Joined by Alfons Sauquet

Lynda: Much of business has to do with how we want the world to be and what we want to do with it.  One of the biggest questions we face is what role can business play in creating a sustainable world?  Don’t think that we’ve really accomplished that much in business thus far.  I think we need to start with an empty, clean sheet of paper and not have too many assumptions.  Just to start our discussion, what does disruption and innovation mean in business?

Alfred: What’s the meaning of disruptive thinking in business?  The usual term we use is “innovation” and the first thing that comes to mind is that this is a broad, umbrella term.  You see innovation in all areas.  Disruptive thinking in business means innovation to some extent, and innovation has broader meanings.  In Barcelona, we are developing a government program for innovation.

L: Are there different sorts of innovation and would you link creativity with it?

A: Creativity seems to start with a spark for a new idea, whereas innovation has deeper implications.  I like to think of innovation as something that in the end changes behavior.  If it doesn’t change behavior, it may be an innovation, but it will be a restricted one.  Innovation requires a number of intermediate processes.

L: So creativity is one bit of it, and innovation is broader and must be embedded in an organization for it to work.

A: Yes.  We tend to think that scientific discoveries are accepted by everyone but that is not the case.  You have to use processes and tools that will convince by other so they will accept the result.  Innovation is the same.

L: Do you think that the business world is using innovation to its full potential?

A: There is a push for it, you cannot escape innovation.  The speed of change puts us at the forefront of innovation.  Experience is a dilemma which is embedded in organizations.  An organization is a thing that is antithetic to innovation, the whole idea being to have standards and predictable results.  Innovation is not a process that takes place just inside a company.  There is a company in China that is creating innovation through their suppliers and then integrate components.  Innovation takes place within a company, but also with companies around a company.  Innovation may take place within a company, but you may not realize the scope of the innovation.

L:  Business can have a negative money-grubbing image.  What positive role can business play in the world?

A: There are different responses.  Some would say business is business, some would focus on staying more profitable, a third response is what role does business play in the world at large.  I think we will see more of the third.  Business doesn’t take place in the void.  The younger generation cares about what the business does, and as the business recruits new talent, the opinions of the them will point the business towards the third response.

L: You’re confident about people transforming the types of businesses we have.  Do you see that happening through young people selecting companies to work for?

A: Young people actually have much more complex demands of companies.  We’re doing a study for a company that is concerned that what they’re offering is no longer relevant to potential recruits.  If you look at the professional careers of young people, in the past you would look at a person and think they would be the prototypical ladder-climbing career worker. That’s no longer the case.  We’re seeing more people that move around between companies.

L: To produce innovation, what sort of qualities are we looking for in young people?

A: From an innovation point of view, innovators cannot be aligned, people that repeat what was done before.  Innovation takes place in the boundaries, in weird combinations.  Diversity is important, and leadership must be distributed.   Emotional intelligence is a must as well.  If you can understand another person, you have 50% of the story.

L: I’m fascinated by that, because in my experience, a whole person or holistic person is viewed as a threat, because they don’t fit in.  Is that how you see it?

A:  If you have a very undefined environment, you have to keep the holistic person in mind.  However, if you have a very well-defined environment, you can’t have the whole person in it.  The more creative the company, the more you need that type of person.

L: What is the role of business schools in the world’s changing environment?  Does your school reflect an old model or does it push to where we should be?

A: Well, in some ways business school have to incorporate “old model” information, but at the same time, business schools have their own identity.  Take Esade’s relationship with Art Center for example.  Not a typical relationship for a business school.

L: Perhaps Esade could have a course on disruptive thinking where students have to start fresh.

A: Breaching “structural holes” that connect different networks is something we’re very concerned with.  It’s a very valuable achievement and what we’re hoping the Esade/Art Center relationship will lead to.

L: Do you think that business is moving enough in response to climate change or is a much deeper response necessary?

A: I think there’s a lot of work to be done yet.  There are indications that businesses are thinking about this and more aware of their role in society, but there’s a lot of work to be done.  Available time and the speed of change are important factors.  We have to ingrain the “spark” in companies.  It requires time and some personal transformation, but I’m optimistic.  Businesses need to change but society needs to change as well.

Q: Where do you see business leadership in the future?  If young people are coming in to businesses with very aspirational expectations, what burden does that place on leadership?
A: Leadership needs to have a “translational” aspect, metaphorically, to be able to speak to different needs, abilities, mindsets.  People who have complexity inside and are able to relate to different worlds, leaders who are not linear.  Maybe the idea of learning in depth about oneself is important, to be aware of who you are.  The issue of identity is important.

Q: On one side you have the thinkers, the other the market.  How do you align the disruptive thinking to the market?
A: Well-put.  If you have a  lot of creative, but nobody can bring it to market, it doesn’t matter.  One option is to outsource innovation, incorporating innovation from the outside.  You still have to have internal innovation as well.  In terms of the role of business schools, they are professional schools.  They work with the basis of science, but bring in other elements as well.  They can have partnerships with other groups.  We are working with the European Commission to find better ways to communicate.

Nate Young: 20 years ago, only 3% of Art Center students were interested in entrepreneurship, now it’s about opposite.  One of the reasons we’re so interested in our relationship with Esade is to explore not only adding business to design but design to business.  Do you find that 3% of your students are interested in design?
A: If they’re from Barcelona, it’s already there!  But yes, increasingly the students see the importance.

Q: In your classes, do you differentiate between disruptive innovation and sustainable innovation?
A: We use different terms, but I think it’s the same: incremental innovation and transformational innovation.  If you don’t have an ambidextrous organization the innovation will always be incremental, whereas if you have a group of boundary-based “strange people” they can have transformational innovation.

Q: Would it be the most disruptive thinking to create a business that doesn’t need to grow or compete?
A: There is a small trend towards that.  When we talk about competition, we also speak of cooperation.  There’s always some amount of collaboration going on, even if it’s motivated by self-interest.

Joined by Ron Haviv and Bernard Tabaire

Politics is about leadership.  Four huge forces affecting newspaper business: western economic credit level,  threat of religious terrorism fueled by disparities in wealth and education, climate change, and explosion of awareness across the planet.  None of these forces are going away, but can be used for good if approached correctly.

Richard: Ron, why did you become a photographer?

Ron: To create awareness of places where no one is paying attention.  Sometimes I’ve seen immediate reactions depending on who else was talking about it.  But more often than not, my ability has failed to change things on the ground and the work morhps into something else, into a record, a document, to hold others responsible for their actions.  It also holds leaders of Western World responsible and unable to say “we didn’t know.”  There have been three genocides that have occurred in recent times, the refrain of “never again” from the Holocaust is an empty one.  But by extension, we are responsible for what we witness in our time.

Richard: How do you maintain objectivity?

Ron: Objectivity is a misnomer because you’re there making decisions, but you try to accurately represent what’s going on.  If one side is committing injustices or atrocities then that needs to be made visible.  People are incredible conscious the media to expose those sorts of things.

Richard: Bernard, how strong is government is Uganda?  Can it be held up as an example to others?

Bernarnd:  Not at all.  Corruption is a big thing, we lose millions every year to public corruption.  But we are growing.  The human rights situation is still bad, we still have what are called “safe houses” where people are tortured.  It is a government that does not want things that cast it in a negative light to operate.  Right now, there is a massive debate over land reforms.  The rest of the people outside of the media are beginning to come in and make their voices heard.

Richard: The world is watching.  Do you both feel that the watching world has become more effective through international organizations?  Are they doing some good?

Ron: To a point.  Those committing atrocities I think realize there is some limit to what the world will permit.  Stopping the war in Darfur has become the biggest student involvement issue since End Apartheid.  Steven Spielberg dropped out of Olympic involvement because of China’s lack of effort regarding Darfur.  However, there is some “real politic” issues that come into play, where the government plays both sides.

Bernard: Certainly it helps, but more importantly for me, coming where I come from if you look at Uganda, a lot of people have died from misuse of weapons by the military.  So you wonder, if Uganda has all these weapons and could go to war with neighbors or citizens, why don’t we just get rid of these armies that harass the very people they are supposed to protect.  My dream would be to see a country such as Uganda say we will never have an army again and not have weapons.

Richard: The first disruptive idea: abolish armies.  My other idea is could we also abolish politicians?  Watching debates between Hilary and Obama is like watching two people with the exact same car but one has a CD player and one has a roof rack.  Because that’s the only difference they spend millions of pounds on discussing that, and not the things that really matter.  Could we do away with politicians?

Bernard: Certainly I think that sometimes, that politicians need to go.  We’ve seen politicians do terrible things but we’ve seen politicians do good things.  We’ve had Idi Amin but have also seen good work with HIV/AIDS.  One of the keys to good things has been citizen participation.  They should be there, but they must be kept in check.  They must do what politicians do, minus the lying.

Richard: Ron, have you seen politicians do anything good?

Ron: It’s definitely case by case.  Their failings are the failings that we all have: the lust for power, the tribalism.  Some of the you see failings in Africa, the corruption, the deterrents to their success, they’re learning from the West.

Richard: Imagine you are now retired, it’s 2050, you’re sitting in your garden with your pipe.  Who are the Superpowers? Tell us how you see the world?

Bernard:  I’m a bit of an optimist, I think Africa will have a chance to overcome their obstacles.  I’ve been thinking about what Africa would do to avoid the issues they face today.  Politicians manipulate ethnicity, and land issues.  What if the tribes or ethnicity didn’t matter?  I think it is something work thinking about, otherwise we will continue with the same problems.

Richard: We discussed biomimicry earlier, using natural organisms.  Tribes are natural organisms, why not use them?

Bernard: We need to re-think the ways that the African countries are constituted.

Richard: Ron, China running the world when you’re retired?

Ron: I think America is at the end of its imperial run, so other countries should take responsibility.  The face of the world is changing, and it would be nice if it happened in a non-violent fashion, but Kenya is a perfect example that that is historically not the case.  There are some very ominous signs coming at us.

Richard: Are you an optimist?

Ron: I’m an optimist in the individual but not the group.

Bernard: Not either now (laughs).

Q: Do you think that a reward or bonus system for politicians for achievement?
A: (Bernard) Our president is very well “looked after” and I don’t know what bonus he could possibly want.  Although, what I would like to see if politicians coming up with ideas that like that for the technocrats, the civil servants.

Q: I’ve read some political propaganda that stated world hunger was a political decision and that hunger was actually solvable.  Do you feel this is true?
A: (Ron) Hunger is often used as a political weapon.  Much of the hunger is mad-made in warlord-driven situations.  Politicians are without question using food and subsidies as weapons.  (Bernard) I think the more interesting question is why more democratic countries never find themselves in famine situations.  Better governed countries have droughts but not famines because they respond and manage better.  The next election and winning it gives accountable governments incentive to avoid famines.  Encouraging democracy and good government is an important element in ending hunger situations.

Q: I disagree with the idea that going back to the tribe arrangement would be a good solution.  Do you think that is really feasible?
A: In that situation you end up with as many little countries as you have tribes, which wouldn’t work, because they wouldn’t get along.   What I’m mainly talking about is peace.

Joined by Sarah Wheeler and Peter Head

Harry: Climate change is a documented phenomenon and likely anthropogenic in its increased tempo.  Invites Sarah and Harry to speak on their experiences and intersts.

Sarah: Through ice-coring, we can see all the major climatological events in history.  A generalist at heart, her main interest is what it means to be human.

Peter: The land requirement to support each person exceeds the total available land, due mainly to the lifestyle we choose to live.  Through refashioning cities and the way we live in them, the objective is not just to reduce the carbon emissions, but to change the total ecological impact we have on the planet.  In addressing and changing the infrastructure of and efficiency of cities, we can enable people to live modern lifestyles that are also sustainable.  There is an eco-city being developed in China that is going to attempt to address these issues.

H: Climate change tends to be a very dark narrative of an impending doom, but is encouraged by the positive input of the other two.  A rather old disruptive thought from Ivan Ilyich: we might be happier and more creative if we consumed less.  The effect of “industrial affluence” is visible today and climate change is only one symptom of this.  Could rediscovering our creativity be a key to addressing climate change?

S: I have been thinking a lot about the second polar peoples who have been completely devastated by the effect of the “white man.”  Reducing consumption is more important than recycling or reusing.  We can change and we will change but we need to change sooner rather than later.  We are now in the Anthropocene, a term used for this age, indicating the first time in history that we are in control of our environment.

H: What should we be doing in the relatively comfortable regions of [the 1st world]?

P: The only way things start to happen is through cooperation of all people.  Resource efficiency is a really attractive approach to most people.  At any level, there are forces at work to encourage this.  Collective action is vital.  In Bangladesh, resources are limited and education is limited.  Somebody decided to build a boat as a floating school room.  The question was who would pay for it.  They put solar panels on the roof to power the “school.”  The owner of the boat put batter powered lamps on the boat, then lease these from the owner in exchange for education, which decreased the need for kerosene (main source of light) and associated negative impact of it.  This is disruptive thinking, using the world around us as a solution.

S: Systemic thinking is very important.  A more integrated, systemic approach is the direction we need to head in.  Even artists need to do this.  Had a very English education, which is very  segmented. Thought it was marvelous until she spent a significant time around scientists, who are trying to make order out of chaos where uncertainty is the rule.  Started to see the integration of art and science as vital.

P: The most successful organisms in the world are disruptive in their behavior.  The only way to overcome the challenges we face is to leverage natural organisms not “heat and beat” industrial solutions.

H: On one hand, there is a tremendous growth in “virtual reality” and people tending more time staring at screens.  Children are being taken away from the natural world.  We press buttons instead of acting directly, cutting us off from the natural world.  Considers self a poet, but before that was a “child naturalist.”  We must educated our children differently, bringing them back into contact with the natural world and away from the synthesized experience.

S: One can learn a lot from the polar peoples.  Their land is so imbued with history that history and the land is very real to them and their experience that promotes a very healthy relationship between them and the land.  In the urban environment we are cut off from that.  Not sure we can do about that…

P: In China, land use policy encourages the connection between the land and the people.  We are trying to see ways of accelerating agriculture within the city.  Connection between social culture and agriculture is very strong in China.  We have a very “Blade Runner” view of the future, but this can’t be the case if we are to survive.  It must involve the green world, biodiversity.  We are facing a crossroads and people must have access to these things as a matter of survival.

S: When you’re allowed to step off the planet, which is what the Artic is like, what becomes clear to me is how curious it is in the developed world the emphasis that is placed on the material and physical and the spiritual is completely overlooked.  We talk a lot about what we do and where live, but not about what we believe.  That aspect is something that is fundamental to being human.  We have marginalized it at our own peril.

P: Optimistic that a lot of the root human systems are refreshed and invigorated by focusing on belief systems.

H: Rather than the quick technological fix, in order to work, belief systems have to dig deep.  Getting a tremendously hopeful feeling (surprised at this).  Time to lift the lid (audience questions).

Q: When has the world’s climate NOT been changing?  This itself is a disruptive thinking, as it requires us to adapt.  The fact that climate change is a disruptive thing, if we can see it as a positive thing, it can help us.
A: Yes, always changing, but never been changing like this, never this quick throughout the total climate record.  We dont’ know the percentage of the anthropogenic element and how much is outside the natural cycle.  We’ve created a “schock” to the climate system.  There is a tenuous balance between the cold of space and the extreme heat of the world’s core which allows us as a species to survive.  Life on the planet will continue, but what we’re concerned with is whether the human race will surive.

Q: Do you think that climate change is a good motivator in producing innovations?
A: The economic driver in dealing with climate change is mainly resource management, so yes.

Q: Any affluent city is vulnerable to volcanic eruptions, however, the issues you’ve brought up are those faced by non-affluent societies and they seem to be bringing the most effective societies.  How can we make affluent societies see themselves as potential “volcanoes”?
A: In studying solutions within non-affluent societies, the common denominator was leadership.  The problem in affluent societies is the lack of ambition.  We need new leadership, leadership that understands the economic opportunities for first movers.  We need to communicate a need for urgency.  With technology, war has been the greatest driver because the need for urgency is intrinsic to it.  We need to see our situation as a war, and see it with the same urgency.  We spend billions and billions on the so-called “war on terror” what if that could have been spent on more beneficial areas?

Q: Why don’t we change the point of view from seeing human beings as “best” or “worst” animal, to being an animal “with” nature?
A: Our record is pretty poor overall. The question raises a good point, but the transition is very hard.

March 7 is the anniversary of a number of disruptive events in the course of human experience, the telephone patent and the recording of the first jazz record among them.  In order to do things differently and innovate, we have to disrupt the status quo.

This is the inaugural global dialogues event which will continue in other locations around the world in the future.   Institutions have to be aspirational, and all organizations must reach to higher levels of achievement and involvement.  Today is the beginning of a continuing conversation that will continue after today.

Through a generation of new ideas we can manage the new challenges the future poses.  The creation of a nexus between business and design leads to new ways to share knowledge and information.  Developing people is the way to do this and Art Center and Esade are both committed to this.

We face a number of developments that have led to economic integration and we are the verge of greater global integration.  In order to innovate and add extra value, we must be increasingly creative.  We must think in a more global manner, which this event is dedicated to.  We have a lot to share, discuss, and debate to contribute to a stronger global economy.  Today is a day to explore the challenges of the 21st Century.

“…great minds discuss ideas.”  - Eleanor Roosevelt

Today is a “controlled experiment” of sorts.  All of us here are as chemicals in a test tube and today we’re going to give it a shake.  Maybe it will explode, who knows.

My favorite concept is rather unfashionable: turn the other cheek.  Who would have thought that such a disruptive idea would have survived as long as it has?

Now it’s time for disruption…

My name is Josh Nakaya and I’m 5th Term Product Design at Art Center and also President of Art Center Student Government.  I’m on-site in Barcelona representing the Art Center student body and reporting from the event.  Throughout the day, I’ll be posting commentary on the speakers, presentations, and dicussions of the event.

The dialogues are being hosted at the Palau de La Musica and it’s a beautiful location for the event.  With discussions on Climate Change, Geopolitics, Business, Science, Belief and Design, it looks to be a very interesting day.

More to come…

The Art Center Global Dialogues: Disruptive Thinking is a series of on-stage conversations with internationally renowned thinkers in many fields whose “disruptive” ideas and actions challenge convention, break current paradigms, and inspire positive changes in the larger world. Unlike traditional conferences, the Art Center Global Dialogues will pair these speakers with influential media figures—including highly regarded editors, publishers, and reporters—in vital exchanges that encourage the development of new ideas.

To make this event a truly global conversation we set up some tools to follow and interact with the speakers and live conversations from the web or on your phone.

Live Video Stream

We setup an Art Center Global Dialogues Ustream.tv live video stream including the possibility to interact with the audience through a live chat. The live video stream will run on Friday, March 7 from 9am till 6:30pm CET. Here’s the direct link to the overview page
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/art-center-global-dialogues

Global Dialogues on Twitter

We also set up a twitter stream for live interaction and questions and live micro blogging from the conference. All you need to do is set up a Twitter account here, then go http://twitter.com/globaldialogues. Send your thoughts, observations, and interact even with the moderator! Follow the Dialogues from you mobile phone by pointing your mobile phone browser to m.twitter.com/globaldialogues.

Global Dialogues on Flickr

We setup a Art Center Global Dialogues Flickr Group for people to send their pictures during (and after) the event, direct here http://www.flickr.com/groups/globaldialogues/. Feel free to send us your pictures of the event, anyone can join!

All set for a great event, see you tomorrow!

I’m excited to be presenting a debate on what is in every sense the hottest issue of our time, climate change, featuring two distinguished speakers with very different areas of expertise. Sara Wheeler is a biographer and travel writer with a particular interest in the world’s coldest (and now fastest-melting) places. She has written a travel book on Antartica, Terra Incognita – Travels in Antartica, which received rapturous critical notices and has been described as “the first funny book about Antarctica”, and also a biography of Apsley Cherry-Garrard, one of the members of Scott’s 1912 expedition. Her next book is about the Arctic. Peter Head brings, shall we say, a more practical and less poetic perspective; he is an engineer by training, a director of the UK engineering group Arup and project director of perhaps the world’s most exiting ecological construction project, the building of the new eco-city of Dongtan near Shanghai. Peter is a world expert on sustainable construction and a member of London’s Sustainable Development Commission.

As a poet and dreamer, I am hoping that we will be able to steer our discussion from climate change as catastrophe – which in one sense it undoubtedly is, as at the current rate we will have extinguished half of all species on earth in a hundred years’ time – to climate change as opportunity. I want to revive Ivan Illich’s now unfashionable suggestion from the 1970s – long before climate change became a common topic of conversation – that living with a lighter footprint, consuming less, emitting less CO2 could actually make us happier and more creative.

Richard Koshalek, President of Art Center College of Design talks about Disruptive Thinking and the upcoming Art Center Global Dialogues: Disruptive Thinking event in Barcelona.

Could going to a dialogue* or a debate be the new night out in a few years’ time?

The notion might not be as absurd as all that.

There are definite signs of a growing appetite in Britain and the USA for live debate, fuelled, I believe, by a increased hunger for ideas that will explain our increasingly complicated, information-rich world. To remain sane, we need patterns, we need meaning. Ideas can give us that.

And if you are looking for ideas what better way to hear them than in a live discussion? In fact I think it’s the only way to hear them. Socrates & co knew what they were up to.

The Socratic dialectic, in which one point of view is pitted against another, is still the best way to unpack an idea. To participate in the live process, even as a member of the audience, is still the best way to absorb new thinking.

Of course you can get ideas from books, tv, magazines, newspapers and many of us do. But neither do they stick as well, nor do they spark. Teachers know this.

Perhaps because of the failure of more traditional debating forums people seem to be starting their own. In the United States the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation has around 800 members, is growing rapidly and exists to promote the spread of ideas through dialoguing. In Britain there is Intelligence Squared, which claims to be “the only institution in town - aside from Parliament - to provide a forum for debate on the crucial issues of the day” and which is a booming business even at £20 a ticket.

What if our great institutions and universities were to launch travelling road shows in which leading thinkers were brought together in different cities to grapple with the world’s great problems? Is it impossible to think that there might be a few thousand people in each city who would pay for a ticket for the chance either to be actively involved in the discussion or to witness it at first hand?

Who’s to say that dialoguing five years hence, won’t be as much part of a civilised life as concert going, theatre going or queuing up for the latest exhibitions?

*[It is a common fallacy that dialogue can only involve two people – from confusing the root di- “two” with dia- “though”]

My attempt to answer in 200 words (first draft):

Many of us passionately believe that design has to play a more central role in the world. In the West, the 20^th century was essentially the story of markets. Many now are calling for change. Consumer appetites are out of control. We need leaders who will design us a sustainable future. We need designers who will lead us.

The Art Center is calling for designers who will lead. The hallmark of great design is disruption. All births are disruptive. Creativity is always disruptive. Everything that is new and true is disruptive. (Falsehood can be disruptive too - but it doesn’t last).

In this first decade of the 21^st century, creativity and design is as vital as it as ever been. Our six dialogues in Barcelona on March 7th are intellectual search parties. We shall be looking for the next great disruptions.

Who will design us a way to live less destructively on our planet?

Who will produce the politics that can heal tribal hatred, war and division?

Who will invent the business model that can speak to a deeper appetite than greed?  

Who will discover the knowledge that we need to help ourselves?

Who will conjure the belief that humanity needs, to face its challenges?

And, above all, how will our designers hustle their way to the front and centre of human society, where we need them to be?

Suggestions? Improvements?