Hello again, week and post #30 of Already, Yet. The title of the post is actually not a reference to this coincidence.
This will be an unusual post to respect of weekly retrospectives, but is an opportunity to present myself a little more to the readers who don’t know me already. How? Keep reading the post till the end and you’ll find out.
Takeaways (TL:DR)
Whenever we take part to a community of people, we create connections. This is of huge value, and I can see this value now that I’m trying to slowly build a community around this project. The return of value can be different in form and magnitude, but I’m sure about the fact that being there for others and tie the knots of our relationships always brings a great return. The opportunities I got from this newsletter are a proof, and I’m going to share with you one of them.
🍊 Welcome to the latest issue of Already, Yet – a weekly retrospective about not feeling ready, but doing things anyway.
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Project sharing
15x30 is a yearly project organised by Fifth Beat (my former employer) where they ask the same 15 questions to 30 different designers. This year, I’m one of those designers, and it is a very strange feeling to be among incredible individuals from this edition and the past ones as well.
The interviews are able to present each of the 30 designers and their perspective to the practice of design applied to very different fields.
The interviews are not shared by individual designer, but rather all the answer to the same question are presented together. This is an incredible opportunity of confrontation, incredibly inspiring and really able to connect different people with different perspectives.
I had to thank (again) Letizia Sechi for bringing me in into the project as a participant and this newsletter for letting me connect with her at the right time.
It really has been a great moment of exchange for ideas and inspiration, both consulting the previous editions before and read your own answers together with the designers of this edition.
Links
I’ll share here the links where you can read all the questions and answers from this and previous editions. Unfortunately these are in Italian but shouldn’t be a problem for most of you.
15x30 website
You can find here everything, all the informations about the project, all previous editions and the bio of each designer.
Fifthbeat Medium page
If you like to read on Medium you can find a post for each question here, they get out weekly every Thursday
Fifthbeat LinkedIn page
Follow them to get a reminder every Thursday when a new post gets out on medium
https://www.linkedin.com/company/fifth-beat/posts/
My interview
For the english speaking only, I’ll leave here my full interview, translated in english, I hope you enjoy, I’m really happy to get my readers to know me a little better.
Quick Questions: Tell us about yourself
Sketch your portrait with lightning-fast answers.
What's your name?
Tobia Marconi.
Where did you spend the early years of your life? Where do you live now?
I grew up in Senigallia, in the Marche region. I've recently moved to Treviso, but I tend to move my nest about every 3 years. Let's see, if I'll ever settle down, where I’ll land.
What did you study?
After completing high school with a scientific background, I pursued a path focused entirely on design. First, I did a bachelor's degree in design with a broad spectrum, ranging from industrial design to visual communication, touching many other areas of design culture. Then, I completed a master's degree in digital & interaction design.
What is your specialty?
Designing. Design without any other label before or after it.
What are your hobbies and passions?
Board sports, especially surfing. Games of all kinds and a bit of nerd culture. DIY and manual work.
Who has inspired you as a designer?
I rarely have idols; I'm more attached to ideas than individuals, so it would be a long (or empty) list. But if I have to answer, I would say:
As an industrial designer, the great Italian architects of the second half of the 20th century, like Achille Castiglioni, for their ability to tell stories through their products.
As a digital designer, I think I can mention Tobias van Schneider, along with the very cliché Don Norman.
Lately, as I try to steer my career towards design leadership, I follow a lot Ami Vora (former VP of product at Whatsapp) and Simon Sinek.
Tell us three people you would have liked to have dinner with.
Hideo Kojima, Raffaella Carrà, Isaac Asimov.
Tell us something personal about yourself.
I have an incredible grandfather who has always been a great example and taught me many things, both directly and indirectly. He's the exception to what I wrote a couple of questions ago about not having idols. Always curious, full of passions, helpful to others, and much more...
What is your favourite quote?
"You don't stop playing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop playing."
Where can people follow you?
Definitely on LinkedIn, and on Substack, where I write a weekly newsletter called "Already, Yet." In it, I share a retrospective on the challenges and experiences of my professional growth journey.
15x30 questions
What path did you take to enter the world of design?
In hindsight, there were always signs pointing in this direction. On my father's side, there's a long tradition of carpentry, and my mother studied graphic design. I grew up fascinated by inventors, technique, and technology, disassembling and reassembling objects, playing with construction sets, modeling, inventing stories, and games. I thought I would become an engineer at a certain point; I didn't even know what design was until six months before applying to university, when my best friend, who was attending an art high school with a focus on design, told me about it for the first time. From the moment I discovered the existence of this discipline, something clicked, and it became an obvious path for me.
What do you like most about your work, what drives you?
On one hand, there's an intellectual stimulus, an intrinsic pleasure in the design process as a problem-solving process, almost as if every project were an enigma, a game, or a puzzle to solve. On the other hand, there's the creative stimulus that satisfies the human need to leave one's mark on the world and the feeling of having an impact on others. Design's ability to be a blend of the pragmatism of analytical thinking and the expressive character of applying it to problems so complex that they don't have a single solution but my (or our) solution. "The subjective built through the objective" is one of the two aspects of design that I'm passionate about. The other aspect relates to curiosity and the thirst for knowledge. Especially in consulting, where each client often belongs to a different field of business, every project forces you to delve into new areas, to dig deep and become a small expert in something new to manage the context of design decisions. As a nerd, having the opportunity to become passionate about new niches is truly stimulating.
Which of your projects fills you with pride?
Calypso. A board game created during a game design course led by Maresa Bertolo at the Polytechnic University of Milan. I shared this experience with an incredible team. I got to see firsthand how game design brings together many branches of design. Despite being a university project, the final result is of very high fidelity and blends in perfectly among the other "real" boardgames I own, thanks to everyone's hard work.
My role in the team and contribution to the project primarily involved developing the game mechanics and drafting the instruction manual accordingly. It remains one of the most stimulating design exercises I've ever undertaken. Building a rule system capable of generating gameplay dynamics that elicited a specific experience for the players; keeping these components (mechanics and dynamics) in check so that they reflected and sensibly contributed to the setting and narrative that other group members were developing for the "aesthetic" component (as defined by Hunicke, LeBlanc, and Zubek in the MDA model) of the game. Also, continuously testing the game and balancing the mechanics was a beautiful and delicate process in defining many equilibriums, considering that the gaming experience is asymmetric, and each of the four intended players has a unique set of mechanics in addition to the rules shared by everyone.
Then there was the challenge of writing the manual, where these rules had to be communicated clearly, in an order that made sense to the reader and allowed them to gradually build the mental model of the game, using precise, unambiguous language that left no room for ambiguity. As anyone familiar with board games knows, anything not explicitly stated in the manual is fair game and can be exploited and lead to imbalances in the game, confusion, and other potential negative aspects of the experience.
I apologize; this response is a formless stream of consciousness. I could go on for hours, but I'll stop here. I think my pride is quite transparent.
What is a project that you didn't do yourself but that inspired you?
This is a very challenging question, and I've saved it for last for a reason; our work is built upon stimuli and references, making it difficult to single out one single project. Let me attempt by mentioning the personalised experience projects conducted, particularly by Netflix and Spotify, but also by other giants in the realm of service and content personalisation. These are experiences I encountered while writing my master's thesis on recommendation systems. Observing how the approach to content personalisation spilled over into the personalization of structure and interface, thereby influencing the user's overall content consumption experience, has inspired and shaped a significant portion of my concept of "flexibility" in design, which I mention in another question later on. By the way, this inspiration has made Nielsen's seventh out of the ten heuristics, "Flexibility and efficiency of use," my absolute favorite—a concept I always keep in mind and pay particular attention to when designing.
What is the biggest challenge you face in your work, and how do you overcome it?
Avoid conflicts is a challenge both within and outside of work. In an environment where constant collaboration is required, conflicts can arise and pose several problems. The skills I've developed to address this personal challenge are different. Certainly, the first ones that come to mind are an inclination to identify compromises and a very rational, mechanical communication.
Can you tell us about a time when something went wrong?
It was during a portfolio review meeting for securing an internship at Facebook, probably one of the most significant professional opportunities in my life. It was the first half of the final step in an arduous selection process that lasted two and a half months. Facebook (now Meta) provides you with an incredibly detailed checklist in advance to ensure that everything works perfectly for the call, considering that they allocate thirty valuable minutes of their manager's time, and you have to make the most of it. I diligently conducted technical tests on their tool a few days in advance to ensure everything was fine and that I had plenty of time to troubleshoot if needed. Everything seemed okay, everything was ready. Then came the fateful day. I connected, super confident... but the person on the other side of the screen couldn't hear me! Ten minutes were wasted trying to resolve the issue. I have a vivid memory of the rush of adrenaline, neurons firing like fireworks, simultaneously trying to pinpoint the problem or find an alternative solution while grappling with the terror of squandering a unique opportunity. In the end, it struck me: in the couple of days between my test and the actual interview, my operating system had updated, and during the update, all the settings and permissions I had adjusted during the setup, which I had taken for granted, were reset to default values, nullifying the tech check. At that point, focusing was nearly impossible, and the rest is history.
Is there a tool you couldn't do without, and why?
Notion. Because it's a playground, it gives me the same feeling as playing with Legos. And because it encourages you to focus on structure and content before form.
Today, you have the first meeting for a new project, and you can ask five questions. What do you inquire about?
5 questions:
What are the project objectives (outcomes)?
Are there any meta-objectives or other interests at play?
Who is involved, and if/how/when can I communicate with each of them?
What has been done so far?
What can I do immediately to be useful and gain domain knowledge?
What are the 5 books every designer should read?
I'll be academic and a bit cliché, but here are my recommendations:
"Good Design" by Bruno Munari. It teaches you how to observe things.
"Look. Think. Design." by Riccardo Falcinelli. It shows how we perceive things.
"Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman. It explains how we interpret things.
"The Design of Everyday Things" by Don Norman. It delves into how we interact with things.
"Building Imaginary Worlds" by Mark J.P. Wolf. It teaches you how to imagine entire universes.
How do you stay informed about industry updates?
I have gradually connected with prominent figures in the field on LinkedIn who consistently share up-to-date content. People in my network who are close to me, such as former university or work colleagues, are always ready to provide insights. I follow numerous newsletters on a wide range of topics (although I often don't read many of them). I make a daily visit to Product Hunt to keep up with the latest tools. If I need information on a specific topic, a Google search often leads me to Medium. After that, any of these sources becomes a rabbit hole of links and sub-links within them.
In which area would you like to expand your knowledge?
Product management. The more I progress and grow, the more I realize that I find it more stimulating to think about "what to do" rather than "how to do it". As a former industrial designer, I have always approached digital design as a "product" rather than just an interface or service; that has been my mindset ever since. Moreover, since my teenage years, I have always discussed business and entrepreneurship with my older cousins (a financial consultant and a management engineer, respectively). As a geek, I have always delved into the technical side, occasionally studying and applying some code. So, the famous triad of Design, Business and Technology that is so important to the discipline feels like my territory, and I would like to better understand that role.
What are the principles of a healthy company culture?
I'm speaking from a design perspective, but many of these principles can likely apply to other contexts. In my opinion, transparency and listening are the first principles. As knowledge workers, the raw material we handle is information. Transparency and a culture based on listening enable the sharing and opening of communication channels, which distribute this resource, multiplying its value (the classic "if we share an apple, we each have half an apple; if we share an idea, we each have two ideas"). Another principle is flexibility. There is much talk about diversity, and we emphasise the importance of conducting qualitative research to gather and analyse people's behaviours. I believe that recognising the importance of diversity and the "other," the different from us, is essential both externally and internally. Policies and rules are the foundation of an organisation, but setting values and principles is, I believe, more important than rules in building a healthy and shared company culture and a cohesive group. Building rules while always integrating flexibility for specific cases, however costly it may be, will always pay off in the ability of all elements of the organisation to express their full potential.
What prevents a design team from functioning well?
Fear. Fear of making mistakes, fear of confrontation, fear of putting oneself out there and being vulnerable. External and internal pressure can also act as a driving force to maintain quality standards, but if the team cannot build a "safe space" something breaks down, people become defensive, communication problems arise, and from there, it's an uphill battle.
In your opinion, what is the future of workplaces?
The fundamental question post-pandemic. I don't know; we have all learned to interact in the "non-place" of work, collaborating in digital spaces. Many are now experimenting with various hybrid systems, and there are still those who strongly believe in sharing physical space even if it's not a necessity. Up to this point, I may have wasted words and the reader's time with obvious statements, but I like to make premises. I believe, returning to the answer about company culture, that the future of workplaces is "flexible." Personally, I have experienced moments of great loneliness both working remotely with a strong sense of distance and alienation and working in an office surrounded by people who ignore each other and do not collaborate. At the same time, I have many memories of great humanity, intimacy, and important relationships forged through a screen, as well as memories of joy and comfort in having the opportunity to share physical space to work together. The workplace of the future will be a complex system that includes any "space" within this spectrum that facilitates collaboration and communication among people. It will be complex and flexible to ensure access to these collaboration channels according to everyone's needs. My answer is a non-answer about non-workplaces. But as Cynefin dictates, for a complex problem, we can only respond through exploration, and the breaking point of the pandemic has been a great driver of experimentation; each person will arrive at their own answer through trial and error.
How will the world of design change in the next 5 years?
Playing with the meanings and etymology of the word "design" less and less "drawing" and more and more "projection."
I hope you liked this special edition of the weekly retrospective of Already, Yet and that you enjoy the rest of the project as much as I do.
If you liked this post and you think some of your friends would like it as well, please share it with whoever you like.
Thanks for reading to the finish and see you next week!
Tobia