams and Brain Millar, 2015
Change Ahead focuses on the emerging practices at the intersection of business strategy, research, and design. It introduces the need for an adventurous, explorative mindset in order to grow businesses that last by creating meaning and relevance. It reveals the philosophy, working processes, and approaches to twenty-first century business development.
Who are Laura and Brian?
Laura Williams is a designer, strategist and project manager specialising in insight, innovation and business strategy. I her early twenties Laura co-founded and ran a service design consultancy. Then she co-founded a tech start-up and is currently developing a learning programme called AcadeME.
Brian Millar is Head of Strategy at Sense Worldwide, where he works on innovation projects with leading clients. He started his advertising career at Saatchi and Saatchi and Ogilvy, became a speech writer for CEOs and then decided strategy was more creative than either. He writes regularly on design and innovation for Fast Company and Wired.
What is research?
Research is the act of gathering information that will lead to insight. Insight is a step beyond the information itself: insight provides you with a new understanding about a subject and can point you in a different direction. Research brings the consumer voice into the commercial decision-making process. It's essential to innovation and strategy because you can't know what different consumers need without involving them.
Research needs insight because while existing data and other information might tell you 'what' is happening, insight is gained by unpacking 'why' things are happening.
Whilst most standard research methodology tells you about the 'now' and the 'then' of any given research subject, it does not go to the 'next'. It is still a key part of the context for innovation and strategy, by understanding and learning from what has happened previously you can verify your hunches on what might happen next.
What is design?
Design is the application of creativity to solve human problems. This can be anything from a more user-friendly kitchen appliance to an integrated digital management system or a physical retail experience.
Design involves creating products, services or businesses beyond the constraints or boundaries of the current context in ways that serves people's needs. One thing that designers often have is empathy and imagination, the ability to put themselves in someone else's shoes and design around their needs. In this way design is more than a skillset, it is particular mindset. This creative thinking that helps designers design a solution to a problem or challenge is the way they go about generating solutions. Central to this is the idea of playfulness: it is about exploring with a big smile or even a cheeky grin.
There is a danger these days that people think design is a chin-stroking exercise, yet the gap between ideation and making something that resonates with people deeply is what defines design: it's a balance between design thinking and design doing.
Research is the act of gathering information that will lead to insight. Insight is a step beyond the information itself: insight provides you with a new understanding about a subject and can point you in a different direction. Research brings the consumer voice into the commercial decision-making process. It's essential to innovation and strategy because you can't know what different consumers need without involving them.
Research needs insight because while existing data and other information might tell you 'what' is happening, insight is gained by unpacking 'why' things are happening.
Whilst most standard research methodology tells you about the 'now' and the 'then' of any given research subject, it does not go to the 'next'. It is still a key part of the context for innovation and strategy, by understanding and learning from what has happened previously you can verify your hunches on what might happen next.
What is design?
Design is the application of creativity to solve human problems. This can be anything from a more user-friendly kitchen appliance to an integrated digital management system or a physical retail experience.
Design involves creating products, services or businesses beyond the constraints or boundaries of the current context in ways that serves people's needs. One thing that designers often have is empathy and imagination, the ability to put themselves in someone else's shoes and design around their needs. In this way design is more than a skillset, it is particular mindset. This creative thinking that helps designers design a solution to a problem or challenge is the way they go about generating solutions. Central to this is the idea of playfulness: it is about exploring with a big smile or even a cheeky grin.
There is a danger these days that people think design is a chin-stroking exercise, yet the gap between ideation and making something that resonates with people deeply is what defines design: it's a balance between design thinking and design doing.
How are they different?
Research allows us to understand the boundaries of a topic. Design allows us to break those boundaries in order to redefine a topic in a new way. You take a creative approach to getting the insights you need, but encouraging people to come together and generate ideas based on the insights is naturally more embedded than creativity. If design is used well it helps people become more open to learning from mistakes and more likely to help things be repurposed around emerging consumer needs.
Design has a broader scope than research. We would even say that is it possible to design without research. Like the Hubble Space Telescope for instance, you can be sure that they did not do focus groups for that, although they may have asked astronauts for input on the interior design and other practical design attributes. There is such a thing as design without an end user in mind, and there are also lone geniuses. And in some circumstances that works.
Research allows us to understand the boundaries of a topic. Design allows us to break those boundaries in order to redefine a topic in a new way. You take a creative approach to getting the insights you need, but encouraging people to come together and generate ideas based on the insights is naturally more embedded than creativity. If design is used well it helps people become more open to learning from mistakes and more likely to help things be repurposed around emerging consumer needs.
Design has a broader scope than research. We would even say that is it possible to design without research. Like the Hubble Space Telescope for instance, you can be sure that they did not do focus groups for that, although they may have asked astronauts for input on the interior design and other practical design attributes. There is such a thing as design without an end user in mind, and there are also lone geniuses. And in some circumstances that works.
How are they similar?
Both research and design are about creating learning organisations and people. Research can learn from data and feedback and generate continuously evolving hypotheses and help explore personal and cultural boundaries that already exist, are are starting to shift. Great design is about pushing these boundaries, and emerging beyond or building upon what is fashionable or normal. It's an exploration into the unknown. Research and design have to fulfil their potential within a business context. A lot of commercial research is used to understand what's happened previously. If a company wants to innovate they need to understand why new things are happening, but from a research perspective that's a much harder internal sell. Within large companies, research is too often used to kill ideas, which can cause tension between the research team and the design team.
Designers have to introduce new ideas, while people evolutionarily do not like new things. No wonder designers find it difficult to gain acceptance for their ideas. Working towards insight is the main area in which design and research work symbiotically. To get deeper meaning, both integrate feedback into their learning process and pivot the lessons learned into new opportunities and new questions.
How do you envision the future of research and design within the business context?
Brian has drawn a big light bulb with many little light bulbs within it, inspired by the principle that the big idea is always the rich, that is, an idea interesting on many levels: products become a medium and consumers can influence the future shape they take.
This symbolizes what we see happening at the intersection of research and design: co-creation. No design department can keep up with the speed with which consumers' demand change. The most creative consumers start acting as valuable muses to design, and research has a role to play in getting that inspiration. Together with the consumer, the ability to see new perspectives and to integrate those perspectives is where great ideas take shape.
Laura drew brains in a network, to symbolize collective thinking and the ability for all people to learn. All the brains are equally big, yet one central that helps connect. This image speaks to the capacity for collective thinking and to the way in which collaboration brings people together to create more effective learning hubs.
How do you envision the future of research and design within the business context?
Brian has drawn a big light bulb with many little light bulbs within it, inspired by the principle that the big idea is always the rich, that is, an idea interesting on many levels: products become a medium and consumers can influence the future shape they take.
This symbolizes what we see happening at the intersection of research and design: co-creation. No design department can keep up with the speed with which consumers' demand change. The most creative consumers start acting as valuable muses to design, and research has a role to play in getting that inspiration. Together with the consumer, the ability to see new perspectives and to integrate those perspectives is where great ideas take shape.
Laura drew brains in a network, to symbolize collective thinking and the ability for all people to learn. All the brains are equally big, yet one central that helps connect. This image speaks to the capacity for collective thinking and to the way in which collaboration brings people together to create more effective learning hubs.
Image source: Tacita Dean. I love how she captures nature in a powerful and evocative way. Her annotations on her artworks bring a sense of her into her artworks.