Both cases seem to point to organizations not being designed well for innovation or design. In the former, if the goal of the consultancy is not to redesign the organization, I’m not sure what being at the table will accomplish, as the organization will have the same systemic problems once the consultancy pulls out regardless of the ephemeral influence. I’m also not sure that making great products and services will inherently change the table or organizations, as we are trusting that the current ineffective systems that are causing designers headaches will be redesigned effectively by the same people who designed them poorly in the first place.

If designers want to be at the table to redesign the organization, making products may not be the road to the table. In that case, I agree, allies are needed, at least until credibility is built. Again, if the goal isn’t to change the system, why sit at the table? But if the goal is to make great products, why would that effectively change the system?

I was just putting together a page of thoughts around my experience in Art/Design school. I was almost 3 years in and was getting burnt out, fortunately my adviser noticed and asked what was up. I told him that I didn’t want to be a creative if it just meant knowing what every other creative had already done. Art History pissed me off, studio classes all had a lecture that was just more history. History just taught us who was “at the table” or who the people there now think should have been there.

He looked at me and said “art history teaches you the rules, so you can break them.”

I wanted to be at the table making the rules, I was 21 and thought I was a genius, but I realize now that the worst place I ever could have ended up is on the other side, at the table, critiquing a guy like me.