Interview with:
Lauralee Alben, President of Alben Design LLC
June 2009
I see some of your background involves Interaction Design. I had studied user experience principles beginning with Don Norman, then later web usability from Jakob Nielsen and Steve Krug. It seems that this field is extremely important in designing product/service/process solutions that are not only more useful, but also sustainable if we consider lower user frustration thresholds and the propensity to keep those solutions that work easily for us. What do you think?
I think you’re absolutely right. That’s a nice leap from interaction design to sustainability. That’s the leap I had to make from branding to the pioneering work we did in interactive experiences at my previous partnership in the 90s. Instead of designing FOR people, we practiced the interdisciplinary software model of designing WITH people. The palette of ideas is much richer and informed by the people who will be using the products and services we design long after we’re finished. And that’s exactly what happened with the Mac OS brand we designed, and with our work for Apple that turned out to be one of the precursors to personalized computing: thematic appearances now known as skins. Applying the same design thinking to sustainable products and services will lead to similar breakthroughs and new behaviors that are long overdue. When we involve everyone as designers of a regenerative world, imagine what’s possible!
You’ve pioneered a program called the Sea Change Design Process. Could you tell us a little about that?
I am committed to designing sea changes: positive, profound, and enduring transformations. I created the Sea Change Design ProcessSM from a deep-seated conviction that it is possible to design life-sustaining solutions to the intractable problems we face in business, society, and the environment. It’s been a wild decade. We’ve used this process to help build corporate innovation capabilities at Procter & Gamble, search for new ways to protect human rights in Uzbekistan, form a global alliance around emerging technologies for the Itanium Solutions Alliance, and fuel a social movement based Riane Eisler’s partnership system.
We’ve also helped inspire ocean conservation for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is where I received my education in environmental stewardship. A “sea change moment” occurred for me when a marine biologist informed me quite matter-of-factly, “If we don’t get the exploration, mining, and harvesting of the deep ocean right, we won’t get a second chance until we can inhabit another planet.” That one statement, and an experience of having a one-eyed, juvenile stingray named Lefty rear up out of the water and stare at me for what seemed like an eternity, left me with a resolve and sense of wonder that I work out of every day.
I saw that you have a forthcoming book, “Designing Lives Worth Living”? Sounds exciting!
It is! That’s what we all want, isn’t it? To design lives that are worth living? To design work worth doing and legacies worth leaving? These are the fundamental questions at the heart of every person, each organization, and our world.
I recognize everyone as a designer. I assert that design is the conscious planning and meaningful acts that influence our relationship to humanity, the future, the sacred, and the natural world. Design creates vast currents, originating from every product, service and environment that we interact with. Its influence is evidenced in our behaviors, thoughts and values; in the ceremonies and codes of our cultures; and in the integrity and viability of our planet. And these in turn influence what and how we design; a circular pattern of cause and effect flowing through the daily events of our lives in minute ways and informing our world view on a grand scale. Through magnificent ocean swells, forces are constantly at work shaping and changing the planet. Just as the ocean creates profound effects upon the land, so too, does design affect our lives.
You also work in Organizational Change Management. While I’m a big proponent of the independent, but responsible worker ethic, I know that many folks like and work well within a top-down management style. Do you see variations in the creative yet disciplined future organizational model?
It’s complex, as all human-centered matters are. Here’s what I’ve found to be true across all sizes and types of organizations. It’s a myth that people respond with their best to top down directives. The motivations at the top of the hierarchy are often very different from those at lower levels, where what motivates people is doing work they believe in. This is what the informal networks influenced by almost invisible leaders can support and encourage. In thriving organizations, these two paradigms work together and focus on the creation of design cultures. Then everyone drives a continual flow of creativity from their deepest desires to the surface, producing breakthroughs on a sustainable basis. These companies stand out in stark contrast from those in survival, a stagnant state that typically results in flat business results due to minimal personal investment focused on short term return. By taking an integrated view into what makes business and people grow, design can give us access to something even more valuable than profit and productivity. It can lead us to what is profound and meaningful in our work and in the world.
Another myth is that competition works better than cooperation. But that’s a conversation for another time!
Sustainability has to be assessed and valued first before becoming naturally ingrained in the collective spirit of the organization, at which point we’ll see more independent & grass-roots efforts taking place within organizations. This is what I’ve observed from case studies at Wal-Mart. Do you see a clear or solid, proven path for organizations to develop and nurture sustainable thinking within their cultures? Where do brand ethics serve perhaps as a binding agent?
Businesses that nurture sustainability within the very soul of their organizations are what I term “sea change brands,” brands that generate positive, profound, and sustainable transformations in the world. These are companies often operating out of new business models like New Leaf Paper, which is committed to greening the paper industry and PeaceWorks’ KIND Snacks, which actively fosters peaceful coexistence in areas of conflict like the Middle East.
These transformative brands walk their talk, translate smarts into wisdom, open hearts, and connect to something bigger than themselves. They earn descriptors like enlivening, authentic, imaginative, empathetic, beloved, meaningful, and spirited. (Innovative goes without saying.) Because of these brands, lots of things become possible that were formerly ignored, discouraged, or seemingly beyond our reach; from sustainable products and services to social movements to life-giving consciousness.
