Andthen’s 2018 Picks from the Internet
Our team at Andthen have selected some of our favourite “picks from the internet” from 2018 for you to peruse over the Christmas break. While we represent a futures-thinking design consultancy, we like to cast our net wide and read up on design and non-design related things. Enjoy!
From Design Thinking to Systems Change
This RSA paper, published last year, discusses one of the ‘elephant in the room’ problems that has been challenging the design industry — that great design doesn’t equal meaningful impact. All too often designers forget that projects have a lives outside of the double diamond, and tend to sign off or toss the project over the wall for the next team to deal with without thinking about the project’s life beyond. The paper argues for the integration of design and systems thinking, and introduces a new RSA model as a way to do this — ‘think like a system, act like an entrepreneur’.
ECO coin
Lewis — one of our associates — has been working with the Next Nature Network for a couple of years, building a sustainable cryptocurrency called the ECO Coin. They released a whitepaper earlier this year, which gives a good outline of the system they’re building — it’s a good read, and refreshing to see a well considered altcoin that has a clear use case.
Women Invent the Future
Doteveryone, a think tank advocating for a fairer internet, published an experimental anthology that challenges the role of women within the future of technology, and aims to bring awareness to the gender disparity in tech. Each short story is a snippet of a fictional future world that helps us question the current tech environment.
Embedded: Trump Stories
NPR’s Embedded did a mini series called ‘Trump Stories’ earlier this year. The Trump news cycle dates fast, but it’s a rigorous deep dive into some of the people and topics that surfaced in the later half of the year.
Growing kids and Growing Companies
‘Growing kids and growing companies’ by Ev Williams was rediscovered in the archive this year. While it doesn’t give any solid conclusions, it outlines some of Ev’s findings, and really speaks to our ethos of work life balance in the studio.
Survival of the Richest
Douglas Rushkoff’s ‘Survival of the Richest’ explores some of the darker sides of Futurism, and makes a resounding point about how people in positions of power often fail to see that they have a role in shaping the future, instead spending their time trying to guard against it. He also includes a great teardown of techno-utopianism. Well worth a read.
Zebras versus Unicorns
Last year, Zebras Unite wrote their manifesto ‘Zebras fix what Unicorns break’, arguing that the current culture of attempting to build Unicorn companies bent on ‘disruption’ is detrimental to society. Instead, they advocate a new kind of company — the Zebra company — which balances profit with social impact, is constructive not disruptive, and works collaboratively with others, rather than asserting a ‘winner takes all mentality’. Recently, Zebras Unite announced a partnership with the Institute for the Future and we are excited to see what emerges; we firmly believe that futures thinking and ‘Zebra thinking’ overlap, and that an emphasis on long term thinking helps companies balance profit with impact.
Why big companies squander good ideas (paywall)
Tim Hartford’s piece in the FT unpacks several case studies, in which large organisations consistently fail to take advantage of game changing innovations and ideas. It challenges Clayton Christensen’s popular theory outlined in The Innovator’s Dilemma, and instead argues the need for innovation and organisations to align ‘architecturally’. A great read for anyone interested in design management or organisational design.
Why Futures Thinking is Becoming Essential for Designers
A friend of the studio, Ole Tørresen, wrote this great Medium article on building futures thinking into design approaches, and moving away from ‘human-centred’ towards ‘humanity-centred’.
How we’re defining our core values (and why you should too)
Another friend of the studio, Jade Richardson, wrote an engaging account of her recent experience of creating a suite of design values with Macmillan’s Innovation Team. Not only does it do a good job of framing why a design team needs values, but it also gives some practical pointers about how to create and implement them.
