Power of Design

[Music]

the human brain is a mega machine

it has around 100 billion neurons

that fire at a lightning speed

staggering speed of 200 times per second

the slowest speed at which the

information passes around moves around

in the brain

is around 418 kilometers per hour

today technology has made everything

possible it’s an amazing time to be in

we can imagine and we can create there’s

no time lag

we can actualize what we have dreamt of

we can extrude those into

reality we can 3d print houses

we can 3d print body parts organs

tissues

and now meat that we can consume we can

edit

faulty genes which cause disorder

disease this is an amazing time to be in

yet we see so many challenges

deprivation chaos destruction

just to give you some facts some numbers

half a million people in india die due

to organ shortage

1 out of 5 people globally

are a victim of stress workplace stress

the estimated volume or amount is 2.5

trillion dollars

of workplace stress traffic jams

in the u.s cost 87 billion dollars

and you would be surprised what delhi is

doing

delhi is 14 billion us dollars per year

india produces 277 million tons of

organic waste solid waste

which is staggering 13 of global waste

as circumstances change we’re seeing

that the impact

the scale and the quantity of challenges

is growing enormous we’ve seen covet

we’ve seen uttarakhand floods

we are living in the greatest inflection

points of the entire human civilization

the history of human civilization

the inescapable forces of entropy that

is internal and external

entropy the level of disturbance chaos

is necessitating a change

change in almost all possible walks of

life

everything that we’re doing is demanding

a change

we have a choice a choice to make

a choice which is either incremental or

a radical choice

what we need to do is we need to imagine

a totally new paradigm

a whole new paradigm of life with

consideration to the planet and its

inhabitants

what is stopping me what is stopping you

from doing things

changing things and one of the reasons

that i’ve identified over number of

years

is that we are in perpetual survival

mode

and the survival mode is not giving us

any time

energy to challenge to think

to imagine and make any

progress to make any progress

we need to understand these entropies

both internal and external

let me take you back on a journey

my personal journey quick

i’m shakhar bhadwe

and speaking from my childhood

i dreamt of to be an archaeologist

i love geography and history after 12th

typically i wanted to be a chef

and then eventually a tool designer and

then i went on to become a product

designer

practicing brand strategy for last two

decades

i did not realize what my strength was

my core capability was my positive

balance was

and i kept on doing things without

realizing

that i was actually good at connecting

dots

managing ambiguity and dealing with

complexity

like me most of you

have not realized what you are good at

what is your positive balance what is

your strength inner strength

and most of you and most of us end up

spending entire lives

not realizing this and in the end

all this didn’t matter is the feeling

that we have

and this is internal entropy we’ve spent

enormous amount of time energy money in

a pursuit to be someone else

we need to understand internal entropy

30 long years gone

but this has added to my life my journey

made me realize who i was and what i was

good at

and i have tremendous clarity and

acceptance of who i am

no more entropies there fortunately on

the

other hand brands organizations even

countries now

have these entropies these are external

entropies

like hyper competition dogmas

senseless blind benchmarking

to an extent also dealing and looking at

only short-term gains

as a result you will be amazed to know

this

as a result we have 24 000 mobile phone

models

4000 plus ceiling fan models 21 types of

jeans to choose from

500 types of biscuits and 30

000 plus mobile phone models

in this reckless competition we have

wasted precious resources

time effort energy

and money that could have been used for

something else

something far better for a sustainable

change

and definitely economic benefits what an

opportunity lost

but on the other hand i strongly believe

i know that humans are capable humans

are

humans have always transcended

limitation challenges disasters

devastations we always aspire to improve

we always aspire to change

and i feel that one of the ways and the

most powerful ways is to use design for

change

and this power needs to be used in a

fashion

which essentially requires total

rethinking

einstein said we cannot solve our

problems

with which we have created them

we need a paradigm shift

and i strongly believe in the power of

design to bring about this change

change which is harmonious change that

essentially will bring about

a golden age a new golden age for

humanity

but as john kind said

difficulty lies not in new ideas but

to escape from the old ones

so to escape from the old ones i

proposed seven breakthrough approaches

for change to reduce entropy

to create lasting change through

innovation

approach one from user-centered design

to harmony centered design

and i feel user-centered design is too

selfish too self-centered

it just revolves around us

i know user center design is important

it deals with people’s needs wants

demands critiques complaints

it’s essential but we should also look

at

much larger things harmony with myself

my own body the planet its inhabitants

flora fauna there’s so many things that

we miss out

in this myopic user center design and i

call this as self-centered design

we don’t look at anything around us

take an example of this arbitrary

division of a year

a year is typically divided in months

weeks

days hours minutes and seconds

these are divided basis physical factors

and not psychological biological or

physiological ones

we eat when our watches tell us

not when we are hungry we awake when we

hear this alarm not when we are rested

university classes are typically one

hour each spread over

a week the reason being

that it is simple for scheduling not

good for education unfortunately

and this is what i’m saying that we need

to shift from this user-centered design

this is an outcome of technological

society which is a result of

industrial revolution

take an example take a challenge how can

you design a watch

a calendar which will provoke which will

help you

live a harmonious day

approach to from object oriented design

to subject-oriented thinking

take an example of the most common

product in your house which is a ceiling

fan

unfortunately if a design challenge or a

design project is given

the object-oriented design will end up

making

aesthetic modification or some

functional correction here and there

some tinkering

but it will never involve itself in

questioning what is the subject what is

what is the reason behind having a fan

why do we need a fan and that’s what i

call it as subject

the subject-oriented design will

question

it will first ask you why and once that

happens

you will start asking that the fan is

generally only throwing air around

cooling the room and not dealing with

its subject

which is reducing body core temperature

and this is what i call it as move from

object to subject

so next time if you’re designing let’s

say a pen

an object oriented design will end up

making a pen

but a subject-oriented thinking will

start with asking

what is it for why do you need a pen it

is for communication

and imagine a pen that makes you a

romantic

a pen that makes you communicate far

better

or helps you write well what an

achievement would it be approach three

from form follows function to function

follows purpose

and this is a fundamental shift

the shift is essential we need to

understand purpose purpose is

essentially the why

why something is done created what is

the reason behind it

and there will be so many opportunities

that will open up if we start with

purpose

based design and not

function based design function is

essentially why a product is created

what does it do what does it achieve but

purpose essentially gives us the reason

it enables us it inspires us it inspires

us to

achieve behavioral change societal

change

systemic change function will never

achieve that

what we need today and for the future is

essentially purpose-led design

and not functional improvements

imagine a chair all of us sit for 8

hours 10 hours

at times 12 16 hours but our body is not

designed to sit for so many hours

and what happens in the process is that

we become sedentary and by the way india

is the diabetic capital of the world

and we’re still tinkering with the chair

we’re still functionally improving a

chair why don’t we ask this question

can i modify can i change work itself

can i look at totally new way of working

rather than

looking at a chair so this is what i

meant by

purpose-led design and not

functionality-based design

so start with purpose not with a problem

statement

and if this aligns with subject-oriented

thinking

boy you’ve got a winner approach four

from correction to creation

as i mentioned we should not write

problem statements

we should look at purpose statements

purpose essentially will give us the

vision at the end of the

tunnel the light that is there and not

to mention it will also help us do the

digging

it enables in inspires we need to shift

from

correction from tinkering to creation we

need to

imagine the future needs imagination

future needs

questioning it does not need corrections

approach five

this is my favorite design for collapse

to avoid wastage and to reduce

throughout your culture

take an example beautiful metaphor the

leaf withers off and falls

and what happens to this leaf it

replenishes the soil

cut yourself break your bone and heal

without a trace

but if your chair breaks you won’t be as

fortunate

the chair will not heal by itself and

what happens in the process is that

we throw the chair away

in the process we create humongous

amount of waste

so this approach is trying to probe this

approach is trying to say that

take disorder collapse destruction

into account right at the start into the

creative process

in the design process and we can create

something that will last

something that will be with us it will

evolve with the user

not rendered useless and then thrown

away

this is the way we can break down we can

reduce the throwaway culture

i think we’ve thrown enough

just imagine that

whatever we throw away

positively impacts the planet the

environment the society the things

around us

can it positively affect can we have

this question

imagine they become seeds compost

fertilizer

how can throwing itself away be

something

which is an act of kindness to the

planet

this is how we can open up new thinking

new approaches

for innovation approach 6

definitions and archetypes they create

dogma

they are a hindrance to innovation to

creativity

just like a yoyo which is tethered to a

string it does not allow

the yoyo to move around a bit like four

walls

and you try and try and throw a ball

around it cannot go beyond

similarly memories archetypes

stereotypes

block us they don’t allow us to look

beyond

and if you don’t look beyond how is it

that we’re going to create innovation

how is it that we’re going to create

change

it’s essential for us to bring bring

these walls down

so that we could look beyond the typical

approach 7 creating adjacent

possibilities with acceptation

so i strongly believe that the world is

capable of doing extraordinary things

it can bring about extraordinary change

but only few changes happen

of course one way to look at it is why

does this happen

we need to have processes thinking

metaphors

we need to look at mutation we could

look at error serendipity

which brings about change which brings

about newer possibilities

and acceptation is one of the ways that

this could be brought about

acceptation is a process in which a

function a body part

of feather essentially all of this

takes up new form new functionality for

which it was not

originally adapted or made for can we

bring this into our design process

can we look at acceptation as one of the

ways

to bring about change to bring about

innovation

and to summarize mahatma gandhi said

in a gentle way we can shake the world

and i strongly believe

that we can shake the world using the

power of design

thank you