ABOUT THE ABILITY TO MAKE THOUGHT VISIBLE  Interview with Francesco Mauri (Politecnico of Milan) Formal, technologic, and organising innovation. Perhaps firms, both small and not small, need innovation especially on a strategic level... Some considerations about it... To talk about this subject it is necessary to start from the definition of "product - system" that is fundamental in a overstocked market like the one of the present day. In this scenario – where competition is linked to different and complex factors, also of an immaterial nature – formal, technical, and producing components, undoubtedly important, come alongside with others linked to communication, distribution, and service which reveal to be equally crucial. Innovations of products and processes have to be seen as part of a general innovation that refers to the whole system and unavoidably involves also strategic aspects. I often quote the example of Olivetti that some years ago had put on the market a home-computer which used the TV screen and provided a disappearing wireless keyboard. It was an interesting product but wasn't successful on the market because it was distributed through the traditional channels of PC selling. The chances of alternative distribution forms have multiplied: think of the diffusion the e-commerce will have in the next few years. History teaches that, if you don't have the strategic innovation, even interesting and apparently winning products can become flops. What part can the designer play in the planning of strategy? Strategy is always the result of the work of more people, of a team. So the designer has to work with other people with different competence, using his innate endowment, that is the ability of making the thought visible, of giving shape to what the others perceive (or he perceives himself) and express on an extremely theoretical level. Co-operation starts when the people working with the designer recognise he has this ability and discover their own ideas and dreams in his work. I'm obviously thinking of a designer who's not only the maker of beautiful drawings, but also a character who can be a catalyst inside the team. A designer who, in order to play this part, must have an education based on different subjects – I despise the terms "reduce" and "restrict" – which, luckily, Italian University has provided so far, in contrast with what happened in Anglo-Saxon countries, too linked to a technical interpretation of the problem. Strategy means working in long times. The problem is that small firms show to have congenital difficulties just with this... To assert that small firms think only in terms of short times is a commonplace that has to be discredited. Talking only about the clearest examples, we can think of the huge investments on machines that also small craftsmen do and of the topic of familiar continuity which is felt as particularly important by entrepreneurs. While proposing strategies developed in long times, we have to appeal to these elements, going into the firm step by step. And mind using the term "strategy" which in firm meetings often frightens people. Through which course and which procedures is it possible to train a designer able to give important contributions on a strategic level? What's Your experience concerning the lectures at Politecnico? The main problem seems to be that of making future designers face abstract topics such as communication and service... The difficulty of thinking in abstract terms is real. Students want to draw... Here again we have to start from the concept of "product - system", showing to our listeners how this seems crucial nowadays. At the moment in my course we're working on the image of Milan. This topic arises from the awareness that today and even more in the future the competition among European cities will become hard and that we have to work on planning in order not to lose the acquired positions. In this direction, in Milan like in many other places, there's a lot to do. I'm thinking of how a city without its own identity, not to say ugly, like Bilbao, thanks to the building of Guggenheim by Frank O. Gehry, has become the gate of Europe... A few years ago Frida Doveil talked about two working levels for a designer: the first, traditionally, on the product, the second on strategies, typical of the designer "with his head in the clouds". Concerning small firms, can we say that these two figures, which are separate in big firms, coincide in one person? Today these two figures aren't separate anymore, even in big firms, can you imagine in small ones? The designer, as I said earlier, has one crucial function, that is giving shape to ideas, make them concrete. So a designer with his head in the clouds... but at the same time with his feet on earth.

Text by: Giuseppe Lotti I. II. III. IV. V. VI. in cooperation with: Elena Granchi Sonia Morini TOP