Nathan Shedroff began his lecture by discussing the different fields of design, business, and sustainability. He went on to insist that in order to understand any of the spheres individually today we must have a greater understanding of all of them. Likewise, we must familiarize ourselves with how the areas interact with one another and all together. By gaining this understanding across the boundaries of business and sustainability, designers reinforce their backgrounds and affirm a place in the upcoming post-consumerist market.

From there he asked us questions that got us thinking: What does a more sustainable world look like; What does a more meaningful world look like; and What does a post-consumer world look like. Following each question he gave us an example from countries like Brazil, India, Cuba, and even the past of America. However, these examples are not viable in our society today because these places achieved their sustainability by lacking money and are not in the same place today as we are as a society. We can’t go back to spending less and wasting less like we did before because Shedroff says the constraints of doing that would outnumber the constraints we already face.

Shedroff insisted that we lack any viable and all answers to the questions on sustainability, a meaningful society, and a post-consumerist society. However, he also insisted that as designers we have the necessary tools and creativity to take action in answering these questions. He insists designers need to take advantage of their ability to design a future that is better for the generations to come. Designers need to avoid designing things that are detrimental to the future generations and only make tomorrow worse off. By incorporating aspects of design, sustainability, and business designers are capable of designing for the preservation of generations to come.

Shedroff argues that design is meant to drive society to a better future, one closer to a utopia, or ideal place, a place of dreams. He insists it is through the languages of design, business, and sustainability that designers will be more capable of coming up with viable solutions making design more sustainable. In doing so, designers will enable future generations to get closer to not only the sustainability utopia, but a place that doesn’t exist in our world today, a place of dreams. Designers can build the sustainable society of the future for the generations to come; they can build their “Field of Dreams” and like in the movie “if (they) build it, they will come”.

Shedroff communicates his ideas effectively through the clarity of his speech and his utilization of colorful and informative slides. He is very eloquent and invites us into his lecture as if we are involved in the conversation of sustainability. His questions and answers are also intriguing because they get our brains moving so we aren't forced to sleep by him lecturing at us, but rather forced to partake in his lecture. The slides are very clear in layout and the information provided while the color usage serves to augment the content. The slides offer us a chance to listen and be involved rather than being distracted by scribbling notes that we probably won't be able to even comprenhend later. I guess this is a utopia for every student listening to a lecture.

Images of Nathan Shedroff and his book borrowed from Google image search:

http://www.sustainableminds.com/files/u1/081201_ns_1.jpg

http://www.presidioedu.org/userfiles/image/Alumni/nathan_shedroff_large.jpg

http://blog.find-mba.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/nathan_shedroff.jpg