Good Design - 1/3

Except for straightforward phone calling, you would be hard done by to find a dumber piece of design than a cell phone. For a guy who’s into efficiency, trying to TXT is more than a painful process - it’s a dead cert frustration creator. Predictive texting doesn’t work for me because it doesn’t have half the words I want to use. Pressing the “7″ key four times to get an “s” just doesn’t turn me on, sorry.

I communicate well through typing. I always have. I seem to be able to gather my thoughts so much better in writing than in talk, but the only emotional connection I get when using the little sucker cell phone is watching my blood pressure rise the more I try to use it.
Over the last 20 years or so I have spent a fair bit of time helping people structure their businesses well. They come to me with their great idea and I get them to think creatively, and help them design their business in a better way.

A young guy from down the line asked for suggestions on how to develop a website that he had. His idea was that he would create awards for people who had developed good websites. Good idea, except that he was 10 years too late. First off, there was already a major player who did annual web awards - with a much bigger budget and reputation. Secondly, web awards are pretty much now “Ho, hum”. Thirdly, he had the business structure all wrong. He wanted to get sponsorship to give out as prize money. His idea was that he would take a lot of money from a few people and give that out to only a few winners. Bad design.

My advice was to restructure the way he intended to do things. A problem is always an opportunity. If he turned the problem upside down, he would have a better-designed business. If he tweaked his business model to a user-pays basis and charged all the people who wanted to list their amazing website(s) then he did several things - he had a different model from the incumbent, he solved his funding issues, he created more value for more people and he ended up with a sustainable business. That’s good business design at work.

I’ve analysed the “Evolution cult” quite thoroughly over the years and have been interested to see the rise of the Intelligent Design movement. The last 10 years or so has seen some amazing thinking and research conducted that really blows away the BS that has plagued the scientific community. I love science. Bubbling concoctions and blowing things up really gets me going. I think I must be a typical male in that regard. Anyway, the more that one digs, the more the idea that things around us are actually designed has credence. Certainly more than the idea that we all evolved by chance out of some unknown slimey ooze.

A few years back I listened to a very knowledgeable scientist talk about the human hair, and the human skin. The thrust of the message was that these two components of the human body demonstrated deliberate design. The hair has a design challenge. How to grow - an outward force was required - but at the same how to remain attached to the body, an inward force. The technical aspects of achieving this one challenge alone involved amazing design, that was simply impossible by chance. They call it “irreducible complexity” a phrase that explains something that has to be designed.

The human skin is also amazing in its ability to maintain a constant body temperature. One degree up or down and we’re dead. The boffin went through just some of the amazing design that went into the human skin. Chance? No way.

Raising the issue of good design is not popular in some quarters nowadays. The reason of course is that if we accept that there is a design component to our existence, then that raises the though that “there’s an elephant in the room”.

Hmmm. Who then, is this designer? And, scary thought, are we accountable to Him?

Not an easy topic. Unless of course we take the Good Book at face value.

I don’t see a lot of evolutionary thought inside the bible. Instead this is what I see:

. . . God created . . .
Genesis 1:1

Pretty simple really - that is, when we humble ourselves and take our blinkers off.

I spend a good deal of time and effort trying to help others apply good business design in their business. Chance has nothing to do with. Good design abounds in nature. Chance has nothing to do with.

No mucking around then on this subject . . . it’s the VICTUS IN AMBITUS way to acknowledge the designer.