Curious About…Boao. 关于博鳌的好奇心
(The next installment of the Chinese version of this column, presented as always in its original Mandarin and English.)
So I have been invited to speak at this years Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference. It’s a huge honor and I am very flattered. Looking at the guest list, I find myself somewhat intimidated – everyone on there has very serious titles: CEO of Something, President of Something, Executive Chairman of Something, all…except me. I’m a designer.
A journalist asked to interview me before the event, and the first question they asked was the most pertinent: “As the only designer invited to the panel, what do you think about your presence at the forum? What are the main things you are going to talk about?”
The answer is actually quite simple, and in fact represents my hope not just for Boao but for China at this moment in time, and hopefully, without sounding too grandiose, the world in general: that design clearly has a place to play in the Big Conversations right now. These are conversations about change; about taking intractable problems and breaking them down into smaller, more manageable chunks, about bringing disparate groups people of together and orienting them towards collective problem solving and action rather than endless discussion and debate.
As an example, we recently worked on a growing problem that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US has grappled with for years – that one out of every three children in America today is overweight or obese. While the CDC deftly handles sudden health crises of global proportions (such as flu pandemics) the agency’s efforts to control more insidious “lifestyle” diseases, such as childhood obesity and related chronic illnesses, receive fewer headlines and are less familiar to the public.
The CDC expanded its efforts to support America’s youth by launching Project Carrot, a program aimed at exploring how environmental changes, health policies, and marketing/communication efforts could be better integrated to deter childhood obesity. To narrow the scope, the main emphasis was on increasing fruit and vegetable consumption.
The CDC wanted to try a new problem-solving approach. They turned to us because our human-centered design methodology contrasted with the CDC’s traditional means of gathering and disseminating scientific data. They believed that IDEO’s new perspective and innovative practices would help the adults who were running Project Carrot get inside tween minds - to understand their worlds, needs, and desires - in an inclusive and non-threatening way.
We spoke with tweens and a wide range of adults, from a senior director of grocery at WalMart to an elementary school district’s “renegade lunch lady,” about healthy eating. The interviews yielded some important information, including: parents tend to care more about their children’s safety and grades in school than whether they eat vegetables; “social marketing” is now dismissed by public health sector, where officials have tried it for 30 years and it hasn’t worked; and translating the CDC’s wealth of knowledge to the language of policymakers is difficult.
After sharing these insights with the CDC, IDEO helped the organization reframe Project Carrot’s objective. The final three prototypes worked together to make food environments less “toxic” by promoting environmental, policy, and social change.
This is what I mean by design’s ability to contribute by bringing together citizens and governments; by creating mechanisms for them to speak to each other and connect, by making intangible campaign promises tangible and individuals engaged. I am hoping that Boao can provide a forum for us all to think about how we can facilitate these kinds of conversations and have everyone benefit in the process.
Another space I think design has a huge role to play in is in education, one of our fastest-growing practice areas and one that our designers are most passionate about. Building the next generation of Asian leaders is something we are excited about in all our offices in this region, and I think a great topic for a forum like Boao is: “How does this generation of leaders help enable the next?”
Education is the means by which we thrive, individually and collectively. In recent times, the growing complexity and interconnectedness of our now global society has challenged the effectiveness of traditional education systems, which were designed for the needs of the industrial era. The old model was built upon the idea that a worker’s job was to apply the basic skills they’d learned in school to specific tasks. To thrive in the 21st century, however, we need to go beyond that—and teach people how to learn, engage, and create. As Einstein said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” The new model is about the constant creation of knowledge and empowering individuals to participate, communicate, and innovate.
This is the spirit that drives our Designs For Learning practice. Whether it’s about developing tools, environments, or curricula that enable more engaging learning experiences; transforming schools, programs, and organizations; or addressing systemic challenges that affect education-at-large, our human-centered methodologies and multi-disciplinary teams bring innovation solutions to education.
One goal I have for Boao is to identify people who are as passionate as we are about going on the journey of creating new types of leaders with new skills, hopefully designers in their own right, but in this case designers of our collective future.
So, we shall see. I’m excited to learn as always, to see and listen to the pulse of a event such as this. I’m assuming that my voice has something to add to the conversations, and that what I am proposing - that designing actual change, together - is a message that resonates. I’m planning on writing a series of reactions to the event in my next column, so am hoping that I am as optimistic coming out as I am going in.
我最近被邀请在即将举行的博鳌亚洲论坛年会上发言。我觉得非常荣幸。不过扫一眼嘉宾名单，我还真有点吓住了——名单上的每个人都有着隆重的头衔，CEO啊，总裁啊，执行董事长啊——就除了我。我只是一个设计师。
前一阵儿一家杂志因为准备博鳌专刊采访了我。他们问的最后一个问题是我最为关注的：“作为唯一一位设计界精英，您对此次参会作何感想？你的发言将涉及哪些要点？”
要回答这个问题其实很简单，因为它表达的是我的希望，不仅是关于当下中国的希望，也是关于整个世界的希望——但愿这听起来不是太夸大其词：我希望设计在当前的宏观对话中有一席之地。这些宏观对话关乎改变；关乎如何把难以解决的问题打碎成较小的、较为可操作的局部；关乎如何把分散的团体聚拢到一起采取集体行动解决问题而不要陷入无休止的讨论和争议。
举个例子，我们最近和美国疾病控制与预防中心（CDC）一起着手解决一个纠结多年的问题——目前美国三分之一的孩子体重超标或者患有肥胖症。CDC处理一些突发的全球性健康危机（比如流感）非常敏捷高效，但是对于一些隐藏于表象之下的“生活方式病”，例如儿童肥胖症以及相关的慢性病，CDC所做的努力并没有引起足够的重视，也不那么为公众所熟悉。
因此CDC发起了一个叫做“胡萝卜计划”的项目。这个项目针对美国的青少年，旨在探索如何更好地整合环境变化、健康政策和传播措施以缓解儿童肥胖问题。把范围再缩小一些，主要的重点是增加水果和蔬菜的摄入。
CDC希望尝试一种新的方法。他们来找我们，因为IDEO以人为本的设计方法与CDC传统的科学数据收集与解析恰恰构成一种反差。他们相信IDEO新的视角和创新手法可以帮助那些执行“胡萝卜计划”的成年人走进青少年的世界——理解他们的思路、需要和愿望——以一种包容的、不带威胁感的方式。
我们就健康饮食走访了许多青少年和成年人，从沃尔玛超市的资深总监到小学校区的午餐管理员。这些访谈产生了一些重要的信息，包括：相比于是否吃蔬菜，父母倾向于更重视孩子在学校的安全和成绩；在官员们尝试了30多年却未有收效的情况下，公共健康部门目前已经基本抛弃了“社会传播”的做法；要把CDC所掌握的渊博专业知识转化成政策制定者可用的语言很困难。
IDEO首先和CDC分享了这些洞察，然后帮助CDC重新设置了“胡萝卜计划”的目标框架。最后建了三个协同发挥作用的模型，通过推动环境、政策和社会转变减少饮食环境中的“毒素”。
这就是我所说的设计的贡献力——把民众与政府聚合到一起；创造机制让他们可以对话和联系；把无形的愿景变得有形可见，让个人可以参与。我希望博鳌能够提供一个平台，让我们思考如何进行这种类型的对话，让每个人在过程中都受益。
另一个我认为设计可以发挥重大作用的领域是教育，也是IDEO发展最快、设计师们最有热情投入的业务领域之一。新一代亚洲领导者的成长是我们在亚洲各地非常关注的话题。我认为像博鳌这样的论坛非常适合讨论的一个话题是：这一代的领导者如何帮助下一代成长？
教育是我们不管作为个人还是集体能够成功发展的必经途径。近年来，全球社会的结构越发复杂并且相互隔绝，为个体化时代而设计的传统教育体系面临挑战。老教育模式所基于的设想是工人把他们在学校里所学到的基础技能运用于特定的任务。而21世纪的成功需要超越这个模式，需要教会人们怎样学习、怎样建立联系、怎样创造。就像爱因斯坦说的：“我们不能用我们当初制造问题时同样的思路来解决问题。”新的模式关乎如何持续创造知识，如何让个体获得参与、沟通和创新的能力。
这是驱动IDEO开辟“学习设计”（Designs For Learning）业务的初衷。我们凭借人为本的设计方法和跨专业的设计团队为教育领域带来了创新——无论是开发可以使学习体验更具吸引力的工具、环境或者是课程；学校、课程和组织的转型；或是解决影响整个教育体系的系统性问题。
我去博鳌的目标之一是找到和我们一样对新型领导者的成长之旅充满热情的人。可能他们本身就是设计师，是我们共同未来的设计者。
让我们拭目以待。我一如既往地充满了学习的兴奋感，我将目睹和感受这一盛会的脉搏。我想我的声音能为此间的对话带去一些内容，而我所建议的让设计带来改变的想法可以得到共鸣。在接下来的专栏文章中我还会写一些参会的反响。希望我归来和我前往时都是一样的充满乐观。
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