Amory Lovins, CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute delivered the keynote speech at the UO's Sustainable Business symposium last night. While his theme was Natural Capitalism, I most most inspired by his design philosophy. Design is not about compromise: compromise is often people convincing themselves they can't have what they want. Good design leads to everyone getting what they want.
The best design takes a whole system into consideration, rather than competing components. "Optimizing parts individually often ends up 'pessimizing' the whole: integration and synergy are lost; complexity, oversizing, and inefficiency result. What's lacking is a sense of the big picture, the whole system" (and he's talking about automobile design). Whole system design can be applied to farming, skyscraper development, even government. Rather than viewing local government as a mob of discrete agencies vying for limited funds, consider solutions that benefit multiple groups for one cost.
Dare I suggest that web advertising could be approached in such a way, as well? A thoughtful, integrated approach that treats web content, consumers, advertisers, and aesthetic sensibilities together as a whole, rather than tacking an ostentatious banner atop an unrelated page? Something to ponder.
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