security & design

• post-meeting thoughts
• conservatism vs design-forwards thinking
• risk management

Design and security/risk seem to have relatively little in common.
However maybe in the 21st century, it is ever more relevant as an issue.

I still haven't come round to writing down any notes on the ever prevalent "academia vs profession" question, but this was a more interesting framework that I was contemplating with today. The framework developed as I was listening into endless meetings, which seemed to stem from business-minded people vs designers. Though the business side were design-conscious, and the designers business-friendly, the fundamental disparity seemed to be how to deal with risk.

Key phrases I would hear thrown about were such as "We'd like to see more numbers showing market competitors, and see what the demand really is to understand what will work," "The mantra should be be different, be unique to survive into the future.''

In typical western education, it may be easier to rationalize good business thinking. Why take design over what may be an unnecessary business risk, and work with branding that is currently foolproof? However, as a designer one can only see how stale and close-to-expiry-date a design can be. The precedent successful design was created in context of its time, and copying it sets one's standards to facilities, ideas, and technologies relevant to when the precedent was designed.

The questions in this context were essentially,

• How does society view risk management?
• Is design a risk?

 The arguments within these questions may be close to the "Is innovation/art necessary?" question. What may be more interesting is whether design philosophies are more fundamentally aware of this, like the ways in which it has incorporated the environment and rapid-growth urbanism in recent years.