| The interesting aspect of design, as a disciple, is that proof of concept rests entirely on the outcome. The question is: can you take a set of ideas or desired characteristics and build them into a process and artifact of some kind and achieve the desired result - and is that result USEFUL? The answer is yes or no. Neither result says anything definite about the veracity of the basic concepts. However, it is true that some concepts are better than others for getting results. Skill in the design process involves selecting the right ideas to try out as much as executing them well. There is a tight relationship between the ideas, goals, materials and means in the process of Design/Build/Use. Cycles of D/B/U promote the use of feedback and, thus, improved design. | | Creative people, universally exhibit certain habits. Working long and intensively (and to the exclusion of nearly all else) during the incubation of an idea or work, is but one example. These habits can be translated into rules. In this case the rule of: Focus intensively during the incubation period of an idea or design to the exclusion of all else. These rules can be considered to be “command language” in the mind of an individual or organization; they can be “embodied” in a system-environment by a series of means (protocols, work processes, technology tool-kits, models and language, physical architecture and symbolism, and so on). The sum of these as embedded rule-sets, make up what many call the “culture” of the organization; I prefer to think about this as the Operating System (OS) of the organization. | | It is possible to employ Rapid Prototyping [link], FasTracking [link] and Design/Build/Use [link] cycles to explore ideas and concepts, translate them into rules, embed them in working environments, operate these environments, and employ documentation and feedback [link] (of a complex kind) to make this a self-correcting system. This meta-process is what we have been doing [link] at MG Taylor for nearly a quarter of a century. The means of creating our System and Method is our System and Method. This is why I refer to it as an ENGINE of creation. At each step of creating a facet of it, the Zone of Emergence [link] is employed. Complex systems are not predictable; they are emergent; minimal intervention into the specific arena in focus is necessary to minimize unintended consequences. Thus, the System and Method is a bootstrap operation using the best existing version of itself to create an improved version of itself - one discrete step at a time. | creative_habits_commanded | | If you take the rules I have outlined as reflecting the habits of creative people [link], and string them together, you get the following: | Use feedback with skepticism, craft and deliberation; Focus intensively during the incubation period of an idea or design to the exclusion of all else: Let passion drive you and express it appropriately; Execute with high
levels of process control and precision; Employ eclectic learning methods (modes); periodically explore a broad content range; and bring this content to carefully selected subject areas related to your work; Sustain high physical energy levels; focus this energy during intense work periods; punctuate work periods with appropriate re-creation; Practice a technical discipline at state-of-the-art levels; Follow your Intuition; Document your progress; Practice work-living integration and 24/7/365 work-flow; Rule out failure as an option; know when to retire from the field; keep the long view; Develop and use your “reset” button; Employ a “hands on” approach to product creation; Challenge
Convention; Work in rapid iterations - ship a product - again and again; produce a rapid series of working prototypes; Create a language around your field of interest and creative work; Hold context and keep goals intact on a lifetime scale; employ ritual; maintain the “observer;” Invest everything; Message broadly; communicate intensely with peers; build functional networks; Serve a higher cause; Create a community; Organize your workplace so that it works for you. | | Taken all together, these make up a strong instruction set. No matter how different from another one human “agent” [link]” may interpret these “commands,” there is a clear direction stated and the things-to-do are clearly implied; in total, a mandate is established. Non-human agents, require a less ambiguous instruction set and language. How these commands get embedded in non-human agents varies from kind of agent to kind of agent, and, the agent’s circumstance and use. The interesting thing is, that as the environment of the human agent is increasingly made up of other agents thus “commanded,” the ambiguity of human “command” language is consequently diminished. It takes this “embedding” of non-human agents to bring precision, without interference, to the human communicated instruction set. As humans practice these creative habits, in the space, there is a feedback loop to the inanimate environment that, through morphic resonance [link], brings the inanimate alive thus completing the loop and reinforcing the efficacy of the entire system. | | How to build creative agency into the total environment (made up of agents of various kinds) of the human agent, to create a coherent embedded message of these creative rules, is the subject of the following comments. | | There are a great number of agents, that make up the environment of a human agent, that can represent, in their actions and messaging an instruction set (and capacity) of immense power. Conversely, as is too common, the environment can be filled with opaque, contradictory, confusing and competing messages. Even though each human will respond differently to each of the agents (messages), individually, the SUM is almost certain to work given proper execution of the components, an effective process design, and an adequate understanding of symbolism. Each of these agents can be thought of as a voice. One of our axioms for setting up a Taylor environment is “everything speaks.” These voices may be graphic, sound or written language; the modality may be denotative or connotative; the message may be conveyed through form, texture, rhythm, space; the content may be transferred intellectually or experientially; it may be in the form of a metaphor, a model, a proof, data, mathematical statement; the media may be electronic, paper or modeling materials; and, of course, all are intermingled with a high variety mix of other human agents engaging in the space, all other agents and each other. | | In the past, architecture, learning, information, experience, facilitation, work processes and media, were seen as different; in this approach they are ONE; all engaged in an entrained creative process/artifact that makes strong memory [link] as a deliberate consequence of the experience of working within it. | | So, how is it done? It is done by a thousand intentional design decisions that makes the desired condition become real; it is BUILT. This building is a conscious act of putting idea into process, structure and form. It is the act of creating real (i.e. in fact) architecture. In a practice, the results of these acts are experienced, evaluated and the work proceeds anew; iterative, recursive, feedback driven - a deliberate process of bringing THERE (the vision [link]) to HERE (the existing condition), making something, and then recreating the vision [link]. This is, essentially, the ACT of art [link] brought to all aspects of work and life. | “The Characteristic phenomenon of the contemporary epoch is this: “Scientific-technical advancement is not longer anteceded, even less induced, by new spiritual-philosophic cognitions as in previous ages. Instead, science and technique advance autonomously, without the moral control and intellectual preparation that religion and philosophy provide. Each new phase in the rapid transformation of the contemporary physical environment meets man unprepared and hence remains outside his full control. “As a result, new scientific-technical achievements no longer address human sentiment. Consequently, they not longer assume the role of art as in previous ages, when all creative manifestations of man were within popular conception. That is to say, science and technique - the two major forces that shape the contemporary environment - are without art and the humanizing force that art gives. “This alienation is evident in man’s emotional indifference to the forms created by science and technique. It is apparent in his failure to grasp the new dimensions conquered in space and energy or to imagine their meaning for the human race on this planet. Indeed, science and technique - the two most efficient instruments of human progress - now virtually endanger the very existence of mankind. “The challenge of the present, thus, is not discovery of the new but the total comprehension of the existing and its integration into contemporary ethics; hence, its human application and aesthetic appreciation. The tragedy of the present is that any such spiritual search or the meaning of man’s existence in the contemporary epoch is no longer a noble expression of Man’s inner desire for enlightenment, but a necessity forced upon him by technical-scientific progress. “The challenge exists also for the architecture in the industrial society. for even through building technology lags far behind other industries, it has, nevertheless, progressed so far that its forms remain largely neutral to human emotions. Not being incorporated into the universal order of contemporary thought, architecture constitutes still another alien and inhuman element among man’s scientific and technical creations and, especially in residential architecture, revives an unrealistic escape to romanticism. “Therefore, it is not the improvement of technical, economical, functional hygienic or visual factors of building, but the establishment of organic relationships between man, society, technique, and shelter within the total framework of contemporary ethics that is the task of contemporary architecture. “For this universal theme the residential architecture of japan, more than any other, holds instructive comparisons and discloses basic problems. for in Japan the spiritual order of the epoch was successful in an unique way: | it brought man into intimate emotional relationship to most simple shelter and most humble living; it gave aesthetic meaning to an architecture that was a pure expression of necessity; it humanized an environment that was largely standardized and prefabricated; it established an accord between feeling and thinking.” | Heinrich Engel
1964
The Japanese House
A Tradition for Contemporary Architecture | | | Below are a few examples of embedding creative habits as rules in the workplace. The possibilities are endless. The 7 Domains Model [link] can be useful as a frame of reference to facilitate the process that is implied by these examples. | Focus intensively during the incubation period... | In today’s world this is an extremely important “command.” Life and work are chopped up into periods of time with a transactional focus. This is extremely disruptive to the creative process. No matter your talent, you have to get a measure of control of your time and you have to give yourself the metal space for prolonged concentrated work. | | The is true as a generality. It is particularly true when you are “hatching” a new idea or design. Great work is demanding. It does not happen according to a schedule. This is true of individual effort as wells as collaborative work. Finding white space for a team to work together is even a greater challenge than maintaining your personal time. A one hour meeting, once a week, is no way to organize creative teamwork. | | This is not easy to do nor is it understood in our society which still runs on a 9 to 5 industrial model. This is one reason why social creatives are considered anti-social. This is but one aspect of the passive-aggressive relationship between the creative individual and the present social order. It is a major barrier to the formation of creative teams. It is a major block to the emergence of a truly creative society. | | Document your progress... | This web site and my hand drawn Notebooks- which are also published on this web site [link] - are my first level of effort in documenting my work. It would be impossible to “hold” so many long term intentions intack, and to track my progress in regards them, if I did not diligently practice this documentation process. You must find your own way of doing this. But, whatever the method and style, you must do it. | | On the organization level, this practice has to be augmented by the 10 Set Process [link]. Otherwise, there is no group MEMORY - if there is no group memory, there cannot be GroupGenius. | | Employ a “hands on” approach to product creation... | The creative process is organic, it is physical and it employs all of the senses. It is not a creature of passionless dry intellect alone. It requires experimentation. It cannot be delegated. It is the consequence of dedicated practice whch is the consequence of habits which are the consequence of mental commands [link]. | | There is feedback between a vision of an object, the wood to be carved, the knife that cuts. The moment of creation is when the blade, sustained by accumulated skill, driven by a vision actually meets the wood - what happens is a synergy not determined by any of these factors but the sum of them all. | | Serve a higher cause... | A problem cannot be solved on the level it was created. Great work is birthed from the stimulus of a greater mission. | | Create a community... | Ideas, nor projects, are created in a vacuum. Everywhere you see great innovation, you see a movement, a community of like-minded individuals.At the root of it, ALL creative work is a group process. This is true even in the case of the “lone artist” struggling against the dictates of a time and place - it is still a “dialog.” | | Organize your workplace... | In the environment where most people work this is an absurd statement. The same can be said for the schools they attended. How many people have an environment that can be adjusted, let alone “created,” to facilitate creative work? Was creating an environment to promote creative work ever taught? Despite these inherent gaps, however, environments can be much more supportive of creativity than they now are. | | Organizing one’s environment - NESTING - is an essential ritual as well as a logistical necessity. In the specific, everyone works differently; left hand, right hand; standing, sitting; pacing, not; work spread out, put away; open access (prospect), quite niche (refuge); sparse setup, abundant “mess;” and, there are a wide variety of work processes that vary from person to person. The workplace should adapt to people; people should not have to adapt to the workplace. | | How is this rule EMBEDDED? First by making a place that is flexible and adaptable based on an understanding of creative protocols. Create standards and examples of productive environments. Facilitate knowledge workers through work processes that produce value and entrain ne habits. Bring beauty, symbol and quality back into the workplace. Populate the space with books, toys, models, graphics, plants and examples of the work being produced. Celebrate creativity in every THING that is present. | | | The modern workplace [link] does not WORK very well. It is tolerated; I know few who actually say they like it. This presents a great opportunity to remake it into a far better expression of human values. Today, it is a somewhat more pleasant vestige of the medieval structure. It has to become far more participatory and democratic. It has to embrace moral (not moralistic) principals. It has to be made physically and emotionally healthy for today it is not. The cult of efficiency and utilitarianism has to give way to creativity and art; dogma has to give way to work processes based on real results not on old, left over, worn out deeply embedded practices that do not rest on evidence but on unchallenged habit. The sharing of wealth produced has to become much more equitable. It has to become, in its process and product, economically [link] and ecologically [link] sustainable - today it is neither. The root of the ills of the workplace is its lack of creativity for creativity is, by definition, the expression of the human; this lack of creative impulse can be seen in how it is made, in how it is conducted, in the products that emanate from it. We have, today, an abundance of incremental invention and innovation; a proliferation of technique practiced by legions of over-trained and under educated hired guns. These are mostly, in my experience, highly skilled and dedicated people who do not know what they do not know and who, because of their innatehumanness, long to do far more and BE better than the system in which they presently exist allows. Unleash this genius and an abundance of true wealth will result; chain it and the system will, with the power that has been unleashed, self destruct. It seems like a simple choice. | | I am not saying that there should be a greater integration between our culture and the place where we manufacture it; that integration already exists. What comes out of our present system is the product that it was designed to produce. If you question this consequence in any way; if you wonder what another decade of the same may become; then, change the machine that has ceased to promote life and replace it with a process that does. We create our environment and, then, it creates us. | | Matt Taylor
Elsewhere
November 28, 2002 | 
SolutionBox voice of this document:
INSIGHT • POLICY • PROGRAM |
posted: November 28, 2002 revised: June 17, 2005
• 20021128.611390.mt • 20021206.202209.mt •
• 20050617.889011.mt •20050618.456016.mt • (note: this document is about 40% finished) copyright© Matt Taylor 2002, 2005
note: aspects of the processes described in this document are patented and patent pending by iterations | |
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