What is the impact on business of refusing to define the aims and purposes of your profession?
Choosenick and Jeff have been mulling over the respective merits of trying to define the professional discipline of service design. This resonates with me as it is an issue at the heart of a number of projects I have worked on in the recent past, not least my current work on the Ergonomics – Real Design Exhibition that will be opening at The Design Museum in November. How do you define what lies at the heart of what it is you do? Or in marketing speak – how do you define your unique selling point? Is variety your speciality or do you possess a variety of specialisms?
Bjork's Homogenic - are you?
My current mission (with The Design Museum, Mark Young at The Human Centred Design Institute at Brunel University , The Ergonomics Society and Laura Grant Associates) is to help define what it means to be an Ergonomist, then engage the public with the work that Ergonomists do. In other words we are striving to make Ergonomics relevant, meaningful and engaging to members of the public, who in turn might not have any prior knowledge or experience of Ergonomics.
Like Service Designers many Ergonomists work on both a macro (environmental) level as well as at a more focused and specific (product, interface and touchpoint) level. Both work across a broad range of industries and professions with a similarly broad range of users, from novice to expert. Indeed, neither discipline will perhaps thank me for pointing this out – but the these two ‘professions’ are incredibly similar. Not least in their (in)ability to define succinctly where their expertise actually lies. In the words of an experienced Ergonomist Salas (2008).
“Diversity is our strength; our asset . . . and our weakness and liability as well… Our field belongs to many and at the same time to none. We are so broad that at times we cannot find ‘our soul.’”
Indeed, in the course of the fieldwork carried out as part of Ergonomics – Real Design project we asked visitors to The Design Museum what Ergonomics meant to them. The resounding feedback was that most considered it ‘something to do with chairs’. Interestingly, Ergonomists seem to similarly struggle to define the scope of what it is that they do, with none that we interviewed in another batch of fieldwork seemingly able to come up with a consistent definition of where the focus of their discipline lies exactly – They were unanimous however, in agreeing that it was a lot broader than simply thinking about seating configurations.
Now none of this is an attempt to undermine any of the excellent work done by many thus far to define either of the disciplines of Service Design or Ergonomics, indeed I am grateful to all who have (particularly Nick) for stimulating this discussion.
Nor am I arguing exclusively for either heterogenuity or homogeneity in terms of how you foster growth of your profession. This fascinating if not slightly obscure summary does a good job of listing some of the respective merits of each approach in terms of how they relate to developing world micro-credit schemes and community building.
What this list alludes to and Nick’s post also suggests is that if you want to foster creativity and also strong leadership (and thus a clear division between market leaders and the rest of the competition) - hetrogenuity is perhaps a better game to play. If however, you want to foster a greater sense of identity and community perhaps a more homogenous strategy is preferable.
Are you an ergonomist or service designer or simply someone who struggles to explain to people what exactly it is you do? Does your business struggle to put a value on the full range of services and expertise you can offer your clients? What do you think is the best approach for motivating your workforce and engaging meaningfully with your customers?
Is it better to increase the likelihood of people becoming aware of your work by keeping the definition broad (see this) or do you think it’s better to be more specific and goal centred in order to help make your subject relevant to other people (like this)?