Design is the great underdog in today’s business/cultural/social and political environments.

For some fraught reason people seem to think that if the idea is good, if you are good, then things will simply come together and workout.

NO, this is a dream world that does not exist.

Those who succeed and those things that succeed have one commonality, design thinking!

Mark Dziersk VP Design at Brandimage is doing his part to change the thought process.

I suspect we need to think about why visual, auditory, tactile and aesthetic design is so important in a kindergarten class but not at all considered in a PhD seminar on cultural industries!

It is no wonder the world seems to be falling apart we have compartmentalized the thinking process, orphaned it, to the point that we are thinking in fragments or incomplete modules that have little to no hope of meshing with the bigger picture because they have no context.

Design thinking needs to be part of our education process, because lets face it we live and breath design, just look at how you have organized the desk your computer is on, you too are a designer.

Mark Dziersk walked me through the whole idea of getting design back on our minds today.

A conversation with Mark Dziersk VP Design Brandimage.

It is not the book to go to for a DIY take on industrial change.  And the business school you look to for a grounding is sure to not use this book for more than a door stop.

But TRIBES by Godin does one thing very well, remind us of the power we have!

And what brought this book to mind was the Obama inauguration.

Obama has created a global tribe! A tribe of people who are looking to this man as a mantle of change. Not that he will change things for anyone in Dubai, where I live, but he has told the Obama tribe here that “yes anything is possible”!

DREAM, DEMAND, DREAM, THEN DO IT!

Page 71 of TRIBES by Godin sums up the tribe idea very well and gives us the clue as to how make a tribe mentality work in 2009, which is what President Obama is continuing to do!

As Godin said,” [t]he first thing you need to know is that individuals have far more power than ever before in history”. No doubt or question here look at banking failure, investment failure, terrorism… look at people who are building and driving humanitarian aid projects! The power of people!

“One person can change an industry. One person can declare war. One person can reinvent…”

Listen to the Obama inauguration speech again! And Again!

Yes it is rhetoric, planned, crafted… but it is also a personal key to reinvent, rethink and it has served as a lightning rod for a a tribe of change globally!

The Obama inauguration speech.

We are being led down a very narrow path that I call the ARTIFICIAL DEPENDENCY.

We are being told, over and over, by Apple, Microsoft, Lenovo,HP, Xerox and the bucket full of content and service providers that we need this and that to be whole/complete/active/connected/collaborative members of society.

I feel that I am being guilted maybe even blackmailed into buying and using technology that I do not need or want!

One of the greatest claims of our modern day technology snake oil sales people is that it is technology that will allow us to collaborate and create a more connected society.

I say what if I say no? Will I be less connected?

The reality is no!

In fact if you get off the cell or mobile phone, if you pull yourself away from the Blackberry and tug your eyes away from facebook you might actually be amazed at how much old school social networking and collaboration is going on!

And the best think about this networking and collaboration is it does not depend on bandwidth, does not have a huge cost, maybe none, and it is portable!

RADIO! Marconi had a big hand in making this little idea a real big thing!

I believe that radio is more immediate, reaches a greater community audience and can have a far greater impact than the Internet any time and any place.

How you might ask?

Last night on Nightline we spoke about terrorism with Dr. Raymmond Hamden and we had an amazing call from a person who survived a terrorist bomb attack!

Our conversation took place live, and was immediatly broadcast to the UAE and the impact, fantastic!

This is our conversation with a terrorism-survivor !

This is the power of radio, the power to tap into our community and bring to life the ideas, motivation and conflict that lives around us and to do it in a contextualized immediate fashion without any real effort on the consumers part and to do it for little to no monetary investment!

Maybe we need to think twice before we jump to hard and fast on the technology band wagon!