Page 222 - Design meets Business:An Ethnographic Study of the Changing Work and Occupations of Creatives

210 Design Meets Business
Here, a designer interestingly makes a distinction between the design process and the “politics, clients and other social stuff”. She explains that designers can be so caught up in the process of creating that they forget or ignore all other things, even when these concern requests of clients. Chapter 2 suggests that ignoring client requests can also serve another purpose. Namely, it can help designers to maintain control over the increa- singly ambiguous design processes in which multiple stakeholders are involved (see Chapter 2). Also, holding on to their own way of working can be a response to the pressures of moving into the business domain and in particular that “normal consultants”. Moreover, regardless of the desig- ners’ motivations to hold onto their own routines, the dissertation highli- ghts that collaborations between business professionals can be challenging because the work approaches of creatives and business professionals might prove inconsumable and in particular, creatives might come across as dogmatic and inflexible. Hence, for business, it could be relevant to better understand the designerly attitude and culture, for example as explained by the business designer or in the work of Boland and Collopy (2004) or Michlewski (2016).
The complexity of measuring the value of transformative creative projects. This dissertation research also shows that the value of creative work can remain elusive, difficult to grasp. Estimating the worth of crea- tive work is genuinely difficult, as its value is a matter of personal taste rather than standardization ( Jones et al. 2015). For business, measuring the value of creative work can be even more difficult in contexts in which the outcome of creative work is intangible (Chapter 2) and targeted at achie- ving transformative experiences (Chapter 3). Especially during my research at Waag Society, clients suggested that they considered it complicated to measure the value of their collaborations. They said that the impact of projects often remained vague until months after their collaboration. An explanation can be that the outcome of liminality is a transformation, rather than receiving read-made solutions. For example, clients said that they changed their personal networks, enhanced their knowledge of tech- nologies and boosted their creative confidence. Yet, without having the option to follow what occurred after projects finished, it remains a ques- tion what are the long terms effects of creative projects that are oriented at facilitating liminality. So, this dissertation research highlights that for business the value of creative work can be hard to estimate, especially when collaborating with creatives who offer creativity as a service.
Developing a negative capability. Finally, recognizing that creative projects are increasingly focused on achieving transformation, this disser- tation research suggests that for organizations it is important to develop