Design in the Economy of Choice
Abstract
Organizations in the 20th Century were driven by the forces of an economy of scale. Businesses with the largest and most efficient capabilities for production and delivery won the largest markets. To mitigate the risk of investing in big factories, extensive distribution channels and multi-channel media networks, leaders in companies and academia created frameworks to help predict their future. Examples are standards such as demographic profiles, market segmentation, consumer insight research, economic forecasting. As consumers filled their lives with products unimagined by previous generations, companies created ways to make their industrial age systems create more variety, causing SKU pollution that make complex companies, confused consumers, and a strained planet. Executives still use the predictive frameworks of the 20th Century even though they are facing 21st Century problems that can be characterized as fast changing, have multiple variables and call for rapid response rather than long-term prediction. Until we create responsive ways of addressing the challenges of today, our businesses, governments and civic institutions will continue to be out of synch with how people live, work and play. This presentation will show examples of frameworks and methods that fit the economy of choice in which we now live.
About the speaker
Prof. Patrick Whitney received his Master of Fine Arts in Design from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1976. He worked as a consultant for Aetna, Texas Instruments, McDonald's and Zebra Technologies. He is currently the Steelcase/Robert C. Pew Professor of Design and Dean of the Institute of Design in Illinois Institute of Technology.
Prof. Whitney is the principal investigator of several research projects at the Institute of Design, including Global Companies in Local Markets, Design for the Base of the Pyramid, and Schools in the Digital Age. His work has received support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Steelcase Foundation and numerous corporations. He wrote about new frameworks of design that respond to three transformations: linking insights about user experience to business strategy, the shift from mass-production to flexible production, and the shift from national markets to markets that are both global and “markets of one.” Prof Whitney’s consulting focuses on helping a company adopt methods that develop insights about customer experience and align them with the company’s strategy.
Prof. Whitney has been on the jury of many award programs, including the US Presidential Design Awards. He was a member of the White House Council on Design. In 1978 he was program chairman for the first major meeting addressing design evaluation from the user’s perspective at the US Conference of the International Council on Graphic Design Associations (ICOGRADA). Prof Whitney was the president of the American Center for Design (ACD) and served as an editor of Design Journal, its annual publication. He has been profiled by BusinessWeek as a “design visionary” and named by Forbes as a member of the “E-Gang” by Forbes for his work in human-centered design.
