The Big Rethink: Day Two
After a first day of bombardment with ten-minute pitches and the ensuing inevitable debate over post-conference drinks, chair Vijay Vaitheeswaran had an interesting challenge to set the context for the second day’s conversation. The dispute over wine and nibbles had been about how far design really can offer the solutions business leaders are ‘casting about’ for. Vijay’s balanced answer, with his broad view as a long-term correspondent on the Economist, was that perhaps if designers can offer some fresher thinking than traditional business consultancy services, that’s no bad thing.
As a lover of the Graduate, I liked his an analogy with the famous advice ‘I’ve got one word for you Benjamin: Plastics!’, suggesting perhaps now the old guard will be dictating to the young graduates ‘design!’
