Beware the influencers
I read as much as I can about design, everything from leadership and strategy, to ideation and research methods, and of course sustainability, inclusivity, and diversity. In my efforts to always be learning, I keep coming across the influence of social media, or more specifically I keep coming across wannabe influencers. And along with them the design community’s version of the “selfie” and “fake news”.
Just like every on-line space, there is a growing trend to publish content that engages peoples’ attention and ideally gain followers for the creator—because with enough followers anyone can be transformed into an influencer or recognized personality. Historically, for professionals, this has taken years of work to build a reputation and develop a track record of success. Today, it appears many feel that with a few dozen well placed provocative posts (each captioned with “like and follow”) they can jump the line.
In the spirit of go-big or go-home, I find these design creators frequently to write about leadership, strategy, organizational design, etc. The content often promising the reader their secret quick path to success. A trending theme focuses on the best maneuvers for getting design placed at the top of a company’s hierarchy. Who wouldn’t want to read that? Now that you’ve completed your first bootcamp, your next stop is the Board Room!
Declarative statements may make great content when you’re talking about recipes or hidden vacation spots, but in a professional community they read as entitlement.
This is especially true given the content these creators are discussing—design leadership, business management, corporate strategy, cognitive and organizational psychology, sociology, even creative problem solving, all have decades of research behind them. There are tens of thousands of cases studies about business management, organizational transformation, economics, finance, etc. And decades of research in psychology, sociology, engineering, etc. And leadership—especially design leadership, is an area of learning that requires experience and practice; indeed it is more of an art than a science. Not something that can be summed in a few hundred characters.
Rather than actually investing the time, whether through formal education or by reading the literature, or doing the job, and armed with their trusty design process and self-described unique ability of all designers’ to “see the big picture”, these creators believe they can overcome their lack of genuine knowledge and experience with creatively repackaging someone else’s work. Bless their heart. Of course once they have their content, these influencers post it everywhere they can—in various communities, LinkedIn, message boards, etc. They even do webinars, podcasts, and on occasion, share their content on a conference stage.
While I applaud their chutzpah, I wish they would just stop.
For the last 40+ years designers have been trying to convince the rest of the world they do more than make things look pretty; that design is how something works; that design deserves a seat at the table because it has value in its own right; that design is not superficial. Yet the content being peddled by these creators is just that: superficial.
Yet these creators seem oblivious to the consequences of their arrogance. In addition to encouraging their peers to pursue approaches that are at most poorly regurgitated interpretations that are likely to fail, the collective effective of their desire to be seen as relevant undermines the credibility of the entire profession, whether directly because people outside the profession stumble across their misinformed and shallow content, or indirectly by allowing their content to blend into the larger collective knowledge base of the design profession. It is this “fake news” aspect which is most disappointing.
Taking a step back, design is great at finding novel ways to make the output of other professions better meet the needs of people and society. Design is amazing at transforming science into things that are useful, usable and desirable. Design frequently can redirect businesses to be more inclusive and sustainable. But design only succeeds if it understands the full measure and lifecycle of the raw material its working with. Unfortunately, in the case of these influencers they are treating business strategy like the latest design pattern, or organizational psychology like so many components in a design system.
While anyone can call themselves a design leader, it falls to the reader to vet the source, to fact check the content and to ensure creditability at the source. Rather than allow an influencer to give you advice on how to run your design organization, seek out experienced design leaders, work with an actual organizational psychologist, talk to your peers within your company, rather than listen to the advice of an influencer, put in the work, learn what you need to know, and manifest the changes you need to make for yourself, your team, and for design to successfully deliver its full potential to your customers, your organization, and society.
