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communication
Martin Buber on Education
"The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda...The tempo of propaganda is feverish, nervous. It is the pace of television and radio.... Whereas education goes at a slow pace. It is the pace of teachers talking with their students. It is the pace of a man reading by himself in a room. It cannot be hurried or speeded up and remain education."
I've posted this excellent thought on my blog at fraterdeus.com
It seems an appropriate reminder of the challenges for designers: to remain committed to education rather than propaganda. It is exceedingly difficult to be a professional symbolic worker without participating in propaganda, whether political or economic.
How can we begin to exercise our powers of understanding and presentation in favor of education, that is, as Buber said: Education means teaching people to see the reality around them, to understand it for themselves.
Perhaps Edward Tufte is in this camp. His work on decoding visual presentation provides perceptive and analytical tools which allow the viewer to uncover hidden distortions and agendas in the "propaganda" of the statistician, the advertiser, the economist, the politician.
Free Range IT
"There are enormous divides between IT engineering and the 'creative' Communications and Marketing cultures. Prior to the web, these cultures rarely interacted. Today, they are constantly struggling to bridge the gaps." - Peter Fraterdeus, Free Range IT
Creative staff on the marketing team have an update for the corporate web site.
A new campaign is planned with significant online components, interactive web surveys, and media.
They turn to the IT staff to implement server and software improvements, only to be told that their projects are on the backburner due to other IT priorities.
There's a clear need for IT departments to conform to the 21st century realities of the network as a corporate strategic asset which has far less to do with internal resources than with responding with agility to the demands of a consumer driven marketplace.
How have designers learned to deal with the cultural clashes within organizations?
Have you found it's easier dealing with third-party IT suppliers?
Without their own corporate turf to defend, out-sourced hosting and development houses have much stronger incentive to include designers and communication planners in their management teams.
What are your experiences?
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