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Time for a revolution in design

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Description

We begin Hacking Kaizen with Gordon Candelin, former leader of McKinsey Design South East Asia, discussing the role of design, the impact of machine learning and generative AI, and why digital design is now broken. We explore “big D Design” and examine how it can be positioned as the value proposition to fix organisational problems. As design moves from making things to making things possible.

Keywords

Innovation, Design, Generative AI

Lead

Hello and welcome to Hacking Kaizen. I’m Graham Newman. We start this series of programs talking to Gordon Candelin, an award-winning designer in interaction, branding, customer, and product experience, and former leader at McKinsey Design, South East Asia. Who better to discuss how design should operate at the strategic and customer levels, how it can solve problems and how technology can inform better decisions for organisations to iterate, pivot, and change. 

The title of this program—time for a revolution in design—draws inspiration from a series of seminars given by Professor Bruce Archer at the Royal College of Art in 1976. Archer proposed a third area of human knowledge: “wroughting” and “wrighting.” “Wroughting–the making” refers to the hands-on process of crafting and shaping materials, while “wrighting–the doing” involves the intellectual and conceptual activities of design, such as planning and problem-solving.

Much has changed since then. But there’s a strong case that the two principles are even more relevant now than ever as design has transitioned from merely making things to enabling possibilities. Recorded at home in Bangkok, Gordon shares his perspective on how this applies today, how the role of design has evolved, the impact of generative AI and positioning design as a key value proposition for addressing organisational challenges. We begin by asking him about “big D Design” and why design thinking is not succeeding in digital product transformation.

Guest and related links
Contributor

Gordon Candelin on LinkedIn

Reading list

Archer, B. (1978). Time for a Revolution in Art and Design Education (RCA Papers No.6).

Hirt, M., Bradley, C. and Smit, S. (2018). Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick: People, Probabilities, and Big Moves to Beat the Odds. 1st ed. New York: Wiley. ISBN: 978-1-119-48762-3.