steelcase blog

A Thousand Years…

 … that’s how long each of us can live according to The Great Giovanni (Giovanni Livera) in his book, Live a Thousand Years – Have the Time of Your Life.  A week ago, I was at an experience design conference run by Strategic Horizons (the Pine & Gilmore tag team who wrote The Experience Economy and Authenticity).  Their keynote speaker was Giovanni, and he was wonderful.  Not only was he an energetic, funny, engaging speaker, AND a magician,… but his message was uplifting and truly motivational.  His goal is to get the audience to ‘consider the dash’; focusing on the dash between the date of your birth and your death, as carved in your tombstone.  It’s clearly a choice he contends,… either choose to measure your life by clocks and calendars, or choose to measure it by moments and experiences.

Gio’s (he told us to call him that) book goes well beyond the simple adage of ‘slow down and smell the roses’, though a more contemplative approach to your daily activities is certainly a thread that is weaved throughout the book.  I would say it’s less about subtracting things (so you can slow down),… and more about adding ‘purpose’ to the things that you do.  It’s about being intentional; I love that word.  Instead of letting outside circumstances and events set the pace/program of your life,… let what’s inside you, in terms of what you know is important (physical, emotional and spiritual well-being), force an intentional agenda for each day.  And not just for the day, but for each hour and for each moment; creating an enduring memory of its redeeming value.  Multiply all these by your years on this earth,… and you get closer to the ‘thousand years’ Giovanni says is possible for each of us to claim.

There are twelve sub-themes in the book, corresponding to the 12 digits on a clock,… Giovanni calls them appropriately the twelve chimes.  They’re all good, but a couple of them really spoke to me.  And the reason is the person they describe is ‘me’.  The first is chime 6 – Time in the Moment.  It’s about giving your full attention to ‘each moment’,… the people you are with and the task at hand.  I know I’m terrible with names.  I think the reason is that I don’t pause long enough to totally take in the moment,… hear the name, repeat it back, look for a connection to recall it later, even write it down if necessary.  No wonder I’ll see the same person only a week later, and come up blank.  It’s not right, it’s not respectful, and it’s ignoring the importance of relationships in life.  From here forward, I plan to do my best to give others my full attention.

And then there is chime 12 – Time to Reset.  This is one I think most everyone can benefit from, including me.  The author says that too often people dwell on past failures and past successes,… instead of quickly closing that chapter and starting again.  This tends to be easier to do with failures, as people will do anything to distance themselves from these as quickly as they can.  But in fact the bigger shame is to hang on to a past success, well after the glow of that success has faded,… or to be satisfied that what was done is good enough.  I’ve been guilty of completing a difficult task, and doing it well, and then looking forward to moving on to another task.  But Giovanni says that the heights we achieve should merely set a new floor on what’s next.  That makes a lot of sense,… use each success as a springboard to an even higher aspiration; to a new level of accomplishment.  I may not live for a thousand years, but after reading this book I’m looking forward to the years before me.  Just a ‘dash’...?

A Sensual Delight…

… people’s response to their aesthetic (look & feel) preference.  It is through our senses that we come to know the world, literally from the day we are born.  They inform us as to who we are.  As we grow older, we begin to take control of who we are,… defining our personality through the look & feel of ourselves and our surroundings.  When I was a small child I loved the colors red and orange.  I don’t know why, I just did.  Maybe it was because they had a way of grabbing people’s attention (once a ham, always a ham).  As I grew older, orange lost its luster for me; red on the other hand, remained a favorite.  And a new color emerged – black.  Suddenly everything black was cool, and it went well with my gray beard.  The point is, it’s what I liked,… and what I like may be at total odds with what you like.  There are no rights or wrongs when it comes to ‘like’; you may not even be able to describe why you like something, you just do.  It’s your signature, your style, and uniquely you.

In a commercial enterprise, the role of a designer is to anticipate what people will like.  As I mentioned above, there is no universal design aesthetic, not one definition of style.  One industrial designer wrote, “good design is not about the perfect thing anymore, but helping a lot of different people build their own personal identities.”  The design ideology of a modernist was often grounded in efficiency, rationality and truth.  But if you want to sell a bunch of stuff in today’s marketplace, these three now need to take a back seat to freedom, beauty and pleasure,… as defined by the buyer.  When the Audi TT was first introduced, I knew I had to have it.  My decision was not driven by logic or analysis; my decision was driven completely by emotion.  Like most people, cost and quality are important to me, but in this case were trumped by my immediate perception of individual delight.  Not everyone agreed with me, some thought it was rather strange looking,… but like it or not I bought it, and it now is part of what defines who I am to the world.

From a design perspective, what makes for a powerful aesthetic is one in which the user has the final say as to its fit to them.  This is easier in consumer goods,… as there are generally a good number of options, and one can mix and match with other items to achieve a particular look or objective.  To see how some have ingeniously repurposed IKEA components to their taste, check out www.ikeahacker.blogspot.com. It is more difficult with industrial goods, especially when someone else is making the decision for you.  This is what you have in office environments where a Facility Manager or Purchasing Manager selects a product to be installed throughout a company.  Since pleasure is personal, and in the eye of the user, how can they possibly make everyone happy.  The answer is to design a ‘platform for personalization’… one that encourages the user to become part of the final look and arrangement of their work space.  Mobility for sure, but also components of a lighter scale together with a simple means to change pieces in and out.  No installation manuals, no special tools,… just an easy and intuitive way to make it mine.  We have the answer in toy form – it’s LEGO, where you can make thousands of designs from a few simple shapes.  In the end, if you are trying to arouse my senses (and have me work smarter in the process), then give me a way to express my individual style.  Black or Red…?