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33:
Understanding Change & the Change in Understanding
by Richard Saul Wurman
Greenway Communications, 2009
Paperback, 64 pages
According to his web page, Richard
Saul Wurman's singular passion in life is "making
information understandable." He has tackled this ambitious
goal by authoring over 80 books (ACCESS Travel Guides, Understanding
Series, etc.), creating web
pages, chairing design conferences, and creating the
TED (Technology/Entertainment/Design)
conferences in 1984. One of the design conferences he chaired
was the National AIA Convention in 1976, for which he created
an exclusive booklet, What-If, Could Be: An historical
fable of the future. In it, the "Commissioner
was asked by the people of What-If in the land of Could-Be
to fix their city." Thirty-three years later, Wurman
pens the sequel, resuming the Commissioner's work after
33 years of exile. The earlier "very limited edition"
is reprinted in the sequel's folds. In
both of these short books, Wurman captures the simultaneous
feelings of doubt and possibility found in creating and
changing our environment. This is evident in the names What-If
and Could-Be. Ultimately the fable is optimistic, seeing
design as widespread and shared, and elevating the importance
of understanding over mere knowledge.
My own thoughts on the shifting nature
of information are aided by Wurman's broadly applicable
and lyrical fable: Sharing of information has supplanted
the exclusivity of information, but being able to make sense
of the large amount of information available today is of
the utmost, particularly when a lot of time can be devoted
to just finding something of importance. In other words,
the information that we adopt in the service of making things
(better) needs to be easily shared, not hoarded out of paranoia
or self-serving needs. This trend is apparent in the evolution
of the internet, in its ability to share information rapidly
and broadly via various means (linking, tagging, search
engines, newsfeeds, etc.), but this does not mean that information
is necessarily understandable. Just consider Edward
Tufte's similar crusade for intelligently visualizing
data to realize how important design is in truly understanding
information.
But the sharing and design of information
just scratches the surface of what Wurman tackles in 33.
It is one of the lessons, along with the 32 others, that
Wurman's Commissioner shares with the readers and the residents
of What-If. Another discusses how to give a good meeting,
and one wonders how much more productive we'd be if managers
took heed of the Commissioner's advice (say what you need
to say in five minutes, any longer is lecturing). So Wurman's
fable of 33 lessons 33 years after his first series of lessons
can be seen as a step back from the mad rush of change in
that time, be it in cities, work, technology, and so on.
It is a reflection on what is important, seeing the essences
through the noise, calling out the BS that keeps us from
understanding each other and making the land of Could-Be
a better place.
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