Re Tooling Milestones and the Art of Sustaining a Design Enterprise

Here in 2011 we're underway dealing in the era of data. 

I had the pleasure spending time with a faculty member today from my design school who dropped in at our offices. This meeting was impromptu however a welcome opportunity to get perspective on the ideology and thinking from someone immersed in helping young people transition into the business world.  

My commute before arriving at the office was spent listening to the latest App. introduced to me by my strategic counsel, Louise my wife, who uploaded the technology onto my iphone. 

The app called Radio Paradise functioned without a blip during the 30 minute road trip to the office. Uninterrupted music streaming off the internet along the way to work. Streaming music rather then sponsored local radio is another example of the game changing brought about by online technology and how new or emergent technologies have people facing dramatic re tooling within different organizational models. Certainly in the design business we've been witness to some core shifts in market, primarily brought on by technology. 

The colleague who stopped in this morning engaged me in great conversation about the new crop of graduates entering the workforce, we shared thoughts about the realities they face navigating the online emergent environment today. One on one conversation among people together within shared space remains a genuine, rich, unimpeded temporal experience especially when the conversation is free of binary intervention. The temptation to refer to devices specifically ring tone disruption, incoming emails or other sensory broadcast online remains constant. Turning things off is always good. 

I enjoyed my trip to Kingston taking part in the St. Lawrence College design exhibition a few weeks back. I'm also pleased to be engaged on the school advisory committee. 

We covered many subjects, reflecting over the years past highlighted a number of core events that involved adapting new tools and tactics. The chart above is a retro view of some of those re tooling milestones. Milestones that certainly have made the fast changing, innovation and design business dynamic.

Note: Tactile last of Gutenberg refers to print losing its dominant channel specifically the distribution of information.

Express yourself

Perce, Gaspe

Storytelling can be achieved through crafting a simple email exchange or perhaps from years of study and research culminating in a thesis that relates to a special field of interest.

Joseph Campbell a scholar wrote extensively on the subject. His work informs the reader about how stories deal in characterizing culture and how those characterizations through the ages have been remarkably similar. Stories based on themes or references that are consistent with similar patterns from societies around the world.


The similarity of story elements to different groups that are profiled in Campbell's books suggest a phenomenon or order of influence that perhaps underscores people's need to frame or cast their existence through remarkably similar context. Moreover, analysis of symbols, myths, deities, archetypes, legends including other elements such as those derived from nature, for example trees, water, wind the sun and the moon emerge consistently across many groups. 


Universal representations integrated into storytelling.

The Campbell texts are useful reference for those developing effective and meaningful brand frameworks and tools. A practical resource for those interested in solutions intended to withstand the test of time and bridge cultural differences. Campbell’s writings are an invaluable resource for effective storytelling.

A profound aspect of his work emphasizes the need to separate physical appearance from ones verbal expression or the act of expressing oneself.

I remember seeing a Greek company perform Oedipus Rex. Oedipus ends up tearing his eyes out, the kind of physical action the Greeks loved. The chorus had their backs to the audience, and shortly after the display of this horror, the members turned around and opened their arms, and there you sensed that going past the human suffering to the majesty of what is contained in that play that is, of the mystery of life showing itself through the action of life. There lies the key to art. It is beyond the pairs of opposites, beyond desire or fears. (Campbell, 2001)

This passage is a short example of Joseph Campbell’s brilliant thinking. Within his books the philosophy and thought leadership formed the basis for George Lucas’ Star Wars Trilogy, blockbuster movies that garnered universal appeal using the foundations of the hero myth.