Searching for my space in the Overlap

I’ve just returned from three days in New York City attending Overlap10. This is my second Overlap: I was one of the organizers of the original Overlap in 2006. That event so fell short of my hopes for and expectations of it that I avoided returning – at least, until this year. In the last four years I think Overlap has come a long way. This past weekend held far more value to me than the original. Yet, I still feel as though the Overlap is falling short of what I’ve always hoped to get out of it: a unique event that grows my brain in a small and intimate setting like no other. Indeed, while there were many fun and enjoyable activities this weekend, and I greatly enjoyed talking to and meeting a myriad of people over the three days, it was only at the very end that the event began to feel like and resemble what I thirst for in a professional gathering.

Friday as a social success

For starters, I thought the first evening (Friday) was as well designed as it could possibly be. Understanding the power of intimacy in smaller groups, Marcel and Deb – our fearless organizers who did an outstanding job – gave budgets to a handful of local participants and asked them to plan dinner and an evening together for a small group of attendees: ~8 per group. After spending a few hours together we would all then assemble on a rooftop deck in midtown Manhattan for drinks and group gathering. The vision of going from small, meaningful experiences into getting together as a group to see each other and share those earlier experiences in the context of meeting and re-acquainting with others is, perhaps, perfect. My aversion to party-like settings notwithstanding, this was a lovely way to get things started.

Saturday as a failure of depth

Saturday was our longest day and, for me, the least valuable of the three. It also reminded me the most of the original 2006 Overlap. The day largely centered around two sets of moderated group activities: the morning based on problems of childhood obesity, and much of the afternoon building architectural structures with Legos, culminating in building a city designed to solve urban problems that exist in real cities we love.

These were fun activities. There was nothing wrong with either of them; indeed, these resemble the better workshops conducted at the better design conferences. My problem with them both is they didn’t teach us anything new. If you are at the level to be at Overlap, you are almost certainly already exposed to the idea that acting and improv can prove a useful group exercise; similarly you almost certainly are inculcated in the power and importance of play as a part of the design process. There was little new in these activities, fun though they were.

More, the topics proved simply to be an echo chamber: we did not craft new insights in the childhood obesity epidemic, we cobbled together a bunch of little plays that were all more-or-less the same thing. This is less a problem space that needs our definition and more a problem space that needs our solution. We never got there. Similarly with the architecture: aside from the more creative/fun solutions that were more entertaining than meaningful, the utopian cities boasted the sort of ideals that any decent architecture student learns early in their training: integration of live/work, green space, water, systemic relationships and so on. No big insights to be had.

In short, we spent the better part of the day engaged in processes we already know, talking about problems at a level in which we are already well-versed. My vision of Overlap has always been a place where my brain should swell, pregnant with new and captivating ideas. Nick Gogerty gave a short presentation that started introducing new knowledge into the room – his insights on dead capital inspired a number of us – but that sort of “here is something we haven’t seen before” was in short supply over the weekend.

The other part of Saturday’s gathering I want to talk about was Michael Dila‘s forum, where he raised observations about design and the world for discussion among the group. One of the things he talked about was his experience at Starbucks, trying to help out the baristas by taking an empty milk container up to the counter for refilling and being met with a bad attitude. This kicked off an engaged conversation about the reasons for that negative reaction, which led into important issues of humanity and authenticity. That is a very worthwhile conversation to have. Yet again the conversation was happening at too low of a level.

That leads to the most important moment of the conference for me personally, encapsulating how Overlap misses the mark for me. As this conversation around humanity and authenticity continued Christopher Fabian irritatedly exclaimed, “Heidegger was writing about this 60 years ago; why are we talking about it like it’s something new?” Indeed. Why are we? Dila is a trained philosopher; it is one of the things I love about him. There are enough of us with a background in philosophy, cultural studies and other relevant fields to conduct this conversation at a much more interesting level of scholarship, based upon absolute genius that came before us. Yet, instead we kind of grope our way through it as if it is something new. It is not new; it has been with us in more-or-less similar ways since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, with other examples going back even further and tying into interesting topics such as the origins and enabling of slavery, and class dynamics. But we never got anywhere near these meaty topics. What a missed opportunity! I can’t speak for the whole room but I know for a fact at least a dozen of the attendees would have not just been capable of being actively in the fore of that conversation, but would have greatly enjoyed it. Who knows what rich insights we would have taken from it? And I suspect even those who couldn’t tell a Heidegger from a Kierkegaard would have been energized by the depth of places we were exploring, even if some of the language was foreign.

For me, it is in that level of discourse and exploration that Overlap has always held its most promise, but in my two years attending has failed to achieve.

Sunday as the beginning of something meaningful

Sunday finished strong, scratching two different itches for me. First, our prototyping products and services to do something meaningful is just a rockingly good idea. The BetaCup from Overlap09 is proof enough of the power and potential of that. And if it is going to be a conference that is largely centered around designers, we ought to be building something. So, I have nothing but good things to say about that. I don’t know that we needed as much structure and moderation as we were given – although Will Evans is certainly a talented facilitator – but that was the “right” kind of activity and it was headed in some pretty interesting directions. It is a shame that it only got half a day. I couldn’t help but wonder: what if that was how we had started off on Saturday?!

The second real win on Sunday was the discourse finally reached the “right” level. My group more or less ignored the structure of the prototyping exercise, initially attempting to hone in on one idea we all liked and just start riffing on that right away. Well, in the process of doing that we quickly degenerated into a philosophical conversation about Shel Kimen‘s upcoming opportunity to create designs for a conglomerate of food companies attempting to meet a government mandate to promote healthier living. (Side note: Shel was great about participating vigourously in this conversation even though it would have been easy for her to take the sometimes violent criticism of her task and clients in a personal way. She’s a gem.) While enjoyable, this diversion at first seemed disastrous: we lost one of our group who was unhappy he was not getting to experience the activity as it had been designed (fair enough), and we concluded by saying we didn’t have an idea to pitch to the group, which was the explicit outcome we were supposed to be driving towards. I spent the next few minutes anxiously trying to figure out how, when our turn to present came, I could intelligently explain that – while every other group had crafted interesting, inspiring, thoughtful prototypes for possible further development – we had nothing but a good conversation and a re-framing of the problem statement to show for our time. Squirming a bit, I was.

Then Robin Uchida exercised some of his prodigious vision: he suggested we go up and present on our process and the philosophical journey we took together. This turned out to be pure genius. Members of other groups were energized by the dialog – which extended and made meaningful the childhood obesity meme from the previous morning – and other groups actually disbanded to instead continue that dialog with us. The irony is I was really interested in one of the other product ideas – a redesign of the educational system – and had been looking forward to joining that group and getting my hands dirty. However, with all of this energy building up around the sort of discourse I had been hungry for all weekend, the die was cast and I continued forward with that group. I believe it was the largest group of all by the end. And we began to really get at and into the operating dynamics behind the issue at hand. The only downside was our limited time: an hour or so is not enough to properly vet the subject and conversation. With a twinkling mind but heavy heart I left the conversation, sprinting out of Pratt before lunch, needing to catch my plane (which I barely caught, a process that involved leaping from a bus and sprinting across a huge parking lot laden with bags to catch a cab; the scene lacked everything but explosions, sirens and crying babies; it was quite something).

Anatomy of Overlap10

So ultimately, Overlap didn’t quite hit the mark for me. And I suppose I better need to understand what Overlap is, or is supposed to be. Looking back at Overlap10, outside of the social/meal times, it was loosely two different things:

1. Fun and interesting design activities and exercises

2. The prototyping of meaningful ideas (the theme of Overlap10 was “scalable actions”)

And it flirted at moments with being a third thing:

3. Discourse about the underlying dynamics and systems around our meaningful ideas

For me, if this is going to be a three-day event, it should be 2 and 3. The time is short and precious; why “waste” it with stuff we can get at other conferences? However, I know a good many of the other attendees really enjoyed the activities of Saturday and I can imagine a case being made that Overlap should be, in some real proportion, #1. So perhaps it is a question of the identity of the group, brand and event. If I knew that Overlap11 was going to structurally be the same as Overlap10 I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t go. That would be a tough call, just because I truly adore many members of the community. But at that point it might be time to re-consider hosting my own event again – something I was starting on before being pulled in as a co-organizer of the original Overlap lo those many years ago.

Overlap Next?

In closing, here are the things that, for me, would make Overlap a must-attend event:

1. Meals and social planning, just like Marcel and Deb programmed this year. So smart, just really well done. Big groups, little groups, a nice blend: YES! Kudos, kudos, so well done.

2. Prototyping solutions. Again, while I would have the process be a bit more free-form, if many of us are designers we should be building things. This is another thing Overlap is really getting “right” in the current instantiation.

3. Planned discourse, provocation and debate. I think the design field is far too milquetoast. There is a dearth of real debate and unabashed criticism. We can disagree violently and still make love to each other all night (so to speak). In the process our brains will grow huge and we will get a lot closer to each other, besides. Five years ago I was likened to Darth Vader as part of a fairly contentious disagreement I had with another industry greybeard. A conference tried to set up an on-stage debate between the two of us as the keynote, but my antagonist refused. What a missed opportunity! Sheep-like nodding at well-designed slides does not do us any good, what really does is a deep, honest, passionate vetting of issues. On Friday night Joshua Kauffman made the delightfully provocative statement that he thinks “Design Thinking” is largely bullshit. Me too! What a conversation that would have provoked at Overlap10, perhaps the global heart of the design thinking “movement”!

I would love to see Overlap plan a day around debating a few key, meaningful, high-level topics. I might suggest a format of a half-hour one-on-one debate between two attendees – not trying to pick a “winner”, simply to vet the issues in a personal and impassioned way – followed by two hours of “everyone dialogs” conversation about the issues, spinning the conversation off to “wherever” from there. Others might have better ideas on format, that’s just what comes to my mind.

4. Asymmetrical group experiences. We should learn from the design of Friday night and extend some of it into the event proper. Have times where the theorists can go in one direction, the prototypers in another, and the fun activity/workshop crew in another. We can all have what we want and still come together and make it into a cohesive whole. Asymmetry enables a degree of customization that people appreciate.

5. Some nature. The urban thing was cool but since we were all inside anyway it didn’t really “matter”. The only benefit we had from the urban setting was the great restaurants and hotels of New York (and the High Line). Chris Baum has had some good experience and suggestions about how the integration of nature can create a transformative conference experience. And one of the real pros from Overlap06 was the Monterey environment.

6. Centralized lodging. To get free lodging in NYC I had to stay far away from the venues, which led to a variety of headaches around transportation and logistics, culminating in my missing much of Saturday morning and being too exhausted to return Saturday night for dinner. Our environment should not provide that kind of friction. I suppose that is one of the trade-offs of being in NYC – an amazing place – but I don’t think it is worth it. It certainly wasn’t for me.

7. Transparency. Marcel and Deb chose to not give us agendas and itineraries ahead of time, instead intentionally designing it as an experience that slowly unfolded. I didn’t mind this terribly, although given a choice I would have opted for information ahead of time. It may have prevented some of my subway shenanigans. However a few other attendees complained loudly about this, and I could empathize with their distaste for it. So, while a fair experiment, I think transparency is ultimately better so we can plan ahead and feel a little more “with things”.

Apparently the organizers for the next Overlap have already stepped forward and presumably have a vision for what they want the event to be. It will be interesting to see if the evolution of this gathering is one that rubs my happy place, or if I shall still be left to wander in search of where I professionally belong. Regardless, for better and for worse Overlap is one of if not the pre-eminent community for senior design professionals who self-identify as being more than just design, and I’m glad to be attached to it in whatever ways turn out to be.