Junto

There is an ongoing debate at P’unk Avenue, recently rekindled by a Design Observer article, regarding the value of giving a client “what they asked for” and giving a client “what’s best for them.” Sometimes the client wins, sometimes the designer wins, but most often there is some sort of harmony. The operative vocabulary: Empathy, Egotism, and Synthesis.

This Junto past featured our first panel discussion. This topic required a broader perspective, one found by combining the experience of an Industrial Designer, Tony Guido, an Architect, Collin Robinson, and an Urban Planner, Scott Page. I had hoped to wing the discussion, but Geoff thought wiser. Preparation was helpful, but brought with it some public engagement anxiety. Nonetheless, the knowledge of our panel and the inquisition of our audience made for a wonderful two hour discussion.

Assertions:

• A “broader view” is necessary to promote sustainability– transcending ego, empathy, designer, and client
• Frank Lloyd Wright was an egotist
• Empathists are oft forgotten
• In urban planning, “creating beauty is a collective responsibility”
• Style has yielded to Process and how you sell [your idea]
• Both empathy and egotism are all about the self

This meager recapitulation holds no candles to the quality of last week’s discussion. We appreciate the knowledge and courage of our panel and look forward to our next gathering in January, details to follow.

A  panel discussion regarding empathy and egotism and their respective roles in the design process.

Nov. 29, 2007 at 6pm

Members of the Panel:

• Scott Page, urban planner, Interface Studio
• Anthony Guido, industrial designer, grow-design
• Collin Robinson, architect, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

Design Observer recently featured a short article by Adrian Shaughnessy entitled The Designer’s Virus, which discusses the contrast between empathetic and egotistic designers. Our topic will discuss these two points as they relate: can empathetic designers working with restraints better solve design problems (or better suit their clients’ needs) or will the egotistic designer prevail (with no limit to his or her thinking beyond personal expertise)?

The panel discussion will begin at 6:30 followed by questions from the community.

P’unk Avenue, 1168 E. Passyunk Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19147

Recently Alex (Gilbert) rediscovered this article by Malcolm Gladwell that Geoff had read when it was published in 2000. It recontextualizes the meat of Jane Jacobs’s seminal 1961 book, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” within today’s office architecture. When the neighborhood is “oriented toward the street” and the office is oriented toward the public space there is an intermingling of talents and ideas.

The Junto hosted this Thursday passed had a prerequisite reading assignment of the aforementioned article. After a brief overview of Gladwell’s tenets the group split in two— one championing the open workplace and one flouting it. After deliberating each chose a speaker and delivered a five minute argument then a three minute rebuttal.

Team Open Plan sang the praises of freedom and congregation for workers, that tearing down the cube liberates and energizes people, allowing for open collaboration, cutting hierarchical red tape, so on and so forth. Team Corner Office maintained the strength of structure, the scalability of a hierarchical pyramid. As a business grows the open plan becomes more chaotic and the larger-picture structure again becomes more traditional.

In synthesis these diametrics fall happily in love. As Gladwell Illustrates, ad giant TBWA\Chiat\Day recently moved into a staggering office compound near LAX basing its layout roughly on New York City. There is a main street, a central park, valuable employees and creative directors sit in hubs with their support staff radiating around them. This system solves issues of scale. As both Alex’s admitted, they sacrifice some of the productivity of seclusion for the warmth of socializing each and every day.

This discussion remains open, we encourage your perspectives and experiences in various workplace manifestations.

Further reading:
Business Week: Enabling Innovation Through Office Design

Also, member Vanja Buvac asked us to pass along the following:

• Here is some background information about the Patent Reform Act of 2007 for the Junto list. Here are the links to contact forms to our senators. I would encourage Junto members to write to our senators asking for their position on the Patent Reform Act of 2007. This is an important bill that could change the innovation landscape significantly.
  Arlen Specter, Bob Casey

Members Josh Kopel and John Romanski posed an interesting problem for group postulation: is there a better easier faster cheaper way to map a project? After a few warm-up laps groups were formed and writing implements were distributed. The groups were assigned the task of reverse engineering the user experience of Flickr and pulling a concise map from its vast non-linear interface. Approaches varied greatly.

• Boy posts picture of cat in costume, Girl likes costumes – searches for costumes – finds cat, Girl befriends Boy, Boy messages Girl, Girl and Boy meet at Flickr Meetup, Girl and Boy get married and share cat.
• Nouns: User, Photo, Group, Set, Comment, Message, Slideshow, Tag
  Verbs: View, Search, Read, Register, Upload, Browse, Tag, Note, Email, Comment, Print, Link, Group, Set, Slideshow, Befriend
• Mapping Software Idea: an application that takes a site plan and visualizes all possible connexions between pages, with smooth transitions to show where you are going and where you have been using pretty ghost bubbles for inactive pages.
• Flickr’s incorporation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and interactive self-actualization. The overlap of community, function, personal documentation, with the encroachment of corporate lechery.
• Real-time white board scheming a la UPS, requesting Postal Service accompaniment.

A few other points of interest:

Josh Kopel and his Make:Philly collaborators are preparing workshops on the Arduino microcontroller and working with LEDs. More details to follow.
Update: Details can now be found at The Hacktory website.

Chris Matta will hack your iPhone and configure your ssh settings to allow instant access to your web server. Thanks go to Alex Hillman for introducing the iPhone hacking process to the group. Instructions coming soon.

Alex’s beautiful big clock screen saver can be downloaded here.

Photography credit goes to Roz Duffy. Video coming soon.

Junto now has a repository of Meeting Minutes and other corrillary Intellectual Property. We (a mix of Design Professionals, Developers, Architects, Journalists, and other Makers) continue to meet en mass to discuss issues of Technology, Usability, Aesthetics, and Collaboration. Conversation is garnished with food and drink. Employ your bookmarklets Citizens! Provide us your electronic mail addresses! The invitation is open.