Friday, December 02, 2005

What design isn't.

It's been about two months since I last wrote anything down about design. I've been busy and frankly I havent had any real thoughts. about design, that is.

In the meantime, i've started running, in a serious way not seen by my body since high school. My changes tend to be like that. They come in step-function form. Now I run 3-4 times a week, a big change from running zero times a week. Tuesday night, and again last night, I ran 4 miles. the longest runs i've had since high school. I've cut my 12+ minute mile down to a sub-11 minute mile. Not great, but not too shabby either for a couch potato.

Running has given be an opportunity to think about what design is not. Running is not about innovating every time you run, its about stick-to-it-ness, and making steady progress. There are no sudden paradigm shifts available in running, you dont find some shortcut that gets you from a 12 minute mile to a 6 minute mile through cleverness. You get there through running.

Lately, it seems that design and innovation are seen as some magic cure-all. That any business, once they embrace innovation, can cut their 12 minute mile to a 6, because they see all the design companies doing 6's, how hard can it be, aren't we all innovating?

But you get there through running.

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

wow larry. that is a great post, and i agree with your theory 100%. both for running and for design. in both activities talk is cheap and the only results that happen are b/c you were actually doing, not talking.

and kudos on starting back running again. that is a difficult sport to pick back up for sure, way to go!

7:12 PM  

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