Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Who is Steven Johnson of the BOP?


The value of ludicrous ideas in NY Times article about Steven Johnson, whose "work tends toward the nodes where social issues intersect with design and urban planning issues." An example from the article is the "bike vest" shown above.
Instead of working with gurus or innovation processes, Johnson is more intuitive: “I wish... to be irresponsible, rash, associative, dreamy, impish, brainy, intuitive, and stupid.”
A good reminder that even serious work, such as designing products and services for the world's poor, could benefit from some wackiness and fun. Wouldn't it be cool if some of the video clips we saw from the field were, instead of earnest multistakeholder co-creation design charrettes, some people goofing around and having fun? Ludicrous indeed.

1 comment:

Les Pauls said...

I think you're great steve keep it up