InterSections 2011 – creative business summit, re-designing the future of business 03/05/2011
Matt headed to the Eden Project in Cornwall in early March to attend InterSsections 2011, a conference which aimed to bring together people from across the private, public / third sector and academia, all with different viewpoints on business, innovation and design for a ‘Creative business summit’
It is often during times of great uncertainty and change, such as the world is currently experiencing, that new thinking emerges and breakthroughs are made. InterSections invited a variety of experts to tell the stories of what they have learned lately and presented lively debate between innovative designers and thinkers with very different views on how businesses should prepare for the future. The key themes under discussion were:
- Business transformation
- Emerging trends in technology and design
- Sustainable design and the environment
- Social design and collaborative practices
Matt felt there was a particular emphasis on Social design and collaborative practices with some strong opposition to the proposal of artefacts as solutions to some problems. This was especially evident following David Kester’s (Design Council) talk on ‘Nudge by Design’ which provoked a strong criticism of the Design Council’s emphasis on creating ‘more products’ during their Designing out Bugs project. One comment suggested that the proposed designs were wasted effort, as they essentially replaced bedside cabinets that already existed, and surgical gowns that already did their job. Matt felt this was rather unjust as existing surgical gowns failed to serve one of the most basic of human requirements – the wearer’s dignity; and the redesigned bedside tables include features suggested by patients and cleaners therefore meeting the needs and wishes of stakeholders where the previous products did not.
Environmental concerns were also prominent at the conference, with a focus on how carbon could be cut from distribution and production cycles. There was an interesting discussion between Lucy Jewson from organic clothing company Frugi and Tom Henderson who runs the disaster relief charity, Shelterbox. Frugi have struggled with the dilemma of using ethical, Fair Trade, overseas producers to manufacture their products but then incurring a high carbon cost in shipping the goods back to the UK – although they do avoid using air freight. Shelterbox on the other hand provide an essential service in response to disaster situations but in order to be effective must use air freight, with a greater carbon cost, to ensure the quickest possible assistance.
Alan Moore talked about the impact of ‘crowd sourcing’ on the development of complex products. The example he used was Local Motors, a car company in the United States which hold open-source design competitions to design the cars that they then build using local models of production. E. F. Schumacher’s ‘Small Is Beautiful’ was mentioned as a key text, since Schumacher extols the virtue of local production and consumption as opposed to sourcing raw materials globally.
In conclusion, it seemed that the focus of the conference was on the social impact of design with a general move away from ‘traditional’ design practice; this shouldn’t underestimate the value of creating knowledge in the production of artifacts – whether they are Post-it note based, or prototypes made from pixels, wood or cardboard.
