 In this episode, you're going to learn how, and most of all, why you need to be designing for seven generations to come. This is going to be a great one. Let the show begin. Hi, I'm BC Williams. Welcome to the Service Design Show. Hi, my name is Mark Fontijn, and welcome back to the Service Design Show. On this show, we explore what's beneath the surface of service design, what are those hidden and invisible things that make a difference between success and failure, all to help you design great services that have a positive impact on people, business, and planet. Our guest in this episode is their brilliant, BC Williams. Amongst many things, she's the co-founder of the Massive Change Network and co-host of the Health 2049 podcast. The reason I'm excited to have BC on the show today is that we're going to talk about why we as a design community have a responsibility to think and act bigger. Often, it's hard to get our clients, and yes, even ourselves, to look beyond the scope of a single project. But as you'll hear in the colorful stories BC shares, their work is really in their name, Massive Change. It doesn't spend the lifetime of a project, it spends the lifetime of generations. We discuss what it takes to get your clients to embark on this journey with you. We talk about two key concepts of heritage and legacy and how you can use these to design a better world and how designing for generations to come differs from our current approach. If you stick around till the end, you'll also learn how to make these bold ambitions actionable today because there's no denying that there are urgent challenges that quickly need to be addressed in our society. If you enjoy conversations like this and would like to see more, make sure you subscribe to the channel and click that bell icon because we bring a new video every week or so here on this channel. So now it's time to sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation with Bissie Williams. Welcome to the show, Bissie. Thanks, Mark, for having me. I'm delighted to be here. I'm excited to have you on. It was a long time going to get you on the show, but I'm happy that you're here. It's super important and interesting stuff that we'll be talking about. That's the thing I always say with every guest so I can imagine people listening to this. I like Mark, you always said it, but it's true. I'm really excited for the episode today. But before we dive in, Bissie, for the people who haven't looked you up on LinkedIn or Google yet, could you give a brief introduction what you do these days? Absolutely. So thank you so much for this opportunity, Mark. Well, I am Bissie Williams and I'm the co-founder of MasterChange Network and I am also the chief insights and analytics officer for our company. So I'm the data wonk, but I also love, love, love design, but information, stories, et cetera. And what I do is I really bridge kind of the two worlds, the design world and the humanities world and really focused on the social-emotional effects of change and that's in our name. It's in our strategy, Massive Change and Network. And so that's what I do, really interested in how people can absorb change, embrace change and also just giving them those tools to be able to get control of their business, their life, their work or what have you. So that's what I do and that's what I love. And that's one of those questions like, what do you do when you ask that to somebody who's remotely in a design space? Like it's hard to summarize that in one sentence, which I'm happy about. If I'm not mistaken, you also run a podcast, is that correct? I do and that's another research project. Thanks, thank you for that, Marc. Yeah, it's called Health 2049 and it's really about the future of health and wellness and that show came about when we were actually asked if design could play a role in healthcare transformation. And I thought, hmm, let me see. So in typical fashion, we started a research project and recognized that actually while there's a tremendous amount of design in the hospital and wellness phase, it's kind of like a design free zone. And what I started to look at was that, well, there are four areas where design could really play a role in terms of space, right? People, process and technology. And if you marry that with data, right? Population health, et cetera, which is my co-host, Jason Helgerson's remit that we actually thought we could do that and sort of change perception. And then second was we realized that the problems of healthcare transformation, medicine, medical redesign, it's very, very complicated. And so how some people go, I don't know how much is a billion dollars I can't see it. You think about a trillion dollar enterprise. People really bury their heads in the sand because it's so huge. So we decided to do an exercise in world building. And when you future cast and future forecast, you have the ability to dream and therefore you don't get stuck in the day to day and that it allows you to actually open up your heart, your mind to think about how you could deliver medical and related services differently. So it's been really a lot of fun and really inspiring and surprising on many fronts in terms of how people look at health and wellness. And I love that you mentioned and frame it as a research project. I think that's a great way to think about these conversations. Like you learn every day, like every conversation brings a new perspective, brings something to light, creates, like my goal with these conversations is to find better questions. I'm not looking for better answers. Like if they come up, that's great. But if we find better questions, that's really where the value is. I'm 100% with you. I mean, in fact, I'm always like, design is always like a quest for a better question, right? And it's about curiosity. So, you know, for us, for our practice, like that's how we learn. We learn by listening. We learn by asking questions. We learn by asking even more questions. And also, it's like, that's how the world works, right? And we're not an, I'm not an expert in anything. But I am a great student of everything. And if I have the opportunity to learn, then I can actually be a better service. Cool. So we're already, I don't know how many minutes in, but I still have a few questions for you in our rapid fire question round. So I have five questions for you to get to know you, even a little bit more better. Your task is to answer them as briefly and as quickly as possible. So are you ready? I didn't study for this, Mark. Well, that's the whole point. Are you ready? Ready. All right. So my first question is, what's always in your fridge? Yogurt. If you had to recommend one book, which one would it be? The Sun Also Rises. What was your first job? My first, so the first job that I volunteered are the first job where I actually got paid money. Let's go for paid money. Okay. So my first job where I was paid money, real money was a publishing house, scholarly book services. All right. Here's an interesting- I'm babysitting. Okay, babysitting. Babysitting. Yeah. Well, we'll count that. We'll add that one to the list as well. Here's an interesting one. If you could be an animal, which animal would you like to be? A horse. A horse. Yeah. Okay. 100%. That was a confident answer. And the final question is, do you recall when you first got in touch with service design? Gosh, about three years ago. And three years ago, and it kind of blew my mind because I was making things up about, you know, what we could do in the realm of healthcare and so on. And then a very good friend said, Beast, that's called service design. And I was like, oh, hey, very cool. You know, and thinking, huh, when I was growing up, I wondered if I'd known about that. I might have been a service designer, but I hadn't heard of it before. And so I'm obsessed now. Welcome to the community, I would say, although it's three years ago, but I think this resembles the journey of many people in this space who stumble upon it somewhere somehow and then they enter the rabbit hole and they never make it out. Thank you for these answers and giving us a little bit better insight into who you are and knowing that you would like to be a horse. That's awesome. Well, tell me, what's your spirit animal? My spirit animal, that's a great question. And when I was writing this question down, I was thinking like, what would I want to be? And I don't know, probably a cat or something like that. Like if I look at the two cats we have over here, then they seem to have a pretty decent life. I'll go for a cat in this episode. Maybe I'll come up with a different one in the next one. Sounds fair. Let's transition into the topic of today. I read your notes and I had to summarize it down for myself. Like what is the topic of today? What I have here in my notes is Designing for Seven Generations. That's what I took out of your notes. Could you say something about that? Like, that sounds pretty huge. Well, you know what? As you're amazing, Mark, I'm so excited that you got that distillation for Design for Seven Generations because that's exactly it. When I decided to partner with my husband in life and partner in business, Bruce Mao, about 12 years ago, we really looked at Massive Change Network as a new way of design, of a new way about thinking about our world. And with the idea that everything is designed, we need to design everything. We also needed to be mindful, but also recognizing that, you know, the world's a very complex place, that environmental concerns, racial concerns, you know, you think about all of these things and I also have three children. So that makes me a bit of, it makes us a bit of an overbreeder. And so I also wanted to make sure that the impact that I have on the planet, that I pay it forward. And so when I think about Massive Change Network and the work that we do and the tools that we build, you really see it as a platform, not the solution, but a platform, a number of one of a number of many, let's just say, to sort of pave the way for people to think about how they can design their better future and how we can actually think about those seven generations because I look at my children and children's children. And I'd love for them to have the bounty and beauty and the experiences that I've had. And I'd love for them too, to be able to drink from the lake, swim in the water, you know, do those kinds of things which are really important and, you know, bring a lot of joy. So that's why. So I'm happy that you sort of acknowledge that this was the gist of the story. And basically the first question that came to my mind here was like, you probably don't wake up one day and then suddenly you realize that this is your mission and purpose and life. Like, I'm curious, how did you get here? Like, what's the story? You know, that's a very good question, Mark. And I love that question. It started, I've always been interested in how the world worked. I've always been interested in justice and fairness. I've always been interested in beauty and I've always been interested in doing things that have a positive impact. And I just sort of did these things. And then when I met my husband, he was a designer and I was interested in design, but like big D design. So at that, you know, fashion, cars, houses, architecture. But he started to explain to me that like everything was designed. So if I looked at a form, if I looked at, you know, building, if I looked at, you name it, like, you know, a bottle, he would explain that, you know, that was made by designer. And so it started to turn in my mind and I realized, well, like if everybody else could understand, like it's not like people in the humanities are not right. They're super smart, but there's a methodology and there's a way of thinking and design and for people who build and make things very, very different from the Cartesian model of the humanities. So I became obsessed. And then it was like, you know, oh, you've got a problem, call a designer. You got a problem, call a designer. Any volunteer organization I was working with at the time, even if you should get a designer, even though I was working in the book industry, you know, I didn't realize how much design was in that space. And then I thought, oh, wow, wow, this is really fascinating. And I can see that this could be a tool to really help people make their lives better, make their work work better, make the world better. And then I saw people using design in a less formal sense. So I would say that I was always design adjacent but didn't understand the disciplines. And then that's what sort of made me on this crusade thinking, okay, like I know there are tons of disciplines if we could bridge the divide so that people could understand that, you know, yes, you're designing and doing things, you're thinking about things, but there are people in the world who have expertise who can make it better, more beautiful, you know, more abundant, probably smarter than the layperson. So with that, it got me thinking, well, design, if I wanna make this organization better, if I wanna make my life better, if I wanna make anything better, I started thinking design is the way to go and then how I could do it with my set of skills, you know, so with journalism and research and information and data that I realized that I can use those things to tell stories and that's part of the design process. And so here we are, we kind of married that together. Yeah, sharing stories, beautiful. Thanks, really good to know and sort of grounds the conversation that's going to follow. Now, again, I was thinking, okay, designing for seven generations, that's big and we'll dive into some practical examples because you have some interesting stories and examples, how and what it actually means to do that. But before we do that, I'm curious, like how would you describe the current state of the design community? And I'm obviously asking for your perspective, like this is your take on it. And the reason I'm asking this is we're having this conversation about designing for seven generations, apparently we're not doing that yet or not yet enough. So how would you describe the current state of the design community, the design practice? You know, so by the way, and I say this with the greatest love and again, thanks for this forum because, you know, generally I really kind of shake my husband a lot. You know, when I see like bad design or I'm like, why would you do that? Why are they doing that? So the question I always ask is why? Why, why, why is it like this? And the more that I learned, I think that designers are the key to helping solving the greatest challenges on the planet right now and why is that? I feel that designers don't use their full set of skills, you know? And I'm on a really on a mission to change that. I feel like the current state of design, from my perspective, yes, it's great to be professional, but I feel that, you know, you need permission to color outside the lines a little bit. And so I find that very rigid. And so when you stay within your lane specifically, I feel that it constricts you a little bit in terms of the problems that you need to solve. And then I think it makes designers think about a single solitary beautiful object. And when you think about a single solitary beautiful object or program or thing, that's great, but it also has unintended consequences and the knock on effects. And so when you think, this is my opportunity to make this one beautiful thing and you hope that it lasts forever and it doesn't, it's relegated to the trash heap. Or if it's broken, you know, it doesn't biodegrade or it has some toxic materials in it. And so when I think about that, I know that designers know where the raw material comes from, how long it'll last, if it will or will not biodegrade, you know, they'll understand the full life cycle of that material and that object. And it's not like I don't want beautiful things. I love beautiful things, but I also would like it to last. So my problem right now is that we make this thing and it has this beauty, utility and delight, but we don't think about what we're pulling out of the earth and our environment to make it. And then it goes into the rubbish and it doesn't biodegrade. And it kind of breaks my heart a lot actually when I have to pitch out a stove, a fridge, a microwave, like think about it. So that's my problem. And the same goes for our built environment, you know? So we know better, it goes right back to Vitruvius and I know we can do better. And so I'm thinking maybe we need to be a little more holistic, think a little broader about, instead of the discrete object, which are lovely, but what can we do for scale? I mean, we're eight billion people, right? You're mentioning objects and sort of the sustainability and making sure that we still have natural resources in a few decades, but I'm confident you also mean like, it's not just a physical object, it's also the relationships we build. I'm thinking about the influence designers had on the social networks, the online social networks and like what the consequences are of those today, how they have eroded neighborhoods, how they have eroded friendships. And I guess that's also part of your mission. Is it? Question mark? Well, I think when we, as a designer, right, we need to think about more than just the thing, right? So those, these tools like our phones, you know, social media, Zoom, these are amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing tools and things of human ingenuity, right? I know I love that. But one of the things we need to think about is, well, what does that mean for your behavioral health? What does that mean for your physical health? What does that mean, you know, for our social networks? And you're right, I think designers could play a role in that too. I think, you know, when we go to autonomous vehicles, like that in itself is a great thing, but what does it mean for young people? Like how are you gonna get that meat cute? How are you gonna like bump into that, you know, cute boy or girl or whatever and start up a relationship? How do you actually act somebody out? How do you have reciprocity with not only humans, but you know, the plants and animals? And so I think when you think about that, I do think about that. And not that I'm like going back to the caveman days, like I love all these beautiful things, but it's more like, you know, can we keep the humanity? Can we design for relationships? Can we design and think about, we don't have to get everything, but this is where multiple intelligences come in, Mark. So like bring in not only just the designer, but the sociologist, the psychologist, the behaviorist, right, the, et cetera, et cetera, to look at what we're creating and does it have the desired effects? And what are the potential effects, short-term and long-term? And yeah, that's something that is challenging. I would love to dive into some examples because again, I'm going back to that phrase, designing for seven generations that seems so intangible, so huge. Like I know you have a story from a project you did in Saudi Arabia. Could you sort of take us through that and visualize, illustrate what that looks like? Right, so, you know, and thanks for asking about that project. So it was, it's Mecca, the Holy city of Mecca. And it is the holy site for Muslims where they could go to be safe and where they go to pray. And if you're a Muslim, you're not allowed there. And it was built, you know, thousands of years ago. And recently they called and they were having deaths and accidents from the ritual of moving around the space. And it had to do with, you know, over modern times you have huge buses and now we have huge populations. And so we have millions of people who are going through a space that was really designed for a few thousand. Even though they had a master plan, but you know, you can imagine a very ancient city that now has cars and buses and humans trying to make this round. And so people were getting killed. Well, it turns out that a holy site is actually also a design site. It's an urban design that you need to solve. And so when the governing bodies came and said, we need to do a master plan, they initially thought it should be for 20 years. And we thought, oh, you know, a 20 year master plan to design the transportation around the holy city, it seems reasonable. But as we were delving into our research and being curious, we're like, well, Mecca's been around for thousands of years. It's gonna be around for thousands more. And so respectfully, we said, you know, we'd like to change the brief a little bit. And they're like, well, what's the matter with the brief? And we said, well, the brief is fine. However, you know, if you design for the next 20 years we're gonna design solutions for how the world is today. And if we do that, we're gonna design it around the car. And, you know, we think the car is maybe 10 or 15 years out, Max, there's going to be something else. So could we imagine designing a platform? Could we imagine opening up the space and creating a zone of respect that would allow for any new invention and any new flourishing to happen down the road? And they agreed. So as a design, we sort of opened up the space and created the seven zones of respect. Made it a win-win for people to develop new buildings and hotels. And so that people could actually approach the city with the awe and wonder of the first time when you come to the Holy City, it becomes visible again. So that you remember your first time. So that's an example of designing for seven generations of leaving space for possibility and surprise and delight. Now, I have so many questions about this, but maybe one of the first would be if you're familiar with the quote-unquote existing design process, how would you, like, what's the biggest difference how you approach these types of briefs compared to maybe how they are approached in a quote-unquote traditional way? You know, I think that authenticity, culture and place are really important. I think when we look at it, we really try and understand like, what is it that you want? And what are you trying to do? And like, what do you really want? Like your hearts, your deep hearts desire, the things that you wouldn't say out loud necessarily, but we need to actually hold that and protect that and, you know, really put a guardrail around it, but then start to imagine if you want to get to the majesty and the beauty of the idea, then let's just take a step and let's just look at it historically. Let's see where you are, where you were, where you are today. And the practice that we have is there's no shame in blame. Like most of the problems we have, I want to say, Mark, those are success problems. We figure things out. That's what we do. It's human ingenuity. You know, you build with this, et cetera, ta-ta-ta-ta-ta. But for now, we can start to see for the first time, right? There's the fourth industrial revolution. We can see how the energy is changing and it's right in front of our eyes. And so if you start looking at it comprehensively, we start to think, okay, well, we understand the challenges of materials. We understand the challenges of time, but how do we get beauty and delight for longevity by designing it smart and beautifully and sexy? So we have to make different choices, longer-term choices, right? We don't necessarily, I mean, as much as you'd like to build it off or make things, we would sort of say, actually, you know what? The best design decision right now? Don't touch it. Don't do anything. Leave room. Give it time. And it's hard. And imagine the story that you want to tell. So in this instance, it's like, it was a tragedy that people were getting harmed but we redesigned it for safety and then we redesigned it so that another generation can imagine how they're gonna use that space. So we share the dream with our clients. And like, what do you really wanna do? What is the impact that you really wanna have? Are you aware that if you use these materials that, you know, it's not that we preach? We're saying, so here's, let's look at a cooler, more beautiful, a more sustaining way of doing it. And generally, they come along and we have our design principles that we use too. So you have to think about demographics. You have to think about time material. You have to think that you're not separate from nature. You have to design the economy. So when you start looking at it holistically, you then can see where you make the best bets to have the best impact, to make the best product or system or what have you. So we are product agnostic. Very good. Solution agnostic. Yes. Can I answer your question, Mark? Sure, sort of, I guess, I'm not sure. This is a conversation. So there are only better questions. And I definitely paint a picture in my head. But the thing that's sort of left open is, okay, so if you don't design solutions or if your, maybe that's not what you said, but if your solution agnostic and you're designing for a platform, how do you, or do you make it actionable today? Because like you said, people are dying today. So there is a challenge that needs to be addressed and designing for the generations to come isn't going to help prevent these accidents. So how do you translate your ideas and solutions into tomorrow? Actually, and in today. So that's a great question. So one of the things that, you know, this is what's lovely is that we have all these tools available to us. And so one of the things that we did, we worked with Hanema Masani, who's like one of the world's greatest transportation design experts here at Northwestern University. And he has imaging software. So you can actually look at the city and you can see where the pain points are. And that today we could actually design solutions, right? To fix that as we start to redesign and remodel. So we actually always have an action in the solution for today. And when we research, we actually look for collaborators and folks who what's being done today that could actually help alleviate these problems. And what can we do for the future? In this case, if you start to imagine like a further couple of hundred other million people going through the site, we can start to model, you know, what that would look like in the fifth generation, right? Given the population growth, how we would need to design so that folks could move through that city safely, comfortably and respectfully, right? So we do do look for solutions today. We do listen because it's like, there's a tension between what our client thinks they want sometimes. And when we start to ask questions and listen, and maybe what they really want, and that's also the mystery of design language, right? Because it's like, if you're not a trained designer and architect, you sort of use this common language. So I need a building. I need a sign, you know, I need a logo. I need a whatever when they identify a problem, right? And so the job of the designer is to listen. So you know what? Maybe you don't need a building. Maybe you need a movement. Maybe you don't need a movement. Maybe you just need a film, you know? Or, you know, you name it or a sculpture or what have you. And that's what I mean by agnostic because we, if you leave the process open enough at the beginning and you kind of learn like what they do and how they do it and why they do it and when they do it, you start to imagine that, oh, we could translate that. And the key is that almost every problem that any client faces, it's a communication problem. And so what we realize is like, well, tell us what you're doing and then let's figure that out. And then from there, we can design the communication. We can help you articulate what it is that you'd like to do, how you want to do it and why. Does that make sense? Yes, yes, it does. And what I'm getting sort of distilling from the story is of course you need to have solutions for today. But what I'm hearing you say is what you're adding to it is you're enriching it with a sort of heritage and also like a perspective on the future. So you're infusing the solutions of today and like the heritage can be a day, can be a week, can be a month. It can also be a thousand years. You know what, Mark? I think you need to come on our team, but exactly that's it because there's a story. What's the story that you want to tell? What's the legacy that you want to leave behind? How do you want to be remembered in the world for the things that you do? These are the questions that we ask and most people don't say, oh, you know what? Yeah, sign me up for trash in the environment and then add a soup song of, you know, like all the other bad things. They actually don't want that. People are generally very good. They may not understand the unintended consequences. And that's what I'm saying is as designers, we can actually help look at that, you know? So if somebody says, oh, I really want to be carbon neutral, we're like, okay, so let's talk about that. What does that mean for you? Can you do that? Like, don't make bets that you can't pay. So let's talk about it honestly. Like, what do you really want to do and how much of it do you want to do? And that's great. Like, let's get to there. You know, don't bite off more than you chew and don't pose. If you don't want it, please don't ask us to make it. We won't. You won't be happy and we won't be happy. So do what you love and the way that you love. But if you want to do something that's like a little bit like cowboy-ish, then it's like we're not the people for you. There will be others, but we would highly recommend that you might want to look at it a little differently. That's our job. Yeah, yeah. It's great how you, again, how you phrase it, the legacy part. Like for me, it's being between your heritage and your legacy. And then those are super, and then where today. And as a designer, it's a great place to be at, like understanding the heritage and designing your legacy, something like that. I know you have a second story, which I would love to dive in, because that's probably also super inspiring. You did a project with the government of Guatemala. Is that correct? Well, not the government. The citizens of Guatemala. Well, even better. Can you tell us a bit more about that? Absolutely. And this is still one of my favorite projects and my favorite people. I mean, we're still, it's almost, I would say, almost 20 years since we started this project. And we've made amazing friends. And so the story is the minister of education wrote a letter asking if we'd be willing to take on a design project to help the people of Guatemala learn to dream again. And she explained that they had 36 years of civil war and that while they have a democracy that each term, whatever government was in place, would leave. And so she knew that if this was a government initiative that it would be tossed out with the next regime. So she had citizens come together, but it was her role as the minister of education looking at the future of Guatemala and the children that they needed to have their eyes and their hearts open. And she said in her letter, they only know one thing, which is violence, war and conflict. And when we asked them about their future, they just couldn't imagine a future of beauty. And I turned to Bruce and I said, wow, you know what? Like we take dreaming for granted. We take possibility for granted. We take our futures for granted. Let's go and see what we can do. But with the caveat, it's like, this has to be the people of Guatemala's project. We can't come in, like we have all the answers because we don't. But we do have tools. So when we arrived, I mean, they called us, we made a call on a Monday. We were there on a Friday and we didn't know anybody. We jumped on the plane with our kids and then we thought, wow, what if they're, but they're amazing people, but we just landed in the country four days and we started to look around and ask questions. And they were like, we want you to change the name of the country. We're like, no, we want you then to redesign. And we're like, no, no, no, why do you want to change the name of the country we started with? It's like, well, when the Spaniards, the place is called Guatemala and Mala means place and Guatemala means place and Mala means bad. So the Spaniards called it bad place. And he said, so how would you like to wake up the United States of bad place? And we thought, well, okay, you got a point. But when we thought, okay, let's think about it. It's the most beautiful country on the planet. It's evergreen, gorgeous. It's called the land of eternal spring. And yeah, the food's amazing. The colors are amazing. And we thought a member of our team who speaks Spanish just added an A and then it became Guate Amala, the love of Guate and they love that. So then we started to convene. And what we found was that, and this project was profound for our way of thinking was that, yes, there was 36 years of civil war. Yes, the records were difficult to find. You couldn't find who owned what, et cetera. But it turned out that there were hundreds of people who were also working on the piece. Thousands of people who were in their individual lives doing whatever they could. And so, and people who hadn't spoken to each other for decades because of whatever side they were on the war. So naive Canadians that we are, we thought, let's bring everybody together. And they came together, bless them. And so we started to ask questions and we made a safe space. And then they realized that we're working on the same thing. And then we identified 200 organizations within this country that we're working on reconstruction and designing the piece. So we created a movement. We said, let's get together, the Guate Amala movement. We have tools, we've got designers. We will give you everything, ask us everything. We will show you our full arsenal of skills to bring people together to design events, et cetera, which they already had. And that's when we realized the power of optimism, the power of a group of folks, tools, not us doing it, to help them reimagine their future. And the great part of that, sorry, Mark, was that after we'd done that design work with them, the Art Institute of Chicago really loved the work. And so their work for their movement around the love of Guatemala is now part of the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of Chicago, the Art Institute of Chicago. And it's like you have tools using beauty to change difficult situations and be an inspiration for the world. And that just really changed how we designed everything. How would you describe that change? What was the change and how you design? Well, the change is that you really have to be humble. You really have to listen. You realize that people's lives are at stake if you make the wrong design decisions, if you're really arrogant, if you're not careful. So that notion of unintended consequences, you know, it's not that you're withholding, but you have to be deeply respectful of the process, deeply respectful of the people that are there, really understand culturally what is okay and what's not okay and not to make any assumptions about anything and actually a tremendous amount of community consultation, like more than you need, like every voice needs to be heard. So what I find super inspiring in this example and it shows, it speaks to what you mentioned earlier is that the movement is the quote unquote solution and whatever tangible artifact comes out of the movement will be different today, will be different in five years and 10 years, but as long as these relationships are there, these networks are there, as this is facilitated and nurtured as a community, like it will adapt and find solutions to the actual day-to-day challenges. And I hope people realize that something like that, something like a movement is also what these are. Is something you can design and facilitate and quote unquote create as a designer? 100% Mark. And so that's why we look at like, you leave the platform open, like what is the solution? And in this case, what was really amazing, 10 years in, when we were looking at rebuilding civil society and institutions and reinvesting in Guatemala and the young families that had to flee now want to be there and have their children grow up there, there was a very tricky situation where one of the ministers of the country was shot and it was murdered and it was all over the news. And my thought was, oh, you know, this is tricky. The group, they then flew to Chicago and we were just talking about, well, what to do? So normally under those circumstances, there'd be regime change, right? Because it's one side hurt the other. And in this case, the group came up with that note, we're gonna use the Guate, the love of Guate movement. We're gonna have due process of the law. And they filmed a video and saying, I'm ex my name and I'm Guatemalan. And so basically these leaders, community leaders said, you know what, we're not going to allow this to happen. That's the old days. We're gonna use civil process. And so we worked with them to just design the videos and so on. Again, it's organic, it's what's natural to them. And they went back and they did have an investigation and it turned out that what they thought were the facts weren't. And so due process of the law did work and that there were other forces at play. And that was really gratifying that you can actually really use design when people want it to facilitate the behaviors that you'd like in the society that you're rebuilding. A few things that sort of, I wanna highlight, you mentioned 10 years into the project, like that's a scale that most people don't think about or don't get the opportunity to work on, unfortunately. And the other thing you mentioned is like people wanting design, like they have to invite it in, they have to be open to it. Now, the two projects and the two stories we just talked about, I noticed that they are both sort of in the public domain. Do you see examples of commercial organizations also embracing this? Because I feel that it's less common to think in terms of legacy and generations in that space. I, you know, Mark, that's a good question, but you'd be surprised. I think that, I get an example, I can use this Coca-Cola. You know, and again, that's like a 10 years, 15 years. We have long relationships with our clients. So our work is really quite relational rather than transactional. I don't know if that's good for business, but it seems to be good for friendships for us. But it's like, you know, we really, and maybe that's not professional, but we actually need to feel like, you know, we could hang out together if you will. So it's really relational and they go a long time and you have to have a belief in what they're doing. And so the case with Coca-Cola and their sustainability platform, you know, early days, this was a while ago, you know, one of the best advice, the best advice that Bruce had given is like, I know you're interested in sustainability, but don't say anything. Don't announce, don't make it a program. Don't make it a PSA. Just let's quietly figure out the work. And that's, the big learning from that project was the role that design can play in operations. So, and this was very instructional because at the beginning, you know, the Frigerators from Coca-Cola, you know, they have a facing on them and then every seven years they redesign them. And then after 14 years, they need to be recycled and, you know, they've lost their value and their ability to function as a cooler, et cetera. But they know that this is part of the cycle, that, you know, they'll be retrofitted, they'll be redesigned, they'll be reskinned, they'll be reused until they can't be used anymore. And so when we were doing our research, it came to the point where it was like, well, why don't you have your designers involved in this? And they said, well, our designers, they're out of left field, I don't know. Every time we give them this thing, you know, they give us something that's unusable, you know, and it's expensive and, you know, et cetera. And we thought, that's strange because like designers are really good at, you know, working within a budget and they understand like the utility and the life of the thing. So why is that such a problem? And then we realized, oh, you know when you're going to be on-lining and off-lining, you have an actuarial process. So if you brought your designers in at the beginning, at the strategy to say, these have a five-year, these have a seven-year, these have a 15-year lifespan, they would design differently, they would design for the time and material of that object. And we realized Coca-Cola is the smartest, biggest, like the 140-year-old brand if they weren't doing that, everyone else was. So that made us go on a mission to say like, when we work on a project, we really look at either operations or we look at growth or we look at inspiration from the CEO's office. And then from there, we can determine what's our design process. So in that case, Coca-Cola working on recycling, we did a brand new brand for live positively to have the positive aspect of the full cycle of a material. So one thing we recommended is make products at the end, which they did. So you've got like beautiful things from Emaco and headphones. The second is very quiet. I was in a movie theater and the curtains go up, the ad goes up, there's popcorn and there's Coca-Cola and they announced the restoration of all the watersheds. Now, everyone was in the popcorn, I burst into tears because I realized that they're restoring the environment for the water. Another recommendation that we had was like, well, how do we actually empower people in there? Well, they have like $20 million, 20 million women who, five million women who started businesses, right? Who can feed their family, educate their villages, et cetera, build hospitals. So if you start looking at it, there's so much public good when you think about it and you build these relationships around being sustainable. Wow, again, there's so much to unpack there, but so it's encouraging that also commercial businesses are looking into this and thinking beyond the quarterly cycles, although not everybody. And I think you have to get the opportunity and the trust and like you said, relationships are definitely key there to, yeah, to let businesses be informed by designers who think beyond the thing that's right in front of them. Sort of steering towards the end of our conversation, there are still a few questions left, which I'm really curious about. One of them is if you take this into account and that it is possible and you're demonstrating that it's possible, what would you say? What does this require from the existing design community to be able to accelerate this and adopt this quicker, faster? You know, it's a two-way street and I feel that there's a translation that needs to happen and I think that's, and I think more and more firms are starting to realize that. So there are things, and my husband's like a great designer, there are things that designers do and know and understand that are just a given as part of your toolkit. It's invisible to you, but it's mysterious to the rest of us. And so by taking a step back and it is weird but you need to actually unpack everything that you've learned and start with Design 101 when you're meeting a new client or corporation and so on and explain like how, one, how you can be of service and two, what I've learned is not to point out how bad everything is. So you just sort of like go, okay, so no judgment. So you have to learn to like not judge and there's no shame and blame. So it's like, okay, well, here's the situation and here's where we are right now. So gently through research, through talking, have a conversation about what you can do and the beautiful thing that designers have is you have the ability to show the future. And that's really what your clients want. They actually wanna understand where they are today and how they can get clarity and where they can be in the future so that they can be secure, whether it's a mom and pop shop or a corporation. And the skill that I would offer that is magic for whatever your projects you're working on as designers is if you can show the presence and systematically get there, even if you don't know the answer but you have some of those steps, it's enormously helpful to the rest of the world. You'd have the most genius person on the planet but designers work at the intersection of art, science and technology. And when you put the three of those together, right? That's, you know, our friend Julio, Tina calls it nexus and that's where design works, it's synthesis. So if you don't have something that scientifically sounds, it's not gonna work. If it's beautiful, if it's not beautiful, you can't persuade anyone to do it. And if you're not using the best tools to actually deliver, it's going to fail. So with that, that knowledge that you have, you have the ability to unpack what the client needs and wants and the ability to repack what it is that they would like and what they'd like to use for their future. So I would offer just take a step back and you don't have to overstep or prove anything but it's just like, there's so many solutions to what they need and you just may gently offer and then you can show them, you can give it to them and 2D, 3D, digital, whatever, they'll go, oh, aha. And that's how you build trust so that they can see, you make the invisible visible. Again, there are so many things I'm taking and learning from this conversation and the sense-making part is definitely part of the design as we know it and using our tools and methods to uncover that, show it, like make it really tangible and then also repackaging it or reforming it or reframing it into a better future. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm curious like you're on a journey, this is going to continue for a lot more years hopefully but if you look back to your last five years, what's the thing you wish you would have known five years ago? That everything strangely, this is gonna sounds very weird but even the worst situation is gonna be okay. Like it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. Like if it's just mistakes, they happen and guess what, they can be remedied. And even if you think something is catastrophic, even if you can see something catastrophic happening, it's right before your very eyes and it happens, it happens. But there's a solution for that. And so I would say everyone, yes, we should be diligent and concerned but don't be scared and don't panic. There is a way out and generally it involves design and you have the full skills and faculty to just take a step back. I would offer widen the brief, really look at it holistically but there are solutions right there at hand and you have them within you and I think just being compassionate and kind for the situation and for the people and realize that for the most part it doesn't come from a place of malfeasance and that, you know what, like there are solutions and you can be part of that. So that's, I think the big learning from five years ago. And something related to this and that sort of reflects on this episode is if somebody has made it all the way to this part of the episode, what is the one thing you hope they at least take away from it? Man, you have the power to change your life and your world. It's all within you. You have the tools and the skill set and the mindset. So I say be brave and be kind. Go for it. Be brave, be kind and go for it. Basically awesome. For if people are interested in following your work, what's the best way to do that? Yeah, massivechangenetwork.com. We're here and everywhere. We're here and everywhere. I'll make sure to add all the relevant links in the show notes, also to your podcast, also to all the other relevant social media profiles. Bisi, thanks so much for coming on, sharing a few of your stories. We could have talked about them for many hours to come. Super inspiring work, what you're doing. Thank you and keep on doing it. Mark, thank you so much. It's just been my greatest pleasure to speak with you and your audience, designers of the world. Let's have a party and let's do it. Thank you. Thank you. Awesome that you made it all the way till the end of this conversation. I really hope that you enjoyed it and found it inspiring. If you did, make sure to leave a short comment down below and if you'd like to see more, make sure to click that subscribe button so you'll be notified when new conversations come out. Thanks so much for watching and I'll catch you very soon in the next video.