Name: Brainstorm Design 2024: Tech For A Better Tomorrow
Uploaded: 2024-12-05
Duration: 19 min 3 s
Description: Gadi Amit, Founder, President & Principal Designer, NewDealDesign LLC, In conversation with Nicholas Gordon, FORTUNE

Gadi Amit, Founder, President & Principal Designer, NewDealDesign LLC, In conversation with Nicholas Gordon, FORTUNE

Brainstorm Design 2024: Tech For A Better Tomorrow

Conferences

So Gotti. Gotti, welcome back to our Fortune brainstorm design stage. You were, you've been at our conference before and I did my research and at that conference, you shared some thoughts, maybe some mixed feelings about uh about design thinking and how businesses think about the design process before we get into kind of the meat of our session. I want to ask you, you know, what has your thinking on this changed? Are you still kind of wary of how businesses think about design and design thinking? Yeah, I do. Uh iii I did not change my opinions. I'm actually quite proud that I was one of the first uh critic of uh design thinking. Uh Luckily it's now uh kind of a has been uh we are um in a situation where obviously design thinking has been very forceful and very successful uh campaign. I do think that uh traditionally uh they've been uh under indexing on uh design talent and uh over indexing on linear processes where designers are exceptionally talented in uh nonlinear thinking, multichannel thinking where you could create ideas of products and systems that are uh beyond uh specific process or something like that. Uh I think nowadays there is a greater recognition of these type of, let's say, lacking on the design thinking side and, and you, I mean, you've worked in design for decades and I want to put up some slides as I ask this question, but kind of, you know, over the years of working in design, I mean, has your design philosophy changed, you know, as we kind of move to our more tech focussed internet focused A I focused world. Uh It's an interesting point. I actually would, would love to uh join Robert's comments. I think uh designers are great product guys, great system thinking guys and, and the ability to synthesize multichannel inputs into a coherent concept is really unique by designers and uh again, generally somewhat underestimated uh and very much in need today uh than we have than let's say a few decades ago. So I think uh my practice has been uh more towards that uh high level strategic if you wish uh capital letters design rather than the more traditional lower case design. Um Most of the projects we get today are open briefs. So we are not being asked to uh round the corners, quote unquote on, on, on concepts that other people created, but actually creating the concept that leads the, the venture forward. So let's talk about some of these new projects you're working on. And the first one we're gonna talk about is is serve robotic, you know, these, these delivery vehicles that run the streets, you know, what was kind of your, your idea in kind of designing this, you know, I'm, I'm using the word adorable little vehicle here. Yeah. So first of all, it was supposed to be adorable because uh it needs to be in the city and uh cities in California started blocking these uh and the whole emotional uh interaction between the object and, and the people around in the street was so important. So we designed it for uh emotions if you wish. And, and this was a big takeaway that now that we have intelligent things running around us, we need to create designs that are a lot more interactive emotive and approachable to humans. So, in doing so, we started using this formula of EQ over IQ uh EQ being the emotional qualities of the object rather than the traditional business uh thinking, functionality or even usability. Or I got to say maybe social is the new ecological. We've done a lot of work in ecological nowadays. We need to push uh social thinking uh beyond, beyond traditional product uh thinking. Um So you'll see an interesting video here which is the, the love and hate story of uh uh robots in the streets of Los Angeles call it. And who did this? Why did they, do you like that? They give you food too often out loud. Oh Man, Austin is all messed up. What happened to your office. Right? Perfect. Thank you. This is the second time I've stayed you all. So they are haters and their lovers. And it was designed for that. Actually, we gave them names because we utilize an mit research that shows that uh when robots are named, they are less harmed. So the fact that this person is actually uh referring to it as Austin in the name is actually wonderful. It's really that easy. You give a robot googly eyes and the name and it's, yep, it is, unfortunately, it is that simple at this, at this level. And, and you know, the, the image next to it is very important because serve was a design sketch. The name of a design sketch that became a product name that became a successful company. It's a spun off and they now an independent company. They just went IP O and they spun off Uber and I think they're delivering about 2000 of these uh this year. So somehow the formula works, but you're also, you're also now tackling problems that kind of, let's say, primarily originate from the digital space and I'm just going to zoom. Oops, there we go. Yeah. So we do have a pandemic situation with apps. The stats are unbelievably bad. Uh We're talking about rise in uh depressive episodes. Uh We're talking about undergraduates with mental ill illness. And to me, the the most horrific one is uh girls uh uh hospitalized with self-harm uh, where we have nearly three X, uh, growth, uh, through, uh, the last decade. Uh, if you click forward. Uh, so, yeah, and, uh, one of the things that we've done is, um, an initiative called B A. Uh, it's, uh, led by parents of, uh, girls athletic, uh, girls across, uh, cross country runners. And we created a place for them to, to share their feelings, to feel comforted and supported and to seek help by uh coaches and, and uh professionals. Um So we're dealing a lot with the adverse effects today of, of apps and, and uh the digital economy if you wish. Um So B I is a, is a web app. It's also possible to interact with uh you know, mobile phone and it's shown major effects in, in terms of supporting these girls. Um So the, the whole topic of uh mobile phone use has been very much in the news lately. Uh I'm sure you're familiar with the Australian initiative to ban social app under 16 uh in the USA lot of counties and, and school districts actually uh uh banned them and we are actually working on, on really cutting edge uh different technology solution that would allow us to uh really curtail this phenomena. Uh These mobile phones are just too good and too addictive. It's like sugar, you, you need to be off it. Some of it is good, but beyond that, it's really a problem. Um move on to the next part, I say, like my old high school also just banned mobile phones on campus. Um a policy change that's done surprisingly well according to them. Um But your next project, not among the, not among the, the students, I'm sure they, they say they're fine with it. Um But moving on to the next um project kind of returning again to the idea of adorable robots. Um Yeah. So, you know, part of my mission if you wish is to really try to bridge the gaps between uh uh you know, technology and humans. And part of that is doing experiments. So we created this initiative called Alto. We actually created um robots and created a seminar, a place where the design community in San Francisco came to our studio, we had a debate with panels of experts and there were people who were more into the utilitarian values of robots and some more for the emotional we had a debate. Uh We had actually votes and a lot of people uh swapped their ideas about the topic we intentionally brought to posing objects if you wish. Um And if you click forward, uh the, the taller one is called brute and it's uh semi functional. Uh it has some utility and the little guy Iggy uh is a completely uh emotional support um pet if you wish and it's uh click forward and it's very cute and very lovable and has uh cute behaviors and the way it actually, uh, moves and ask for attention and really has no purpose other than being, uh, your friend or your, uh, pet. So, uh, by the way, all these are approved by engineering and, and we know how to make them and so on. Um, brute, on the other side is, um, obsessed with cleaning your home. Uh, brute will run around and click forward and, and, you know, next month too, uh brute is basically picking up litter and uh it runs around and pick up uh you know, thrown objects and bring them to uh a place where they could actually be stored. So, very interesting debate, but experimentation is very, very important nowadays, uh how we interact with artificial beings uh is, is something that we're not used to. And one of the conclusions we had there, you know, the acronym A I has been overused, I think, but generally, uh maybe we should start thinking about it in terms of approachable intelligence rather than quote unquote artificial intelligence. I mean, what do you think? I mean, there has been a lot of social debate about artificial intelligence about maybe replacing people. I mean, what do you think are some of the root causes of that unease? And how would you account for that as a designer? I think there is a major ramification for humans on, on, on, on uh political, business, economic uh personal levels. But I think there is another fundamental element that we tend to underestimate for 23 million years. We were the smartest, smartest kids in the class. We were the only really smart creature around us. And finally, we are about to meet other creatures that are just as smart, if not smarter than us. And it's a psychological crisis. So how do you approach a robot? How do you know whether the robot is going to pass next to you or pass through you? So we are dealing with this level of uh you know, subliminal communications that are so clear to us as humans. But when these things start roaming around, we don't have that language yet. So I think there is a crisis there. Um So I want to move on to the last product you're gonna show for us, you know, and to kind of lead to this new Deal design. One of the most famous works was was the fitbit that helped kind of kick off the whole trend in wearables and health tech and fitness tech and everything that you're working in that space again. Now, um tell us some more about, about this next project. So if I was a company, we help getting off the ground, we obviously designed a device. It's an AED, it's the life device that allows allows people that have an incident of cardiac arrest or whatever, stay alive and so on. Many times, it's actually hidden in public spaces or in workplaces. So one of the main things they wanted to do is to make it a consumer product that everyone has. And what we added to that is the ability to share it online and become part of the first responding system. So the location of the device is clear and to some degree, the ability or the will of the people who own it to to to run towards that. So uh the big thing here is really to create uh this uh network device that has a connection of the emergency incident and, and the device itself and obviously the social will of somebody to run across the street and save a neighbor. And I believe there we go. Yeah, that's a pretty poignant poignant movie. 911. What is your emergency? Uh My wife, I've been shaking her but she's not moving. I don't think she's breathing. Ok. Is she awake? She's not responding. What do I do? Ok. My partner sent back an ambulance to you and I'm gonna work on getting an A Ed to your location. I'm gonna give you some instructions for CPR. Ok. Ok. Cardiac, bye bye. Cardiac arrest nearby. Yeah. Ok. I'm located in a Ed. I have one nearby. It's on the quad to you where you hurry. Ok. It looks like the A CD is getting close. Can you go to your front door and need them? Ok. Yeah, delivering shock is 321. The device now is FDA approved. So it's already sold as an FDA approved. But I mean, so, so the, but, but, but I guess you, it really has been successful in kind of building like a community of people who are willing to kind of be good Samaritans and step out and respond to a cardiac arrest happening nearby. Uh Yeah, I think the they now have a lot of communities that uh joined and there's always as you see a connection between the first responders, the 911 and people who owns these and that's part of the, the, the system quote unquote. And by the way, I mean, at the beginning, there was a fallback. The fallback was a traditional A ed uh sale cycle, you know, you own it because you uh you want to have one. But uh they found out that people actually are good and are willing to share and are willing to go on the system. So, so that's a, that's a good thing. Um We have time for kind of a few more questions. Um If anyone in the audience has a thought they'd like to share, I'd like to ask, please raise your hand now. But before we do that, I mean, so how do you see design kind of progressing over the next few years? I mean, as there continues to be the social unease about, about tech kind of how do you see, how do you see design changing to account for that. So I think um part of the problems we've had and I think Robert touched on it is that designers were relegated to some degree to more tactical uh jobs. I think designers really definitely need to raise their heads and, and, and play a bigger role in uh system and product thinking and to some degree counter the industry, counter the industry counter the, the, the, the, the money folks, the, the tech folks and all that and, and create alternatives that are thoughtful that are uh uh making good business, but also making better society. So that's something that I think is very, very important. Uh a part of it also, I got to say that it's even stylistically. I mean, we've been through a long period of time that people were into minimalism. I'm not sure minimalism worked that well. Today when we're talking about uh interaction with uh artificial intelligence, maybe we need to be over communicative and you see that a little bit in these designs. So then what would your advice be to, to an up and coming designer that now has to work in this space? I mean, how would you encourage them to not think about the role quite so tactically? How would you encourage them to, to design a way that heads off a social backlash? Is it really just acute? The design? Is that enough? But how would you advise younger designers to think about this problem? That's a great question. I think uh there is a lot of uh complacency to some degree in design community and in the tech and business community. I think designers to some degree needs to take the role of the no bullshit common sense people that are somewhat contrarian, they do it with civility, they do that with thoughtfulness, but they bring ideas that are challenging convention and this is what I would advise. Every young designer. Don't lose this edge, keep it sharp. Keep being contrarian, don't fear countering commonplace thinking. Um Very, very quick final question just for me personally, um is, is, is the brute robot available for me? My house is a mess after me would actually be very helpful. Well, we had a hidden thought, somebody would actually take it and make it happen. Uh you know, uh not in the near future, but I think the concept, for instance, we're talking about home robotics. We are dealing with this issue of maybe robots didn't, shouldn't do too many things, you know, just tell me where are my keys. Alright, so that's enough. All right, with that, with that fresh take on design and design and tech. I want to thank God so much for joining us today and sharing what he's working on. Thank you very much. Thank you guys.