Accidental Vagrant

Keynote: Shock, Stress & Innovation: Reinventing Global Resilience for the Information and Knowledge Age, hosted by the National Defense University, Washington DC

There is a commonly expressed fear among scientists and other rational agents that design is too nihilistic and relativistic. Design is dismissed as merely expressions of intuition, fashion or ‘whatever’ and not objective, rational inquiry. This has raised many barriers between scientific thinkers and design practitioners. It has confused design educators and students alike. However, systemics provides dimensions of critical reasoning to designing that many assume or fear are missing. In systemic designing, systems and design are not only interrelated, they are inseparable. Systemic design is a compound whole and not merely two interrelated strategies of inquiry. It is an integration of knowledge and skill that enables prudent action—wise action—to transpire. It is a manifestation of the integration of theory and action—wisdom. This is the original definition of sophia —in philosophy ( philo (love) + sophia (wisdom))—as the wise hand . It is a holistic s...

Design is service —not manipulating, nudging, coercing, persuading… The interrelationship that binds, animates, and defines a design capable system is service . Service is a contractual relationship where purpose and intention is blended with instrumental skill, judgement and agency (Nelson and Stolterman 2000). Service is a word that has many meanings in different contexts. It has a sense of ennoblement at the same time that it has negative connotations for the reasons given by James Hillman (Hillman 1995): Service offends deep strata of human dignity. We may all want service, but who wants to give it? For service still means menial service (not banking, brokering, telephoning, teaching, installing, diagnosing or writing). The first trouble lies in the word, which invites in it cousins—serf, servile, servant, servitude, servility, all descendants from the common Latin ancestor , servus , slave. Service, as it is defined in our culture, is hardly empowe...