{"rowid": 259, "title": "Designing Your Future", "contents": "I\u2019ve had the pleasure of working for a variety of clients \u2013 both large and small \u2013 over the last 25 years. In addition to my work as a design consultant, I\u2019ve worked as an educator, leading the Interaction Design team at Belfast School of Art, for the last 15 years.\nIn July, 2018 \u2013 frustrated with formal education, not least the ever-present hand of \u2018austerity\u2019 that has ravaged universities in the UK for almost a decade \u2013 I formally reduced my teaching commitment, moving from a full-time role to a half-time role.\nMaking the move from a (healthy!) monthly salary towards a position as a freelance consultant is not without its challenges: one month your salary\u2019s arriving in your bank account (and promptly disappearing to pay all of your bills); the next month, that salary\u2019s been drastically reduced. That can be a shock to the system.\nIn this article, I\u2019ll explore the challenges encountered when taking a life-changing leap of faith. To help you confront \u2018the fear\u2019 \u2013 the nervousness, the sleepless nights and the ever-present worry about paying the bills \u2013 I\u2019ll provide a set of tools that will enable you to take a leap of faith and pursue what deep down drives you.\nIn short: I\u2019ll bare my soul and share everything I\u2019m currently working on to \u2013 once and for all \u2013 make a final bid for freedom.\nThis isn\u2019t easy. I\u2019m sharing my innermost hopes and aspirations, and I might open myself up to ridicule, but I believe that by doing so, I might help others, by providing them with tools to help them make their own leap of faith.\nThe power of visualisation\nAs designers we have skills that we use day in, day out to imagine future possibilities, which we then give form. In our day-to-day work, we use those abilities to design products and services, but I also believe we can use those skills to design something every bit as important: ourselves.\nIn this article I\u2019ll explore three tools that you can use to design your future:\n\nProduct DNA\nArtefacts From the Future\nTomorrow Clients\n\nEach of these tools is designed to help you visualise your future. By giving that future form, and providing a concrete goal to aim for, you put the pieces in place to make that future a reality.\nBrian Eno \u2013 the noted musician, producer and thinker \u2013 states, \u201cHumans are capable of a unique trick: creating realities by first imagining them, by experiencing them in their minds.\u201d Eno helpfully provides a powerful example:\n\nWhen Martin Luther King said, \u201cI have a dream,\u201d he was inviting others to dream that dream with him. Once a dream becomes shared in that way, current reality gets measured against it and then modified towards it.\nThe dream becomes an invisible force which pulls us  forward. By this process it starts to come true. The act of imagining something makes it real.\n\nWhen you imagine your future \u2013 designing an alternate, imagined reality in your mind \u2013 you begin the process of making that future real.\nProduct DNA\nThe first tool, which I use regularly \u2013 for myself and for client work \u2013 is a tool called Product DNA. The intention of this tool is to identify beacons from which you can learn, helping you to visualise your future.\nWe all have heroes \u2013 individuals or organisations \u2013 that we look up to. Ask yourself, \u201cWho are your heroes?\u201d If you had to pick three, who would they be and what could you learn from them? (You probably have more than three, but distilling down to three is an exercise in itself.)\nEarlier this year, when I was putting the pieces in place for a change in career direction, I started with my heroes. I chose three individuals that inspired me:\n\nAlan Moore: the author of \u2018Do Design: Why Beauty is Key to Everything\u2019;\nMark Shayler: the founder of Ape, a strategic consultancy; and\nSeth Godin: a writer and educator I\u2019ve admired and followed for many years.\n\nLooking at each of these individuals, I \u2018borrowed\u2019 a little DNA from each of them. That DNA helped me to paint a picture of the kind of work I wanted to do and the direction I wanted to travel.\n\nMoore\u2019s book - \u2018Do Design\u2019 \u2013 had a powerful influence on me, but the primary inspiration I drew from him was the sense of gravitas he conveyed in his work. Moore\u2019s mission is an important one and he conveys that with an appropriate weight of expression.\nShayler\u2019s work appealed to me for its focus on equipping big businesses with a startup mindset. As he puts it: \u201cI believe that you can do the things that you do better.\u201d That sense \u2013 of helping others to be their best selves \u2013 appealed to me.\nFinally, the words Godin uses to describe himself \u2013 \u201cAn Author, Entrepreneur and Most of All, a Teacher\u201d \u2013 resonated with me. The way he positions himself, as, \u201cmost of all, a teacher,\u201d gave me the belief I needed that I could work as an educator, but beyond the ivory tower of academia.\nI\u2019ve been exploring each of these individuals in depth, learning from them and applying what I learn to my practice. They don\u2019t all know it, but they are all \u2018mentors from afar\u2019.\nIn a moment of serendipity \u2013 and largely, I believe, because I\u2019d used this tool to explore his work \u2013 I was recently invited by Alan Moore to help him develop a leadership programme built around his book.\nThe key lesson here is that not only has this exercise helped me to design my future and give it tangible form, it\u2019s also led to a fantastic opportunity to work with Alan Moore, a thinker who I respect greatly.\nArtefacts From the Future\nThe second tool, which I also use regularly, is a tool called \u2018Artefacts From the Future\u2019. These artefacts \u2013 especially when designed as \u2018finished\u2019 pieces \u2013 are useful for creating provocations to help you see the future more clearly.\n\u2018Artefacts From the Future\u2019 can take many forms: they might be imagined magazine articles, news items, or other manifestations of success. By imagining these end points and giving them form, you clarify your goals, establishing something concrete to aim for.\nEarlier this year I revisited this tool to create a provocation for myself. I\u2019d just finished Alla Kholmatova\u2019s excellent book on \u2018Design Systems\u2019, which I would recommend highly. The book wasn\u2019t just filled with valuable insights, it was also beautifully designed.\nOnce I\u2019d finished reading Kholmatova\u2019s book, I started thinking: \u201cPerhaps it\u2019s time for me to write a new book?\u201d Using the magic of \u2018Inspect Element\u2019, I created a fictitious page for a new book I wanted to write: \u2018Designing Delightful Experiences\u2019.\nI wrote a description for the book, considering how I\u2019d pitch it.\n\nThis imagined page was just what I needed to paint a picture in my mind of a possible new book. I contacted the team at Smashing Magazine and pitched the idea to them. I\u2019m happy to say that I\u2019m now working on that book, which is due to be published in 2019.\nWithout this fictional promotional page from the future, the book would have remained as an idea \u2013 loosely defined \u2013 rolling around my mind. By spending some time, turning that idea into something \u2018real\u2019, I had everything I needed to tell the story of the book, sharing it with the publishing team at Smashing Magazine.\nOf course, they could have politely informed me that they weren\u2019t interested, but I\u2019d have lost nothing \u2013 truly \u2013 in the process.\nAs designers, creating these imaginary \u2018Artefacts From the Future\u2019 is firmly within our grasp. All we need to do is let go a little and allow our imaginations to wander.\nIn my experience, working with clients and \u2013 to a lesser extent, students \u2013 it\u2019s the \u2018letting go\u2019 part that\u2019s the hard part. It can be difficult to let down your guard and share a weighty goal, but I\u2019d encourage you to do so. At the end of the day, you have nothing to lose.\nThe key lesson here is that your \u2018Artefacts From the Future\u2019 will focus your mind. They\u2019ll transform your unformed ideas into \u2018tangible evidence\u2019 of future possibilities, which you can use as discussion points and provocations, helping you to shape your future reality.\nTomorrow Clients\nThe third tool, which I developed more recently, is a tool called \u2018Tomorrow Clients\u2019. This tool is designed to help you identify a list of clients that you aspire to work with.\nThe goal is to pinpoint who you would like to work with \u2013 in an ideal world \u2013 and define how you\u2019d position yourself to win them over. Again, this involves \u2018letting go\u2019 and allowing your mind to imagine the possibilities, asking, \u201cWhat if\u2026?\u201d\nBefore I embarked upon the design of my new website, I put together a \u2018soul searching\u2019 document that acted as a focal point for my thinking. I contacted a number of designers for a second opinion to see if my thinking was sound.\nOne of my graduates \u2013 Chris Armstrong, the founder of Niice \u2013 replied with the following: \u201cMight it be useful to consider five to ten companies you\u2019d love to work for, and consider how you\u2019d pitch yourself to them?\u201d\nThis was just the provocation I needed. To add a little focus, I reduced the list to three, asking: \u201cWho would my top three clients be?\u201d\n\nBy distilling the list down I focused on who I\u2019d like to work for and how I\u2019d position myself to entice them to work with me. My list included: IDEO, Adobe and IBM. All are companies I admire and I believed each would be interesting to work for.\nThis exercise might \u2013 on the surface \u2013 appear a little like indulging in fantasy, but I believe it helps you to clarify exactly what it is you are good at and, just as importantly, put that in to words.\nFor each company, I wrote a short pitch outlining why I admired them and what I thought I could add to their already existing skillset.\nFocusing first on Adobe, I suggested establishing an emphasis on educational resources, designed to help those using Adobe\u2019s creative tools to get the most out of them.\nA few weeks ago, I signed a contract with the team working on Adobe XD to create a series of \u2018capsule courses\u2019, focused on UX design. The first of these courses \u2013 exploring UI design \u2013 will be out in 2019.\nI believe that Armstrong\u2019s provocation \u2013 asking me to shift my focus from clients I have worked for in the past to clients I aspire to work for in the future \u2013 made all the difference.\nThe key lesson here is that this exercise encouraged me to raise the bar and look to the future, not the past. In short, it enabled me to proactively design my future.\nIn closing\u2026\nI hope these three tools will prove a welcome addition to your toolset. I use them when working with clients, I also use them when working with myself.\nI passionately believe that you can design your future. I also firmly believe that you\u2019re more likely to make that future a reality if you put some thought into defining what it looks like.\nAs I say to my students and the clients I work with: It\u2019s not enough to want to be a success, the word \u2018success\u2019 is too vague to be a destination. A far better approach is to define exactly what success looks like.\nThe secret is to visualise your future in as much detail as possible. With that future vision in hand as a map, you give yourself something tangible to translate into a reality.", "year": "2018", "author": "Christopher Murphy", "author_slug": "christophermurphy", "published": "2018-12-15T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2018/designing-your-future/", "topic": "process"}