Paul Bennett on Death and Dying
What is the role of design in changing the way we die? After his father died, Paul Bennett embarked on a journey to find out. The project sparked two years of work at IDEO, and brought the OpenIDEO End Of Life Challenge into being. We sat down with Paul for a lively Q&A; below are some highlights.
What’s the value of OpenIDEO and the End of Life Challenge?
People just want to talk. And that’s what you guys do. There is a bucket of people just labeled, Help Me Have a Conversation.
Why do you think people desire that conversation?
There’s a tremendous amount of hope in death, beauty in death, and people want to acknowledge that as much as they want to talk about the other stuff. I think death is a dialogue, not a monologue.
How can innovations out of left field be catalysts for change?
The Mars Rover is an interesting metaphor for tackling end of life problems. We have to go to Mars to get back to the moon.
What made you realize the importance of the physical in hospitals?
I was in Singapore, and I had a kidney stone; I ended up in the hospital. I was on morphine, howling. And from nowhere, I smelt bread baking. And I thought, ‘Oh my god, I’m dying. Oh my god, I’m high on drugs.’ But actually, I spoke to the ward nurse, and she said “We have a bakery in the basement.” I said “Oh, yeah?” And she said “yeah — the smell makes people feel like it’s good to be alive.”
What are the limits to the answers IDEO can provide in this space?
We aren’t going to have a brainstorm and fix death, you know? This isn’t a Post-It exercise. One of our goals in all of this is just to normalize this for the next two, or three, or four generations, and to get kids to not be weird. Like Everybody Poops, but for death.
When people ask you for advice, what do you tell them?
Death is a fundamentally inspiring topic: don’t run away from it. There’s an urgency, and an earnestness… but there’s also a joy.
Read more about Paul’s thoughts on re-designing death in this feature story by Jon Mooallem for The California Sunday Magazine; Moallem is also a contributor to The New York Times Magazine.
Read more stories about the people, ideas, and moments of OpenIDEO’s End of Life Challenge.
