Dusk

I love the long hours of summer.  Being so far south here on the South Island of New Zealand is a bonus.  The sun sets.....  and sets ......  and then the sky turns darker and darker blue, deep shades of outer space and then the stars light up.  Brilliant pins of light through cold clear skies.  No contrails.  No industrial smog.  Just the space of the Universe out there.

It feeds my soul.  I know that David of the Old Testament went walking before sunrise, but he was a troubled soul.  I just move straight into the dusk and the wine at the end of the day.  A solid ripe cherry blitz of a Pinot Noir from Central Otago, or a mineral slap to the primitive brain from a dry Southern Riesling and the day melts into the smoothness of night.

Tonight I am in Queenstown, on lake Wakatipu.  It is a magic place, with the lake floor almost 100m below sea level.  The mountains to the south-east are called The Remarkables, rising to 2300m above sea level.  They are now covered in the last snow of the season, glistening silvery as the sun dips in the west.  

I am leaning back agains the high back of a deep chair with a glass of Mount Difficulty Pinot swirling in the glass.  The notes of cherry, almost Kool-Aid like, kicks up and blends with rich straw and wood to form a complex nose that does not disappoint on the tongue.  A rich umami note lingers with the fruit as I listen to the couple that joined the area of deep comfy chairs.  “I loved that that bone dry slate finish on the Peregrine Chardonnay darling!”, she says  while he inspects the list.  The waiter arrives, and asks in typical southern fashion: “So how was your day?”.  They smile, it was beyond good, yes.  He orders the Akarua Pinot Noir and she asks for a glass of Peregrine Chardonnay.  Silence.

The wine arrives, nothing is said, the waiter captures the number on the keys and moves away.  The couple lift their glasses: “Cheers darling!”  Then they turn and face the Remarkables.  The light fades and the snow turns to silver.  The lake is a dark pool of magic, a last boat floats in, almost apologetically and we sniff the wine.

Time passes on watches, but the moment lingers.   I carefully take the last sip and quietly leave the area.  The waiter at the bar waves at me, I did not have to sign and I did not have to check.  We are all part of the moment where the odds and ends of humanity are of no consequence.  

The stars make themselves visible over Lake Wakatipu.  The mountains etch their profiles against the crisp cut of the wind from the west.  Make no mistake, this is not a place for the weak.  My Nordic blood stirs and I take a deep breath of the cold air.  I’ll write this up, I say to myself.  Let those with adventure in their souls be stirred to come here.

I’ll sleep well tonight while the restless island stirs on the fault lines of the planet. 

Design

Latin root for verb: designare - to designate, to ascribe a quality to something.

To design, a design.  

We use these terms easily every day.  Recently I asked a designer what it is that a designer does.  I think we all have some sort of idea of what to expect as an answer.  I’ll let you think about that for a moment.

Over the past months I have been working on several projects that required me to think about the aspects of business.  These included what the essential elements of a business are, including the operational and structural parts that it needs to function.  I came to the conclusion that a business does not have to be something you do for profit alone.  The same elements are needed even if you develop a street market concept where your only gain is the existence of the market on the designated day.  Simple really in hindsight, but not so obvious to many individuals trying to develop a case for starting a not-for-profit operation.

Risk analysis, growth analysis and strategic planning all play roles in what makes a business.  These are all processes and I think we can easily agree that the more skill you have in doing these things, and the more critical your views are, the better the chance of the processes yielding successful outcomes.  Your experience (or lack of it) of the structures and hierarchies in a business, at all levels - including the network dynamics between people, may add or detract from your advice you give and from the final outcome.  That seems obvious.

The reason I asked the designer about her profession was that on another occasion I explained to a friend what I had been doing for the past year for a client.  He looked at me and asked if they actually paid for that!  I was taken aback.  Did he miss the significance of my contribution, did I oversell the value of my work to the client, what was wrong here?  The answer of the designer was similar to mine and I felt like I was making a case for my existence and my work.  I could see that she too was trying hard to explain the obvious.  But it was not so obvious.  

This is design: obvious in hindsight, but extremely non-trivial during inception.  We know a good design when we see it, we feel we can easily tell when it is bad.  But can we derive a new concept if there is nothing in front of us to start from or to criticize?  That is the difficult part I guess.   The best description I have seen so far for design comes from the foreword of the book “The Strategic Designer” by David Holston.  In this section Shawn McKinney says that designers ‘move things about’.  They consider new combinations and they trade in possibility.  These new combinations and concepts are developed at the physical and psychological level.  It may be the replacement for the computer mouse, it may be the new colour scheme for next year’s designer clothes.  He concludes that designers ‘order, organise, reinterpret shape and communicate ideas, information and space’.

Suddenly I knew what the value was that I added to the projects of my client.  I helped them bring a new order to their business model, I supported the development of a new strategy by showing them new possibilities that they were not able to conceive of themselves and I helped them package it for easy communication.  I could do this because of my experience, the processes I have mastered and because I came with an outsider’s perspective.  I was paid not for what was on paper only, but also for the facilitation towards a new, living operational design for their business.  I helped them see new opportunities. 

I want to take this one step further and consider what is known as design science research.  This process framework (I fear if a call it a method I will open another can of worms) allows one to develop an artifact (tangible or intangible).  The process relies heavily on one being able to identify a problem and to justify the value of finding a solution.  

The problem definition and setting of boundaries allow for the development of the objectives of the solution (tangible or intangible - it does not matter), and this solution may be innovative at many levels.  It may not need to be completely new, and as I have discussed before, it may be as simple as ‘just’ rearranging of the deck chairs!  The only proviso is that the solution objectives must be related rationally and objectively to the problem space definition.  

It is a creative process to develop the functionality and architecture that will bring the artifact into being, and there are several process frameworks available for this.  One can use modeling and simulation techniques to develop the first instance or concept solution and to demonstrate the utility.  Ultimately, the utility of the designed artifact is measured in the problem space where ideally, it will solve the problem as best as is possible under the constraints or boundaries agreed upon initially.  

And that, I guess, is the core of the art of design.  

The image used here is my own and is of the Sydney Opera House.  I see this solution to the need for an iconic cultural space as a good example of how design can be many things to many people.  Some hated the solution initially, and some loved it so much that the project, that ran many years late, paid for itself in less than five years after commissioning.  

Food

FoodTV, Master Chef, Hell's Kitchen, the list is long.  Shows about chefs, aspiring chefs and clocks.  Food preparation at the speed of light takes the centre stage.  Can you cook a three course meal in an hour?  Will it look like it can garner a few of those Michelin stars?  Will it taste divine?

I don’t know if I like food shows anymore.  I used to.  I used to watch Ken Hom do quick Asian dishes, I liked to look at Keith Floyd preparing robust dishes in exotic places, and I even watched the Barefoot Contessa and the luscious Nigella sneaking up to the fridge at midnight for a snack.  For a while the Naked Chef kept me transfixed.  And then one evening I suddenly felt that it was all getting a bit tedious and somehow empty.  Yes, empty is the word I want to use.

Suddenly all I could see was how much waste was being created in the modern shows.  Fantastic cuts of meat that most cannot afford, exotic things from all over being used to prepare glamour dishes, all of them obviously tasting like heaven (have you ever seen a chef tell you her dish tastes like horse manure?) and above all a mad rush to get it cooked in a short space of time to rush it to customers waiting somewhere.  How could this food still be soul food?  How could this be seen as working with respect with the bounty of the earth?  

I think we have lost the art of cooking by rushing through the techniques for food preparation.  Food is central to our well-being, and if it is rushed during preparation and consumption, it cannot be worth much, can it?  Forget about the costs in dollars and cents.  

I like shows where I can see where the meat comes from, even if it is just bought from a butcher that handles it with care as he folds it neatly in brown paper.  Sometimes you can see that these people know that they are working with something that has given up life to sustain life.  For no matter what we eat, we have to take some form of life.  This demands respect.  It asks that we treat the food with love and care.  When we add the salt it is good to know that it comes from a sea shore somewhere where it was harvested by a family.  Or do we just pour the NaCl from an industrial plant into the mix?  I like to think that the fish I am preparing was harvested in a sensitive manner, that it was even farmed with regard for its life and that of the ecosystem it was embedded in.  

Why would one rush through this process of preparing these offerings?  The smell and texture of salmon mixed with fresh dill and the colour of good quality vegetables are all part of the process of satisfying our need for food.  It is food.  As the dish comes together and the smells merge slowly into deep aromas, it is time to take it in and to sip on a glass of wine.  Stimulate all the senses and be satisfied at many levels.  This is what food is now for me.  

These days I am deliberate in how slowly I work with food.  Not wasting time, but rather taking the time to do it right.  I want to see food as ‘n whole experience, not just an industrial process aimed at feeding the gaping holes in the faces of the waiting masses.  I want to see people talk at a table over the food that was prepared with love and dignity.  They should share laughter, a glass of wine or a tumbler of rich golden beer while they enjoy the food.  They should thank God for the richness we can explore these days and they must not waste food.  Every bit should be considered as a source of nourishment.  This is how we may be able to feed the world.  

When we take our time with food preparation, when we build a certain slowness into the process of enjoying a meal and when we take the time to contemplate the meal with family and friends, then I believe it leaves us satisfied, full even.  Maybe it is because I do not see this in the modern cooking shows that I feel so empty when I watch them.