[Open Design] OpenDesign Digest, Vol 14, Issue 7

Wed May 22 13:42:23 UTC 2013

Hi Serena

Thanks for your answer. 

> But how stable can be a diy open design comparing with a professional closed design is not one of the possible criticalities of Open Design...in my opinion.
> 
> And the assumptions presented in the paper refer more or less to this point: Open Design cannot be taken into account when "serious things" have to be designed.

Yes, I agree. 

Right in the beginning they write, "Using the case studies, we make the argument for a more nuanced view of the application of open design approaches that acknowledges the weaknesses of the approach in addition to celebrating its advantages." This seems to suggest that the 'open design practitioners' are completely unaware of their own practices, strengths and weaknesses, and promote only propaganda. Is this true? 
Secondly, they themselves - by whittling down their argument to 'open amateur design' vs 'professional design' - completely remove all the nuances in the discussion. 
(It reminds me of the discussions on 'design thinking' that go on in the PhD Design list - a phrase that people like Don Norman tend to dislike enormously - like only designers are capable of this type of creative action/strategy.) 

Then I see a conflict in their logic or argumentation. (Are Profs Cruickshank or Atkinson actually on this list? Then we could discuss with them directly….)
It seems that one clear definition of success for the authors is 'game-changing innovation' or disruptive innovation. Amateurs 'doing design', lead user innovation, and DIY bottom-up invention are only capable of incremental innovation (at best), which is regarded as less desirable - in my interpretation of their writing. 
Since it seems these two activities cannot exist at the same table (for some reason), we need a clear boundary where amateurs play their games and pro designers do the real work. (I wonder what happens to the guy who had ten years of design training but then went off to do biology or tech writing or art. Guess he can't be at the table with the big boys because there may be some serious medical/safety/health consequences.) Meanwhile, pity all those people struggling away and making a better life for themselves and their local community with their pathetic little non-disruptive, non-game-changing, incremental, non-scale-up-able, localized solutions. <sarcasm>

One point where I DO agree, and something we all have to keep in mind when we work in this p2p arena, is awareness of the 'reality': there is some kind of common mythology surrounding p2p, no hierarchies, everyone contributes equally according to their own motivations, etc., and the reality on the ground, e.g. how Wikipedia works in practice, is quite unlike this myth. 

Anyway, just wanted to chat about the paper. I'm a little surprised, considering one author's contribution to the PROUD project and the other's to the Open Design Now book etc. 

Cindy 