Making information understandable both for himself and others—TED founder and author of numerous books, Richard Saul Wurman, joins to talk about education.
Making information understandable both for himself and others—TED founder and author of numerous books, Richard Saul Wurman, joins to talk about education.
Debbie Millman:
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Richard Saul W.:
Most information does not inform, most questions do not have a quest; I’m interested in the informed quest.
Speaker 3:
This is Design Matters with Debbie Millman from designobserver.com. For 13 years now, Debbie Millman has been talking with designers and other creative types about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they’re thinking about. On this podcast, Debbie Millman talks with the founder of the TED conference, Richard Saul Wurman, about learning and education.
Richard Saul W.:
If you had a learning system, you wouldn’t have an educational system. The educational system is from the top down, and learning system is from the bottom up.
Speaker 3:
Here’s Debbie Millman.
Debbie Millman:
Richard Saul Wurman wants to get it, and he wants you to get it too. “Get what?” You may ask; anything and everything. Wurman has made a business of understanding what he doesn’t know, and passing on what he does know. His fascination with technology, entertainment, and design led him to found the TED conference. And with over 90 books to his name, Wurman is clearly still at it.
Debbie Millman:
His latest book, UnderstandingUnderstanding, is Wurman’s fantasy of being the dumbest person in the room and be able to identify all the connections of how other people think, talk, explain and visualize. Richard Saul Wurman, welcome to Design Matters.
Richard Saul W.:
I believe it’s fine to be here.
Debbie Millman:
Thank you. Well, Richard, the first thing I want to ask you about is your teddy bears. I understand you have a collection that includes bears that have been to Mount Everest, one that has traveled to the Bismarck, and one that has even been on the Titanic. So what’s this with you and bears?
Richard Saul W.:
When I founded Ted in 1984, I was fat.
Debbie Millman:
Fat, as in heavy?
Richard Saul W.:
Yeah, I was piggish. And I was called Ted, so I thought the teddy bear would be kind of self- deprecating mockery; and that people liked teddy bears and I gave everybody a teddy bear and designed a new one every year. And then I had all these teddy bears, and then people asked me said they were going to mount Everest, or they were going to the Titanic; I knew people-
Debbie Millman:
Oh, so people actually took it to the depths of the sea?
Richard Saul W.:
Oh yeah.
Debbie Millman:
Oh wow.
Richard Saul W.:
Yeah, and then it squishes down to a very little thing when it gets down there, then it pops back up when it gets up. So I have a few of them that have been there, I lose some as I move to different houses; but, yeah, not one ted- I mean different teddy bears-
Debbie Millman:
You have lots of them.
Richard Saul W.:
One went to up in Canada and it was taken by a bear. So we don’t have it, but a bear took it and-
Debbie Millman:
Sort of [inaudible 00:03:32]?
Richard Saul W.:
Yeah. But it’s … I’ve never been asked that question before about my teddy bears; they just are.
Debbie Millman:
I understand your father Morris Lewis Wurman was an executive at Bayuk Cigars and quite an important man in Philadelphia’s Jewish business circles. And I think you’ve referred to him as a [inaudible 00:03:50], which is essentially the Yiddish word for player. How much did he influence you?
Richard Saul W.:
First of all, I’ve never heard him called Morris Lewis Wurman, he was ML, his brother was HP, my grandfather was JS, and I go by my initials RSW; it’s probably because of that. I don’t remember ever saying [inaudible 00:04:09]. He was a … His life was cigars. My mother’s family were very poor kosher butchers in Reading, Pennsylvania; I mean really poor, poor.
Richard Saul W.:
And so I thought, both sides of my family dealt in death, one killing chickens and the other killing people with cigars. But he loved cigars, he loved from … He was involved with cigars and his father before him from the seeds to growing tobacco in Cuba, and [inaudible 00:04:42] at one time, and Connecticut, and Pennsylvania; and he blended it and all.
Richard Saul W.:
He was just an executive, he didn’t own the company, he was not a wealthy man, there’s no family money. I don’t remember ever calling him a [inaudible 00:04:54]; I must have said it, if you write it down, so it must have been written somewhere, but-
Debbie Millman:
Well, it’s not a word I would ordinarily think-
Richard Saul W.:
No, I’m sure-
Debbie Millman:
On my own.
Richard Saul W.:
I’m sure you found it, but I don’t remember doing that.
Debbie Millman:
It’s a good word though.
Richard Saul W.:
That’s a very good word.
Debbie Millman:
You said this about your experience in high school, “I’m not a rebel, I wasn’t an unruly student in high school, I didn’t misbehave. But at the same time, the principal and class advisor at graduation wouldn’t shake my hand, because they knew I knew that they weren’t very smart, and they were doing everything wrong.” What kinds of things were they doing wrong?
Richard Saul W.:
Well, the whole educational system is wrong. And I didn’t make a point of it, but they somehow knew that I knew and that what you do, many times in your life, you do by agreement. You don’t push somebody in the street, you behave in a certain way because we have an agreement to behave. The same way the dollar isn’t worth anything; there’s an agreement it’s worth something.
Debbie Millman:
Well, that’s the way almost everything is, everything’s a construct.
Richard Saul W.:
Well, the dollar used to be backed by gold. There used to be somewhat penalties for things; so we just do it because it’s easier. And, but you can make … When I went to the university, I made up my own rules. And I did have a different agreement; I had made agreement the first day of class with the Dean of the School.
Debbie Millman:
What kind of agreement?
Richard Saul W.:
I could take any and all courses I wanted for as many hours of the day, and many days of the week as I wanted as long as I maintained an A minus average.
Debbie Millman:
Were you actually registered for all the classes?
Richard Saul W.:
Yes.
Debbie Millman:
Or you? Wow? So how many credits you end up graduating with? You went to University of Pennsylvania for your bachelor’s and a master’s degree; did you do this all the way through?
Richard Saul W.:
Yes.
Debbie Millman:
So how many classes, do you remember? How many classes were you taking a semester?
Richard Saul W.:
Well I was going to school all day, all night, six days a week, because classes didn’t meet … And nights, classes didn’t meet on Sunday, and I was obsessed. I’ve never worked as hard in my life; my hair fell out. It was a useful experiment for me, and I took maybe a triple load-
Debbie Millman:
And-
Richard Saul W.:
And I graduated first with the highest average.
Debbie Millman:
And yet you feel like the education system is all wrong?
Richard Saul W.:
Well I made it right, because I was able to take things that interested me totally.
Debbie Millman:
And so-
Richard Saul W.:
Learning is remembering what you’re interested in; my whole life is following my personal path of interest, not somebody’s educational system. So, the reason they knew I knew it, they knew I knew that the educational system is basically like a gin rummy game. You remember the cards of one hand, then forget them for the next.
Richard Saul W.:
In school, you have to remember enough stuff to put it down, polemically, on a piece of paper called a test; and you forget it. And you don’t remember it, because you weren’t interested in the first place. About 80 percent of the things you take, you’re not interested in. And about 90 percent of the skill sets you’re told to learn, some learn fast some learn it slow; everybody taught to learn at the same rate.
Richard Saul W.:
Or sometimes you don’t even need to know the skill to do your job. Well I can’t type, I can’t do anything very well; I’m not so smart, but I can see patterns. And that’s all that matters to me is pattern recognition and finding those paths through patterns that makes things understandable to myself. In your opening, you referred to the fact that I do this so other people can understand; I don’t, I do it so I can understand. I am trying to solve my puzzle; my indulgent puzzle of how to understand something that interests me.
Debbie Millman:
And what makes you-
Richard Saul W.:
Now if I-
Debbie Millman:
What motivates you to share that?
Richard Saul W.:
No, I just do it. I [inaudible 00:08:36]
Debbie Millman:
Why publish books, why have conferences?
Richard Saul W.:
Oh, because I’m so lazy, that if I don’t bring it to fruition, it doesn’t happen; it’s a way of train-
Debbie Millman:
Keeping yourself accountable?
Richard Saul W.:
Keeping myself, yeah, clear yeah; it’s because I know who I am. I wouldn’t do anything, I would be lazy.
Debbie Millman:
Have you always know who you are?
Richard Saul W.:
I think so.
Debbie Millman:
I don’t mean that in a-
Richard Saul W.:
I know how you meant it, and I said “I think so.” And I said it quietly.
Debbie Millman:
But when you say things quietly, does that mean that you’re not quite as sure?
Richard Saul W.:
No, I said it with … That had a solemn, solemn … It was solemn, it was reflective.
Debbie Millman:
You, at one point in your early life, wanted to be a painter.
Richard Saul W.:
Yeah, I-
Debbie Millman:
And I understand.
Richard Saul W.:
Still paint.
Debbie Millman:
But your father didn’t want you to study painting.
Richard Saul W.:
No, I went to Tyler School of Art during high school. I went to night school during high school and then summers I went there and learned etching and lithography, and some painting, a little bit of sculpture. But etching, lithography and printing I took there, so he wasn’t against that; no, he got me in there.
Debbie Millman:
But what about the aptitude test?
Richard Saul W.:
He thought-
Debbie Millman:
Tell us about the aptitude test, explain it so that our listeners know what you’re talking about.
Richard Saul W.:
We’re pulling up all the carpets.
Debbie Millman:
Absolutely, that’s what Design Matters is.
Richard Saul W.:
Okay. My father discouraged me from going into the cigar business. He encouraged me to have an interesting life; he never went to college. I thought he was extremely bright, as I grew older, I realized that I’m probably smarter than he was. But I didn’t know that for many, many years, so I had this … He was a figure to me.
Richard Saul W.:
And his charisma, his ways of acting in social situations has helped me a great deal. He thought I should make a good choice, so he had a friend … He always had friends, I mean, I went to see the Pope because of friends that he had. A friend of his ran a small college, and he got his doctorate, wasn’t president of the college, but he got his doctorate in testing. So I spent two days testing, and it turns out that … Well the three things that came out on top was art archeology; wasn’t art it was archeology-
Debbie Millman:
Architec-
Richard Saul W.:
Architecture and hairdressing. And so at that moment, when I was 17, I’ve never been to a barber since. I got my hair shaved off, I’ve had it in ponytails. I thought “Well, if I scored right, I should do that.” It’s not particularly nice hair, and I don’t keep a particularly nice, I don’t-
Debbie Millman:
You got a pretty full head, so that’s good.
Richard Saul W.:
A full head of hair or full head?
Debbie Millman:
Both.
Richard Saul W.:
So I did that but he didn’t care if I was a painter, but architecture seemed to be as a simple puzzle; from architecture you can move into archeology, from architecture, you can move into a painting. So I chose to go into architecture, because if I changed my mind I could move into other … It was a pattern. And it turned out I stayed with architecture, but I also did archeology. And I also painted; I painted 12 hours every week; all through the university.
Richard Saul W.:
And I still paint on and off, a kind of semi painting of a border colors on a rice paper that spreads it very quickly; you have to do it very quickly; and I paint kind of imaginary birds. They’re interesting, I’ve never shown them. In university, I showed them; I got first prize every year through the university-wide thing, including the Pennsylvania Academy of Arts in watercolors. But then I stopped painting I graduated.
Debbie Millman:
After you graduated, you went to work for the renowned architect Louis Kahn, and I read that all the best students at the University of Pennsylvania’s Architecture School worked in his studio; and they ate with him, drank with him, and loaned him money.
Richard Saul W.:
That’s right.
Debbie Millman:
Why would they … Why was he borrowing money from students?
Richard Saul W.:
Lou was the most extraordinary person I ever knew; and he affected my life, fundamentally. He wasn’t always nice, and he certainly never made a dollar, and he didn’t carry money, and he didn’t have a driver’s license, and he didn’t know how to drive, and he didn’t drive; he had a special car that allowed them to sit in the front seat of a taxi.
Richard Saul W.:
He was just himself and certainly was not a good businessman; he died in debt. So loaning him money or buying him dinner was okay. He told me a funny story, but I’ve never told it, so I’ll tell it; this will be interesting for you because you’re doing this podcast thing.
Richard Saul W.:
Late in his life, I think he was almost 70, he called me … And he called me Ricky, he said and he was smiling. His face was all scarred, so when he smiled it would have had a very strange look to it; it’s sort of a wrinkly smile. And so, he was just on Market Street in Philadelphia, and there was somebody called an old lady; she probably was 65. And she was at the curb and it looked like she was hesitating about crossing the street. So, he was always dressed sort of frumpy with a mis-tied bow tie. And it took her arm and guided her across the street, and she gave him quarter. And he thought that was so funny.
Debbie Millman:
That’s priceless.
Richard Saul W.:
And it was endearing, it was an endearing story.
Debbie Millman:
You said that though he was demonic and adored, he didn’t obey the rules because it didn’t occur to him that there were rules.
Richard Saul W.:
That’s correct.
Debbie Millman:
And do you think there were rules at the time; was that sort of motto that you ended up learning from him, or being inspired-
Richard Saul W.:
I don’t know.
Debbie Millman:
By through him?
Richard Saul W.:
I don’t know if you learn things, even when you introduced this book I just finished, and some other books I’ve done; they’re really meant to give people permission. So I think being with him gave me permission to be more of me. And I think a teacher who’s worth something doesn’t really teach; they allow their people who don’t know their students to be more of themselves.
Richard Saul W.:
And it’s that permission giving but I believe in, so I’m not an academic, I don’t think I’m teaching anybody, I don’t want sycophants, I don’t want … It’s just not interesting. But I am interested that, by example, maybe I give people permission. So they can see if I … I’m a sort of a screw up, I don’t do things in a way maybe but I don’t purposely not do them that way. I don’t purposely go against the grain. This is not … I’m not an action-
Debbie Millman:
So it’s not a stance?
Richard Saul W.:
It’s not a stance; I don’t care enough about people to do that. I just do what I think is okay to do, what I feel like doing is that. And sometimes it appears that I’m taking a stance or I think in one quote that I found that I forgot I had said is that “Telling the truth as a political act.” And it’s maybe more that I just told the truth, and that it appears to be political act; but I don’t mean it to be.
Debbie Millman:
In 1963, you started your own architecture firm with two Penn graduates, John Murphy and Alan Levy, and the partnership lasted 13 years. One of the highlights of your career, at that point, was an ambitious plan for the redevelopment of Penn’s Landing, a downtrodden piece of property along the waterfront in Pennsylvania.
Debbie Millman:
And you participated in an international competition for the job. And you brought your response, it was a single page, laminated like a menu to the meeting with the city officials and you told them that you didn’t need them to see your credentials, all they needed to see was the one page document which stated, “You don’t know what you want, we will work with you to help you figure it out.” And you won the business. What made you decide to take that route? Was that the first time you were ever sort of that ballsy in the way that you pursued getting a new piece of business?
Richard Saul W.:
No, that doesn’t seem to be ballsy to me, I was telling the truth. I was just thinking that the answer that you can’t know what you’re going to do until you get involved in doing, and what you can pledge is to work with people to solve. The performance that grows as you have conversations with people. That-
Debbie Millman:
So was that your sort of standard response to always bring in one sheet?
Richard Saul W.:
I don’t think I have a standard anything.
Debbie Millman:
Did you do that more than once?
Richard Saul W.:
I don’t remember.
Debbie Millman:
Really?
Richard Saul W.:
When you say “Really?” to me, it questions what I say.
Debbie Millman:
It does, because I can’t believe that you don’t remember something; I think you’re too smart for that.
Richard Saul W.:
When I say “I don’t remember.” I don’t remember. So when you say “Really?” It means you’re not telling the truth, or you don’t believe that I don’t remember.
Debbie Millman:
I don’t.
Richard Saul W.:
Well, you have to take that to bed with you.
Debbie Millman:
Okay, fair enough. In an interview that I read with you from your website, you said that you were a failure and left destitute at 45. What happened, why were you a failure and left destitute it 45?
Richard Saul W.:
We weren’t getting work for a number of reasons in Philadelphia with our architectural practice. And we closed our office, and I had nothing to do. And since I’m sort of abrasively charming, it’s very hard for me to get a job. So my money got used up; I didn’t have any money. So I had to figure out how to survive.
Debbie Millman:
And at that point, I think, for some time we were living in a flophouse.
Richard Saul W.:
This is so, this is not it. This is a path that is so uninteresting to me. My life has been just … I’ve been so blessed in my life that to talk about things where my life was difficult, is so what? I have been so fortunate to have allowed to have a life where I could do so many things I wanted to do. To think of ideas, to allow my con to work so they got paid for, that I could be independent, that I could have extraordinary conversations with people. Man, there’s nothing I want to complain about [inaudible 00:18:54].
Debbie Millman:
Oh no, no, no-
Richard Saul W.:
No, no.
Debbie Millman:
This is not complaining.
Richard Saul W.:
But it’s implicit. If I was out of money, implicit if I was living in as flophouse that things weren’t going well; they were going the way they went, and it probably was very good for me. Everything that happened was part of shaping me; going to the jungle, begging across America, of doing things that were unpleasant, things that terrified me were just fine. I don’t get over the terror, but I know what terrifies me. I don’t take any of those things as anything to dwell upon, it’s okay. If the floors are hot and your feet are bare, your feet stink; but you choose to walk there. And it’s not a matter of … It’s not part of my story, part of my story is next. Part of my story is what I’m going to think of next, part of my story is solving the puzzle, and then my warranty runs out.
Debbie Millman:
I understand. Part of my story, in the way that I conduct this podcast, is to really understand the trajectory of a person’s life, the choices that they made, the obstacles that they went through. And it is pretty clear that you’ve had a remarkable life, and your story is really out there about all you’ve accomplished and the amazing, amazing things that you have done. I am sort of endlessly curious about how a person becomes who they are, and how they are able to overcome the hardships that everyone encounters.
Richard Saul W.:
I don’t think I had it so hard. I think I’ve had it really easy; I’ve been fortunate, I don’t think my life has been hard. People’s lives are often hard, I don’t think I have anything to complain about, or anything that was hard about my life; it’s been really fortunate. And the mention of a flophouse, or the mention of being destitute, is trivial to me; it just happened. It’s like when you trim your nail, sometimes you cut the cuticle; that’s all right, it’s nothing you’re going to take to a dinner party. It’s not what I think about.
Debbie Millman:
For me, it’s not about complaining or bragging, it’s about just sharing the path that you were on and the things that you went through. I think it’s pretty remarkable to be at 45 years old, destitute-
Richard Saul W.:
I was out of work and I didn’t have skills, so that was hard. But being hard-
Debbie Millman:
Well you did have skills, you were an architect.
Richard Saul W.:
But I don’t have skills, because I can’t do drawings that well, I can’t build models that well, I don’t do anything that well; my skill set is meager. I can’t type, I can’t read hard books, I get by and I’m amazed by it. I’m like in the audience watching this guy, kind of hobbled getting through and getting a new pair of pants. It’s just simple, okay, I don’t think it’s so … Let’s just move on.
Debbie Millman:
California is where you started self publishing your first guide book, LA Access. What made you decide to do that at that time?
Richard Saul W.:
Like everything else, I moved there I couldn’t find my way around, I couldn’t find a good book guidebook; so I did one.
Debbie Millman:
And-
Richard Saul W.:
Nobody asked me to do it, I didn’t have a publisher, and I didn’t know the … The book, each of my project, is a roadmap from not knowing to knowing; I didn’t know LA, I was living there, I couldn’t find something. If there was a guide book, I wouldn’t have done my guidebook. I’m not trying to do guide books, I’m not trying to do anything; I’m trying to fill in the black hole that’s in your stomach of not knowing something that I’m curious about. I didn’t do it for the other people; it seemed to help me. And what helps me because I’m kind of dumb, it helps other people too.
Debbie Millman:
You said that your biggest lesson in life has been understanding what it’s like to not understand.
Richard Saul W.:
That’s it.
Debbie Millman:
And this is with you every minute of the day.
Richard Saul W.:
Absolutely. I said that this morning, I had a con- … I had several conversations already this morning; three big ones. One with somebody I had never met before; extraordinary man who started the Anderson Hospital Clinic, the best cancer hospital in the world. Not according to him according to everything, if you research it after I’m off and you go online, you’ll see what’s the best cancer place in the United States, and who founded it, and who ran it; well it’s this man. We talked about cancer for a couple of hours, and we’d never met each other. And when he was finished, I generally understood what he was talking about, because he was quite articulate; but I said that he suffered from the disease of familiarity.
Debbie Millman:
What is that?
Richard Saul W.:
That he knew so much about what he was talking about, that he didn’t understand what it was like not to understand. So he didn’t sort of let me in, quite. And that’s… Most faculty members have that in schools, most people have that. When they know something very well, it’s very difficult to understand what it’s like not to know the doorway, the threshold in; and then you never get to understand the subject of what they’re talking about, if you missed those first few steps.
Debbie Millman:
When you said that it was difficult for him to let you in, what do you mean by that?
Richard Saul W.:
If you don’t realize that the person doesn’t know how to count, and you’re talking about numbers, you didn’t let them in. But it’s not an act to try to keep them out, it’s just that you don’t know they don’t know how to count. And a lot of conversations between people never get started; it’s not that they come apart. They never get started because one person doesn’t understand what it’s like not to understand what they’re talking about.
Debbie Millman:
Or one person is afraid to let on that they don’t know something that the other person is talking about.
Richard Saul W.:
That’s also a possibility.
Debbie Millman:
You said that it’s obvious we understand from numbers, words and pictures and a combination of those things; but even beyond that, there are still many idiosyncratic ways that various people understand things. And you talked about the way in which we could organize information, whether it be hierarchical, or categorical, or alphabetical; what are the various idiosyncratic ways that people understand things?
Richard Saul W.:
Anything that takes place in my past, I always say is about 20 years ago, so it’s not really a number. But about 20 years ago, I came up with a notion that there was only five ways of organizing information; which I called LATCH: location, alphabet, time, category and hierarchy. That’s been kind of known, not by me, but by others as Wurman’s Law. And I’ve talked about it and written about it so, minimally, millions of people have seen it. It’s been very helpful to me; someday maybe somebody will prove it wrong and that’s okay too.
Debbie Millman:
You stated that learning is remembering what interests you. What if you aren’t interested in something that is important to know? How do you encourage somebody to try to open their mind to the possibilities of understanding something that they weren’t aware of as being important?
Richard Saul W.:
Probably wouldn’t do it. Learning is remembering what you’re interested in. If you find something you’re interested in, it connects to everything. I think it connects back to even something they didn’t know they were interested in. I think you could make a loop from any place through all understandable information. We’re taught that we want a great educational system, and I believe in a learning system; and I think they’re fundamentally, completely different. If you had a learning system, you wouldn’t have an educational system; the educational system is from the top down, and a learning system is from the bottom up. You would have guides helping you from whatever you’re interested in. If you’re interested in automobiles, or socks, or shoe laces, whatever you’re interested in touches everything else if you have a reasonable guide.
Debbie Millman:
There’re certain benefits to knowing math; they might not be interests, but there certainly are benefits. And I would hate to think that people were only capable of learning about things that they had a predisposition for because of socialization, or culture, or their way of being brought up.
Richard Saul W.:
The idea of math, and reading, and letters and numbers and all that takes my argument to reductio ad absurdum. I think in the pathway of being interested in something, you would find that there is a numerical element and a linguistic element that would prove to be interesting and necessary for you to make those connections, period. I’m not trying to redesign a hairpin; I think it would work, I believe it. I’ve never tried it, I’m not going to try it, I live my life that way, it works for me, I’m not going to set up a school to do that; I just believe it deeply.
Debbie Millman:
I would like to believe it deeply but, in the world that we’re living in now, with the cultural echo chamber, it seems like we’re only seeking information that helps us believe that what we already know is correct.
Richard Saul W.:
I’ll have to go back three steps; most information does not inform. Most questions do not have a quest; I’m interested in the informed quest. I could give you a newspaper if somebody had a New York Times, point to any story in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and ask you the simplest questions about it, and the answers are not there. You can find out about it because nothing is written, that I can find, that pulls you in to an understandable story.
Debbie Millman:
Give me an example, can you give me an example?
Richard Saul W.:
Oh, it just was three earthquakes in Japan and they have the numbers of those earthquakes. They don’t really tell you exactly where they are or what it means, or what it means if it’s that … They give you some numbers of how many miles below the surface it is, what kind of earthquake it is, what kind of damage can you, what is the area, that there might be a tsunami. Why might there be a tsunami, what is questions you could ask that would come to your head when you read this except “Oh, a 7.1, wow that’s bigger than a 6.8.” But how much bigger?
Richard Saul W.:
You know it goes on a [inaudible 00:29:01] but they don’t really tell you how big that is or that a seven can do less damage, depending on what kind it is, and its lasting, and how far below the surface it is, than a five; and a five can decimate something.
Richard Saul W.:
It is just not clear, anything that anybody writes, I don’t mean to be encyclopedic about it, but make it understandable relative to something you can understand. And you cannot understand a 7.1 earthquake, by itself. The earthquake in San Francisco, that I was in on the 17th floor it just so happens, was a 7.1 earthquake, the big one that put down that one part of the bridge which went down not because of the earthquake was so bad, it was lousily built; which they found out it was broke all the code.
Richard Saul W.:
Few people died because some gas mains broke in it and it was faulty, again, in a part of town where the … I was in it, it wasn’t so bad. And I was in the heart of it; it was an interesting experience. I fell off my chair, and the elevator stopped in the building and the power went out.
Richard Saul W.:
But I understood … But how do you understand what really happens because you then see a 5.1 earthquake or a 5.6 in Haiti, and the whole place is demolished? Well, it can’t be the same story; it’s not understandable. So you … It’s the words of a scientist, not the words of communication.
Debbie Millman:
How would you have put it in another way?
Richard Saul W.:
You’re asking me to do somebody work for them.
Debbie Millman:
No, I’m just asking your opinion.
Richard Saul W.:
I would say what it was like, what it would feel like to the audience that’s going to read it; and depending on what the audience was you could give examples of what it would feel like. It might feel like jumping off a two foot high bed, it might feel like if you had some dishes they would go on the floor, or all the books with fallout, or you’d have to lay or it’d knock you out of your chair. And you should say, “This lasted for 14 seconds, look at your watch and think of what that would be like for 14 seconds.”
Debbie Millman:
The last question I want to ask you is about the question you have often started conversations with you state, “You don’t know me. But you owe me.” Why is that a favorite conversation starter for you?
Richard Saul W.:
It sets an edge to everything else I say, and it’s provocative. And to start something, I want to make sure the audience is awake, and it’s and they automatically don’t like me, and I have to win my way back into their belief system.
Debbie Millman:
Why do you want to do that?
Richard Saul W.:
That struggle is good.
Debbie Millman:
Why?
Richard Saul W.:
Because I like that struggle. The edge, I like terror, I like the edge of things; it’s the edge that keeps me awake, it’s the edge that’s interesting to me. I don’t … Comfort is not your friend or my friend; I don’t want to be comfortable. I want the discomfort of thinking of the next thing, the discomfort of what doesn’t work, the understanding of failure, and the joy of confidence, and the discomfort of terror-
Debbie Millman:
What is-
Richard Saul W.:
And the joy of admiration.
Debbie Millman:
What does the discomfort of terror mean to you?
Richard Saul W.:
It means that I can’t figure it out yet. I mean, coming here and talking to you is terrifying, but I’m confident or be okay, but I’m terrified, but I’m confident would be okay; and I could keep on saying that.
Debbie Millman:
Why are you terrified?
Richard Saul W.:
I just always him because there’s always the edge of what I’m gonna think of, or what I say or whether it’s what I’ve said is clear to myself [inaudible 00:32:46]
Debbie Millman:
Is it a lack of control that you’re worried?
Richard Saul W.:
No.
Debbie Millman:
So then why would there be-
Richard Saul W.:
I’m not very much under control, so I know I’m always going to stick my foot my mouth; I’m aware that you could edit this thing out. My feet could be sticking out of my ears I know that.
Debbie Millman:
Why would I want to do that?
Richard Saul W.:
I didn’t say you wanted to do that-
Debbie Millman:
No but why-
Richard Saul W.:
Do quote my language, okay. I said you could do that I didn’t say you would want to do that.
Debbie Millman:
I’m not saying that you’re saying that, I’m actually trying to respond with the notion that something like that wouldn’t be something that I would consider; and so I’m curious as to why you think I would.
Richard Saul W.:
Okay. I didn’t say you would, I said you could.
Debbie Millman:
Right.
Richard Saul W.:
But I didn’t say you would.
Debbie Millman:
I know, but-
Richard Saul W.:
This is just back and forth.
Debbie Millman:
No it isn’t, no, this isn’t Richard, I’m actually trying to come back to you with a response that’s genuine, and then you’re spinning it around. You said that I could do that. And I’m saying “Yeah I could, but what would that benefit be? Why would I want to do that?” That’s just not something that I feel would be noble.
Richard Saul W.:
Well I think that’s good and then I now appreciate your nobility more.
Debbie Millman:
Thank you, I appreciate that. Anything else you want to talk about?
Richard Saul W.:
Sure. I would like to talk about this idea that I want to do next.
Debbie Millman:
Okay.
Richard Saul W.:
Because I am seriously unable yet to figure out what I’m doing. When I describe it, thinly, people seem to want to work with me on it, and I don’t know why. It does seem that anybody running for any kind of office, elected office or an office of president of a big company, or dean of a school or whatever; is asked a series of questions about what they’re going to do. The person running for that job, also independently says what they’re going to do. The questions in debates when there’re big political debates from the press are always “What are you going to do?”
Richard Saul W.:
And academics when they do … Or not academics, everybody writing books for business and everybody giving speeches on the stage or saying what you have to do, what you must do, and the bullet points of how we do this and all of that. I am drowning in action items that people want to take. Action items connected with the word have to, must, could, also would; all those things. And so, I have this desire to take those five subjects and describe those subjects, independent of any point of view, so any advice-
Debbie Millman:
So in some objective way?
Richard Saul W.:
Some objective way with deep understandable backup to it in choreographic terms, in numeric terms, some language but not too much language, so too much doesn’t have to be translated if you’d want to do it in a different language. So that it leads to being able to have an informed quest arise from me, and then other people possibly, from the press, from the interviewers that they can ask better questions. Isidor Rabi, who came to the United States months old in 1898 … 1899, he was born in 1989. Moved to New York went to school, his friends would come home from school every day and their mothers would say “What did you learn in school today?” And Isi would come home from school, and his mother would say “Isi, did you ask any good questions today?”
Richard Saul W.:
And Isidor Rabi, when he got his Nobel Prize said, “This is why I got my Nobel Prize, because my mother always asked did I have good questions, or what were the questions.” The interlocutory that you are I are having, and some of the granular friction between us is I don’t think some of the questions are good questions; they’re provocative, but I don’t think they’re really good questions. And I, so deeply, believe in the good question. The question that is so creative that you learn something from the question. I gotta from Babson University, they’re a school of innovation-
Debbie Millman:
I’ve been there, I’ve gone to Babson, actually.
Richard Saul W.:
Okay, I’ve got a honorary doctorate from Babson, which is strange for designer get an honorary doctorate; maybe it isn’t, it’s a school-
Debbie Millman:
It’s a school of and entrepreneurship.
Richard Saul W.:
I guess so, I was surprised by it, I didn’t know what the school was, I had to look it up when they asked me. And so I gave the speech at that ceremony. And I never prepare for anything; I certainly didn’t prepare for today, obvious that’s why the chunkiness of my answers. And I walked over with the president, with the robes on the funny robes, and the clothes I always wear, and music was playing that same stupid music and it was hot.
Richard Saul W.:
And we came into the auditorium, went up on stage and then each person was called on stage and their name had to be read out, and there was a lot of people from foreign lands with very strange names for anything I could pronounce. So it had … I didn’t have to pronounce it, but she did. She had to shake hands with everybody, it took forever it seemed; even though it wasn’t that big a class.
Richard Saul W.:
And then I gave my speech. It turned out I gave two speeches, I gave one to the audience and then I turned my back on the audience and gave her one. And the one to them was about this one I’m talking about; that you, in order to get into universities or colleges, you take tests, and you answer questions, and you go through school, and you answer questions. And what really interests me is the asking of a question.
Richard Saul W.:
That’s not part of our [inaudible 00:39:30] to really figure out the structure of a question, and how to ask a good question. So I said “Here’s an idea, you’re in the innovation business here. Here’s somebody could make a large amount of money and have a great force if they devised an SAT, ACT type test where you choose at some random way 10 subjects and 10 sub-subjects under those hundred things. And what you had to do was write 100 questions about these subjects; that’s a much better way of figuring out who should be in your clubhouse.”
Richard Saul W.:
Then I turned to the president and I said, “This is a school of innovation, why don’t you have a great TV set up there; great flat screen with the person’s face on there, and their name, and they say their name, and maybe they smile at you, or they say three words, or they just say “Hi mom and dad”.” Whatever.
Richard Saul W.:
“And you just go through them, they never come on, stage they don’t have these robes on, let them just wear a nice scarf and have Mrs. Missoni make it. And then have somebody compose extraordinary music that has to do with all the national people who are here, for international people here. Why don’t you innovate how graduation ceremony is, how it can be held? And how the tape of it can be given to everybody so they have their yearbook?” Then I worked off.
Debbie Millman:
Did they take any of your advice?
Richard Saul W.:
I don’t think so, and I never followed up on it; but it was good advice. I got it out.
Debbie Millman:
What makes a good question to you?
Richard Saul W.:
First of all, I think that’s a good question. A good question takes many forms. A good question has sometimes within it the answer. A good question, sometimes can be answered “Yes.” Or “No” or “I don’t know.” Which actually answers the question sometimes. But a good question is revealing to the next step; it is like a good conversation.
Richard Saul W.:
And it never has to be friendly. I had a very tough back and forth lunch today with John [inaudible 00:41:52] asking his advice he said of radical media. I know his questions back and forth and it wasn’t always pleasant, but it leads to the next step. It doesn’t get stopped because it goes nowhere. So I think a good question is a creative act that leads to an epiphany, a clarity about something.
Debbie Millman:
Do you think that a good question is one that you have to like?
Richard Saul W.:
No.
Debbie Millman:
So if you don’t like the question, does it mean it’s a bad question?
Richard Saul W.:
No. My not wanting to answer certain questions was an answer to the question.
Debbie Millman:
Right, but you also were clear that you didn’t like some of my questions.
Richard Saul W.:
Yeah, that’s fine.
Debbie Millman:
And so-
Richard Saul W.:
They might be good questions and I don’t like them, and my mood in not liking them tells you a lot about what I feel about the question or the information; not it’s not a total waste.
Debbie Millman:
No, I don’t think it’s a waste at all. I think this is actually a really interesting conversation. I’m curious as to why you like to talk about certain things, and don’t like to talk about certain things when talking about yourself.
Richard Saul W.:
I like talking about things that lead me into the next thing I want to solve. Of hearing myself talk and hearing what the path is; I am not interested in the legacy, I’m not interested in what I did; I’m just not interested in it.
Debbie Millman:
I want to thank you for being on the show today. It’s been an enlightening and unusual experience.
Richard Saul W.:
I would love to do it over.
Debbie Millman:
Okay. I’m happy to do it over. So you might do this my way this time? Because I want to talk about your past. You don’t want to talk about your past?
Richard Saul W.:
It’s so uninteresting, to me.
Debbie Millman:
Okay, it’s an interesting to you because you’ve lived it, but most of the questions that I have here are things that most people don’t know about you, and I think it takes a lot of courage to be able to say to people or to show people the things that you’ve overcome, which is extraordinary. And that’s my opinion and you don’t have to believe that, but that’s why I wanted to talk about it.
Richard Saul W.:
But what I’ve overcome; I’ve had such an easy life, relative to the humanity that I’ve been surrounded with for my whole life. I overcome so little. If I had been very wealthy, it would have been so much harder. If I had been very poor, it would be so much harder. If I had talent or brains, it would have been so much harder. I got the sweet spot-
Debbie Millman:
See, but you see that-
Richard Saul W.:
My sweet spot of this innocence that-
Debbie Millman:
Richard, you can’t-
Richard Saul W.:
Was really useful.
Debbie Millman:
You can’t just say something like, “I don’t have talent or I don’t have skills.” That’s bullshit, that’s bullshit, and nobody listening is going to say “That’s true.” Or that’s even remotely possible. So you can feel that way about yourself, but that’s certainly not the way the world sees you. And so-
Richard Saul W.:
But the world is not part of my, any part of my life. The world is not my life.
Debbie Millman:
Then why have you been on a world stage for so much of it?
Richard Saul W.:
Because I’m so lazy, if I don’t get there, I don’t do any work. If I didn’t do a book, if I didn’t bring things to conclusions, I would just have this idea, blah, blah, and here’s another idea, blah, blah.
Debbie Millman:
Well that could be enough-
Richard Saul W.:
No, it couldn’t no.
Debbie Millman:
For you it wouldn’t be enough-
Richard Saul W.:
For me it’s not enough.
Debbie Millman:
For some people it’s enough, for [inaudible 00:45:30] it was enough.
Richard Saul W.:
I don’t feel about some people, they’re not part of my modus operandi.
Debbie Millman:
I know that it’s not part of your [inaudible 00:45:38]
Richard Saul W.:
My life is this big, and it’s round. It’s immeasurable in that way. I don’t have any ambition.
Debbie Millman:
But you used to be very ambitious.
Richard Saul W.:
Oh, I used to be, when I was in school I was very ambitious, when I had my architectural firm, I was ambitious. 1880, 1980.
Debbie Millman:
So, pre-Ted you stopped being ambitious?
Richard Saul W.:
Yeah, I just thought I’d have a dinner party.
Debbie Millman:
But you were really controlling about everything, you picked out every bit of food, you designed the badges-
Richard Saul W.:
But that’s not being ambition, that’s-
Debbie Millman:
No, very controlling.
Richard Saul W.:
Being a control freak.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah.
Richard Saul W.:
And it’s also not wanting to have staff, and also a simple observation that it took longer, cost more, and wasn’t as good if I had people working with me. If I asked somebody to choose the food, they’d know that I was the boss, and I was going to make the final decision they choose two or three ways of doing the food, show it to me, do a lot of work, and then I’d eventually make some changes to one of them, and end up doing it anyway. I just choose all the food, I pick all the furniture, I pick all the … Why am I going to let somebody at a conference or run the show, or program it, or do any of that?
Debbie Millman:
Well?
Richard Saul W.:
I wouldn’t it do it. I know it’s not done that way, now-
Debbie Millman:
No, I think that’s fine, I think I actually admire that [inaudible 00:46:58].
Richard Saul W.:
This book you’re talking about, you see the staff was one person who would was not a graphic designer; she had an architectural course at Roger Williams. And she had to learn InDesign, and I had to do the sketches; I can’t type, I don’t use a computer well. So those are the skill sets you would need, and I only had … And she does use a computer very well. She’s bright, she’s terrific, and we did that book which is fairly complicated graphic design book.
Debbie Millman:
There’s something about having the skill of seeing what is possible that you are actually quite good at. I also think that having a robust imagination and being able to see patterns; pattern recognition is probably the most important skill a person could ever have.
Richard Saul W.:
I am skilled with that, and I have a fantastic memory. I can’t memorize, but I have a fantastic memory that’s really good and particularly good relevant to my age; so I have those two skills, I’m not kicking dirt on that. Pattern recognition is the tango with a very good memory. Because when you speak, it’s like I’m in Times Square, and I see words going across your head, so I hear you and I see the words.
Richard Saul W.:
And as I see the words, I connect those words to something else right away. And I remember them, and I respond to them, and I know when you say a word, and then you say you didn’t say a word and I know you said it; because I do listen to every word, word by word. I parse them, see them, and see their pattern.
Richard Saul W.:
And it goes in wanting to see the connections between one thing and another, is when I described the earthquake. The first thing I said “It’s maybe jumping off a bed, maybe having the … It’s the way you describe things. And it’s the picture that comes into my head, which is the room of how I would remember what effect it would have on me or what effect it did have on me. Actually that little thing was a very good indication of how poorly it is described. And I just saw that today, but truly every story is that way, that it’s not, and we read it and we think we’ve understood something. And what we come away with “Oh 7.1, that’s bigger than 6.1.” Maybe, it might not be. And there’s so many other factors involved with it, and we are cheated by what we’re told all the time.
Debbie Millman:
But it’s also, I think the limits of language, because in as much as you might not be able to understand the difference between a 7.1 and a 6.1; how many different ways can you talk about love? And people might not see it the same way or feel at the same way, and-
Richard Saul W.:
But no, this is a very measurable thing. It’s one number of a series of indicators of what an earthquake is.
Debbie Millman:
Right.
Richard Saul W.:
Because it’s the time of an earthquake, the depth of an earthquake. It’s also where it is, it’s the building code in the place where the earthquake is, there’s various things that have to do with it. And what they do in the headlines, if you look at the newspaper tomorrow, will only give you the 7.1, a shock in Japan.
Debbie Millman:
But I would say that it’s not the reporting, I think it’s the language-
Richard Saul W.:
Okay.
Debbie Millman:
I think this is a linguistic issue, personally. I personally feel that-
Richard Saul W.:
If you say it, I know it’s personal. You don’t have to say “Personal.”
Debbie Millman:
Alright, and you don’t have to say that too, you’re just being obnoxious.
Richard Saul W.:
But to say “Personally.” Everything we’re saying, everything you say is personally, everything I say is personally. I’m considering whether I should do anything else; I don’t mean about this conversation.
Debbie Millman:
I know.
Richard Saul W.:
About whether I keep on having all these ideas. And I’ve done a bunch of them and you know, seven or eight of them are on medicine, and I’m passionate about that. And a lot around cartography and I’m still working on new cartographic systems.
Richard Saul W.:
And I have a website called the Urban Observatory and that’s with Jack Dengerman, and that’s going to go three dimensions next year, and then maybe four dimensions with some of the information, over time. So I’m interested in cryptography and I’m interested in architecture.
Richard Saul W.:
I mean, some things are gradual. I mean, you can have a small house, a bigger house, a bigger house, a bigger house, a big, incrementally, you can have houses that are nicer. Incrementally, you can do most things, incrementally, you can have a plane, and then you can have coach, and you can have business class and first class. But when you have a private plane, that’s a gap; it’s really much better than first class. And that interests me, gaps interest me; gaps are very telling over history and time.
Debbie Millman:
So the spaces between.
Richard Saul W.:
Space between and how big they are or whether they exist at all. Often, I will in an intense lecture, I will stop talking for a little bit. And it’s very manipulative, and the audience gets very edgy because they think, “Oh, he forgot where he was, and he’s old, maybe he’s having a stroke or something.” Then they become alert, then they change it, and I see that I’m not falling down. And that pause brings a kind of air to the room, a kind of strange mix in the room. And it is manipulative, but it’s like putting one of those things cleaning out between your teeth.
Debbie Millman:
[inaudible 00:52:36]
Richard Saul W.:
Really it’s an interesting thing to do in your day sometimes, that pause. I’m not talking about woohoo, yogi-
Debbie Millman:
No, I know, it’s sort of John Cage kind of a pause.
Richard Saul W.:
But just in your speech, in your daily life, in your thinking of clearing out and really saying, “I don’t know anything, I just don’t know anything.” And it feels good and it feels so terrifying, and that is terrifying to me. And yet, I take comfort in it because I come out of it with confidence to move on.
Debbie Millman:
How often do you think about death?
Richard Saul W.:
All the time.
Debbie Millman:
And have you always, or is it as you’ve aged?
Richard Saul W.:
I think I’ve always thought about death. I think about it more now, I think about how many years now what I’m going to do in the next … I think … I suspect I’ll get 89 out of it. Maybe I won’t, but that’s what I’m … I divide my money by seven, see how much I’ll have every year. I want my last check the bounce.
Debbie Millman:
You said that you’re not sure if you want to do anything anymore.
Richard Saul W.:
No, sometimes, I get away with that every once in a while. I’m so lazy, I don’t even think about … I used to think about, but I just give over to myself that what I want to do, if I want to work [inaudible 00:54:05] or just watch television. I don’t have any … My habits are all over the place, I don’t have any rigor to my life.
Debbie Millman:
There’s such an interesting disconnect between the way you describe yourself and the way other people would see you in terms of being lazy or being-
Richard Saul W.:
Yeah, I know that, I’m aware of that. My productivity and appears to be so high for a single person that it looks like I’m busy all the time, a workaholic, “Do you get any sleep?” They say. Well, I mean, I think about what I’m thinking about all the time; but that, to me, is relaxation. I don’t understand what work is-
Debbie Millman:
Well-
Richard Saul W.:
Work and vacation. Well it’s a vacation, you do what you want to do; I do what I want to do every day. So am I vacationing every day? I don’t understand the words.
Debbie Millman:
You must get really annoyed when people ask you about work life balance.
Richard Saul W.:
I think we’ve done enough.
Debbie Millman:
Thank you.
Richard Saul W.:
Okay, good.
Debbie Millman:
This is the 12th year I’ve been doing Design Matters, and I’d like to thank you for listening. And remember, you can talk about making a difference, we can make a difference, or we can do both. I’m Debbie Millman, and I look forward to talking with you again soon.
Speaker 3:
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Speaker 3:
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