Design for dreams not needs: who do you want your customers to become?

design for

dreams

Laura Drake Enberg FLICKR

once upon a time I dreamed of...

climbing mountains to lose myself in in a world apart from people crafting stories to discover what I think, what I see, what I want, and what it means Plunging hands into dirt to shape gardens into possibility spaces that invite in the wild things

Mike Beales Flickr

travelling to strange places to disrupt my comfortable ways of seeing the world Designing impossibly wonderful things to magic more beauty into the world living in a community to forge relationships with the baker, the butcher, and the 90 year old cat lady

Yasin Hassan Flickr

but then life happened

I went to school where I mastered the important arts of sitting, memorizing facts, and following the rules in university I learned to check my imagination at the door and parrot the thoughts of the great men of history

Bekah FLICKR

in quick succession I Met a boy, got a job, had kids, accumulated appliances, furniture, a car, a series of electronic gadgets…... and a house big enough to fit all that stuff

Roiz Roiz FLICKR

I became a good consumer

which meant I needed a credit card (or two or three), loans for the car and house, and easy payment plans so that I could buy even more things to meet my ever expanding needs

Wimena Kane FLICKR

to better fulfill my need to pay for the things I needed (including the need to eventually retire and become a full time consumer), I also needed...

a stable job with a good salary, benefits, and a pension plan and a boss to tell me that I had a whole other set of needs to worry about... like a 9-5 schedule, policies and procedures to tell me what to do, processes to make me more efficient

Alexander Burghardt FLICKR

apps to increase my productivity, help me collaborate, and game me into compliance but there was more (employees are very needy after all) I needed a performance plan so that I could learn that I needed To become more organized, speak up in meetings…, play better with others...

but Most of all I learned that – no matter what I did – I would never be good enough... never become a key employee because only <insert rank here> would ever be considered a key employee But I needed to continue to make the payments on all those needs I had been satisfying, so I stuck with the job...

Derrick Tyson FLICKR

which meant I needed ways to distract myself like blasting villains in video games, binge-watching tv, shopping,,, all inclusive vacations to eat and drink my way into forgetfulness

All this busyness left me with no time to cook so I needed Fast food, frozen dinners, and other processed delights plus Milkshakes with smaller straws to pass the time on long boring commutes

But wait, there’s more, for my needs keep expanding as I age anti-depressants to keep unhappiness at bay, Anti-aging wrinkle creams, body shapers, a tuck or two, and An app to monitor the diabetes caused from all that processed food and sitting

Perhaps one day A walker to keep me safe from falls, Pills of every description for ailments that may not have been invented yet and that I won’t understand and eventually An old age home where they will feed me, clean my room, and safely warehouse me

oh, the needs that I have…...

I have become one of the needy

the needy

The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become. Goethe

Is that who you want to become?

Is that who you want your customers, employees, patients, students, citizens, family to become?

We frame commerce and society—even our relationships—in terms of needs, but that kind of framework is limited. People are much more complicated than a list of needs; we need food and housing and shelter, sure, but what makes humanity unique are the dreams and longings that are much deeper and more complicated than mere necessity. Bruce Nussbaum

we are so busy seeing needs, seeing neediness

we fail to see their hopes their dreams their gifts the greatness inside them the love they have to give the beauty of their true selves..… their soul

their possibilities

a thought experiment II

What innovations have you said yes to?

Thanks Michael Schrage for this question!

at home


at work


in your community

how have they changed who you are?

be honest, check with friends, family, coworkers, neighbours..…….

how have they changed who your organization is?

be honest, check with employees, customers, suppliers...

how have they changed who your community is?

Preteens and teenagers have a strong need to go exploring, to have adventures, and to establish an identity via interactions with peers that reference this exploration and adventure.

In past times, this happened in the actual outdoors... Today... when every bit of land is fenced and marked with no-trespassing signs, when society is obsessed with safety, and when children are over-scheduled and driven to perform. Technology and culture have robbed children of something they deeply need-and then, in the form of video games, sold it back to them. Charles Eisenstein

The innovations you adopt shape the person you will become

your customers, employees, patients, students, citizens

The stories you adopt shape the person you will become

your customers, employees, patients, students, citizens

but there is hope

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. Arundhati Roy

It’s time to wake up to a world where everyone has an equal right to Dream and every Dream has an equal opportunity to get realised. A little bit of imagination is all it takes to free up possibilities. Sonia Manchanda, Dream:in

When I see people coming to the farm stand ... I feel encouraged. I feel like I am giving them a gift –

a healthier, longer, better,

more delicious life Robin Emmons, sowmuchgood.org

We don’t just want to feed you. We want to make our customers the heroes of the food movement, connecting them intimately to the producers that grow, butcher, bake and bring the local foods that heal and grow local economies. We want to make our customers heroes at home, as they are more able to give their family healthy foods affordably. This is as fun as it is impossibly challenging. I love it. heroes of the food movement

In the early days of the American-led invasion, Afghans were perceived as being preoccupied with the simple concerns of shelter and food... What Roshan saw was a country brimful of the same innate human desire that governs us all:

the desire to connect Kareem Khoja, CEO, Roshan

a world dreamed into being

by thousands, tens of thousands, millions of

imaginations

A dream is human possibility that we wish to realize. To make real; to bring forth; to forge from the very fabric of life. Umair Haque

A dream is human possibility that we wish to realize. To make real; to bring forth; to forge from the very fabric of life. Umair Haque

We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery. guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities Ralph Waldo Emerson

dreamers

possibilities

Phil Dolby, flickr

We can all see another person’s body directly. We see the lips moving, the eyes opening and shutting, the lines of the mouth and face changing, and the body expressing itself as a whole in action… If the invisible side of people were discerned as easily as the visible side, we would live in a new humanity. As we are, we live in visible humanity, a humanity of appearances..… All our thoughts, emotions, feelings, imaginations, reveries, dreams, fantasies, are invisible...

It is an extremely difficult thing to grasp… We do not grasp that we are invisible. We do not realize that we are in a world of invisible people. We do not understand that life, before all other definitions of it, is a

drama of the visible and the invisible Maurice Nicoll

75% or more of writer’s labor goes into designing story. Who are these characters? What do they want? Why do they want it? How do they go about getting it? What stops them? What are the consequences?

Finding the answers to these grand questions and shaping them into story is our overwhelming creative task. Robert Mckee

designer’s

magic if……………... become your customers, employees, patients, students, citizens


Imagine that you are a…...

disabled vet old woman living alone prisoner

what are my needs?

Close your eyes and become that person, then ask yourself..…

what brings me joy?


what legacy do I dream of leaving behind?


can you feel the difference?

Imagine if we were born

to be needed instead of needy

can you see the dream thing within them?

Ask people about needs and they will give you a long list, one that varies from time of day to day of the week. Ask people about their dreams and they’ll give you just one answer, maybe two.

It’s not a list but a revealing look into what is truly meaningful in their lives sonia manchanda

Ask people about needs and they will give you a long list, one that varies from time of day to day of the week. Ask people about their dreams and they’ll give you just one answer, maybe two.

It’s not a list but a revealing look into what is truly meaningful in their lives sonia manchanda

instead of needy users who appear in your current script as passive victims needing things because they suffer from problems, deficiencies, disabilities

see heroes

instead of needy users who appear in your current script as passive victims needing products, services and other solutions because they suffer from deficiencies, disabilities, problems

see heroes with dreams

Heroes take journeys, confront dragons, and discover the treasure of their true selves. Carol Pearson

they quest

in pursuit of provocative questions

who Am I? what’s my story?

What are my gifts?

why am I here?

Why am I here? “To win what I have been conditioned to crave!” the ego cries. And so the self never reaches fulfillment. Umair Haque

You are not merely your ego. You are not merely a set of wants, a consumer trapped inside a human spirit, a warehouse of desire, a receptacle. You are something greater. You are a being with the possibility to live an extraordinary life. But to do so you must dream a truly great dream. A dream so vast, enduring, and impossible, that it is concerned with the fulfillment of all life. Umair Haque

Why am I here? “To cause fulfillment in every life” the dreamer whispers. A new self opens its eyes. The ego has been surrendered. Umair Haque

and once you find the dream thing within them, can you help dream them onward?

reinvent character

from needy victim to courageous hero

My view of the Karamojong has totally changed

At the end of the first day, I asked my translator if she was impressed by anything... She said that as a born again Christian, she had previously spent a lot of time preaching to the Karamojong, but had never before taken time to listen to them or learn from them. She said she used to think..…. that they had nothing of value in their heads and that they were only looking for handouts… …she now knew how much wisdom they had, and how much they had to share. What can the poor teach you?

If the writer reinvents character, he must reinvent story. A changed character must make new choices, take different actions, and live another story – [their] story. Robert McKee

heroes

Everybody has a dream. Everybody has the need to create a legacy. Once you help people move past the fears and anxieties that bury those dreams, their imagination is stirred. They begin to ask themselves, “What would I want for my children, for my society, for my country?” and that hidden seed of a dream is uncovered. Sonia Manchanda

instead of a needs analysis, what if you performed a dream analysis?

instead of analysts, what if you worked with dream collectors

instead of a meeting room, what if you designed a dreamscape?

instead of mapping the customer journey, what if you imagined a dream journey?

What if you became a dream weaver weaving dreamers and their gifts into communities and tribes


The last time you binge watched a series on Netflix 8 hours straight Perhaps while eating a bag of chips, carton of ice cream, or plate of cookies.

Close your eyes. then remember…...

how did you feel?

The last time you a feeling of pure joy enveloped you.

what were you doing?

Close your eyes a second time. remember…...

can you feel the difference?

one of the biggest joys of making something is for people to appreciate it. it’s the music that’s being played, that’s being played well, and it’s your instrument that’s doing it. I think that’s a tremendous pleasure.

it’s joy to suddenly discover something and say hey, you know, this is something I never thought of, and there’s joy in that too.

We have only scratched the surface of needs… we need beautiful cities, advice and psychological support, manage our emotions, sustain strong families, cultivate our minds, live in societies in which it’s normal to be wise, kind and self-possessed what is good business, the school of life

explore, play, create, learn, wonder

and perhaps most important of all the need to offer our gifts to the world

The meaning of life is to find your gift;

the purpose of life is to give it away Picasso

Gifts are the currency through which

joy is exchanged. Charles Eisenstein

One's only rival is one's own potentialities. One's only failure is failing to live up to one's own possibilities. In this sense,

every man can be a king, and must therefore

be treated like a king Maslow

Businesses must view people not as resources but as sources. A resource is like a lump of coal; you use it and it’s gone. A source is like the sun—virtually inexhaustible and continually generating energy, light, and warmth. There is no more powerful source of creative energy in the world than a turned-on, empowered human being Conscious Capitalism

can you see the possibilities simmering within the people you serve?

How might you feed the fuel that ignites those possibilities?

how might you help those you serve become heroes on a dream quest?

The world we dream of is the world we want to live in the future we hope to have the life we want to live the way we want things to be Paul Hudson

The world we dream of is the world we want to live in the future we hope to have the life we want to live the way we want things to be Paul Hudson

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. Arundhati Roy

I love those who DREAM the impossible. Goethe

I love those who yearn for the impossible Goethe

Laura Drake Enberg FLICKR

We will not survive as a species through more of the same: better breeds of corn, better pesticides, the extension of control to the genetic and molecular level.

We need to enter a fundamentally different story That is why an activist will inevitably find herself working on the level of story. She will find that in addition to addressing immediate needs, even the most practical, hands-on actions are telling a story Charles Eisenstein

choose the story you will act in

for we become the stories we tell with our actions

If your actions inspire others to

dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. John Quincy Adams

business needs more dreamers

the world needs more dreamers

A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities. Tolkien

theilr FLICKR

[We] ourselves are characters within a huge story that is visibly unfolding all around us, participants within the vast imagination, or Dreaming, of the World. David Abram

There are so many unsung heroines and heroes at this broken moment in our collective story, so many courageous persons who, unbeknownst to themselves, are

holding together the world by their

resolute love or contagious joy...

Although I do not know your names,

I can feel you out there David Abram

become

a dreamer a dream collector a dream weaver

design for dreams

in designing for dreams you transform

your self


your organization


your community


the world

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope some day you’ll join us, and the world can live as one. John Lennon

Hafiz Issadeen FLICKR