The New Creatives - 6 Mar 2012

In “The New Creatives”, three presenters who embody the hybrid of creative industries and technology investigated Australia’s position and future in creative innovation.

Speakers included Professor Kees Dorst, Associate Dean (Research), Faculty of Design, Architecture & Building, Dr Jochen Schweitzer, Lecturer, Strategy & Marketing, UTS Business School, and Dr Joanne Jackovich, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Design, Architecture & Building.

Transcript

0:01

Hael Kobayashi: Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us this evening for UTS Speaks.

0:08

I'm Hael Kobayashi, the executive director of the Creative Innovation Unit here at UTS

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and also the associate director of the Creative Industries Innovation Centre.

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Before we begin the proceedings - and on behalf of all of those present - I would like to

0:15

acknowledge and pay respect to the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Gadigal

0:17

and Guring-gai people of the Eora nation. It is upon their ancestral lands that UTS

0:19

stands. Similarly, I would also like to pay respect

0:21

to the elders, both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge

0:23

for this place. Tonight is the second presentation in the

0:26

2012 UTS Speaks series. The idea for this forum is the result of the ongoing collaboration

0:34

between UTS and the Creative Industries Innovation Centre. this evening we are engaging in the

0:43

sharing of knowledge about creativity and innovation.

0:48

The integration of creative industries and technology is not new. However, here, in the

0:55

second decade of the 21st century we are now seeing the emergence of teams and tribes of

1:01

whom we call shapeshifters; bringing together a heady mix of creative industries and design

1:08

driven innovation enabled by technologies, big data and intelligence systems.

1:16

In just 20 years the world has gone from analogue to digital to cloud. Within this complex and

1:24

changing environment the drive to be the world leader in creative innovation strategy and

1:31

development is at the forefront of Australia's and its competitors' economic priorities.

1:38

With many regions competing to be the best the ability to educate and enable more people

1:45

to translate creative thinking into doing has become a top priority.

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There is a large wave of transformation carrying the world forward; one which requires increased

2:00

agility of thought and perspective. Universities are designing more collaborative multi-disciplinary

2:07

and industry focused programs that provide essential teaching, learning and research

2:13

opportunities for our immediate and near future generations.

2:18

Education itself is undergoing significant transformation where shared increased knowledge

2:25

in dynamic learning environments - both the virtual and physical - are critical for creative

2:32

innovation and creative intelligence to thrive. It is no longer just about how much you know.

2:40

Increasingly, it is about what are you doing with it.

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Within the rapidly morphing global ecosystem creativity plays a central role in facilitating

2:52

an integrated approach to expressing our distinct cultures and solving global problems. Creativity

3:00

is everywhere and it has many, many voices. As an example, the use of the term designed

3:09

thinking was widely introduced into western society by the engineering faculty of Carnegie

3:16

Mellon University in the 1950s. It was used as a way of describing their approach to the

3:23

work they were doing. Creativity is an innate part of who we are

3:30

and encouraging an understanding of newer disciplines in what this evening is all about.

3:37

Tonight you will hear brief presentations from three of UTS's thought leaders. They

3:44

will each offer their unique view of how creativity and innovation are part of the current hybrid

3:51

wave of practitioners who are prototyping new ways for us to reflect and act as a region,

3:59

as a country, as a global partner. Tonight we will also want to hear from you,

4:06

the audience; questions you may have for our speakers and your views and ideas. We will

4:12

be opening up the floor for discussion on these themes and questions once all three

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of our shapeshifters have given their perspective. Please be aware that the presentation and

4:23

forum are being digitally recorded and also filmed. These will be available on the UTS

4:30

website in the near future. We request, during the Q&A session after our

4:36

presentations, that you keep your questions and sharing of your views brief to ensure

4:42

that all have a chance to contribute to the discussion. I will also ask that you are respectful

4:49

when others are sharing their ideas. It is essential that you completely turn off

4:52

your phone and other devices to ensure no electronic interference occurs with our recording

4:53

this evening. Also could you please close the doors quietly if you are leaving or returning

4:54

to the room during this evening's presentations. Now, let's meet the first of our catalysts

4:56

who will be sharing their 21st century perspective on creativity and innovation. The technology

5:01

might be working - yes [laughs]. Let's meet the first of our shapeshifters

5:03

this evening who will be talking about creativity and innovation, Professor Kees Dorst. Kees

5:10

is professor of design and associate dean (research) at UTS's Faculty of Design, Architecture

5:18

and Building. Kees, welcome.

5:20

[Applause] Kees Dorst: Thank you, Hael, for the introduction.

5:25

Thank you, everybody, for being here. I'm not as fast up the stairs as I used to be,

5:28

but I'm here. I want to take you through one of the ways that shapeshifters work at the

5:36

moment but, first, I have to basically ask the question why do we need these kinds of

5:42

people at all? Why shift shape at all when the world is still the world?

5:47

Well, what we found in the last 15 years is that organisations - that's Government organisations,

5:53

companies and the like - find that they're assaulted by a new kind of problem. New kinds

5:58

of issues are coming up and they've got trouble dealing with them.

6:01

There are, basically, these four things that are slightly different from the old world

6:07

as it used to be. These problems are open, in the sense that it's very hard to put a

6:12

boundary around them; which means that while you're solving them you can be influenced

6:17

by things that you didn't take care of beforehand. They are also complex.

6:21

Now, of course, we are very used to tackling simple problems. We are also very used to

6:26

tackling complicated problems, which are problems with lots of elements, lots of relationships;

6:31

but you can still cut them up in smaller sub-problems; solve those and put it all together. Complicatedness

6:37

is what - especially - I'm an engineer by background - engineers are good at. That's

6:42

how we think. That's how we work. These problems are not complicated, but truly

6:47

complex; which means that there are so many relationships between all the sub-problems

6:53

and all the elements in the problem that you can't cut them up anymore. They have to be

6:58

taken as a whole somehow, but how can you do that when they're really complex, lots

7:03

of elements and relationships? These problems are also dynamic. It means

7:09

that you can't freeze time. You can't just say okay, I'll close my door now and I'll

7:13

solve this problem, because as you solve the problem the world is going its way and things

7:18

keep changing all the time. When you finally open your door again and you have the solution,

7:24

it's probably out of date. So you have to get used to some kind of continuous dynamic

7:29

in the problems. These things are also networked, which means

7:32

that you can't own a problem anymore in the way that you used to. You can't say okay,

7:37

we're a railway company so we own the railway network, and we're the only ones that are

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going to make decisions about this. All of society is making decisions about that.

7:49

The problems themselves are networked. It probably means that the solution should also

7:53

be networked so you can't, on your own, introduce a big solution for something. You need other

7:58

parties to be involved. Lo and behold, of course those parties want to be heard earlier

8:02

on in the process. So this is really tricky. How do you deal with these kinds of things?

8:08

They're extremely slippery. I've been doing projects that, from a design

8:16

standpoint, address these kinds of things for about 15 years now, earlier in Holland.

8:21

I'm from Holland originally. Slowly, Government there, in particular, got used to using designers

8:29

to look at these kinds of things because design problems are always open, complex, dynamic

8:34

and networked. So companies and organisations have trouble

8:38

dealing with this. They see this profession that's been dealing with this all along and

8:42

say hey, maybe we can learn something; let's contact those people - and really interesting

8:47

projects slowly growing in scale and the idea that design can actually move into different

8:53

arenas than it was originally intended for was taking hold.

8:58

I've done projects like, basically, redesigning agriculture in the whole east of Holland;

9:04

from heavy industrial agriculture to a different kind of land use; huge projects; really interesting

9:09

to do. Then, about seven or eight years ago, Bruce

9:15

Nussbaum wrote an article in Business Week and said that this is design thinking. Okay,

9:23

it's design thinking then. Since then design thinking has become a buzzword in business

9:28

schools around the world and people are really plugging it; which is great because it's recognition

9:34

for the kind of projects that people were starting to do and it ties it all a bit together.

9:40

It's also a bit of a disaster because if I see how business schools sometimes use design

9:46

thinking or conceptualise design thinking, it's basically sitting in a room, using lots

9:51

of Post-its, blowing lots of ideas in different directions.

9:56

I've been doing research into how designers think for about 20 years. It's not exactly

10:01

how design works. So we have to be careful here and say okay, what is actually design

10:07

thinking? What do we actually mean and how can we do it well, because just brainstorming

10:14

is not design thinking. Actually, the expert designers that I study, on the whole, don't

10:20

brainstorm at all. It's not something that expert designers do.

10:28

I'd say okay, if this are serious problems let's learn from the experts. Let's not use

10:33

the techniques that we bore or interest our first year students with, like brainstorming,

10:38

but let's actually see what expert designers do.

10:42

I've been doing research into experts for about 20 years now. Actually, the very first

10:47

conference - a symposium on expert design - was here at UTS in 2003, organised by Ernest

10:54

Edmonds' Creativity Cognition Studios. People from all around the world came here and said

10:58

okay, what's this design expertise actually? How does it work? What are levels of expertise?

11:03

How do designers develop, et cetera, et cetera? So that's the kind of study that I do, which

11:08

means that I have to travel around the world and interview wonderfully interesting designers

11:13

about how they work, which is absolutely great. As a designer, of course, I learn loads from

11:18

them. I do experiments. I give designers exercises

11:25

to do and see how they tackle these problems, to just find the thinking patterns of these

11:29

experts, because the way that I've found design to be is - it's not about random creativity

11:36

- blowing ideas in all different directions and then shooting them down until you've got

11:40

the right one. It's actually a very deliberate process of

11:43

exploration, thinking - all the expert designers that I've interviewed are very sharp analytically.

11:50

They're not just creative madmen with strange long hair and stuff. They really, really know

11:57

what they're doing in a very, very intelligent and deliberate way. It really is a way of

12:02

thinking that has its patterns to it. What are those patterns? How does expert design

12:12

actually work and what can we learn from expert design to put that into different arenas,

12:17

to have companies, organisations, governments, actually deal with these kind of things, not

12:21

by hiring designers, but by being a designer, in a way, themselves.

12:28

One of the things that I've found - and it's always fascinated me - about these expert

12:31

designers is that design is, broadly, a process that goes from the problem to the solution.

12:37

Of course, all these designers - it's also the way they present themselves - they're

12:40

known for their great solutions: oh, this is so wonderful; this is a great idea, et

12:45

cetera, et cetera. If you talk to them and you see what they're

12:47

really focused on, I think 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the time they're working on

12:51

the problem. All these designers say well, the solution is not a problem. Anybody can

12:57

brainstorm, anybody can get to the solution. The problem is in that part because the problem,

13:03

as presented to you, is never the one that you should be solving.

13:11

This is a quote actually from Albert Einstein, saying that a problem can never be solved

13:15

in the context in which it arose. For a very clever person this is not a very clever thing

13:23

to be saying because it's quite circular. If you could just solve the problem in the

13:30

context in which it arose you would probably never call it a problem and just do it.

13:34

Okay, there is some truth to this, and say okay, we need new approaches to problems.

13:41

That's what those designers are focusing on. That's what they're good at. That's what they're

13:44

known for. That's why they're hired by all these different companies et cetera, et cetera.

13:49

We need people that are able to do something that is called trend creation: create new

13:54

frames; create new approaches to old problems. I've been going through my data in the last

14:00

10 years and really looking at the patterns that these designers use in their behaviour,

14:06

in their thinking, in the way they justify what they're doing, that actually lead to

14:10

new frames. In the end I found out that this is the pattern. I'll walk you through a couple

14:21

of these steps. It's not important now. First, what you see them do is, basically,

14:27

look at an archaeology of the problem: why is this a problem? Why wasn't this solved

14:32

before? Who is the problem owner? Why has it actually become a problem? Then what these

14:41

designers all do is they go for the central paradox, which is what makes this hard to

14:45

solve? Why is this a hard one? Then, to my big surprise, when I first encountered

14:51

it, once they've actually - they spend quite a bit of work formulating this central paradox,

14:56

then they completely leave it alone. They go okay, we've got that one; interesting;

15:01

next. Then what they start to do is they start to

15:03

create a new context. They start to broaden it and look at other stakeholders. They start

15:08

to look at a very, very broad problem arena. I'll come up with an example in a minute.

15:13

From that very broad problem arena - all different parties that could be involved in the problem

15:18

and the solution, anywhere, could be interested. They do a lot of work on what are the values

15:24

of those people? What do they want? What's in the mix that we could use? From this rich

15:30

mix of different values - there's a different rich mix of thoughts - they start to let themes

15:37

emerge. Themes are the background to the creation

15:41

of new frames. The frames can actually lead to if I look at a problem in this way, then

15:47

it can lead to these kinds of solutions. These solutions lead to what needs to change for

15:54

this to be a good solution, or what needs to change for this to be actually implemented?

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Then they look at how they can connect that to the rest of the world.

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So it's a very, very deliberate process. I do this in workshops now. it takes about two

16:09

hours. It feels much more fluent than it looks when you see all the different words. What

16:14

you basically do is you take a problem as it is, you respect it for how it came about,

16:21

you ignore it for a little while, you start look in a broader context how you can create

16:26

a new one. From that new one you attack the problem. You see whether you've actually solved

16:31

it well enough and you go backwards and forwards a couple of times. This is expert design behaviour

16:38

around frame creation. When I started to get the idea that this was

16:45

an interesting process I thought okay, now I need to experiment. I'm a methodologist.

16:49

I want to actually package this in a way that people can use. For that I can't just go on

16:55

interviews and go on my observational data. I really need to experiment. I started looking

16:59

around the world for a place where I could do these kinds of experiments.

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Actually, within a couple of weeks UTS put up its hand and said you could do them here.

17:13

I think Australia, interesting, okay, yes, we can do that, okay. So about four years

17:22

ago I came here; basically, on the proposition that these are the kinds of things that I

17:27

want to do. I need a place which is not Holland, where I come from, but a different place.

17:34

I was really afraid that the method that I would be developing would only work in Holland,

17:38

basically - too stuck in there. Okay, it needs to be somewhere else and I need an open environment

17:45

where I can try these things out. UTS said they could provide it, and they did.

17:51

Another thing that happened, just a couple of months after I came to UTS, was that the

17:59

New South Wales Attorney-General's department sent out a call for a Designing Out Crime

18:04

Centre. They want to do all of these projects which are, basically, about safety in public

18:08

spaces. I responded to that call and said okay, I can set up a centre for you, and it's

18:15

not going to be quite what you think. It's going to be slightly different, but it's going

18:20

to be better than you think we can achieve. To give them a lot of credit the Attorney-General

18:26

actually went for it; so we've got this Designing Out Crime Centre at UTS now. it's been going

18:32

for four years. We've done - I did the count today - 73 projects for different parties,

18:39

including the City of Sydney, RailCorp; all around the state.

18:43

All of these projects have this frame creation process as their basis. All of these projects

18:49

have actually gone a very, very long way towards implementation. It's a really interesting

18:55

place to be. It's a really interesting place to see happening. Right now the centre is

19:00

seeing a leading in crime prevention around the world. We are organising a conference

19:04

later this year. Copy centres are going to be set up in Japan and other places. This

19:09

actually works. This was me just looking for a complex to try out frame creation. Anyway,

19:15

it does its job really well. So working in this centre, doing all these

19:20

projects - I'd like to show you the last project we just finished last week, but it's still

19:27

being presented to the client, so I can't. I'll tell you an earlier one, that's actually

19:31

not happened here in Sydney, but one back in Holland. It's actually about the marathon.

19:37

So, if you remember the nine steps, talk about archaeology of a problem. This problem came

19:43

to us as - this is in the city of Eindhoven, which is an industrial city in the south of

19:48

Holland. It's a very high tech city. Last year it was named the smartest region in the

19:54

world, with Silicone Valley coming number two; so not bad.

19:58

It's also known as a boring city. It was boring to start with, then it got bombed in the war,

19:59

and then it was rebuilt even more boring, so it has this image problem. So one of the

19:59

things that it wants to do to get rid of the boringness image and attract people there

19:59

is to organise a marathon. It's been doing that for years and years and years, but the

19:59

problem with this marathon is, actually, that the people in Eindhoven don't like it at all

20:00

because it's this traffic nightmare. So half the people flee the city and the other half

20:00

of the people are stuck and very frustrated. So it doesn’t have the festive atmosphere

20:00

that you'd like for a marathon. Anyway, the way that the city of Eindhoven

20:01

approached this - which is a group of designers in Holland - are saying okay, we have a traffic

20:07

problem, and we've done everything we could and we've rationalised the way we redirect

20:11

traffic; we've put signs up, we've got a website, we've done publicity campaigns; so all the

20:16

things that are normal to do we have done already; and still we have a problem. Can

20:21

you look at this? I said well, because we're not traffic engineers,

20:27

yes, let's try and let's see whether we can find a different approach. We did our analysis

20:37

- again, a lot of this process of frame creation is really analysis. What we found was actually

20:44

hey, wait a minute, this marathon is - so the people in Eindhoven don't connect to it

20:48

at all. Actually, the way it's set up, it could be

20:51

anywhere, but it happens to be in Eindhoven. Nothing of the character of the city comes

20:55

out. The population has left or is frustrated, beeping their horns. It's not a good experience;

21:01

so what can we do, and by the way, who's actually running in this marathon? These are some maps

21:06

of Holland and neighbouring countries - where people come from that run in the marathon.

21:12

You see, wait a minute. They come from all over these countries. This is a big area;

21:16

interesting. There's really big companies in Eindhoven that need lots of people. We

21:24

find that the people run in the marathon, on the whole, are very highly educated, okay.

21:32

If we could give them a better experience of Eindhoven they might be more interested

21:36

in actually working there, which is good for the companies. Then the companies could come

21:43

in and actually give some money to the marathon to create a different event around it.

21:47

So let's see, by - we're, basically, making the problem more complicated. We're making

21:52

it richer. Therefore solutions can start to appear. If you just keep it as a traffic problem

21:57

you can never solve it because they are very good traffic engineers; they've already done

22:01

that as far as they could. So you need to widen that area. You need to widen it up and

22:05

make it a very confusing area, actually, to navigate in, and say well, this is an idea.

22:12

Because we have the addresses of all the people that have run in the marathon in the last

22:16

20 years we can go on Google and we can go on Google Street View and see where they live

22:21

now and see what kind of houses they have, and we can see what kind of areas in Eindhoven

22:28

they might be interested in looking at, because they don't come along, they come with their

22:32

families. The families have absolutely nothing to do during the day except seeing sweaty

22:36

people run by, and the fun of that goes off after a while.

22:41

So maybe we can actually start manipulating this a little bit and make it a really interesting

22:45

venture. Let's just map the big companies. Let's map the city parts. Let's map the themes

22:53

that we think we can express in this particular city in a particular way, et cetera, et cetera.

22:59

In the end what we did is we cut up the circuit of the whole marathon in these different zones,

23:04

where all kinds of events are happening around these themes that are actually housed there.

23:10

By doing this what we're actually doing is, in the end, solving the traffic problem because

23:16

we're spreading the audience which used to be in the centre of the city - that tiny little

23:20

red dot - because that's where the start and the finish is, so that's where you want to

23:23

be. People would just hang around there and not have much to do.

23:29

We actually spread them around the city much more, which makes it much easier for the traffic

23:34

controllers to make the circuit permeable for people to get across the circuit. So we

23:41

are, in the end, also solving the traffic problem, but we're doing much more.

23:45

This is just one direction. There were four different directions - widely different directions

23:48

- for this one thing, but you get the picture of okay, you get a problem, it's stuck, you

23:55

have to look at it very carefully, but you don't have to get stuck in there yourself.

23:59

You widen it up and you find a process of narrowing down again in a particular way.

24:06

So that's what we do and enjoy doing within the Designing Out Crime Centre. Right at the

24:10

moment the method has stabilised to the point where we can really go out to the world and

24:14

say okay, this is what we do; this is how we can do it; in all different kinds of areas.

24:18

So we're now opening up to - just like I came to UTS four, five years ago, saying do you

24:26

want to play with fire? Again, we've got this sorted out now to the point where I say okay,

24:32

for your own organisation, wherever you do it, would this be interesting to go through

24:36

these processes a couple of times and see what comes out; because we find them very

24:40

helpful. You'll hear different stories in a minute. For me, this is actually the core

24:45

of what design can bring to organisation and Government that need a new direction. So that's

24:53

the shape shift for me. That was me. [Applause]

24:55

Hael Kobayashi: Thanks very much to Kees. We appreciate the effort he's put in to joining

24:56

us this evening. As you can see, he's healing from an injury; so we certainly appreciate

24:59

you being here, Kees. Thank you. Now I would like to introduce Dr Jochen Schweitzer.

25:05

Jochen is senior lecturer of strategy at the UTS Business School and co-founder of U lab,

25:11

a multi-disciplinary innovation hub. Jochen... [Applause]

25:13

Jochen Schweitzer: Hello and welcome, everyone. I probably have to lift this up a little bit.

25:14

Kees, I'm not taking responsibility for bombing Eindhoven. Welcome, everyone. I would like

25:16

to share three stories and one experiment with you tonight. Here's my first story.

25:22

This is my friend, David. David is a [unclear] entrepreneur from Vancouver. He loves to build

25:29

companies. He enjoys coming up with new business ideas, developing a plan, finding venture

25:34

capital and working with other people who are actually equally enthusiastic about these

25:39

ideas. This story is not so much about David's businesses.

25:43

It's more about the attitude that he has building them. At a recent dinner conversation David

25:50

and I talked about the differences between being an entrepreneur and being an employee.

25:56

David said that he pretty much dreads the moment when he starts employing people for

26:01

his ventures. He employs business graduates usually because they have the skills to execute

26:06

his strategies. What he finds is that, often, business school

26:10

graduates are lacking the ability to develop strategies. He says employees are for running

26:17

the business, not for inventing or reinventing the business. Entrepreneurs, like him, who

26:23

invent businesses often don't even enjoy running them. So, obviously, we need entrepreneurs

26:31

and we need employees. David knows that too. Now, when I ask my students about their professional

26:38

plans I usually hear from 70 per cent of them that they are looking for some job at a corporate

26:45

organisation in Australia. About 10 per cent are planning to join a family business, and

26:51

another 10 per cent usually don't know what to do with their degree. So that leaves us

26:55

with about 10 per cent who are likely to maybe start up their own business.

27:01

I think business schools should focus a lot more on producing entrepreneurs. I think we

27:07

need to grow the number of people who want to be entrepreneurs. We need to encourage

27:12

young people in our schools, colleges and universities to reinvent, explore and challenge

27:17

the status quo. Without people who invent businesses there's nothing to do for people

27:25

who run them. We need to provide students with opportunities to test their own ideas.

27:33

My second story is about professional practice. It starts with my dad. I know I look like

27:45

my dad. My dad is an engineer turned business owner. Like many of us, I followed into my

27:55

father's footsteps. I became an engineer myself. My first job was [unclear]. My first was in

28:04

the automobile industry. I worked for a company that was building steering systems like these.

28:10

In those years I learned a lot about design, high quality standards and technological possibilities.

28:15

I then worked for a language school at a cultural institute as a program co-ordinator. I learned

28:23

about cultures. I learned about providing a service and I learned a lot about dealing

28:28

with people. Then I worked for a company that builds cars.

28:33

For this car, for example, I was involved in planning the tools that were used to produce

28:37

the doors. I really like the doors of this car. I learned about the economics of production

28:42

and that resources are not just materials, machines and designs. Resources are far and

28:48

foremost the humans that make everything run smoothly. That's when I got interested in

28:53

the human factor. I moved on to management consulting. The management

28:57

of change was my bread and butter for many years. I learned about the motivations, the

29:02

fears, the ambitions and the attitude that people would have towards change.

29:08

I then turned to better understand customers. I helped create strategies to meet customer

29:15

needs and user expectations. I also helped to surprise them with new products and services.

29:20

Now I work for a university. I study the role of collaboration, creativity and leadership

29:27

for strategic innovation. So, to be honest, for a very long time I felt

29:34

I have been all over the place with what I was doing. My professional interest and professional

29:40

practices were pretty much all over the place. My CV reads like a menu - a bit of everything

29:46

really. I'm sure that many of you feel the same way.

29:50

So let me suggest this: I think it's okay. Don't worry about it. I think it's good. In

29:58

fact, I think it's essential to bring a mix of all sorts of professional practices and

30:03

experiences to the table when it comes to innovation.

30:07

In my experience many efforts to innovate are held back by too homogenous groups of

30:12

people. A colourful CV is okay. It's not a bad thing. We need to embrace diversity to

30:20

enable collaborative creativity. Every experience counts.

30:26

My third story is about a group of people from UTS who went to innovation land. Over

30:37

the last 18 months we had many encounters with people who do very interesting work in

30:43

the field of innovation and entrepreneurship around the world. We talk to people in Australia,

30:47

the US, Europe and Asia. We went to experience some of the energy of places like the Silicone

30:53

Valley, Berlin and other hot spots, or hot houses of entrepreneurship.

30:58

We connected to the Sydney entrepreneur community and we learned about the rise of social enterprises,

31:05

co-working spaces, business incubators and many other initiatives that would seek to

31:11

propel innovation in their communities, cities and in their countries.

31:18

We even met David Kelley from IDEO. We spent some time at [D School] in Stanford University

31:24

and their sister organisation in Berlin. Apart from all the motivation and the good advice

31:30

that we received from all these wonderful people, one of the key insights from all these

31:35

encounters, for me personally, was that we need to use a common language for innovation;

31:40

a common language of innovation. I think this language already exists. We have

31:46

it in architecture, engineering design and other professions. The professional practices

31:50

for creating innovation have been used for many years. That, I guess, is exactly what

31:55

Kees was referring to earlier as well. As a language it might not be as logical as

32:00

mathematics, and definitely not as precise and clear as German would be, but I think

32:05

the design language - the professional practices of the creative professions - can help us

32:09

innovate and invent businesses in Australia too.

32:13

You can call it creativity, group think, design thinking, integrative thinking, lateral thinking

32:19

and so on. I don't think it matters so much what we call it. What matters is that the

32:25

practices are here already and we need to start using them a bit more. We need to create

32:30

this common language. Now, this leads me to the last part of my

32:36

talk. It leads me to the experiment. Our experiment at UTS started with this key to a warehouse.

32:47

The School of Architecture allowed us to use their space for one semester. So for spring

32:52

semester last year we started what we call the U lab.

32:57

The U lab is our pilot of collaborative creativity at UTS. At U lab we think that innovation

33:04

is a product of optimistic and opportunist interactions and serendipitous encounters.

33:10

We believe that innovation occurs between people. We seek to expand the capacity of

33:16

design practice into a collaboration between entrepreneurs, corporates, academia and the

33:22

public. We look for radical cross-boundary thinking and doing.

33:27

How do we do this? We designed a space that would allow us to bring people together in

33:33

a playful and open way. Space is important. From what we had seen we wanted it to feel

33:39

a bit like a work shed where you can quickly grab a few things and build something; a place

33:45

that is not pristine, but functional, and a place where you can easily swap from thinking

33:50

mode to doing mode and back. We think innovation is an open process. The

33:58

process of design thinking guides us, but we keep it in the back of our minds and we

34:03

don't follow it too rigidly. We encourage deep understanding that comes from observation.

34:09

Culture is important. We seek to create an open, honest culture without fear of sharing

34:14

thoughts and ideas. We think creative people are curious, humble

34:20

and lifelong learners. Creativity feeds on knowledge, so every experience counts. We

34:27

look for different lenses, different patterns, which we can only achieve by bringing in very

34:32

different people from very different backgrounds. We practice fast iteration because it accelerates

34:41

learning and it makes for better outcomes: fail fast, fail forward. We practice prototyping

34:49

because it provides you with quick feedback. It helps developing ideas and common understanding

34:56

and it helps to define the problem. Sharing is key of our approach at U lab. We share

35:02

ideas. We share food. We share with customers and users and we share with the public.

35:08

Let me finish with a quote from a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald by Josie Gibson.

35:16

In this article she talks about the importance of being innovative for Australia. She talks

35:22

about changing attitude towards risk, embracing opportunities. She goes on to say changing

35:28

behaviour is a complex long term proposition. It's about doing and trying, not just talking.

35:35

This very much reflects the journey that we have started as a group within UTS. Thank

35:38

you very much. [Applause]

35:39

[Start part offline_2_20120319_110559] Hael Kobayashi: Thank you very much Jochen

35:41

for sharing your perspective. Now we'd like to move on to our third shapeshifter for the

35:47

evening, Dr Joanne Jakovich. Joanne is senior lecturer in the UTSA Faculty

35:53

of Design, Architecture and Building. Joanne is a co-founder of U lab as well.

35:59

Joanne. [Applause]

35:59

Joanne Jakovich: Hello. Good evening, everybody. One quick reflection that is hot off the press,

36:07

before I start. The interesting thing is that when you start working with [Kees] - and it's

36:12

been four years I've been working with Kees now - you begin to wonder whether he's doing

36:17

frame creation on you: are you complicated or are you complex? Once he's worked that

36:26

out, what is your central paradox? Kees, you can answer me that later.

36:30

Really, it's a delight to be here tonight, to be speaking to you in this fantastic space

36:38

designed by our fantastic friends in Sydney, DRAW Architects. I'm a bit biased because

36:43

in my other shape I am an architect. However, if you knew this space before this brilliant

36:51

ceiling came in you would agree with me that DRAW are the true shapeshifters.

36:59

So tonight I'm going to start with a movie. [Excerpt from movie]

37:15

Here we have 11 of our students who dealt with conflict between their disciplines of

37:22

architecture and business while collaborating in our 16 week subject called the Entrepreneurship

37:28

Lab, which we are running in the U lab, which Jochen just spoke about.

37:32

After the close of the final public pitch in day the students had spent about 45 minutes

37:39

downloading their conflicts, talking about them, and I was about doing things. I turned

37:45

around only to find that this spontaneous formation had happened behind me. It's a bizarre

37:56

expression of connectivity, right. Take a look at their beaming faces. Look very

38:01

carefully. Have another look. They're connected by pinkie - swinging their pinkies. The staff

38:13

- we were absolutely gobsmacked. Hence I got the iPhone out as quickly as possible.

38:19

The most astounding thing about this film is not there's a bunch of true Aussie boys

38:27

hanging about, swinging hands together. It's really the icky feeling you get in your stomach

38:34

when you see this kind of thing. You also begin to question what happened prior to this

38:43

for these boys to be doing this. Really? I was surprised, so I'm going to tell you the

38:51

story about that. Why should we be surprised? They're a bunch

38:58

of students. They're on their final day of semester and, perhaps, this is a new way of

39:04

celebrating. Really, I would say that we are all perpetuators of a kind of blockism, I'll

39:10

call it. It's this silent agreement - persistence to stay a certain distance from each other

39:18

and to not really make the right connection to share ideas or to get into the sticky uncomfortable

39:24

place of collaboration. So the first question on the flyer for tonight's

39:29

lecture was is the global innovation movement challenging us to rediscover the innate creativity

39:37

in all of us? In my opinion, not exactly. Creativity alone is not enough. My proposition

39:47

- I'll ask you to think about this as I go through tonight - is that true innovation

39:53

exists between people as a function of their capacity for a shared humanity.

39:59

Kees suggested reframing how we think about problems. There's a re-jigging of a mental

40:05

process. Tonight I'm going to talk about reframing the social mindset towards a reprogramming

40:11

or a reminding of how it was when we used to enjoy having fun, when we used to enjoy

40:16

making things and when we we're really free to share our most wildly radical creative

40:22

ideas. This leads me to the second big question on

40:28

the flyer - which you may remember - asks how, in the so-called global innovation movement,

40:34

can Australia compete? Well, I can't speak of Australia, but I can try to speak of Australians

40:42

and, in particular, Sydney-siders. You see, I have a problem with how we Australians inhabit

40:47

our cities so vacantly. A lot of people are researching and writing

40:51

about how companies can be more innovative. If you ask my opinion this is a Band Aid solution.

40:59

We need to address it more broadly. We expect our staff to be innovative when

41:06

the lead the most uninspiring, individualistic urban lives. In allowing ourselves to fall

41:11

back into the cloud of advanced individual consumerism, and in submitting to a form of

41:15

spatial infantilism that denies our local and communal reality, we are making a mockery

41:22

of our attempt to be innovative in the workplace. My contention is that cities are the organism

41:30

to which we need, first and foremost, to inject the oxygen of innovation. Indeed, to solve

41:37

the city is the greatest challenge and opportunity of the human condition.

41:45

So tonight I'm going to introduce what I'll call - just for namesake - the three legged

41:51

monster of innovation in our cities. That is the three elements that we need to cultivate

41:58

the city in terms of city innovation, and then go on and flourish elsewhere.

42:02

The first leg is what I will call collective creativity. Does the city have an infinite

42:10

capacity for innovation and its wildly diverse players? Why are we and our cities so blocked?

42:17

Could it be that in this advanced individual capitalist treading the path of extreme banality

42:23

of enlightenment in the 21st century we are simply too embarrassed to do collectivity?

42:29

Behind me you'll see the work of the City Switch Project in which we've been switching

42:35

between Japan and Australia since 2005. I spent a large amount of time travelling to

42:42

and from Japan. I keep collaborating there because the Japanese had so much to teach

42:48

me about the link between humanity and creativity. I hear many people say Japan has not really

42:55

been innovating for the last 20 years. Some say it's due to a lack of diversity, a lack

43:00

of difference between the thinkers. Perhaps, yes, Japan is no longer creating the sensation

43:08

that Apple in the States is, but the one thing the Japanese have over the diverse cultures

43:14

of the west is an ingrained sense of creative community.

43:21

In the City Switch Project we participate in this incredible culture called [machiza

43:26

kuri]. It's the concept of city making. It's a wave of urban regeneration that has been

43:31

based on the arts and the creative design industries that has been sweeping Japan for

43:36

about the last 10 years, possibly longer. Here you can see one of our five day intensive

43:42

workshops in Japan where we built and shared a design for revitalisation of a shrinking

43:47

city around a new cycling tourism concept. We applied much of the processes that Kees

43:53

spoke about. As I lived and worked in Japan over the past

43:57

14 years I came to understand the gap in innovation that we, as Australians, can learn from them.

44:05

It's very simple: the Japanese believe in the collective creative and they are masters

44:12

at it. The second leg of the monster relates to how

44:15

things happen. After City Switch we began to think of the city as this semi-stable self-organising

44:22

system of talent. Rather than facilitation of workshops we designed orchestration and

44:28

decided to radically experiment with tweaking its parameters.

44:34

So we set up and pitched the concept of the Bike Tank; the think tank that you cycle to.

44:40

Our question here was to explore how can design make cities more human?

44:46

I'm going to show you a little intro [inaudible]. [Excerpt begins]

44:50

[Music] Female: [Unclear] is so important, but what

44:53

do we actually know about ... [Music]

45:04

Male: Especially a bright way to start the day for a start. Just the energy in the room

45:31

is really amazing. [Music]

45:32

Male: We're coming to learn more about design thinking, and I think it's really good to

45:35

- the interaction with people beyond UTS. [Music]

45:35

Female: I really like the idea of engaging and thinking of collaborative approach to

45:47

ideas. I like the idea of prototyping ideas and prototyping and synthesising a new idea

45:54

or a concept with a group of people. [Music]

46:03

Male: At the start of the exercise you can get all [unclear] - well, a little bit alien;

46:14

what are we really doing here. Then it culminates in these fantastic ideas [inaudible].

46:26

[Music] Male: We were really inspired with what could

46:32

be achieved in such a short period of time. [Music]

46:38

Male: [Unclear]. [Music]

46:39

Male: Then we incorporated that in our project ...

46:41

Male: It was a combination ... [inaudible]. [Music]

46:42

Male: First we came up with a transport solution. [Music]

46:46

Male: Now we have a solution which involves co-working [unclear] strategically located

46:50

in the ... Male: ... probably got a little bit of a glow

46:56

on the inside. [End of excerpt]

46:58

Joanne Jakovich: So we wanted to prove what we call the filtration theory of innovation

47:04

in the city. If we could filter out the things that we don't want - the fear, the status,

47:09

the blocks - then we only need to add some really simple ingredients to get a pure substance

47:16

and, maybe, even explosion. So what are these ingredients and how did

47:21

we do that? As Jochen described we started with a good shelf, filled it with some great

47:27

toys, handmade tables, yes, Post-it notes and some hefty glue guns.

47:34

Then we started to get crazy. We thought what if we hold this at 8am on a Tuesday? This

47:41

was the filtration process for finding like minded mad individuals as crazy as us. You'd

47:47

be surprised what challenges people rise to. This process was really, really popular.

47:53

Then we confirmed our inkling; that collective creativity is a highly emotional undertaking.

48:00

Once we knew that our filters were allowing for fillings of inspiration, breakthrough,

48:05

exhilaration and euphoria we decided to start aiming for the full explosion.

48:10

We invited inspiring guest speakers. We introduced a rapid fire design process: a five by five

48:16

where teams raced against the clock; five minutes, five steps each. We brought in the

48:20

coffee cart and the pastries and we decided to get strong on prototyping. We asked people

48:25

to make every innovation they designed. Then we began to push the boundaries of the

48:33

worn old concept of the role play. We found this was really, really successful. We did

48:40

things like raps, hakas, we made these bubble signs to help bring out expression.

48:57

We made these things we call [frame balls]. [Excerpt plays]

49:26

Joanne Jakovich: So once we'd proved our process we were ready to really step up and out.

49:38

The third leg of our deer monster is everyday entrepreneurship. It wasn't enough for us

49:43

to enhance the lives of our local Bike Tankers, so we decided to throw the model out to you;

49:48

a kind of crowd sourcing to improving it. So what inspired us to do this? Well, as we

49:55

went on with Bike Tank it became apparent to us that Bike Tank was running on a lot

50:02

more than just the caffeine, sugar and our inspirational hakas. We observed what we could

50:08

only define as creative altruism. This is the kind of intrinsic motivation to bring

50:14

about collective innovation through sharing one's creativity, one's time and one's energy

50:20

in a way that could only be said to be altruistic and aiming towards a greater good.

50:25

Indeed, the highest motivating factor might well be what Maslow describes as self-actualisation;

50:31

the desire to fulfil one's potential, to express individuality and to give back to others through

50:37

actualising and sharing one's capabilities. So we designed the Bike Tank snowball. Bike

50:43

Tank is a replicable model. It's a really easy thing to set up. It's [unclear] and to

50:49

take and to modify and to use it to enhance your company or your locality's innovation

50:56

processes. What do you need? Very simple: a room, a few tables, a beat box and a trip

51:04

to Reverse Garbage. What can we give you? We'll give you help

51:07

with learning about the five by five, what works, what doesn’t, access to our networks

51:14

and server and, most importantly, we'll help get the process running; so action is the

51:19

most important thing. From here you can begin to build the social capital that is the glue

51:24

for embedding entrepreneurship and innovation in your company or your city.

51:32

So I think I have about two minutes left. In the U lab we are always asking our students

51:39

to present us with their 10 point manifesto. It's a way for them to get down to what's

51:46

important and so in. So I'm going to put myself in their shoes, which I very - never do, actually,

51:51

in front of them. So I'm going to bring one together to sum up tonight.

51:58

Number one: encourage collective creativity. Filter out blockism. Play and make stuff together

52:05

and reframe the social mindset. Two: love thy city. Our cities are the heart

52:10

of innovation. Get it right in your own back yard before stepping out.

52:14

Three: action first and then stewardship. Remember, action keeps people interested and

52:20

gets the momentum rolling. Four: tap into creative altruism. Remember,

52:26

intrinsic motivation and self-actualisation are the most effective strategies.

52:32

Five: reverse engineer the emotional experience of innovation. That is the atmosphere, the

52:39

openness and a willingness to share. Six: raise the bar of creative expression

52:46

using music, timing, sugar, caffeine and visionary thinking, and remember to get up early.

52:55

Seven: orchestrate extraordinary experiences. Eight: good ideas scale when they are shared.

53:04

Open the flows in your system and the feedback will escalate.

53:10

Nine: foster everyday entrepreneurship and the local embeddedness of entrepreneurs to

53:16

build the social capital of innovation. Finally, Australia is one of the most urbanised

53:22

countries in the world. If we are going to crack the complex and competitive world we

53:27

live in we'll have to crack our urban being and tap into the immense wealth of diversity

53:35

we'll find there. I'd like to thank you and invite you to join

53:41

us in our adventures at U lab and to let us join you in the ancient and ever new encounter

53:48

between humanity and innovation. Thank you. [Applause]

53:49

Hael Kobayashi: Thank you very much, Joanne, for that perspective on what's going on in

53:49

Sydney in some of the projects that we're seeing.

53:49

Now we come to that part of the evening where we invite you, the audience, to ask questions

53:49

of our shapeshifters and to offer your views or reflections on what you were presented

53:49

this evening. Please remember that this forum is being recorded. Please be brief and respectful

53:49

of different views that might be presented. As moderator I'll be helping us get through

53:49

the dialogue and the discussion this evening. Our UTS events team will be circulating with

53:49

microphones. I see Robert standing by there. So if you would like to make a comment just

53:49

quickly raise your hand and a microphone will come to you. Then we'll get going. So we're

53:49

all going to switch on our other microphones, have a seat and we'll get going.

53:49

Male: Hello. Can you just briefly explain how to operationalise the concept of collective

53:49

innovation and [rigorous] engineering… Joanne Jakovich: I'll repeat your question.

53:50

The question was to describe the collective creation in relation to emotion.

53:50

[Inaudible] Joanne Jakovich: Yes. This is really interesting.

53:50

So the question is can you talk about the relationship - or the comment I made at the

53:50

end about reverse engineering; the emotion of innovation?

53:50

This is what we're working really hard to do in the U lab, both in our teaching in the

53:50

events that we run. We have been experimenting and trialling with what are the factors that

53:50

get you to that point - where we saw the students at the beginning with the pinkies - where

53:50

you're ready to share, you're ready to take risk, you're ready to risk failure and you're

53:50

always ready to risk a sense of being wrong or ridiculed.

53:50

So we construct - so, often, when you've worked with someone for long enough, or you've got

53:50

the right kind of chemistry, you reach that emotional interaction naturally. What we're

53:50

doing is actually taking that state and try to construct it at the beginning of our sessions.

53:50

We're constructing it week in, week out and actually scaling up, each week, this sense

53:50

of connection that people at Bike Tank are feeling.

53:50

Male: Hi. You said to focus on the problem, but I'd argue if Steve Jobs had focused on

53:50

the problem he wouldn't have invented the iPhone and all the other devices that you

53:50

mentioned. Isn't it missing the point, that you cut yourself off by just focusing on the

53:50

problem and not thinking about possibility? Hael Kobayashi: Kees?

53:50

Kees Dorst: I think Steve Jobs was very good in creating problems and creating the problems

53:50

that people feel actually need to be solved. So, in a sense, it just depends on where you

53:50

let the project start. You're right about opportunities. Of course

53:50

we look at opportunities all the time. What I do find is that a lot of opportunities are

53:50

hidden behind problems. This is a way of getting around those problems that hide the opportunities

53:50

that are, basically, there all the time. So that's the way I would phrase it.

53:50

Hael Kobayashi: Jochen, would you like to add something too?

53:50

Jochen Schweitzer: No. [Laughter]

53:50

Hael Kobayashi: Very wise. Joanne Jakovich: [Unclear].

53:50

Male: I suppose it is a variation on that theme. You said that we should make the problem

53:50

more complex. The Australian healthcare system is incredibly complex, yet it remains an intractable

53:50

problem for governments, for community, for a myriad of reasons. Have we not made it complicated

53:50

enough? Have we got too many stakeholders? Have we not pursued a path of collaboration

53:50

sufficiently that allows us to move beyond and actually find the solution? Or, in fact,

53:50

are we asking the wrong question? Kees Dorst: I just missed the one word that

53:50

described feeding the problem. Could you repeat that?

53:50

Male: I was talking about the healthcare system. Kees Dorst: The healthcare system. Let's talk

53:50

about rephrasing the [problem] of the healthcare system. I did the project in Holland because

53:50

I was contacted by the director-general of the Ministry of Health there who, basically,

53:50

said we have to give up on scaling up the healthcare system to care for the ageing population.

53:50

It's too expensive already. The organisations are too big. We don't have any control whatsoever.

53:50

We can't do it, so we've given up on that. I think okay, thank you. I'm getting some

53:50

grey hairs now. I'm thinking okay, this is going to be good. We rephrased it as okay,

53:50

how can we actually help people to care for each other more on a semi-professional basis?

53:50

A lot of care has been pulled in to assist them that people used to do for each other.

53:50

You can't get back to that. You don't want to go back to that, but there's lots of technology

53:50

around where you can now actually build networks and do quality control that is quite dispersed.

53:50

Normally, in the olden days, you would need a central healthcare system. You would need

53:50

a central water supply et cetera, et cetera, because you want to do quality control. That's

53:50

the reason for [size] of the organisations, and you want to be efficient.

53:50

If you can change that around with the new technologies that we have you can actually

53:50

start conceptualising a new healthcare system. In Holland, at this point, we're actually

53:50

trialling it out on an island which is off the coast of Holland which never had a central

53:50

healthcare system because it was too far removed from anywhere.

53:50

In a sense, they are so far behind it they're ahead of the game now. We're putting lots

53:50

of technology in there to see whether that will work; what can work there and what can't

53:50

work there, et cetera, et cetera. So I think there are different solutions.

53:50

I think the way that the questions around the healthcare system are put now - like the

53:50

questions about water et cetera - are just not the right kind of questions.

53:50

Luckily, with some of the new toys that we have - I mean I talked before about how we've

53:50

networked our problems by networking ourselves. Network solutions are good things, but they're

53:50

very, very hard to create. We need to get better at those very, very quickly to be able

53:50

for those rephrasing of problems [to be] actually a good option.

53:50

Hael Kobayashi: Sometimes we need to find that opportunity where we can prototype something

53:50

in a parallel universe; somewhere to do that. In Singapore they're also doing - they're

53:50

looking at next generation healthcare, well care. They're able to do that because they're

53:50

piloting it in their new medical facility on the north part of the island. So they've

53:50

been able to look at everything in terms of patient interaction, technology that's being

53:50

used. They took a lot of the input that was generated

53:50

from their workshops. In the medical centre itself it's not like a typical medical centre

53:50

that you would see in the world and in a developed country. Actually, they're pushing the process

53:50

as far as they can with real patients and real time. They've even gone so far as to

53:50

put an organic garden across the entire rooftop of the complex. That's how they feed their

53:50

patients. So it's an interesting way to use a prototype in an ecosystem, to see what works

53:50

and what's not working. Yes, a question in the back.

53:50

Male: First of all, thanks to Joanne for inviting me. I come from the Faculty of Science and

53:50

also the pharmaceutical industry, where [pharma] depends greatly on ownership of ideas. What

53:50

you're doing is requesting or having people break down those barriers so that, in a sense,

53:50

the ideas belong to everyone, which goes against patenting processes and ownership and exclusivity.

53:50

So have you bridged that gap between the need for ownership and exclusivity with your desire

53:50

to be collaborative and open? Male: A tough one.

53:50

Joanne Jakovich: We haven’t got there yet. Jochen Schweitzer: Yes, I think that's what

53:50

I would say; we haven’t got there yet. It's certainly - I would think that many of the

53:50

ideas that we've been floating around the Bike Tank or the U lab experience at the early

53:50

stages of [ideation], so I think, maybe, at that stage of ideation you're not quite facing

53:50

those - I don't even know where you're sitting, sorry. Oh, there you are - you're not quite

53:50

facing those issues maybe. That would be something that we'll probably

53:50

have to take into account for future iterations than of ideation processes and problem solutions.

53:50

Hael Kobayashi: A question over here, and then a question in the front.

53:50

Female: Hi. My question comes back to paralysis by analysis. It's something that's faced by

53:50

everyone these days, given there's so much data. Now, your framework suggests increasing

53:50

the complexity of the issue and looking around the actual issue to find the solution. Are

53:50

you actually finding a solution to the problem? Or are you just availing of another opportunity

53:50

that sits on the sidelines and not actually solving the original problem? How do you make

53:50

sure that you've actually solved the problem? Kees Dorst: This one's for me? Okay. In the

53:50

process we always make sure that we solve the original problem. That's what people requested.

53:50

That's what's going to be done. The kind of analysis that we do is lots of

53:50

little short analyses, in a sense. We do need competent specialists to come in. That's why

53:50

designing our [unclear] has worked swimmingly well, because we've got so many competent

53:50

specialists around - gathered around us now in the last four years - that the projects

53:50

get better and better; not because our process is so much different, but because we are closer

53:50

to the content. So the analysis can be done very quickly,

53:50

can be done on the spot. I don't see analysis paralysis happening so much because we make

53:50

sure that we've got these [diverse] resources. It's a scary thing to be doing, in a sense,

53:50

that you are opening floodgates that are creating a much wider problem arena in which to play.

53:50

What is interesting is that if you start doing that you can actually quite quickly see patterns

53:50

emerge between the different analyses, between the different partners. Those are becoming

53:50

your footholds - I shouldn't use that analogy right now - into okay, this could be a structure

53:50

that we could use to solve the problem. Great; let's put it apart for a while; let's look

53:50

at other things. It is quite a scary process. I don't see the

53:50

analysis paralysis coming up quite quickly because we are making sure that we are quite

53:50

nimble in moving around quite quickly. I think that nimbleness is absolutely crucial. You

53:50

do sometimes get a - in the project we finished you've got a group of designers together.

53:50

You go to the location. You talk to the problem owner. They come back and they completely

53:50

speak the language of the problem owner. You know that that language is not going to

53:50

be enough to solve the problem. So you do need to take them out of that. The problem

53:50

owner, in this case, is a very professional organisation; knows everything about everything,

53:50

and yet they're stuck. It's very hard not to completely get into their game. You know

53:50

you have to develop a new game, so you need to step out of that.

53:50

The analysis paralysis is more in listening to one party. In that sense I really agree

53:50

with Jo that, in the collective creativity that she's doing is - okay, the nimbleness

53:50

is in there, and it's absolutely crucial, otherwise it doesn’t work.

53:50

Hael Kobayashi: In the front here please. Then we have a question in the back.

53:50

Male: In regards to the U lab and the collective creativity idea have you seen that work really

53:50

well in organisations and businesses that have those kinds of creative challenges, either

53:50

internally or for clients or other groups? What are some examples of where that's worked?

53:50

Joanne Jakovich: We haven’t experimented with our particular model, but really is designed

53:50

to attack that kind of thing, really, quite well.

53:50

Kees Dorst: We had one opportunity with the City of Sydney where we employed some of our

53:50

processes or some of our ideas. That's been, so far, the only opportunity that we had.

53:50

We didn't have any opportunity with corporate Australia yet, so you're most welcome to contact

53:50

us. In fact, I think that would be a really interesting

53:50

[unclear] of what we want to do to see those processes work within an organisational context

53:50

because that's what we can really see and check whether those processes and steps that

53:50

we use actually lead to innovation with organisations. Male: So this is the voice of corporate Australia...

53:50

Kees Dorst: [Unclear]. Male: I work for Westpac Bank, which is not

53:50

usually associated with innovation and creativity. I'm charged with helping to build an innovation

53:50

capability. I have to say they are doing some incredibly awesome things to apply design

53:50

thinking, as you've described, inside what you would probably consider to be an incredibly

53:50

economic rationalist environment that would mimic many governments around the world or

53:50

other large institutions that provide - you would argue it would be very valuable services.

53:50

So it is happening and it can happen. One observation I've made being inside a large

53:50

corporation where you're charged with trying to change the culture to become more creative

53:50

is that so much of it hinges on the leader or, in the case of an architect, the client

53:50

or the person who commissions the work. So a question to you would be - or any of

53:50

the speakers - where have you seen these enlightened folks, these entrepreneurs, these leaders,

53:50

who actually create the space? Kees, you spoke about the attorney-general in Holland; those

53:50

people who create the space for this to happen. I think you've proved without a doubt that

53:50

it can happen. It can happen very convincingly. There's no shortage of great minds to do it,

53:50

but there's a certain amount of permission that's required, and the space that's required,

53:50

especially when you're trying to deal with big issues of change rather than entrepreneurship

53:50

where you're not constrained. Joanne Jakovich: There's a question?

53:50

Male: [Inaudible]. Kees Dorst: What I find interesting - I can

53:50

give you a partial answer; so working with [designing our crime] project here with different

53:50

organisations around New South Wales. Both U lab and Designing Out Crime are sneaky

53:50

formulas in a certain degree because you do work with young designers, young students,

53:50

coming in and you do these cute little projects. Then, actually, those projects are very well

53:50

thought through in the way they've been set up. They're very deliberate in what they want

53:50

to try to achieve. Those little projects can really make people think and can really put

53:50

people on a different footing; say hey, I'm learning something here; this is interesting.

53:50

What we find, when we do it right in Designing Out Crime - the little project that we do

53:50

- which is not expensive; it can be shoved under the table any moment - becomes really

53:50

important for people. It becomes for people the reason they're still in their job. Or

53:50

it becomes for them a reason to say actually, this could work in a different way.

53:50

What always strikes me, going into these organisations, is that once you've reached this barrier of

53:50

okay, I'm allowed to be like this or I can actually develop up in this direction, hey,

53:50

this is very useful and this is very interesting. Once you've reached the barrier it just keeps

53:50

rolling on and on and on. If you can't reach that barrier and everybody

53:50

keeps sitting in their official corporate role, then nothing will happen whatsoever.

53:50

There is an element of, say, a personal inspiration that needs to happen, otherwise the project

53:50

just won't roll at all. That personal inspiration is really important and [is linked] to the

53:50

themes in my model. If you don't get that across very, very strongly

53:50

the projects are just going to fail because they're way too complicated. If people agree

53:50

on that level of personal inspiration they can do anything together.

53:50

I've done a project with 35 different parties in there and they work because every party

53:50

has the same basic motivation in there. They're all different roles. They're all different

53:50

organisations, but if you can't get that right - and you really need to spend a lot of time

53:50

getting it right - then the process can just roll on.

53:50

I agree that you need leaders to sanction this kind of thing. It's great if you can

53:50

really inspire your leader in this direction. For me, what I always find is that middle

53:50

management is the problem because they have defined roles that are defined within an old

53:50

paradigm. Anything you're going to do is going to change things for them and make life more

53:50

difficult for them. Also you see them getting it. You see them

53:50

saying okay, this is a really interesting project. I'd like to give you some extra money

53:50

for the next step, but I can't because I have to talk to my boss and he won't understand

53:50

it, et cetera, et cetera. So what we tend to do, from a Designing Out

53:50

Crime perspective, is do lots and lots of interesting projects for an organisation that

53:50

we're targeting and then go to the leader and say hey, we've done all these projects.

53:50

They're actually right inside of your strategy. They're really exactly what you want to happen.

53:50

Yet all the follow up projects have been killed by your own organisation. Could you please

53:50

fix this for us so that we can all work together? So that's our attack to an organisation.

53:50

Hael Kobayashi: A question over here. Male: I'm with a youth run organisation called

53:50

ISIC that develops youth leadership. We talked a little bit, I think, about interdisciplinary

53:50

interaction in the innovation design thinking space. What do you feel is the importance

53:50

of cross-generational engagement, participation, interaction? What are the challenges that

53:50

you see in a place like Australia for that? Joanne Jakovich: When we run the Bike Tank

53:50

we have a little - it's actually like a manifesto - at the beginning. One of the things we say

53:50

we do is we do - we're looking at design to make cities more human and looking at the

53:50

multi-generational interactions that can stimulate this.

53:50

I think it's incredibly important - and part of it really builds on what Kees what just

53:50

describing. You can have the gorilla groups which - we might come under a gorilla group

53:50

- who are agile and nimble and quick and have the ideas and they want to run with them.

53:50

You may have that vision also at the top that it's making those connections right through

53:50

a city or an organisation is really, really important.

53:50

We've had some kids come along to Bike Tank. We held it on a Sunday one time rather than

53:50

eight o'clock on a Tuesday, when they're all meant to be going to school. We're trying

53:50

to encourage retirees and so on to also come in and share their wisdom.

53:50

Hael Kobayashi: I think what you'll find is there's a lot of opportunity for that in large

53:50

creative organisations, particularly in the film industry where they're constantly grappling

53:50

with an evolving landscape and different models of creativity, distribution, their business

53:50

models. When they've got very agile leadership - and

53:50

several of those organisations do - they'll frequently call on people who have left the

53:50

studio - whether they've retired or they've gone somewhere else - and asked them if they

53:50

would come back for an internal assignment. That internal assignment has to do with mentoring

53:50

and setting up a real 360 mentoring program and being able to introduce that into the

53:50

culture and get different groups going across the creative culture within the studio. It's

53:50

actually practised quite widely. It's not publicised widely.

53:50

Interestingly, I'd say since 2003 - in the last eight or nine years that I've been here

53:50

- I've actually come across several groups of people who've come up with this thinking

53:50

- the [meaning] is out there; that knowledge is there. So how do you call knowledge back

53:50

when you realise that you need some of this and to work with the next generation?

53:50

Then I suppose the next question is to ask if you have a long term strategy and if you

53:50

really want to travel a big arc; how would you put a mentoring program together where

53:50

you could train two - or mentor two generations of leadership simultaneously, and what would

53:50

that look like. I certainly think there's a lot of knowledge and capability here. I've

53:50

met many people who are keen to contribute, so something worth exploring, with your help.

53:50

A question there. We have time for three more questions.

53:50

Female: Thank you. I think you have inspired industry as well as students at this university.

53:50

I'm wondering whether you are doing anything to inspire the other entrepreneurship classes

53:50

at this university to host as innovative and entrepreneurial education courses as the one

53:50

that you put together. Male: Can you repeat that? I didn't hear you.

53:50

Female: Sorry. I think that you're education course has been both innovative and entrepreneurial.

53:50

I'm wondering whether you are doing something to help inspire the other entrepreneurship

53:50

courses at this university be as excellent as the one that you have just put together.

53:50

Joanne Jakovich: We are working on a pan faculty strategy to combine all of the entrepreneurship

53:50

programs that do exist. Part of what U lab is all about is talking and connecting and

53:50

bringing those conversations together so they can leverage and be a part of each other.

53:50

We're just starting on that, so we'll report back to you in six months perhaps.

53:50

Kees Dorst: We had people ask us how we could transfer the essence of what we do in the

53:50

U lab into other faculties and into other courses. That's definitely something that

53:50

we are looking forward to doing because that's what we want. We want to get this model to

53:50

travel around the university and beyond the university.

53:50

Joanne Jakovich: We take around 20 students per semester - now the second time running

53:50

- from all the faculties, so at the beginning we are inter-disciplinary, but we're not yet

53:50

out reaching as far as we could. Hael Kobayashi: The university has developed

53:50

recently a pan university strategy, as Joanne is mentioning. It does very much involve all

53:50

of the faculties working in different ways and different aspects and different characteristics.

53:50

What's great about it is that it's going to be moderated and facilitated from a central

53:50

point in the university so that it can work across all of the faculties and all of the

53:50

groups in the university. More of that will be presented in the next six to eight weeks.

53:50

One question over here. Female: Hello. My question is directed at

53:50

all of you around the lower end of that process around transformationing, connection; so getting

53:50

from all of the ideas and the creativity and that energy, Joanna, that you see coming out

53:50

of Bike Tank and everyone being really enthused about that creative process.

53:50

How do you take that and then infiltrate, I guess, bureaucracy and the corporate environment

53:50

to actually see those ideas come to fruition as real things? How do they have impact; because

53:50

I think that's what a lot of students struggle with when they're going through that process?

53:50

Joanne Jakovich: Certainly. Do you want to take that?

53:50

Jochen Schweitzer: In view of the business ideas and models that were generated throughout

53:50

the last semester, I actually [unclear] now. Some of our students take their ideas forward.

53:50

We want to be able to provide them, actually, with a space for the next period, let's say.

53:50

I don’t know how long that period might be - to continue working on their project.

53:50

So a few of these ideas that have been developed through the entrepreneurship lab course that

53:50

we ran last semester are actually going on; so there's one thing that we hope to achieve.

53:50

How we transport that into innovation across hard core bureaucracies is, again, something

53:50

that we haven’t tackled at the moment really. It's certainly something that we would like

53:50

to see happening too. Kees Dorst: One of the reasons for me to be

53:50

interested in this almost exporting of design thinking to a broader audience and to, say,

53:50

Government and other organisations, is that - you're absolutely right. At the end of the

53:50

process what you have to do is you have to start to create a value proposition for other

53:50

parties. Traditionally design schools have been very

53:50

bad in teaching their students those kinds of things because design sometimes takes place

53:50

in the world where it develops its own criteria. Good design is what gets you a design award.

53:50

Whether it's useful for somebody else is not your problem because you're the designer and

53:50

you're brilliant; this creator of this wonderful beautiful thing.

53:50

Building - it's almost like the process splits up at the end into - okay, design concept

53:50

development and value chain creation development or business concept development. Those two

53:50

things need to be running in parallel because the idea - the design concept that you create

53:50

- is only good relative to the environment for which you create it. Then you have to

53:50

understand the environment really well. That's where the two things really run very closely

53:50

together. I think when we - in a sense - I know very

53:50

few designers that are good at doing all of these things. Some of them are. They're absolutely

53:50

the most successful ones because they understand the world in just exactly the right way to

53:50

drive their concepts forward. So, in my dreams, those would be the students

53:50

that I'd like to train here at UTS. Coming from a fairly traditional design school background

53:50

we're moving in that direction. We're using - working with business students and other

53:50

students to actually give those different perspective and have that run in parallel.

53:50

So I think, in the end, for the developing of business propositions for big business

53:50

is not a problem. It's just that it needs to be built in and we need to find ways of

53:50

making these two processes run in parallel, and not one process just breaking off into

53:50

a different direction. Hael Kobayashi: We have time for one more

53:50

question. Male: Kees, and your questions about design

53:50

leadership. You've set up a paradox in your talks in that case you've talked about you're

53:50

analysing design experts and how they come up with brilliant designs. Jochen, you spoke

53:50

about your friend, David, coming up with great companies.

53:50

There we have leadership. Then we have people who can come up with a single idea, carry

53:50

it through to fruition, create a brilliant urban place, building, product, graphic design,

53:50

service, et cetera. Yet in your presentations you've also talked about collaborative design.

53:50

Now, the question that comes here is - and in the presentations I didn't see much leadership

53:50

in the collaborative design - and coming from personal experience over 20 years and five

53:50

countries of designing cities, collaborative design about leadership ends up at the lowest

53:50

common denominator. Also in bureaucracy we see design by committees

53:50

in that very effect. Thus the paradox I see in your presentations I'm asking you about

53:50

is how do we get to that design excellence? How do we have fantastic design leadership?

53:50

Maybe be [inclusive] of collaboration but not exclude the excellence. How do you see

53:50

that happening? How are you saying that's happening in your U lab or elsewhere in what

53:50

you're doing? Kees Dorst: Okay, I can pick it up - give

53:50

you all some more time to think about it. Male: A group thing.

53:50

Kees Dorst: It's a really good question. You're punishing me for simplifying my talk a little

53:50

bit. One of the things that I find when I interview, say, Norman Foster or Santiago

53:50

Calatrava, top architects in this case, or top designers like Phillip Stark - is that

53:50

they very seldom directly intervene in projects that happen in their firms.

53:50

What they do, what they create, is an environment in which that type of project can happen and

53:50

in which that type of project is stimulated. They are very explicit and they're very precise

53:50

in what kind of environment that needs to be. The environment includes how does the

53:50

leader present himself. It includes the books that they make. It includes the exhibitions

53:50

that they make, which are partly made to influence the people in the firm themselves to understand

53:50

how the frames of the firm are developing. So there's a whole layer of design which is

53:50

not about working in projects, but which is working above projects; creating those longer

53:50

visions and feeding into what happens in the firm. That's hardly been written about because

53:50

everybody knows design through its projects and everybody knows design through its results,

53:50

and not through those kinds of things. If you start talking to these people about

53:50

what they do, this is actually what they start telling you. There's a lot of knowledge there

53:50

that we haven’t mapped yet. That's the kind of knowledge that if you would like to transfer

53:50

design thinking to other types of organisations you'd need to transfer that kind of leadership

53:50

too, because otherwise - I agree with you completely - it is a rudderless thing, or

53:50

it is a management by committee thing, and that doesn’t work.

53:50

It's a different level of being involved. It's not so much being involved in the project

53:50

itself. It's creating the environment in which a certain type of project can actually run

53:50

and develop. At one point - one second - Mr Moderator - at one point for a book [I organised]

53:50

I want to interview the Santiago Calatrava he's a very busy man, so I didn't get very

53:50

far, until I suddenly go this phone call saying he has half an hour free in his agenda in

53:50

Zurich tomorrow. Can you come? I couldn't come, but my co-author did. You end up with

53:50

this interview which is Santiago Calatrava going okay, I don’t know who made this appointment,

53:50

but you're a methodologist and I don't use methods. What do you do here, basically?

53:50

Then my co-author started asking questions about this kind of practice, this higher level

53:50

practice. It turned out that nobody had ever asked Calatrava those - they always ask about

53:50

projects. They never ask about those things. The moment he realised what this was about

53:50

he freed up two days in his agenda. He just kept talking because he'd never verbalised

53:50

this. He was learning from verbalising it himself.

53:50

So it's this whole layer of design knowledge that we've hardly tapped, in a sense. It is

53:50

in people, but we haven’t made it very explicit. If we don't actually transfer that layer too

53:50

it's all very projecty, it's all very random and it doesn’t go anywhere. So I agree with

53:50

you on that. Jochen Schweitzer: I still have to answer

53:50

that too, right? I think the point that I was trying to make about my friend, David,

53:50

is more that he sees this lack of ability in graduates in being strategic thinkers when

53:50

he employs them into the businesses. So I think, in terms of leadership, what David

53:50

would like to see is people that he can employ that share the enthusiasm and the passion

53:50

for the idea that he, as an entrepreneur, pursues.

53:50

So what I would like to see happening is that we give more opportunities to our students

53:50

to develop those skills and abilities while they are still studying at university. I think

53:50

by training them and thinking strategically and seeking opportunity and getting [an antenna]

53:50

for the possibilities that are out there, I think we can achieve that and maybe provide

53:50

in the future people like David with graduates that are more capable of matching his requirements.

53:50

So, in that sense, I think we have a duty to develop those skills within our students

53:50

and graduates. Hael Kobayashi: Well, I think it's about time

53:50

for us to wrap up the conversation. Great to hear that themes that are emerging from

53:50

this evening's dialogue are around creativity, leadership, passion, focus, ability and the

53:50

need to dig deeper. We hope that you'll be joining us for our

53:50

next instalment in the Shapeshifter Series which will be held on 23 May. We'll make sure

53:50

that we get word out to all of you well before then.

53:50

Just a quick housekeeping note before we wrap up here. As you're leaving if you'd be able

53:50

to take your bottles and glasses with you and deposit them in the trays that are just

53:50

outside the entrance we'd greatly appreciate it.

53:50

I'd hope you'd all join me now in thanking the great team that's behind putting together

53:50

this event tonight. Special thanks to Kees, Joanne and Jochen for being generous in their

53:50

thinking with us. A special thanks to the UTS events and AV teams, to Robert Button,

53:50

the producer of UTS Speaks, and the Ellen Yang, our senior manager for the Creative

53:50

Innovation Unit. We thank you very much. So on behalf of UTS and the Creative Industries

53:50

Innovation Centre we thank you all for contributing to the dialogue this evening and we hope to

53:50

see you soon. Thank you. [Applause]