Breeze Openness in the Summer

I know, I know. The word of openness has been blended with too much flavor from the fast-changing mobile and software times to be self-explanatory any more. As we all attempt to solve the puzzle of openness, we unintentionally add more complexity and mystery to the word. Today's post could be read as a necklace of pearls by which I want to share a few random thoughts around openness to record my recent footprints, and hopefully, invoke more conversations on the buzzword.

Openness as Heart Openning

What firstly brought me the idea of writing such an article was the open air Twelfth Night I had watched in the central park last Friday. I felt so lucky that I got the ticket online after "standing by" in the virtual line for only four consecutive days and enjoyed a high-quality performance at the single clear night in the whole rainy week.

The Twelth Night is the first part of the traditional summertime Shakespeare in the Park events brought by the Public Theatre company and a number of sponsors. The play is performed at the Delacorte Theater every night 8pm except Monday from June 10 through July 12.

Free summer time events, including a good number of concerts, movie screenings, philharmonic music, and stage performance, are not new to the City. I was happily surprised by several performance already. What amazed me most, in fact, is the high quality and professionalism I saw in the public performance. They are mostly organized and promoted as well as a commercial showbiz. Theatre companies are hired to take care of all the details required from stage design to light setting to sound effect. Big-name sponsors show generosity to support the first-class talents to perform in the public. Mass audience performance is never intended to compromise the quality when actually faces a lot more challenges outdoors.

Everyone, rich or poor, locals or tourists, has the same chance to experience top-notch performance which is hardly afforded by a quite number of working people. In the Twelfth Night play I watched, the first row was reserved for a group of senior people on the wheelchairs. Several groups of school children, dressed in hand-made Twelfth Night t-shirts, were excitedly led into the theatre by their instructors. Such a free, good-quality performance is a great opportunity to let art approach the audience who it seldomly serves and teach the young generation in an inspiring manner.

The world is purpose-driven. Oftentimes we translate that literally as profit-driven. That is not a wrong choice. But that is not the only choice as well, especially when we find ourselves stuck in making less impact out of a myriad of rational decisions. To jump out of the box, there's a way that we can look at other places, or some under-developed or under-penetrated segments. Sometimes, that could mean simply leveraging your skills and abilities to do good to those who you haven't really known. 

It's like farming. When farmers over use your fertile field, they need to reclaim and cultivate the less fertile land. Plow it, water it and nurture it. In return, the land will give them back a good harvest and become a good land. It starts with doing good to the land without short-term return, but it has a chance to open a new market for you.

I feel proud that my company has been making a lot of outreach efforts by using our research and design specialty, such as Project M. Now at my home country, the half of the globe away from the City, a frogdeisgn Mind event that focuses on Design for the Other 90% in China, will be starting in a few hours. I look forward to hearing more insights coming out of the event.

Openness as Hand Openning

The next point is more related to the recently popular topics on open-source platforms. After determining to shift the focus and make a difference, the proprietary wall need tearing down.

In the movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Master Li Mu Bai said, "There's nothing if you hold your fist. Open your hand and you'll have the world." This might be a bit too philosophic and abstract. But I find it resonates well with the open-source strategy. To initiate and lead a technology alliance, the first set of technical specs or resources are essential to building the foundation and attracting other individuals or parties to flame up more experiments.

Of course there are a couple of critical criteria to make a successful open source alliance. For example, a great vision plays an important role in selling your idea. But when it turns to developing the idea, the most telling vision can't stand alone without executable resources.

Making clear and smart rules on using open resources, in another word, designing a 'developer-friendly' SDK, is key to empowering and encouraging individual wisdom to build upon the basics. Google and Apple both realized it at an early phase and try to provide the right tools and rules. Recently Facebook has accelerated its open steps and attempted to make the best use of external power to connect its initially closed community to the broader digital work, so as to capitalize its lucratively growing user base and enrich the services to the next level.

Openness as Mind Openning

The closing thought on openness is about broad open-minded. This relates back to my personal experience again. The tagline I used in my personal blog was from an old Chinese saying: Those who travel a hundred miles see what happens in life; those who travel a thousand miles empathize different people; those who travel ten thousand miles understand the reasons.

The more I travel, the more open-minded I become. I understand different sub-cultures when I'm traveling across in China. Not only do I understand the existence of different minds, but also I agree with various life choices made within the given context. The cultural difference presents itself from trivial food preferences to high-level religious beliefs. The difference prevails across countries, regions and cities. It is only after we can appreciate the difference that we can find the commonality as the start collaborations.

When we are working on a project with a client, there are always different opinions and millions of moments that we need to make consensus as a team. The different ideas are not only coming from different perspectives between the frog team and the client, but also likely to come from individuals within the frog team, because every team member has diversified experience and specialties. In a recent post, How to Make Design Success Sustainable in China, from our Shanghai studio, the simliar challenge was addressed.

"From what I have experienced in China,  a lot of Chinese companies are devoting a fair amount of resouces to design. But the problem is that design, technology and business strategy stand like silos in most cases. These three departments don’t like to talk to each other. To realize a good concept in the future, the design team and technology team must work closely by bringing technologists early in the concept phase. During the product development phase, technologists should have no hesitation to discuss technical issues with the design team to ensure the design properly implemented and manufactured. To make this happen, an open-minded and innovative corporate culture and a matrix team structure by bringing marketers,  product managers, designers, technologists and engineers together as one team."

All in all, openness can be a good strategy in many aspects from businesses to politics. Right attitude (open heart), right content (open hand), and right mindset (open mind) are prerequisite corner stones to unlock the real potential of openness.