Questions for John Maeda
July 24, 2009 at 9:00 am
by ChrisI first encountered John Maeda during my third year as a student at the Rhode Island School of Design. I was fascinated by his work, which merged the elegance of design with the immediacy and power of new technology. Since then, his way of communicating rich ideas with simple statements has influenced my thinking and the way I communicate. As you might imagine, I was thrilled to learn that he had been elected as RISD's president in 2008 (though maybe a little jealous of my fellow alumni-to-be). After connecting with him on Twitter and exchanging a few messages back and forth, he graciously agreed to answer a few of my questions...
"Electrons move at the speed of light, [people] don't." -J.M.
I recently read "What Leaders Really Do," by John Kotter, who makes a point to distinguish leadership from management by defining leadership as coping with change and management as coping with complexity. Does that distinction ring true for you?
I'm not sure. I would say instead that sometimes we need a leader more, sometimes we need a manager more. Being both at the same time is not a normal behavior, but desirable nonetheless.
Well, your unanimous election to lead RISD as its President was somewhat controversial among the student body, but your first move was to set up a blog to communicate your vision for RISD and address concerns that you anticipated would be on their minds. In your early posts, you described achieving your vision as an "open-source design problem." Would you elaborate on that and tell us how it's going so far?
It's been a challenge. I've documented a lot of that work on the Harvard Business Review blog. Visit google "hbr Maeda" for the elaboration.
How does social media humanize technology?
It let's you connect with more humans. Not more computers, as was the earlier goal of computing.
What does authenticity mean to you, and how does a large organization like RISD operate authentically?
There's that great book on "Authenticity" by those 2 guys- I can't remember their names. It basically says that you can't try to be authentic, because if you do, you aren't. So it appears that being authentic means doing nothing. Maybe that's it -- it is the *appearance* of doing nothing. Let's leave it at that.
RISD can't help but be authentic as it has been around since 1877. It's as real as an art school can get.
I think you mean Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want, by James Gilmore and Joseph Pine... What do you think are some of the more radical ways in which technology has changed the college experience today compared to when you were a student?
Access to people has changed. You could never see or visit a professor at Harvard, Stanford, or RISD without an appointment, etc. Now you can follow their Twitter feed and sometimes they respond.
What fascinates you about the web? What would you change about it?
The speed of change. The speed of change.
And for a wild-card question, if the world's technological and economic systems were to collapse and revert society to locally-focused, agrarian communities, what role would you assume?
Water seeker.
Ok, I went to RISD, so don't get me wrong, I'm not anti. But an institution is not authentic simply because it has been around for a long time (132 years). Authenticity is so much more than just standing the test of time- it's what it does with that time, and what it becomes throughout it. After all, RISD started as a women's textile school and has become something very different.
I love John Maeda he's so cute. How did you manage to find a picture of him scarfless?
@Alex, Good point, authenticity is not derived from endurance alone. However, I would say that a school would have to have some level of authenticity in order to survive for such a length of time, especially having gone through so many changes. As you said, starting as a women's textile school and becoming an interdisciplinary graduate and undergraduate art and design school while maintaining a strong reputation for excellence is difficult! One thing that I think vouches for RISD's authenticity is its willingness to try new things to facilitate growth. It's partnerships with other schools, including Brown, MIT and Sloan (for example), the center for design and business (now called Media and Partners, and of course hiring Maeda, come to mind.
Incidentally, what was your major? When did you graduate?
@Jenny, indeed, he pulls off the men's fashion scarf quite well.
Chris,
Great to see Pres. Maeda appreciated, and great to see an alum doing such interesting things out in the world!
As someone with experience as an instructor, I'm not sure that the level of access John notes is completely positive. One detrimental effect is the increase in entitlement among students, or a sense that they should have much more individual attention than ever before. This could be a result of other factors, too, such as the overall increase in me-centric technology or even the increase in tuition and college expenses. While I accept the limitations of anecdotal claims, it has been my experience that students are more demanding and generally assume that their performance far exceeds the average.
Very cool. You definitely can't try to be authentic. You either are or you aren't.
@Beth, thanks for reading! It was my honor to speak with Pres. Maeda.
@Anonymous, You raise a good point, one that probably merits a much larger discussion than any comment can hold. But, I wonder about that, too. I have friends who are teaching high school level classes now who are often shocked at the difference in how things work in schools today compared to when they were students. One particular shock that they've mentioned is the inability to control use of cellphones/smart phones in class. There is difficulty in establishing and enforcing rules, and confiscation seems off the table. Yet, with an iPhone, all kinds of issues come up: cheating using web resources, texting between students in class, etc. It does seem as if new technologies are having a profound effect on the education experience.
@AJ, agreeed.
My rambling thoughts on the various threads:
Authenticity is in the eye of the beholder. When that view is shared by many and over time with respect to an institution, the endurance of the institution does equate to its authenticity even though common perception of what it means to be authentic can change over and at any any time. That is where leadership comes in. Leadership is intuitive and it comes to the fore when there is common consensus about one individual's intuitive abilities. Good management is the effective implementation of that intuition. RISD's enduring perception as authentic must be due, overall, to consistently successful leadership and the effective management of it. The hard part is developing a process for recognizing and choosing leadership. Communicative technology, if nothing else, has maximized the ability to seek consensus. No doubt this is why repressive regimes fear and/or want to control such technologies. Expanding communication and access to it, for both those actively engaged in it and those passively observing, is a good thing and the corollary problem of too much access seems a small price to pay. To the anonymous instructor I say: Your door should always be open as the art is to teach students to walk through it judiciously or not to need to at all. Those too dependent have always, in the end, been enabled, those whose hands need constant holding, invariably taught to be so.
George,Right on- there's definitely a happy medium between no access and too much access. This brings to mind the controversy that was brought on by people who used Twitter to coordinate opposition to government leadership in Iran after the last "election" there. Something like Twitter--a very widespread network--is pretty hard to control, which, when it comes to human freedom, is probably a good thing.Chris