Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues

What’s Missing?
Design, technology, innovation: these are beginning to rise in prominence. Beijing has its commercialized 798 art district; Shanghai has the hip-modern French Concession district. Young adults flock to cafés with extravagant decors, armed with a creative concoction of a drink in one hand and iPhone in the other. This is the experience economy. Who needs Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat when it all is consolidated in Chinese WeChat? But the rapid technological adoption is also cause for concern: companies and products have become so retail consumer-focused, so fast-revenue-driven, so shallow. It’s like biting into a plump, artfully sculpted steamed bun...only to discover a flavorless pork filling. What’s the missing substance?

From Making Goods to Designing for Good
What China lacks is purposeful, future-oriented design, especially in the business-to-business space. Businesses catering to other businesses, rather than just consumers, have far more power to shape culture and values. Global design and innovation consulting firm IDEO (headquartered in San Francisco) leads in this sphere. Their work shifts the question from “How can I sell this bottle?” to “What is the future of safe drinking water?” As stated in IDEO’s literature, “At IDEO Shanghai, we work with clients to create new value in China. We work on challenges that present significant barriers to the country's development, business prosperity and people’s wellbeing. These include building farm-to-table business ventures to tackle systemic food safety issues, reinventing social skills and social learning through play, and working with visionary leaders to revive the rural community through education and commerce. We believe that these kinds of challenges, if solved, will deliver disproportionate positive impact.” Creative industries are still in relative infancy in China. Design is just design: it is graphic design, interior, industrial, etc.—the surface-level aesthetics. Firms have yet to realize that good business strategy is good design, and good design is key to applying consumer needs to world issues. It is a holistic cycle. It is business and trade extending into social development, global health and humanitarian issues, peace and security, the environment, etc. This is high level, qualitative, visionary thinking—something Chinese firms don’t often incorporate. This is where the entrepreneurial spirit of the United States can step in. The United States can promote a shift from efficiency-thinking to design-thinking by introducing depth through design. 

A Concrete Suggestion
As with all things creative and China, it gets political. Innovative industries especially need support from the leadership to grow, but the Chinese leadership is still unfamiliar with design thinking-oriented business strategy. Experienced U.S. firms can provide inspiration and support to China’s small but growing domestic design, technology, and entrepreneurial industries. A joint government-backed initiative to grow the design innovation business-to-business space could cultivate this shift in business mindset. China leads in trade of goods, but there is great potential in trade of ideas and all things digital. This can manifest in American firms training and mentoring Chinese designers and strategists, introducing sustainable cycles of teaching. (Global design firms like IDEO and Frog Design already have offices in China.) It could mean government grants for design firms to dig deeper in ethnographic research when solving environmental problems. It could be hosting and sponsoring events and competitions (such as Design for America, Startup Weekend). It could look like Japan-based kyu collective, where businesses come together to encourage each other in greater good. It is any and every way to show Chinese businesses that people-oriented thinking has both monetary gain and social value.

Benefitting the Global Community
When design and innovation consultancies thrive in China and the United States, the whole world benefits. As countries with power and prominence, we have the ability to set precedents for developing economies. Collaboration can result in allowing empathy to penetrate into ingrained political systems and transcend cultural barriers. At its core, design is visionary. Would it be too idealist to imagine a world of open-minded political environments to allow for creative experimentation? True to the spirit of design, crazy is good; it is exactly the kind of inspirational and passionate thinking that will create the future of change. Global connectivity empowers countries to together evolve from makers of goods into purpose-driven creators of good. Innovation is not just the icing on the cake; it is the bread and butter—or rather, the artfully sculpted dumpling skin and the flavor-infused pork and cabbage filling.

Vicky Gu is a senior at Georgetown University studying finance and international business.

COMMENT FROM CALEB HUFFMAN (November 21, 2016):

“Firms have yet to realize that good business strategy is good design, and good design is key to applying consumer needs to world issues.”

What a powerful observation! I had never considered this line of logic, and I completely agree. The question now is: how to incentivize the creation of genuinely good business strategies?

Your concrete suggestion is to garner political support, since that is necessary for a successful business venture in China. May I suggest that this is not the answer, but the problem? Perhaps the reasons businesses are failing to innovate is because of pressure to conform to government norms. Instead, the Chinese government should try to give business more space to act like a business, not a participant in politics. This will allow for businesses to truly innovate, not simply attempt to impress government officials for a stamp of approval.

COMMENT FROM MINGYAN "AMY" DUAN (November 21, 2016):

The idea to apply consumer needs to world issues and make business and trade extend into social development and global well-being is creative. I admit that China is relatively slow in design thinking-oriented business strategy, both at the government level and in the business sector. It’s true that innovative industries in China need support from the leadership to grow, but the problem is it’s even harder for the political system to make a shift in business mindset than companies. I’ve seen many experienced U.S. experts training and mentoring Chinese at AmCham China, but so far, people involved are individuals such as executives, businessmen, and employees. I hope there are similar exchanges amongst the highest levels—the government, which is even more important because in China, it’s all a top-down approach.