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change through participation imagine if
you can make that happen Paul Bennett
our next speaker is going to give us
that
ahaba okay um this is incredibly
humbling to be standing here in front of
you all um let me just get rid of the
hand because it's going to bug me it's
probably going to bug you as well um
this was my first view of you all 48
hours ago coming into Dubai from the
window of my plane and um I want to
start with an anecdote about flying um I
read a brilliant article in a magazine a
few years ago and a pilot was
interviewed and they said to him how
does a plane stay in the air and he said
it was brilliant very profound answer he
said it's got nothing to do with
mechanics it's got nothing to do with
hydraulics it's not a mechanical issue
he said a plane stays in the air because
everybody in the plane believes that it
can and he said
flying
is flying is nothing but the collective
suspension of disbelief which I thought
was genius and he said usually somebody
in business class is sitting there going
how does this thing stay up here and it
goes so I talk to you today about the
idea of in our very turbulent times that
we're all living in of resuspending our
belief and one of the themes that I'm
very excited to talk about is the idea
of optimism because I think optimism is
what we all need I think that design is
a fundamentally optimistic profession
and I want us all and I mean all of us
as designers in this room to start to
talk about what we do how we design the
future together and how we do that
optimistically so that's what I'd like
to talk to you about this morning um and
I hope you um will bear with my somewhat
stumbling Arabic translation but I
wanted absolutely nobody to be exempt
from this conversation so we've
sacrificed design to make sure that this
was a truly bilingual
presentation um so Victor Hugo said
there's nothing like a dream to create
the future so let's talk about dreaming
this is the theme of the conference and
let's talk about the future
um as I said I mean and and what the
other guys have said as well I'm much
more interested in what you do with this
presentation or with the stuff that you
kind of absorb over the next few hours
than what I do um I'm really excited so
far I've been here a few days I've had
massive amounts of really exhilarating
conversations and I think that's the
point of this to have exhilarating
conversations and for you guys over to
you on Monday morning to take this stuff
and start using it this is not about
Outsiders like me coming in and giving
you some kind of lame answer this is
about people holding up a mirror and
saying here are some questions let's all
answer them
together so I'm very oh actually that's
what this is for isn't it that's what
this does
um design is a verb it's not some sort
of thing that's apply to objects design
is a verb and I sort of like this idea
that design is the action that occurs
between dreaming and being so you have
dreams out here very blue sky and you
have the real world and what design does
is it brings those two things together
it's a series of actions in and
intentions that bring together dreaming
and being so I'm going to show you some
of our examp hopefully some some
inspiring examples of some stuff that
we've done but more importantly some
stuff that other people have done that
we find
inspiring and see what you guys think ah
it works um so as I said I'm I I I hate
people that come into some other culture
stand on stage and say here I am I've
got the answer I have no clue what the
answer is um I'm just here to listen and
to hopefully hold hold up a mirror as I
said and ask some questions and then
let's all answer these things together
um so we're just here to sort of listen
learn ask facilitate and meet and I hope
that's what that
says um so and we and by the way myself
and my colleagues have taken all these
images ourselves so there's no crappy
stock photography from some thing either
because I again that felt very
inauthentic so we've taken all these
pictures ourselves with our iPhones and
with our cameras just to give you our
own impressions of what we are seeing
through our eyes so we believe the
design is about change that's why we're
here we and anybody that says mirrored
camels are not a big idea by the way I
thought this was just absolutely
brilliant love the mirror camel
absolutely awesome um we believe that
designers are optimists I fundamentally
believe in optimism is a very powerful
tool in business and in life therefore
I'm talking to everybody here as
designers and we believe about impact We
Believe design is about impact and
therefore talking about the impact of a
room full of designers creating change
bit of a mouthful but that's what I
believe we're in the process of doing
here so we're all designers thinking
let's talk about what we do this is Ido
company I work for and design thinking
the first example is one I've shown
before it's one sort of a classic it was
on my last Ted talk but it's still in a
nutshell sort of the best example it was
my first personal example of getting
into this kind of thinking does anybody
here work from
Mackenzie good okay um because I'm going
to say really mean things about them
sorry um so we were hired by these guys
in Minnesota Memorial Healthcare to help
them design the patient experience and
they'd spent enormous amount of money
with K see um trying to figure this out
and received I think 749 pages that
looked like this or looked like this and
they asked us two questions is this good
and what do we do with it um so we went
back um a few weeks later and presented
this so we created a 7 and 1 half minute
film that we played completely
straight-faced and didn't explain what
it was um of
this and the president of the hospital
wasn't Terribly Happy um and said what
an how how dare you what what on Earth
is this and this is Christian samsaran
who works at Ido and this is what we did
we were a natural patient in a hospital
which is what most people actually
forget to do is to sort of remember the
human being and we lay in a bed with a
camera and we taped the roof
because people forget that that's the
point right so um I I was lucky enough
to speak in Parliament in the UK and I
showed this example and I sort of said
to the parliament are you actually
remembering to lie in the hospital bed
of the UK and are you looking at the
ceiling because so many organizations
forget the person and they design it
from the organization in and not from
the human being out so as we Brits would
describe blinding glimpse of the
bleeding obvious is in many cases what
we do
um so there it is so what we did with
this which again I'm not going to stand
here on stage at a conference that has
designed it and say oh my God this is
amazing design it isn't but with this is
a horrible crappy picture I apologize
but with nurses and patients and doctors
and us we got together and we designed
some tiny things that could be done
tomorrow to make the patient experience
better so this is a tiny bicycle mirror
that's glued onto a piece of cardboard
that's taped onto the gurnie so that
when you're being wheeled around you can
have a conversation with somebody as if
it was a rearview mirror so that they
can check that you're not dead um which
was kind of a big idea um the nurses
blessed them um decided to decorate the
ceiling because if you were going to
spend all day staring at it it might as
well be cute um one of the patients had
this idea that it would be really nice
if his room over here looked like a room
and not like the hospital Corridor so a
change of floor meant that you were
leaving common space and coming into his
space very simple psychological
transition but a very powerful one if
you're lying in the room not in the
corridor and then finally my last idea
or my last most favorite bit of this is
you know when you break your arm and
somebody writes on the cast on the
plaster I'm sorry I you broke your arm
um we put whiteboards in like you know
from our offices in the hospital room so
that if you were asleep a kid could come
in and go here mommy you know blah blah
blah and do a picture and I'm sorry
you're not well so again not amazing
examples of design obviously but amazing
examples of human empathy and that's
much more interesting to me than design
anyway so you guys you've all seen our
brain stormy Jazz going on outside and
on Facebook so before I came I didn't
want to as I said I didn't want to stand
here and sort of tell you anything that
that was part of sort of some big baked
Theory so we just put this up on
Facebook we're coming to talk at Ted
what what's your dream and so we got a
bunch of stuff and I've just got some
more from five minutes ago outside that
I'm going to read you so you know it's
as you would imagine it's sort of
contradictory intelligent and l ly
conversation and one that's just the
beginning um some quite contradictory
things you know Dubai is the opportunity
to be the central hub for Innovation and
knowledge that's fantastic um my dream
for Dubai is that it develops into a
cultural
Bridge my dream for Dubai is the
population finds something other than
consumerism that's a theme we heard many
times um can it be the place for
Creative people to come live and be
inspired to create art and not only to
work love this we love to learn finding
out we love learn to love finding out
more than
knowing AA are you
here awesome it's double snaps to you
brilliant um oh who's he
um that we move Beyond scale into
substance and that's again a part of
this conversation it's a sort of
co-creation conversation that everybody
can be here so some that came this
morning from Post-it notes what's your
dream for Dubai that we make it happen
now that it becomes the creative capital
of the world that we develop PE people
and not just property this is an Arabic
one which I had translated the cleanest
environment ever another one in Arabic
human before Place finally open source
Dubai last one education for everyone so
again not pretending to have an answer
but you know the conversation is
beginning we're all here doing it let's
continue with that stuff so you know
what are we going to do I think what's
rising to the question well sorry what's
rising to the surface is one big
question and this is it you know how
will countries be designed in the future
will they be designed around happiness
for example like Bhutan who have gross
national happiness which through which
they measure everything will they be
designed to around contribution if you
look at what Estonia is doing estonia's
gone out and said we want to be about
contribution we want to be the culture
of contribution will be around you know
sort of quality of life like Switzerland
is doing will it be around Innovation
like Denmark is very we're we're
actually talking to Denmark about
helping them become an innovation
country
as we've been hearing all morning will
it be around the new kinds of modes of
governance like things like Facebook
which are interconnected and
interdependent and most importantly love
this picture by the way
um will they be designed for us or will
they be designed by us and that's I
think a very important point for the
people in this room we are the designers
lots of heads nodding that's a good sign
and I'm I'm very hopeful that the answer
is yes to all of those questions that
it's not one versus the other that it's
all of them that Dubai becomes a sort of
amalgam of the best of all of these
things um I actually pleasantly
surprised and I'm very excited I think
it's very optimistic here I keep using
this word I was on radio the other day
and I said it just feels like the land
of optimism here um it's very brave it's
very big and it's very brave I don't
think that's necessarily bad um you know
many cities look for ways to make the
most of limited resources but you know
Dubai was the first city to ask the
following question what could we achieve
by bringing the world's best Brands
Technologies designs and talent together
in one place and so as a result of that
you've got amazing sort of benchmarks
for luxury for service for
infrastructure for economic growth but
one could argue that these can be
surpassed to the global
market but I actually firmly believe
that and this is my kind of big point
you have created here one resource that
is absolutely impossible to
imitate which is that dreaming is Big
here dreaming is big business I said
somewh you guys are professional
strength dreamers um and I think There's
an opportunity here where that sense of
opportunity is absolutely endless and I
would encourage you to take that by the
horns and run with it and I think
coupled with resident Talent that's an
extremely powerful idea and what can you
do with
it loving loving the wild Peter guys the
wild Peter guys are here right where are
they yay there you are loving them
loving them brilliant um great example
then going to be talking later about
Reinventing is it the
schwam sorry if I said that wrong I
probably did um inventing fantastically
Reinventing an iconic piece of food um
so you know you guys have spent years
learning from the world's best now how
do you turn that knowledge into a made
in Dubai sense rather than an imported
into Dubai so I think locally grown and
again people in this room being very
powerful for that um so could you guys
my final last slides before James James
comes and does Julia Roberts at the
Oscars and kicks me off stage for
overstaying my speech um could you guys
become the Catalyst for linking dreaming
and being so are you the do between
dream and
be um you know I think as designers it
may be worth exploring sort of how you
can coales everybody you know the
politicians oh is that IDE talking to
Obama how self publicizing of me I would
never dream of doing that um yeah we've
been talking to the abar administration
about helping them understand you know
how to innovate so I think again this
process is not just poit notes this
process is how the future is starting to
occur again and
again and of course I would urge people
in local communities I think this is a
time we're local and that's why I'm so
excited to be here I came here
deliberately for that reason because I
thought it was time to drop the the sort
of Ted level of thought leadership into
local communities because I think this
is where it's going to start to really
kind of Hit the road so it's very
exciting to me that these guys invited
me because I think bringing this kind of
thing into local communities is the next
iteration of this kind of
work so I would suggest that you go out
there and Co create and prototype
cardboard futures for yourselves this is
one of our designers making I think a
camper van out of cardboard at some
point um and as you can see that's kind
of core to what we do um and as design
is increasingly becoming a tool for
social change it's this idea of going
very very big and then manifesting it
locally that is going to really I think
be about the
future so that's kind of it I hope my
arabic speaking friends are going to cut
me some slack here and that I didn't say
anything too Blasphemous or offensive um
and I hope that this was helpful I I
want this to be useful I'm really
interested in the idea of action coming
out of this not just it wasn't that cool
but here's what I'm going to do about it
so I'm going to encourage you there's
brainstorming stuff going on outside I'm
encouraging you to participate in that
conversation on your way to lunch just
throw a post in it and we're going to
capture all of those and then we're
going to feed them back to this crowd
and we're going to continue this
conversation on Facebook so last couple
of slides if you take nothing from this
take this be fundamentally collaborative
across all various strata and discipline
and races think prototype and make this
a local
conversation and keep being brave
because that's what it's all about here
I think now get there on
design thank
you
fantastic fantastic thank you thank you
very much thank you
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