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