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Over coffee today, a colleague and I were talking about the way people react to certain types of questions. While what we discussed is not peculiar to designers, I though it'd be fun to share some thoughts and maybe get a reaction.

So how do designers react when they are asked a question about a non-design issue? Say, something along the lines of, "so what are we going to do about getting the business community to recognise the value of design?" or, "how are we going to get all these members to vote in the ADP project?"

Sometimes I get the impression that two reactions occur - guilt, and then suspicion. There seems to be a vague sense of guilt, like, "oops, maybe I should know the answer to that one," followed a little while later by, "hey! surely someone is in charge on that one."

I dunno, is that the way it works? I have my own guess - that the answer to, "who is in charge here?" is often, "nobody special." That is a good thing, because I read it as a sign of democracy in action. For me, the other way of saying, "nobody special" is, "we all are."

I said I wouldn't but now I will (talk about what happened at Coolum). I'll take the example of one of John Nowland's favourite subjects, building up one's knowledge of the design language. How does that happen?

At Coolum, it happened when the speakers discussed projects and answered questions from their colleagues about how the projects happened. It happened at countless casual conversations between the 150+ delegates and speakers over a three day period. Yes, it is a semi-random process, but that doesn't make it any less real. All of those delegates came away with an enriched view of the depth of design language. And back in their respective studios, they are talking, thinking and acting out that enrichment. So the whole of Australian design community benefits. Okay, you personally may not feel its effects today, tomorrow, or even next year. But at some point you will.

It's not a particularly dramatic example, but then most of them aren't. Society moves slowly because people change their minds slowly (mostly), and then you have to allow time for those people to talk to other people and get them thinking to. To speed up the process, we would all have to spend most of our time: a. soaking up new thoughts and facts and; b. sharing those thoughts and facts with others without prejudice.

I'll be a little aggressive here (if you don't mind). I think that designers, in areas outside of design, are pretty conservative people. That means they don't like to change their mind that often, especially about the way the world works - whatever that is. And that's why we get the guilt-and-suspicion reaction to questions we don't have the answers for.

Why am I going on about it? Because I think it's much harder to learn about things if you constantly feel guilty about not knowing things. Relax! We're ignorant as hell about a lot of things, but that's the pleasure of it, not the pain. Move on, say "er, what does that mean?" or "so how does that work?" Life's too short and there is way too much fun out there to be had to waste time worrying about what you don't know. It works for me.

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andrew@lam-po-tangcom