"Empathic Economy" is a step toward Integral Design

In one of yesterday's posts, I explored the relationship between breakdowns and thoughtless acts, as distinguished by Jane Fulton Suri, Chief Creative Officer of the design consultancy IDEO. As it happens, Jane Fulton Suri was featured in an interview on the blog Creative Generalist yesterday.

In the interview, she points out that it is common within progressive design companies to use "observation, intuition, empathy and imagination about customers/end-users/consumers" to inspire innovation. However, she suggest taking this a step further.

"When I refer to 'the empathic economy' I’m talking about a future possibility - about a huge opportunity for innovation in which a similar level of empathy and imagination might be applied to the many different kinds of people who populate the business ecology of a particular industry, not just customers/end-users/consumers."

This is a move away from traditionally user-centric design toward integral design.

Here are some of my current speculations about integral design:

1. Integral designs are not only designs of things but of selves, systems, relationships, cultures, behaviors, experiences, and futures simultaneously.
2. Integral design doesn't favor only the direct end user of the design. Instead, integral design takes into account the designing effect on the whole ecology that a design will have over its lifetime.
3. Integral designs emerge within and by participation across the whole ecology. There is no central designer or locus of design control.
4. Integral design requires a new understanding and practice of leadership.
5. Integral design requires a rethinking of the concepts of waste and the declaration of new wastes.
6. Integral designs are inherently sustainable through being adaptive and responsive to change.
7. Integral designs build capacity not dependency.
8. Integral designs are natural designs. The best place to study integral design is in nature.
9. Integral designs are centering while also being transforming.
10. Integral designs when encountered, interacted with, and used confront us with our own freedom and humanity. In a way ... they wake us up to ourselves and our lives.

Each of these will be explored in future posts.

For now, I'm curious what others think of the notion of Integral Design. Any good examples? What are the challenges for generating more integral designs?

Take care,

-Steve

Comments

[Amiel]

Since a key element of design is breakdowns, I thought of you when I came across the This is Broken blog. http://broken.typepad.com/. It has pictures of things that have broken, in essence, errors of design. Perhaps this could be an ongoing feature of your blog: This Project is Broken or something of that nature where a blog entry would focus on a particular breakdown from your experience, others', or reading, providing an opportunity to comment on it. Food for thought...