Episode 7 | On Systems and Layers | Interview with John V Willshire

In this episode we will delve into the interesting world of System Design, and we’ll do it with an incredible thinker like John Willshire, founder of Smithery and Professor of Innovation and Future Thinking at the Design School IED in Barcelona.

Interestingly it seems that to work in System Design, you need to be an anti-disciplinarian, as suggested by Gianni Giacomelli in the last podcast episode, and John is clearly so, since our conversation spans from technology to poetry.

We will start talking about how looking at information as light can provide a different perspective on how to approach data problems, and we’ll soon move into describing the new design framework named Zenko mapping.

Besides finding out what Zenko are in Japanese Folklore, we’ll look into Stewart Brand’s great ideas of the buildings shearing layers and the social pace layers and how they can be combined to map new products and services journeys.

We will also look into how Nassim Taleb’s antifragility framework can act as a reference system to explore sustainability and regenerations, and how these 2 concepts albeit similar can lead to completely different journeys.

Finally John will tell us how Bergson and Long term thinking can make us better leaders.

Links:

Smithery’s website - https://smithery.com/

Information as light blog - https://smithery.com/2020/12/10/think-of-information-as-light-not-liquid/

Zenko Mapping video - https://smithery.com/2021/02/27/zenko-mapping-inception-and-pace-layers-wiad2021

Regenerative design blog - https://smithery.com/2023/06/06/exploring-regenerative-triangulation/

Stewart Brand - How Buildings Learn

Stewart Brand - The Clock of the Long Now

Richard Sennet - The Craftsman

Richard Sennet - Together

Richard Sennet - Buildings and Dwellings

Eric Raymond - The Cathedral and The Bazaar