Hey Jon, I loved the article and I would just like to agree with your viewpoints on the IDSA. I whole heartily agree with your thoughts and I know that some people will probably look at what you wrote and think that you are being negative about the organization. I believe that an organization for industrial design students needs to evolve and change as the times change, as do the designs that we are asked to put together time and time again. I also agree that the industrial design student is no longer or at least should no longer be focused on industrial design, but focus on all of design in general because design has started to span so many facets of different industries and markets. I have found so many great applications for the processes that help to lead to innovation from simple things like working on my home to helping me run my own business. I think that what makes a good industrial designer great is flexibility; being able to reshape what you do for what needs to be done. To me, that has been the most important thing. Thanks again Jon for being a great professor in school and out.

Russell,

Thanks for such a thoughtful response. I do, indeed, speak at conferences to promote things like my book or frog, but I go to conferences to learn new things, to be challenged, and to be stimulated. The people of IDSA are trying, really, truly and honestly trying, to do these things. I spoke to the same people you did, and I believe that they get it too.

That's not my point, and I'm sorry you weren't able to see that.

You said Industrial Design has always been positioned between the understanding of problems and the synthesis of solutions. It doesn’t matter if these solutions are manufactured goods, networked services or temporal experiences… Having the ability to understand and synthesize solutions is a skill set that will never become irrelevant.

I agree with your second two sentences, and not your first. It hasn't been positioned that way, and it hasn't been promoted that way, and it hasn't been taught that way, and it hasn't been accepted that way. The IDEA awards celebrate beautiful form, and give awards to glorious uses of materials. They don't have any idea how to give an award to a cohesive set of temporal experiences. Industrial Design curricula don't teach methods of synthesis, or how to capitalize on a networked world.

You said Please give the IDSA a little slack. It’s a down year. and that's my entire point, wrapped up in two small sentences - it's NOT a down year. It's a down year for what most people traditionally view as Industrial Design. It's a GREAT year for those of us engaged in massive, strategic, intellectual change for businesses. That's interaction design, service design, and strategic facilitation. These are intellectual challenges that demand a new kind of design, and a new professional forum for organizing, teaching, and learning about this new kind of design.

Please re-read what I wrote - I don't fault IDSA for anything at all. Just the opposite - I credit the organization with paving the road that got us here.

I won't see you in Portland in 2010, but I may run into you at the Design Research Conference, or at the IxDA Conference, or at the CHI Conference. I'll be promoting something - probably along the lines of intellectual discourse, and my new book :)

Hi Jon,
Yes, the murmurs were reverberating everywhere in the halls and pool and beach of the hotel that IDSA was hosted in, but I do think you really over simplify the issue. Here's my complex take here:

http://davemalouf.com/?p=1712

Enjoy!

-- dave

I think this post comes at a time when everybody is rethinking, re-evaluating, and asking questions on anything that seems to be the standard practice. This post challenging the effectiveness of IDSA is no different and an excellent topic. IDSA own vision statement says: "As the voice of the profession, IDSA advances the positive impact of design on business and society while directly benefiting members by evolving into the world's most effective design organization." But has IDSA dropped the ball and are design consultancies doing more of the design promotion?

I read and hear more about Tim Brown and IDEO's "Design Thinking" mantra in the promotion of design as a positive business element than anything else. Tim has brought Design into more corporate tables than any other organization that I can think of. No, I don't have a man crush, I just think as the one voice that has been consistently in the promotion of proper design principals, it is Tim and IDEO. So many companies are readjusting their old practices and policies and maybe IDSA should be no different. Does IDSA need a re-branding? Do we need to drop the "industrial" for more of a multi-disciplined approach to go with Design Thinking Society of America? Industrial Designers are just one part that make up "the positive impact of design on business and society."

Quick follow-up quote from Gretchen Anderson at Lunar:

"In fact, judging from the exhibitors, and sort of the age and makeup of who was there, it felt like this is a 50 year old institution that is trying to legitimize design and get it a seat at the table. I think they need to take a good long look in the belly button and say "is that really our mission anymore"? If Tom Dierking from P&G is on stage, running billions of dollars of design every year, you're at the table. So what are you going to do to inspire, further the practice, not just for young students and for education. How are we going to make that conversation about design thinking both more comprehensive at the executive level and also more meaningful to the designers?"

http://www.lunar.com/iconocast2/?p=489

In 1995 I was a student involved in the student-led IDSA chapter at ASU. The regional/national (can't remember which) conference was held in Santa Fe that year, and a group of us students were given "free" admission to the conference if we'd go and set things up the day before. Cool. An over-night drive and plenty of Mountain Dew later, and we had things set up, watching the "pros" begin trickling through the doors of the conference. Finally, we get to escape the ivory towers of academia and see what this realm is truly all about!

Disappointment. Maybe my expectations were a tad too high? Or maybe it was the impenetrable wall woven around this tightly-bound clique of attending designers that kept students in their rightful place of underlings, and perhaps even outcasts? Main attractions seemed to involve the getting together of old boys from the network. Who needs naive, idealistic students over cigars and brandy? Design, itself, seemed about as marginalized as the zeal of these students.

In 1996, ASU hosted the western regional conference, I being a senior this time. Lots of fun getting things set up, thinking up activities, etc. During one of the kick-off addresses an IDSA representative droned without passion about how important it is for IDSA to do all it can to encourage participation from students, and how, in fact, it is doing so. One of the gray-haired masters in front of me (a professor from BYU?) had enough of this and interrupted, calling the bluff. "If that's true, how do you justify the multiple-hundred dollar entry fee for IDSA conferences to students?" (I could hardly afford the markers I was purchasing so often, and certainly couldn't swing $600 for a conference, plus travel costs, plus hotels!) Well, you see, we discount such events for students so it's a few dollars less for students. We want them to come and be involved, after all. The professor didn't buy it, and a bit of escalated chatter from others in the audience (myself included) served to heckle this poor, insincere representative on stage.

What does one get from membership, after all? A few magazines, where folks inside the network congratulate one another through scholarly articles or white papers? A golden ticket to the inner circle, maybe a cigar? Am I being too harsh here? Are the experiences I related anomalous, unfortunate accounts atypical to new blood? (I don't know--but they are my experiences.)

As the operator of a small design gig now, I wonder (but not very often) what I might be missing from the grand ol' IDSA. Have they changed? Have I? Would we fit together better now? Does it even matter? I don't think so.

Amen! IDSA is a highly internalized & self-focused source of nothingness all for $400 bucks a year! What a waste of money! To all up and coming design students…do not fall into the trap the rest of us have.

Instead, take that same $400 bucks a year and invest it into a Mutual Fund for the first 5 years of your career. Additionally, keep in touch with the best schoolmates you have/had in college and begin preparing for your own micro professional society meeting in year 6.

At that time use the saved $2K to reconnect face to face with these friends/colleagues to discuss the issues relevant to your design career, learn from one another’s ups/downs, and try to establish a desired path or direction for the group. What I mean is make use of a smaller more focused network of like minded people to educate and promote new opportunities for you. Find your own direction!

IDSA has lost a lot of its focus all in the name of money. It all about selling the brand for them and they are doing it through membership generation. The society has had to allow members from so many other professions into the circle that we are loosing sight of industrial design as specialization. Even my neighbor who is an IT professional calls himself an industrial designer and he has no formal education in it at all! He’s a just a member of an online product development group that does crowd sourcing. It has become even more generalized than ever and that is killing it design.

All the additional income IDSA generates does not trickle back to us as members. Quite the opposite, what it does promote is more board member trips to interesting destination cites around the US and abroad for them to discuss the brand. What our hard earned dollars should be used for is lobbying for our profession or creating a professional certification system similar to the engineering profession.

The elected members we have all selected to represent us are not hearing our voices regarding many issues. They have become internally and personally focused on their own best interest and not yours. If they were a member of congress they would be voted out of office for not representing their voter base.

As a recently retired designer of 19 years I made the decision to hang it up and no longer fund IDSA! I had a great career for 10 years but the last 9 have been one of the worst experiences in my life. Not only are the salaries at an all time low but the quality of work is going into the dumpster due to clients disregard for our services and the quality of their own products.

The majority of clients haggle over the price because the value of industrial design is no longer present. Those same people would never enter a doctor’s office and tell the physician that I will pay you only if you cure me. In essence the majority of clients want a free design up front at the designers/consulting firm’s expense in exchange for 2-5% royalty on the back end. No real business can operate this way especially when a functional margin is at minimum 15%.

I have been increasingly dissatisfied with the profession over the past 15 years and its lack of professionalism. I agree with Jeff Mowry whole heartedly and was a fellow student attending the same event at Santa Fe.

Jeff and I were classmates from ASU and my memories of that conference then are just as professionally empty as his. Designers for the most part are arrogant and self centered beings that want recognition for being cool. Paaalease, design is about improving the human experience & condition, not about partying at a conference and talking about you! IDSA should be focused on telling the world about the benefits of design and spend less time telling designers about it! We are preaching to the choir when we should be talking to congress or trade commissions.

This rant is now over and not everything was even discussed. I wish all designers the best but IDSA is not our friend. They are the “club” of their own best interest and that’s just the brand!

Jon - Wow, look what you've started. A cacaopheny of comments and opinions about our professional society whose future is in question..... or not. The responses to your article are a mix of bitterness, dissappointment and, what seems like, pseudo praise to you...... man, I haven't felt this good about design in a long time.

You've pointed this out, but allow me to restate something very obvoius. IDSA has lost it's relevance because we as a profession have been struggling to find our 'voice' after the radical shift in the traditional ID businees model. Let's face it, the 80's and 90's were argueably the best times to be an Industrial Designer. FROG, IDEO and Lunar were born based on the product design needs of a great new company called APPLE and the off-chute companies it produced. Hell, at the time even design offices in New York were relevant.

But our world came crashing down when American companies saw greater profits by moving design, engineering and manufacturing services overseas. This forced us to figure out another way to capatilize on our inherent talents. We asked ourselves, what will our business model be?

FROG and the larger design firms, with their business acumen, have figured a new (or maybe repackaged) process to profitability. But the real issue is that not all design offices are there yet and many will never be. Individual designers who have lost their jobs in the downturn are scrambling to find a way to 'stay in the game' based on their individual talents. After many years of uncertainty there is a still a feeling of, where do we go from here?

Whether your comments were self serving, as one has pointed out, or not, you've sparked debate of a very real problem. It's not as much about IDSA as it is about our profession as a whole. The issues facing ID are much more complex than IDSA can absorb and many in the industry are still trying to sort through what our profession has become.

Until we can agree as a group who we are, we can't expect IDSA to evolve or survive. It's up to us as professionals to coordinate our disciplines and speak as one voice........... whatever that voice is, will determine what IDSA becomes......or not.

To those who feel compelled to defend ID as a profession: it's important to note that--by simple reasoning--Jon is not applying this critique to every professional designer in the field. One should not expect that he is because that would entail defining exactly what an industrial designer can or cannot do, and that's simply an impossibly gray area. To take the car industry as the mentioned example: a critique of the car industry as a whole on its management, business practices, and failures, does not mean it is at the same time dooming the upstarts and small players such as Tesla, Fisker, or the innumerable custom car builders in the country. Yes, the said commentary would by necessity generalize the situation, but no reader should take it as all-encompassing.

Jon's note that "...there are a huge amount of capable industrial design firms in the world...[and that] these firms are only differentiated by the cost of their services" is true in the sense that the profession is increasingly viewed as a simple, purchasable (sometimes even free) service by client companies. Especially in tough economic times, the single (but complex) matter of cost are being brutally weighed against market potential and financially risks, not aesthetics, ergonomics, nor any number of other aspects of a product that we designers hold dear. In turn, products are inevitably mimicking proven successes, staying competitive on the length of feature lists, becoming alarmingly similar to each other, and ultimately differentiated by...cost. This topic alone can be a separate discussion on its own but it is the precedent for what I believe is Jon's stance regarding IDSA.

IDSA is becoming irrelevant but perhaps not in the way that most imagines irrelevancy to be. It's irrelevant in the same way as:

1. The notion that it is necessary to produce a gorgeous, photorealistic 3D render and that the said render 'makes or breaks' a concept.
2. The notion that a gorgeous, painstakingly detailed hand-drawn sketch/render is absolutely necessary before an idea can be accurately conveyed to a client/production manager/engineer/project manager/etc.
3. The time and energy that one should spend on producing a realistic (or working) prototype using clay, foam, etc.

These skills, while still important, are increasingly being farmed out to specialist companies and individuals who all compete with each other by--guess what--cost. Render farms are popping up all over the place, more and more young designers are dedicating themselves not to 'designing' but to simply outputting renders of models made by others to maintain a steady income, and--most alarmingly--manufacturers themselves are providing 'top-notch industrial design' AND engineering as a bonus for giving them the business. With the notable exception of car designers and a few product design companies, a great hand-drawn sketch/render is no longer requisite to selling your concept; instead, a great computer 3D render with good colors and a great logo decal will be most persuasive in a concept pitch, which, again, can be farmed out to a dedicated renderer. Prototyping companies are making in a matter of hours or a day or two what used to take a person many days and weeks, and most of all a SHOP, to produce.

This is absolutely NOT a call to abandon these skills sets that we have developed over time, perfected, and passed down to the next generation of students. These must still be taught in schools just like an accountant needs to be well-versed in laws and math. However, it is a likely scenario that in the very near future a designer will find himself/herself needing to specialize in one or two of these skills to be 'hire-able'. That presents two problems: One, most designers are not the BEST sketcher or the BEST modeler in comparison to their peers. The second problem (or not a problem, if you're perfectly happy with it) is that COLLECTIVELY, we start risking the potential for clients, companies, brands, etc. viewing ID as only a melting pot of renderers, sketchers, and modelers when we are--and NEED to be--much, much more. To further the accounting analogy: it had for the most part become a commodity a long time ago. The general perception is that accountants are more or less the same (perhaps only better or worse depending how far he/she is willing to categorize things that are tax-deductible), differentiated--again--by cost of the service. To remain relevant, ID must avoid being fragmented into specialties (not that one can't take that route as a profession) and stay collective in its goals and aspirations.

Which brings me to why I also believe that IDSA is becoming irrelevant. IDSA cannot continue to be SIMPLY a networking tool or a platform for new technologies that supposedly aid our creative process. That brings no progress and it certainly won't influence a new generation of industrial designers. It's ironic that some people bring up past design pioneers as a proof of ID's present-day relevance, because they are precisely the opposite. Instead, they serve as a reminder of how much can be done in the ABSENCE of Photoshop, CAD, and any other computer programs on which we depend so much of our livelihood today. The significance of these past masters is that they designed either to address cultural and social inadequacies that they found in their time or to promote a way of thinking that hadn't been done before. THAT is still relevant today, not the fact that they made a classic chair and therefore we can, too.

In the same way, IDSA needs to understand the phenomena of our changing world to remain relevant. If it wants to lead the profession as its has in the past, it needs to re-frame ID's significance in the world. If that means educating students beyond sketching and modeling (and honestly, beyond just 'thinking' or being 'inspired', as so many young designers are using to replace old-fashioned skills), then it needs to find out what it is that art schools are failing to do to prepare students for the real world and then lead the changes in curricula. It is no longer sufficient for the profession to produce 'good sketchers' or 'good modelers'; it needs to produce design thinkers, business leaders, and innovators who are also highly skilled in the traditional crafts. Of course, this sounds all very cliched, but the European Union has taken a similar initiative with their recent exploration of the significance of design in the future of their member countries. And broad initiatives are, almost by definition, lofty aspirations for change. The purpose is for its members to dissect the initiative, adapt them, and then innovate. I believe the IDSA has the potential to do that, but it's got a long way to go.