David Koren

Why Can't Organizations Innovate?

I've been thinking for a while about the problem of innovation in organizations. Billions of dollars have been spent by leading organizations of all kinds (corporate, not-for-profit, governmental) to try to help them solve problems better, innovate faster, come up with new ideas, etc. And, after all those dollars have been spent, and millions of executives have attended innovation and "design thinking" classes, I think it's patently obvious that organizations, are no more innovative, on the whole, than they were fifty years ago. 

So, why is that? What is it about organizations that makes them unable (or at least makes it very difficult) to come up with new ideas and be innovative?

Of course, before I answer that, you'll want to think about those few organizations that actually are, or have been, innovative. You'll mention advertising agencies, architecture firms, and Apple, of course. Well, first of all, it's easy (ok, easier) for companies to innovate when they're focused on something outside of themselves... when they're focused on solving another company's problems (see management consulting) or on creating some jazzy new idea to market another company's product (see advertising) or when it's about creating some zoomy new form or idea for somebody else (as in architecture). But it's really hard for companies to focus their creative energies internally. 

The exceptions, where they happen, are incredibly rare. Apple comes to mind as the primary example. But Apple, at its most innovative, was driven by Steve Jobs, who had a relentless sense of purpose--to achieve a level of design perfection to create an "insanely great" product--and would annihilate anyone who got in his way. I think the only way that a conventional organization can possible actually be "innovative" is to follow this autocratic model, and be driven by a singular leader on a mission who will let nothing stand in his/her way.

Normal organizations, run by committees, boards, bureaucrats, uninspiring leaders, and otherwise nice people, have a hell of a time creating much of anything. For the most part, they move things around, buy and sell stuff, and try not to rock the boat. Why is that? 

Innovation is such a challenge in most organizations because of the innate human need to establish a consensus reality. That is, we work to collaborate with those around us to build clear rules for how things work. These rules might include power structures, etiquette, cultural norms (what do we talk about, how polite/rude are we, etc.). These things are incredibly pervasive, and the longer we spend together, the more complex and developed they become. 

Innovation is dangerous. Innovation is rebellion. When you innovate, you are challenging the established reality, the accepted way of seeing the world, and some of the "rules" that your organization has created, by consensus, for behaving in the world. This is a dangerous thing to do socially. It's risky. It can cost you friends. It can cost you social status. It can make people angry. Now, if we're talking about the place where you work, where you earn your livelihood, the place that enables you to exist in the manner to which you've grown accustomed, the risk of offending someone could be quite significant. And it's probably better, for your own survival and long-term career prospects, to keep your mouth shut.

So, as an organization, how do you get people to innovate? Well, you either relentlessly drive them to innovate by being a complete asshole, like Steve Jobs, or you lead them to focus their innovative energies outside the organization, like advertising agencies, architecture firms, etc. But getting people to innovate, inside the organization, is going to be difficult. You'd be much better off hiring an outside consultant to do the hard work of innovating if it relates to things inside the organization. Because the only people who want to take big risks like that inside the organization are either crazy, or completely secure in their position (like Steve Jobs).

Let's talk about the iphone for a second. Only Steve Jobs, only the CEO of the organization, could ever conceivably propose to cannibalize one phenomenally successful product (the ipod) to take a risk on a new product (the iphone). Nobody else would ever have the balls to do this. In almost any organization, proposing something like this would be pointless, because it would never be approved, and you'd lose status over proposing something unpopular. By proposing to cannibalize something successful, for something unproven, you are risking the livelihood of everyone you work with, for an uncertain future. And very few leaders have to guts to take that kind of risk.

I think organizations of all kinds would be better off to recognize that innovation inside the organization isn't worth the trouble. You're likely never going to overcome the institutional inertia and drive for comfort that makes organizations safe and boring unless you drive people to it with all your effort (Steve Jobs again). Innovation should be directed outside of the organization. Let people be comfortable. Don't try to force them to go against the power structure at work every day. And, if you need innovation inside the organization, get it from outside. Buy small innovative companies. Hire a hot little ad agency. Work with a ballsy management consultant. But don't expect the employees that you hired because they were the right "cultural fit" to rock the boat.

 

See This Movie on Netflix: The Art of the Steal (2009)

This is the most important movie I've seen in quite some time, and it's not because it's about art. It's because it's about money and power and how they actually operate when there is something that people with money and power want badly. This is a great documentary about the Barnes Foundation, which was created in 1923 by Albert Barnes. Barnes assembled an incomparable collection of post-impressionist art (Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, etc.) and created a school around it that reflected the way that he wanted it to be viewed. This movie documents how outside forces (with money and power) systematically violated what Barnes wanted, and what he tried to preserve in his will. All things considered, he did a pretty good job protecting what he believed in. But it still only took 90 years to violate it completely. See this film. I'll put the trailer here... but really, you have to see the film. Don't just watch this trailer and think you get it (or that it isn't interesting because it's about "art"). It's not about art. It's about money and power. And the way that money and power really work when people with money and power want something is documented in this movie better than anywhere I can remember. So just see it, please.

Here's the netflix link.

Read This Book: Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein

I just finished Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein and I feel like I've been recommending it (and emailing the .mobi file) to everyone I talk to. It was really eye-opening for me to think about the basis for money, and how the design of our currency system, in itself, could be such an important factor in why our society has such a conflict between what is good and what is profitable. Eisenstein argues very persuasively for exploring alternate currencies and systems of exchange that do not incentivize hoarding of capital in the same way that our existing fiat monetary systems do. Just read this book. I'd love to talk with you about it.

The book is available for purchase here. It can be downloaded for free, and then you can make a contribution to Eisenstein once you have read it based on how helpful/interesting/good you find the book. Eisenstein encourages sharing of the book, seeing the book as a gift, and your contribution as a return gift. 

One note: I did find Eisenstein's style to be a bit overwritten, and it took some getting used to. It takes him about 10% of the book to really get started, and then he makes his central point about 40% of the way through the book. Once you start, keep going! You won't regret it.

Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Occupy Wall Street

Is the era of the single, charismatic leader/visionary over?

One month ago, the Occupation of Wall Street began, and in the intervening 30 days, we've seen other occupations, demonstrations, and gatherings in over a thousand cities around the world. This movement is basically leaderless. At the very least, there is no singular charismatic figure who is orchestrating what is happening. It is happening more as a force of nature than as a force of will. It is happening because it needs to happen, because there are so many people who share a disillusionment with the way things are and disenfranchisement from the existing social and economic structure.

During this month of occupation, Steve Jobs passed away on October 5, and there has been a lot written about his genius, and also about how difficult he was to work for. But whatever you think of him, there can be little doubt that he was the singular leader of Apple that transformed the way we interact with technology several times over.

Also during this month, the Memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr., was dedicated in Washington, DC, on October 16. It had been scheduled for August 28th, the 48th Anniversary of King's "I have a dream" speech, but was postponed due to Hurricane Irene. King, of course, was a charismatic leader of the Civil Rights Movement who was assassinated in 1968.

The passing of Jobs, and the memory of King, leave me wondering if something has changed in our world with regard to leadership. The fact that the Occupation movement manages to grow and spread without a singular leader makes me wonder if the era of "name above the title" "larger than life" personas like Jobs and King and so many others is simply over.

Clearly, we need leaders. And clearly, there are many leaders involved in the Occupation movement. But as soon as one singular leader emerges, as soon as one person stands up and says, "I speak for all the disaffected here," that person will very likely be immediately vilified, first by conservatives (watch how fast Fox News digs up dirt on this person), then by the mainstream media (trying to fill the 24 hours news cycle), then by elected officials, who will doubt this person's legitimacy, then by other leaders in the Occupation movement, and then by everyone else. This whole process will probably take a few days. It was shocking to watch how fast Julian Assange, the leader of Wikileaks, was discredited, brought up on charges, and silenced for the most part... all immediately following his rise to international prominence.

Why do we do this to our leaders? And what has changed to make this possible? Well, clearly, globalization, the Internet, the speed of communication, and the 24-hour news cycle enable this to happen. No sooner does a figure emerge on a national platform than we know everything there is to know about them. We've seen leaders like Eliot Spitzer, Rod Blagojevich, and many others exposed, discredited, and dismissed from public office almost instantly. When David Paterson took over for Spitzer after Spitzer's resignation, Paterson was quick to disclose publicly all of his dirty laundry: drug use, infidelity, basically everything he could think of that could be uncovered later... He just gave it all away, prior to his swearing-in, taking all the ammunition out of his enemy's hands.

So our leaders are instant targets... As soon as they emerge, they become the subject of a million Google searches, a hundred TV news stories, and a great hunger to figure out who they are, and what they have to hide. And that's scary. But maybe there's another way to look at this as a positive development... Since our leaders are no longer seen as everything, are no longer able to stand as singular representatives of all our collective hopes and dreams, it puts the responsibility more squarely on all of us, as leaders, to pull together and build the world that we would like to see.

Rapidly, the Occupy Wall Street movement has developed tools to communicate, both locally (the People's Mic) and globally (through websites and Twitter), and to make decisions (through the General Assembly and the proposed 2012 People's Congress). These tools, though in their infancy, are designed to reduce the power or authority of any one person over any other, to communicate and make decisions in as level a playing field as possible, to flatten the hierarchical structure that we all live and work in, so that every voice can be heard and that that decisions that are made can be as representative as possible of the collective will of the people.

And, if this movement can continue to pursue its highest ideals, without becoming compromised by the lure of the existing financial/governmental/media power structure, perhaps it can continue to grow without singular charismatic leaders. It can have spokespeople, of course. But as long as the movement continues to believe that every voice is as important as every other voice, maybe we won't need one singular voice to speak for us all. Maybe we can finally all speak for ourselves.

A Case for Participatory Government

The Occupation of Wall Street is two weeks old today. Like many people I know, I’ve been watching the protest emerge and evolve through Facebook updates and Tweets and from an occasional forwarded article in the Gothamist. As I write, there are not only people encamped downtown, but similar actions cropping around around the country, and in fact, around the world.

One of the areas of confusion and criticism around the protest is that it’s not clear what the protest is about specifically... There’s not a specific call for action that we’re supposed to take. As an audience, many people would like more definition in order to better understand the protest, and to put it in a specific envelope, “Oh, they’re protesting for more taxes on the rich” or “Oh, they’re protesting for mortgage debt forgiveness” or “Oh, they’re protesting for the government to focus on creating jobs.” I’ve also read that various members of the audience would like to see a clear spokesman for this movement, some one person to step forward and become the avatar through which we can experience what is going on downtown and in other cities.

But I think it’s important to resist this desire, from the general public, to have this thing wrapped up with a bow. There is tremendous value in bringing people together simply to object to the way that things have been run, to unify not around a specific change that must be made, but in order to make a general statement that something fundamental needs to change in America, that America’s government has not been serving the needs of its people, at least not as its primary objective, for some time now. And whether people join the occupation because they are members of the long-term unemployed or because they have been significantly hurt by the recent financial crisis and recession or because of some other reason, there is still significant value in having them come together and make a statement about the injustice they feel.

This reminds me, to some extent of Howard Beale in the 1976 film Network:

"Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

Yes, there’s change that has to be made, that many of us have been hoping for and talking about for some time. But, clearly, this change is not going to happen if we all sit at home simply writing blogs and tweeting and updating our facebook status as our primary means of dissent. Or even if we become active in the conventional political process and campaign for the lesser of two evils, or write letters to our elected representatives encouraging them to do the right thing.

First, we actually have to get mad. And then, we have to take our actual physical bodies and go out and make a stand, in the street. We have to leave cyberspace and go out into meatspace. And if it’s not specific about exactly why people are taking to the streets, if it’s just from a general shared disillusionment with the capitalist status quo, a reaction against economic inequality, a riot against the growing sense that our best days are behind us, well, that’s ok. That’s what it needed right now, before we start to move toward any specific change, we need to get people on their feet.

It’s amazing what this movement has accomplished so far, in only two weeks, and how many things have been done just right. There is no specific leader who has emerged who can be ripped to shreds by the media and cynical spectators (remember Julian Assange?). The inclusive “General Assembly” model, instead of some more formal leadership structure, means that anyone who needs to be heard, can be heard, that anyone who has something to say can say it, that anyone can be a part of what is happening. And it’s all happening, ostensibly, without any big-money interests behind it or powerful existing organizations (political parties, unions) calling the shots. So far.

And at the center of this movement are kids, young people, Millennials... the generation that grew up with computers all around them, and that we didn’t think knew how to do anything that wasn’t tied to a computer or handheld device. This is the generation that is getting people up and out in general protest at the way things have been run.

To me, the promise of this movement isn’t some minor revision to the existing legal framework (reinstating the Glass-Steagal Act, or changing the tax code) but in creating a more participatory model for government, a government that actually serves the people, and is actually accountable to the people. Some people are looking at Occupy Wall Street and advocating for a technologically fueled direct democracy. I’m not sure that would work all that well... There are two kinds of tyranny: tyranny of the few over the many (dictatorship, oligarchy, plutocracy) and tyranny of the many over the few (mob rule, total democracy, communism). Our government is designed in some ways to slow down the heat of popular sentiment, to make sure that we don’t start burning people at the stake when their positions become unpopular, to protect the individual from the state. We need to maintain those protections.

One of the reasons that we need to have a government infrastructure is also so that we can all spend our time doing things other than governing ourselves. As Oscar Wilde may or may not have said, “The trouble with Socialism is that it takes up too many evenings.” So we elect officials that take on the job of running the state so that we can work for living and have some time for leisure. Because somebody has to run things around here.

But when we elect officials, we have to believe and trust that they are going to serve our interests, that they are going to work for us. That’s the basis of the social compact between the government and the governed. And our existing government in the United States has broken the trust of many of us. There is a widespread and growing sense that those in positions of authority are far more concerned with their own individual self-interest (whether it’s re-election, lining their pockets, protecting their friends) than they are in doing what is right for the longterm health and prosperity for the majority of the people of the United States. So we’ve seen a trend, for the past 30 years or more, of a society that increasingly favors those who already have the lion’s share of the wealth, as the wealthy, quite obviously and dramatically, get richer, while those at the bottom have less and less. This is not the appropriate result of a representative democracy in which one person has one vote to elect representatives to serve their interests.

One way to look at the history of humanity on this planet is as an ongoing struggle between those who would limit participation, and those who would seek to maximize it. We are now at a moment in history in which our communications technology enables more and more of us to participate, and we need to take advantage of that to insist that our representatives take action that is in our interest.

So I think what is happening here is that more and more people are standing up and saying, “You guys are doing a really lousy job representing me. In fact, you’re letting 1% of the country walk all over the other 99%. And you know what? We want to be more involved. We don’t just want to elect you every two or four or six year and let you start running for re-election the second you get into office. We actually want a government that works for us. And, damn it, if we have to give up some evenings to get that, well, so be it.”

Inevitably, however, this movement will need to begin to advocate for specific popular policy changes. As Occupy Together grows to locations all around the country, and gathers an increasing groundswell of popular support (if that can be sustained) I’d love to see the movement try to maintain both it’s inclination for direct democracy and a desire to respect the existing framework of the Constitution and the government of the United States... by drafting and working to pass a number of amendments to the Constitution to further protect us from our government and provide for better economic equality... whether these are the “fair tax amendment,” the “campaign finance amendment,” or the “full employment amendment,” I don’t know... but it would be great to find a way to change the system directly, without necessarily becoming just another pet issue to propel another party or slate of candidates into office, and begin the cycle of inaction and disaffection all over again.

More Texting, Less Driving

When I was at the ARC-Interiors conference in late September in Miami, speaking on "A Sense of Purpose: The New Reality for Architecture Firms and How Principals will Need to Adapt" I had lunch at the conference after I spoke at a table with a bunch of nice conference attendees and exhibitors. Before long, the conversation turned to current events, and we touched on the controversy over texting while driving.

Without really thinking, in the middle of the conversation, I interjected, "The problem isn't texting... It's driving." I went with it: "I mean, texting doesn't kill people, driving does. The problem is that we drive too much, and driving is just too easy. We need to drive less, and when we do, it needs to be more difficult."

One of the others at the table asked, "Yeah, I need somebody to pick me up at my house and drive me to work."

I threw out, "We have that already. It's called a train."

Suddenly, I realized that I was in a group of people from all around the US, none of which lived in New York or one of the few other cities in the US where you can live a full and complete life without owning a car.

"Maybe we should spend less public money on roads, and more on trains. If the roads were more dangerous, you couldn't text while driving because you'd hit a pothole. Part of the problem here is that driving is too easy because our roads are too well-maintained. People have too much free time when they drive."

The entire controversy, and this conversation, points out to me that our dependence on the automobile, and all the evils that go with it (foreign oil, pollution, suburban sprawl, shopping malls, road rage, alienation, long commutes of wasted time) is a choice, a choice we can reverse. It doesn't have to be this way. And it shouldn't be this way.

I'm reminded of the James Howard Kunstler quote, that the suburbs "represent the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world." The current controversy over texting while driving should be another wake-up call. The problem isn't texting, it's driving. Driving kills. We should be driving less, and texting more. People, get on the train. Get off the road. You're wasting resources, you're wasting time, and you're running the risk of killing somebody, or yourself. Why live this way?

Facebook: On the Internet, Everybody Knows You're a Dog

I just joined Facebook today. I've been holding off for a really long time (Has it been years? It certainly feels like it...) because Facebook has made me nervous from beginning. First, it came up from the kids... It was originally designed and first used by high school and college kids to gossip. That made me not entirely trust Facebook. How could I find a use for the social networking tool of teens? Then there's the fact that you can really only have one Facebook identity with any depth at all unless you truly have a multiple personality disorder. This effectively brings an end to the "On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog" era, and into a new era of transparency. On Facebook, your user name is not "MissSexyPants801." It's your real God-given (well, Mom- and Dad-given) name. And anyone, whether it's the government, a stalker, a loan shark, or a malevolent space alien, can find you, find out who your friends are, find out what you're into, when your birthday is, what events you're going to, etc.

So there's transparency on Facebook and there's (necessarily) a level of trust that emerges. I trust my friends, and I trust their friends. And my friends trust their friends' friends. And so on. I think this is, for the most part, a positive thing. But it roots us in who we are and our history. And I think it changes the way we grow up and evolve. A few times in my life, I have sort of rolled the dice, picked up and moved, or started fresh with a whole new group of friends and a whole new identity, to some extent. I can think of a few examples: Moving at the age of 8 to Pottstown from Phoenixville, moving to New York to go to NYU, moving to Ireland, going to Burning Man. That's four, I think. But Facebook crosses the beams. You are who you are who you are. Or, perhaps more accurately, you are who your friends are. If character used to be destiny, in 2009 your network is your destiny. Or something like that.

There is no dipping your toe in Facebook. This is a paradigm shift, and you can't just sort of be there. If you're there, you're there. By diving in, you make a commitment to put your name and face and friends and facts out there for anyone else who puts themselves out there to search and see and comment on. So now I'm in it, and what does it look like, 10 hours later and with 100 friends? Well, it's virtual reality, for real, with perhaps less sex. Who needs to go out and have events? All I need is an event invite. Who needs real friends? I've got Facebook friends. I write on your wall, you write on my wall, and we while away the hours. It reminds me of the last Matrix movie, when you get to the heart, meet the architect, see the man behind the curtain, and it all just looks like pure white light. Or Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World, when we can see our own dreams, what's inside our heads refined into images, and it's irrepressively addictive.

Again, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just a fundamental shift, and it requires a commitment from every participant, a commitment to participate. And I can see that this is the future. This is incredibly efficient, and equalizing. Hierarchy fades away, and I can friend anyone in an instant and they can friend me, and we reduce the entire world to one flat level playing field. It's amazing, it's liberating, and it's addictive. This is how we will organize ourselves in the future. This is how our government should work. And probably will.

But this all requires a level of optimism about people and our future that I find truly encouraging. The movement to Facebook, even in the face of continuing economic collapse shows that people will always find places where energy is abundant, and look to explore that. Our social and economic system is in the process of transforming itself completely. It is, and will continue to be, painful. But I think Facebook is part of what comes next, what society looks like after we've burned off all of our sins and excesses of the last 50 or so years.

Thoughts on Fame

It's Memorial Day, and I'm on vacation. No meetings this weekend, only a little bit of work here and there. I'm watching a video on New Order that I never saw before, and I'm trying to send an email to David Byrne.

What do these things have in common? Well, strangely, Bono is interviewed in the New Order video. And he stands out as such a pompous ass. I mean, New Order are a relatively humble group. They were a bunch of kids from Manchester, who still seem relatively shy and down to earth. They're likable and somewhat inscrutable because they just look like people. They just sort of say, this is who we are. But Bono's another story. By comparison, he seems totally full of himself, utterly self-satisfied, self-important, and smug. He's on the video saying something about Ian Curtis's sacred voice or something, and you kind of want to slap him.

So... What does this have to do with David Byrne? Well, David Byrne seems to be a fairly down-to-earth guy. He's an incredible artist who's worked in a variety of media, and I've had a lot of respect for him since the Talking Heads first started making sense to me when I was in my late 20's or so (I never really got them when I was a teenager and they were actively recording). Well, David Byrne is doing an installation in the Battery Maritime Building with Creative Time this summer. This coincides directly with the FIGMENT event and the Emergence exhibition that I'm working on on Governors Island (the Battery Maritime Building is where the ferries leave to go to Governors Island). So, I thought, well, why not reach out to David Byrne and say hello? Invite him to FIGMENT, Emergence, whatever.

But the thing is, you can't just send an email to David Byrne, silly. He's a star! He's got a great website and journal (blog). He writes his thoughts about things there (just like I'm doing here). But you can't actually respond to anything he's written. You can't post a comment. You can't (heaven forbid) actually email him. Because, presumably, the volume would be too great for David or whoever maintains his site to respond to.

Now, in a 20th Century, pre-Internet way of looking at the world, this makes sense. You want more David Byrne? Buy a CD, go to a concert, consume media like a good fan. But we're in a world now where we have TRUE many-to-many multi-polar conversations, and loose organizations and connections that support this. I'm reminded of the article in the back of Time Magzine when they named "you" the person of the year a year and a half ago: "Andy was Right." This article was the first time that I read the rephrasing of Warhol's famous quote "In the future everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes" as "In the future everyone will be famous to 15 people." On the Internet, everyone can find their own audience.

David Byrne, of course, is famous to way more than 15 people. And that's why I can't just send him an email. But I imagine that 15 people is about the right order-of-magnitude for how many people will read this particular blog post that I'm writing right now. And that's why you can email me, but you can't email David Byrne. Is this the new dividing line between the "famous" and the rest of us? Can I google you? If I google you, and you show up, can I find out how to contact you?

As an artist, how insulated are you from communication? How do you stay connected with people, with what's happening right now, if you can't be directly contacted? How does being insulated by intermediaries (agents, representatives, managers, lawyers) keep you from really connected with the world we're living in?

The promise of the Internet is that should we should all be able to connect with anyone. But that said, there always need to be filters, boundaries. I guess the question is... how do we each enable as much connection as possible, while still being able to filter through all of the inputs that are out there?

AIA Burning Man Event covered by E-Oculus

http://www.aiany.org/eOCULUS/newsletter/?p=963

FIGMENT Festival gets press

I'm one of the organizers of a new arts festival on Governors Island this Sunday (July 8). The festival is featured in today's New York Times and AM New York:

Ferrying Creative Impulses Across New York Harbor - New York Times.
Governors Island to host underground arts festival - AM New York.

The website for FIGMENT is here: www.figmentnyc.org. Join our mailing list, so we can keep you up to date on what's going on with FIGMENT!

Culture and Space

I've been invited to speak at the ARC-Interiors Conference from September 27-30 in Miami. Here's the topic I just pitched to them:

Culture and Space
the relationship between the culture of an organization
and the design and evolution of its interior spaces

“Culture” is an important contemporary buzzword in business and in design. We all know intuitively that there is a direct, if subtle, relationship between the design of spaces and the culture of the organization that uses them. As designers, we create spaces with a view to enhance and extend our clients’ organizational cultures. The spaces we design are therefore both a reflection of culture, and an instrument to reinforce culture. Over time, spaces are altered by the people who use them to support how they interact with the space and to reflect their sense of their culture. Culture and space share an ongoing dialogue that begins with move-in. The difficulties that an organization has in successfully occupying and utilizing space can be thought of as a struggle to understand their own evolving culture and to reflect it in the design of its spaces. In this talk, the speaker will utilize recent examples of commercial and institutional interior design to discuss the relationship between the underlying culture of an organization and the design and ongoing evolution of its interior spaces.