Daniele: Hey, Loris, such a big pleasure to see you once again, as we see each other quite often.
Loris: Hi Daniele, thank you so much for the invitation and for this pleasure to discuss with you.
Daniele: So this will be a bit of an unhinged episode, I think, of the book tour as we are way too close and too good friends to not go in in weird places, but I'm excited to go in weird places with
Loris: you today.
I will try to surprise you.
Meet Loris
Daniele: So for people who don't know you yet how do you usually present yourself? For example, when you go to a birthday party?
Loris: So first of all, I'm the one guy looking intensively at the exit door for many reasons, but no, I'm a very curious and passionate designer, and I use the word designer in the broad sense of it I practice Interactive Design, more in the product design sense at the EPFL, in the Blue Brain Project.
I'm the head of product design, which is intensively interesting as it is neuroscience, and you all know how complex it can be when you work in that kind of area.
The Importance of Curiosity and Continuous Learning
Loris: And I also assist my wife in The company that we founded together, called lo-ol, is more oriented in type design, but I am in charge of doing interactive design, experimenting with the typefaces that she designs, and also web development, and I'm I would say that curiosity goes beyond design and I'm absolutely passionate about coding.
Some colleagues at Blueprint in Geneva were absolutely lovely and spent a lot of time to explain to me concepts, to correct my code, to do some pair coding and I don't put any boundaries on what I should discover and I should start to understand and learn. I don't know if it fits your question, the answer fits your
Daniele: question.
Absolutely. And I think for many, for the people who don't know you as much as I do, you are I know you will not like the compliments, but I will do them anyways. You're this modern humanist for me, who loves to read poetry, philosophy. Knows everything about the news that I never read and know and then also super good at coding 3D and then also a deep understanding of design, the design world, and all of that.
And great cook. Which is it's too
Loris: slow, but it's great. No, okay, that's what I wanted to ask you. You're complaining a lot about my speed. Yeah, but I agree. No, I, it's a bit of guiltiness, we have, we are talking about the, we read a lot on the social media about the imposter syndrome.
I have some kind of similar things, but I think it's something that should be a change drive, should be a method to change. And sometimes I feel guilty that I'm slacking and not doing anything. And also looking at your life and thinking like How useful am I for other people? That's why I try to get to read a bit more, to try to understand what is the, my, the influence of my actions for other people.
And humanist, I'm a bit skeptical on the word humanist because it has so different meaning, especially when you are French or when you read French literature, it really has another meaning. But yeah, I think that If there is something that should not die when you get older is the curiosity and making yourself always better than what you were the day before.
That's what drives me and I think that I would really encourage everybody to have that kind of attitude.
The Value of Diverse Skills and Interests
Daniele: I think there is a bit of a call to action for the next generation also here, which I read between the lines because I know you a bit, is this aspect of not Just being focused on one craft, being good at your craft and and trying to be better every day, but also to, look at other crafts, be it gardening, be it cooking, be it philosophy, be it writing, reading and that these elements also bring a lot.
And that sometimes we, we are too narrow in one. in one field, and that curiosity should also bring us in other worlds.
Loris: I would tend to agree with what you just said, but some of the people were giving me this feedback that I'm doing too many things at the same time and I completely agree with them and I will never I don't have an argument to oppose them, but I think that you need to have some sort of central spine in which you repeat and learn.
It's more like a slow learning by repeating the same moves and repeating the same process. But for me, that I agree, and I know I need to focus on that more. But the thing is, There is a spine and there is, like in a human body, there is a spine, which needs to absorb and send different information to the whole body, if we go back to a neuroscience kind of topic of area, but there is also like other organs and or other like part of your body.
And I said, that's what I would call curiosity.
The Role of Repetition in Learning and Mastery
Loris: It's you need to have really, like repeat in design and everything you do in life, you become good while repeating and analyzing for what you do while repeating in order to learn. There are some stuff that you don't understand that you're learning because it comes so slowly.
So in some small portions, but also like understanding why you repeat the things. What do you learn from the last 2000 times you did it? And outside of that, you need to have your eyes open and understand how other areas for, in our case, of design can feed and can give you information on what you do repeatedly, and how you can improve, or you can change, or you can even continue exploring, but open a little branch that is quite similar, and I think that's what I would, my definition of them, because I don't want to say you need to explore everything all the time, have 100 percent of your attention on everything.
No, I think that the people will say, You need to focus on a core aspect of your work. I also completely agree and I think it needs to be injected into it. And
Daniele: I totally resonate with this notion of repetition. The value of which, what can sound sometimes like a bit dumb, repetition, just doing the same act again and again.
It's something that I noticed, that The way I tend to learn is through repetition, and I see that a lot of the craft side of our work, for example, sketching, prototyping being better at finding insights and user research and all of that, I feel it's, reading about it is a good thing, just to understand a bit of the theoretical context.
But then, nothing beats just doing it 200 times, 300 times repetition. Because then you suddenly learn without learning, which is a weird thing. And and that's, it's also why, in this book series, why there are so many of these principles. Because it's just basically a repetition for me of.
Looking at the world through a service design lens, like saying, Oh, how can I do that? And I think there we share this same educational thing, but which isn't sexy. And and I'm going to ask you a bit of a provocative question here.
Selling the value of repetition
Daniele: I know you, you're also an educator, you teach both in institutions, but also to people who you mentor.
How do you sell the value of repetition? Because I haven't made great progress at that. Usually what I try to tell people. Oh, you just have to repeat it. It's not working that well.
Loris: In order to answer your question, I think it would be nice to ask this question to someone the age of our grandparent. Also, because I think that injecting this notion that one of the strongest aspects of your skills comes from repetition, also is quite difficult in our time where everything is fast and we have a massive amount of things that comes to us.
If I'm taking the social media, for example, we can scroll if you don't, if you don't put any filters and you don't follow only your topics, you can like scroll for hours and days and weeks. And you develop a sort of notion that It's a train, the train of life, that goes very fast, and you need to participate.
In order to participate, you need to produce very quickly and have very quick feedbacks, whether it's likes, comments, connections with other people. And I think that's quite hard in this context to have a sort of give the value of repetition. And partially, I think, because there is a, because you will have someone in front of you, someone you mentor you will have what do I have to get, what do I will get from repeating?
There is a lot of things that you can say you will get better at this, you will master the skills, but there's also a lot of complex neurological the complex knowledge that comes into, it's not like for example, the design like mastering typography. It's not like there is one day, one moment, one project, one specific part of your layout that when you do it, you understand and you can repeat it without even thinking about it.
There is never this moment. It's something that progressively, and not like a progress bar where 20%, 30%, it's a bit like Minecraft, but floating without gravity, and you have, when you learn and repeat stuff knowledge, movement, skills, understanding with the eyes come progressively in one bowl of knowledge, so it's hard to tell the person and You will be better at this.
You cannot say when, you cannot say in what shape, because of course life will bring lots of different things on the way. For example, mastering typography, you can start off saying, I love designing books and I want to become very good at typography. So someone tells you, you need to repeat layouts, experiments, questions, because it's not only repeating the, that's what I was saying before.
It's not only repeating one, one movement that everybody can do. It's. Repeating, and every time you repeat, like, why did I do that? And questioning, because you need to acknowledge and structure your repetitive movement to be able to become better, because you need to acknowledge that. And I think that this is very hard.
I will be honest with you, I never say you need to repeat and repeat, because I agree with you you can have some people being completely disappointed, like type design, which I try to do a little bit, my wife is absolutely brilliant at that, but working on details, there are a lot of details you can correct, not because you have read in a book in 10 minutes.
That you should not do this. It's the eyes get trained to it, and you can become it. But you cannot never say, okay, in two weeks, two hours, or like two paragraphs, you will become better. And that's, you need to go with someone with this mystery, like somewhere on the way. You will be able to do that, but some people start by doing that, and then, so that it was not actually editorial design that was interesting, but the letters, so you become better in typography, but finally, the letter itself was not so interesting to put into a layout, but it's more like designing the letter, so there is also this this is a journey becoming a good something is a journey, and it's not automatically what you were expecting at the beginning, so it's like, You have to convince more than saying repeat.
It's like you need to, in French we say, s'abandonner, to lose yourself in the process by repeating because the answers are more here than the final destination. That's too long of an answer and maybe unrelated. Sorry.
Daniele: I love it because in a way it feels to me like when people are, explaining the value of meditation, or mindfulness.
It's like the same thing where You're like, I'm not sure you ever will get it, it's, you never arrive at the place where you say, Oh, I'm fully mindful and relaxed and everything. That never happens. And it's just something that you have to do. And suddenly you will realize that you're getting a skill that you can't really describe well.
And I feel there is a lot of, a lot with that, where books, like reading from books or doing a workshop on something to learn is really gratifying because you have input, output, boom, you see it. Repetition. It's much harder, but in some way, also very interesting, I think, from the maybe neurological part, because it doesn't activate the same parts of our brain, maybe, it's it's more slow, it's more into the Yeah.
It, it has less reward also, which is interesting, so it's, it trains also a bit more the grit, the willingness of doing hard things because you don't see the value right now. That's maybe in 10 years, you will see the value of what you did 10 years ago.
Loris: And I, can I just stop you on, I, I.
I disagree with you when you say there is not the reward mechanism. I think there is a very harsh reward because you are always, when you repeat to go into a direction that is set at the beginning. I want to become better at that. And mostly now, like with the social media, again, we have a lot of images and a lot of references which are somehow a point of destination for you.
And actually your reward is terrible because everything until you get rid of it every single reward is very negative because you say, no, it's not good. And the thing is no, it's not good, but in order to be good, I need to continue. So you go back and you do, no, it's not good. And it's like the reward mechanism is very, it's, you don't have any reward.
You are like frustration, waves of frustration. which you need to go over. And some people can be very strong and at the end reach the point they have set up at the beginning. But it's like being able to handle this frustration, but continue and see where it leads you.
Daniele: And so it's also not just a practice of repetition, but also a practice of frustration in some way.
It's it feels like, at least I I know that from from my days in in art school, which was like this this old school way of teaching, which was, you bring something and the only thing that they give you is, this is shit, start over. And which is very harsh, but in some way, very interesting because once you can get to a place where you are in a professional environment, where sadly you have people who also speak that kind of language.
You're already used to it, you're and you're okay. Oh, this is just part of life. The, not the language, but the frustration is part of life and I have to handle it. And repetition is like also a bit of an experience of that frustration of, Oh, I can't yet draw the Mona Lisa.
It's 1 percent better than what I did yesterday. But it's still not there. And I still have a long way to go. And in some way, it's a frustrating learning experience, but maybe one that is less rewarding, but more deep. It's a bit philosophical, but I think that's maybe why we don't sell it so well, but why it's also one of the kind of deepest, interesting ways to learn something.
Repetition. It's it brings me to this idea, which I'd love to do one day. I was thinking, oh I'd love to do a service blueprint course or something like that for people. And I was thinking, oh what would be the way that I would teach it to myself and to myself, if I had to teach it to myself, I would just set up one day to do 30 service blueprints.
But each one has to be completely different, and that will be for me a learning experience where I would say, okay, at the end of the day, I learned how to do a service blueprint of the same journey, of the same service in 30 different ways, which means my vocabulary of how to create a service.
A blueprint of how to map something and how to translate it, how to give value back, is now much richer. But I'm not sure that I can get people motivated, to say, Hey guys, we're going to spend one day just to do repetition and we do it together because so we have a bit of a schedule and a thing.
And it's nicer to be in that struggle together with friends. But it's not that sexy, saying, Oh, the whole point of it at the end of the day, you just have repeated the work of doing service blueprints, for example. But it would be something which could be fun. I'm not sure that we will get people motivated, but maybe we should try it.
Loris: Interesting. It would be interesting. Yes.
About the Bluebrain Project
Daniele: And for people from outside of Switzerland. Can you give a bit of context about what's the EPFL and what's the Bluebrain project where you're working?
Loris: So the EPFL is one of the two technical schools in Switzerland. You have the EPFZ in Zurich in the EPFL.
It's mainly engineer with a broad sense of it. You have architects. You have a mechanical engineer. You have chemistry engineer. You have computer engineer. Amazing people. You have scientists. It's really really. Credible School and the Blueprint project have been started somehow 14 years ago by Henri Marcam who is a professor in neuroscience at the EPFL it's all prepped with different division design.
Thank you. Based on the brain the Blue Brain Project speaks for itself with different people with different specialties, people specialize in neuron morphologies, others in electrical behaviors called neuron electrophysiology you have some people specialize in ion channel and there is a bunch of people Scientists, surrounded by like engineers to build tools, whether it's app or other things the recent the biggest product that will get out of this adventure that will finish in December of this year will be the Open Brain Platform, which is An application, which I worked on and most of my time at blue Brain.
And this will be able to you will have access to brain models. So it's a digital reproduction of a brain with all of its aspect, whether it's a physiological, morphological behavioral, and you will be able to build your own, your own brain models going through different steps. It's quite a complex and it's not something you do in one day and you don't do alone.
Then you can launch simulation if you want to simulate some disease, simulation some kind of signal simulate a different kind of protocol and that will do. Generate like movies, analysis, and it will be able to observe the brain from this point on. It's just a big adventure. There is a lot of absolutely brilliant people working on it.
The product owner itself is I'm really amazed by that kind of people. He's the first, he's the first person I would say he's a real product owner because he has really a knowledge on every aspect of the app he's doing. So in neuroscience, I see him like having a comfortable discussion on the vocabulary, with the knowledge, with scientists.
I see the discussing with back end, front end engineer. And having really ease of discussion and understanding the concepts and the language, coding language, and I have daily discussion with them on design, on user experience, and it's really great. It's a specific part of design, aspect of design, because there was some user research purely before, organizing workshops with scientists, understanding what they want, and pushing them to express something else than, give me this.
Give me that, but like more like my aim is to be able to do this and that and this and give them some like hypothesis, validate with them. So it's really a super nice adventure. I, PFL, they are quite open for that and Yeah, it's a long and intense adventure, but it's quite great.
Service Design without the name
Daniele: I think that's the hidden reason that I'm inviting you. It's not just that we are friends and love to spend time chatting about anything, but because for me, you are the representation of a service design professional, who doesn't use the term service design. Because you have, for me, this understanding, you embody that, understanding that stakeholders matter, that the different people who are in the organization that can provide feedback, that make it work.
are important and that we need to speak to them that the end user is important, that you need to speak to them, but not just the end user, but also the people who have to, build the app, make the app, like the backstage part. And I think from all our discussions, I really feel, that you are one of these guys who is working with What I would call a bit of a service design mindset, like trying to not just serve the end user and having just focused on that, but being open also about, Hey, there are people who have to manage that.
How can we make it easier for them? There are people who have to sell it. How Can we make it easier for them? There are political reasons that we have to consider because all of this is funded by the political sphere. So how can we make it easier for funding to to get here?
And I think through your work you're thinking a lot about these questions at your level. And I think it's really. This attitude that I love, and I'm so excited to hear from you because I think it's a very good, you are a very good example of this idea that you can practice something like service design without having to, the proper title it doesn't matter, and you can steal the mindsets, and apply them to your own job.
And I think that's like a very interesting showcase for that. You're a very interesting showcase of that
Loris: attitude. I would tell you that. And you will hate me for that. But for me, I still, if you would have given me like a task, like you have 30 minutes to write me five lines about what is service design, I would still tell you, I would like to do a cube, like a ruby cube, like an invention, and you should turn it and because it has so many meaning for me, and for me, what you describe in what in me as a service designer, for me, I see that as the If you want to make something real digitally, you have to to embrace all of this cause.
The stakeholder, and I think that Starting by the stakeholders, the best the best service you can give to a stakeholder is like honesty. And giving you the whole spectrum and not being someone saying yes, I'm taking a checklist, a to do list, and I'm implying that because you are not serving in terms of honesty.
If you're honest, you're not honest by Filling a list of requirements because some might not be validated by the people who your stakeholder is projecting. Some might be very dangerous in terms of how much time it takes to develop that without having the knowledge that it's required. It works. You can maintain it on the long term.
We have the staff to maintain it. So for me there is that and there's also All the people who are going to maintain an app, in our case, it's there is a reality, we cannot employ 500 people for this app, we need to understand how we can make it more as valuable as it's envisioned by the vision of The stakeholder, because in my case, it's Mr.
Henri Marcam. How do you continue to build a product that is in line with a strategy, but at the same time is based in the reality? So there are the people who are making it real every day, maintaining it in terms of content, in terms of technical issues and stuff like this. So for me, what you call service design, for me, It's like having a kid, you have a kid, absolutely lovely kid.
The kid is not only feeding him, like having food on a spoon and just this is not, this is the old thing around preparing the food, being sure the food is not too warm, being sure that he wears clothes when he's at the table and you have to bring him at the table or ask him to go at the table. And for me that's the same thing.
The product is not just only doing nice screens, because I'm pretty sure there are a thousand, a billion people better than me. It is like understanding the whole ecosystem around it and how to make it real, breathing and living, how long it needs to breathe. That's the difference with a human being.
Absolutely.
Daniele: And there is a second reason why I'm so excited to speak with you today, which is we've worked together in in one organization and we also work together on other several occasions, more on projects. And one thing that I have noticed. In you, and that I've also noticed in many of our conversations, is that whenever you are in an organization, in a workplace, you're also like trying to design it with the people, I always see you like saying, Oh, there was this process.
People were frustrated about it, but nobody did something about it. So I called the guys and said, Hey, could we change it? And having this conversation, and which is basically, saying, Hey, the workplace is also something that we can try to design. Even if we are not specialists of it, we are using it so we can give feedback.
We can say, maybe if we do that, we can be more more efficient, or it can be a bit more meaningful, or it can be a bit more lovely. And that brings us. to the chapter that you read, which is how to make the workplace more meaningful.
The good stuff
Daniele: And so you read that chapter and the first question I have for you about that chapter is Was there anything that resonated with you in that specific chapter?
Principle: Let everyone do customer support
Loris: I would say both resonates and gave me a a good point is the first article of this chapter with doing some client services, the CEO being able to also be in contact with the client and being client support and being able to hear from the reality and for me, that was.
Really interesting, and I will, I think, I will use that for my current job, like being able to bring the CEO in front of a user, in my case, but I really like this chapter, it was really really interesting. I always, and I think we agree, both agree on it, as soon as it's not dogmatic. And and that's where I see a bit of a problem I love the way you describe it, and with, I know that your book is not a bible where people need to follow word by word, letter by letter, but for me it's really being in contact with the reality, which you call client support, but it's with reality.
I I had an experience with the Blue, blue brain because at the Blue Brain, a lot of developers, they have contact with scientists and they discuss about specific aspect. We gave also the possibility to the current Alpha app to have to be able to give some feedbacks. So a lot of people receive.
Working on the app will receive feedbacks and some of them even have discussion meetings with users. And I think it's absolutely great, and like that, for me, we're doing user experience work on it. When I discuss with my developer friends, they're also friends, yeah, that's a big word. My colleagues, I have someone who is informed about who we are talking about, the user.
And he can even tell me, like URID, you want to change it like this, but I heard that one of the scientists always use his own app in this way. So I don't have people saying, give me the design for me to implement it, but to have a real sense. And I think your article is talking about it very nicely.
For me, there is Something also in between what you described and the implementation of these feedbacks. Because more than me that, but we have all bias, and we also have our own specialty. So receiving from the user a feedback requires also to gather this feedback and being able to discuss with the other person to make this feedback useful and not.
being just like a call center, client support and be like, this client wants to change this other one wants to change that. And then at the end, you have a big monster Frankenstein with all the feedbacks implemented. But I think that there is two things in this piece, this article you talk about, there is like being in contact with the reality.
And also to make sense of your mission at work. And that you're not, and you are talking about it later in show me the impact of my boring admin task. There is also the reconnection with this long time I spend every day. And that we, also that's important, the we, that me and my colleagues, as a team, as a sort of army going to one direction Like making sense to hear someone telling you something constructive, make you think also that what I'm doing can be first better.
And second of all, I created something that it lives in the reality. Which means someone is using it and needs it. And I think I really both these two articles. At some point you speak about showing frustration, worker, impact and meaning of a work and motivate her to a boring task.
Principle: Show me the impact of my boring admin tasks
Loris: I put myself a note, to be honest should we wait the frustration period or the sign? to show them how important their job is. I think that it should be at also already at the hiring phase. You should know why you are hired and actually we should not even present the company for whom you were going to work, but more like the client you're going to serve.
And I think that I was just a bit like an alert mode when you're showing a frustrated worker. So for me, you are the fireman trying to put water on an old building, but I think it would be nice to have what you described in this great article just a step before, but it was really insightful.
Daniele: It's it's inspiring to hear, that Pati, needs a CEO, a manager or whoever, in front of the customer.
Through customer support or anything else like that, isn't just a thing that helps people, understand the reality of the people that you are trying to serve, but also like a very good culture reminder. As a company, that's the people we serve. And that's where we are trying to go.
And and it a bit of a reminder of the purpose, and obviously, every, everything is needed in an organization, we need the accounting guy, we need we need the guy cleaning, we need the person doing the research. We need all of these people and they are all doing different work.
But in the end we all serve that purpose and and that's interesting way to say putting people back and again, in front of the end user, if we can call it like that, is a bit of a good reminder also of the of the purpose of the company.
Not all team members are there for the same reasons
Loris: I think we need also a bit of negativity and pessimism in our discussion.
For me I would also you were like, not everybody has an in the company, but not everybody has the capacity of empathy. And you can also mimic empathy and dehumanize your user by over structuring around personas, proto personas. And I think that, yes, it can help. Understand your mission by knowing who we are serving, but at some point, there are some people who are, it's a mission is a mission.
It's dehumanized. It's that's our, so I would say, yes, it can help you like maybe also as a worker, an employee feels better. Knowing that there is an end point to the game of life like of the work life, but there are also, we need also to be honest by saying some people will not develop this empathy and this is respectable.
It's not a judgment at all. And I'm, you know me, I'm trying to get very far away from any moral standpoint. So for me, they're like, yeah, it helps. I think we we, most of us needs to structure our life in steps process. And I'm not automatically saying doing good because I'm against this wave of design saying the design will change the world.
I think that's a big bullshit. And I think it helps us to live. Because it tells us yes, what you're doing has sense. But for me, there are also some people who are unable, even if they are working in UX, are unable to develop this empathy. And for them, this is just whatever. If they like it.
If they don't like what I do for a product, I don't care. That's the game. And we cannot really do anything about it.
Daniele: And it's a good reminder of something that you said just before, which is any of these Pieces of advice, if we call, can call them like that. These tiny services and principles can be thought of as pieces of advice.
And the piece of advice has always a bit of a limit. Should, you should never take a piece of advice, like as a rule, a perfect rule, a dogma for everything. And I think that's a very good reminder here again, to say, yeah it can help in certain cases. Remember that, there are also people who just love their.
Who loves his Excel spreadsheets and he just loves it. And he doesn't want to see people because he chose that job to, to be with his Excel thing. And we can respect that. And there is people, there are people also who just don't like the craft, don't like the people, but just need the job. And that's also something that we can respect if you're saying, hey, I'm doing this just to feed my kids and the rest doesn't matter.
It just should be so little painful as possible so that I go through the day easy. And that's, I think that's also a bit of a good reminder that obviously it's a piece of advice. Yeah. It can help, but there will be people who will not be able to work with that kind of stuff. And that's fully okay.
Loris: Also over projecting over projecting on the client.
And that also can be a risk. But I think that. We have had with all this, like all this happiness officer, one of the, how do you say, the Mont Blanc of bullshit that we can create, like trying to trigger some instinct or some common cause for the company. Whether to use the user with a lot of empathetic messages and I think that there was a reality, a human being is not an app where you can change the parameters, settings, and then have a completely newly oriented and calibrated person, and there was at some point like, don't even try to find another way to change people, there are some people that want change, and not because they are in the bad place, because again, I'm against an immoral stand, and there is Of course, there is some bad.
For example, if you are working in a company and you are developing an app and you are a UX all of my users are stupid and uneducated and unaware of all the great, and you do that all the time. Yes, that's bad. That's not morally. This is observable. This is objectively. Bad. But other than that, there is like some, in a company if someone is not reacting to the end to the end game of your of your company, the the well being of your user, what can you do?
Okay, it's like maybe other people need to take this portion needed of compassion and do it for them. And that's the game. It's you don't feel like when you are launch inquiry for a new worker for engineering or design. It's not This person will fit this role and you are, you're okay.
It's good. The person will be empathetic. Like you have to be flexible enough to understand that there is also the spontaneous human behaviors that will enter the game.
The danger of overselling the vision at work
Daniele: And what I'm hearing a bit is also this A bit of a critique, which is when we say, Hey, we want to make the workplace more meaningful, sometimes we tend to say, Oh, let's remind people why, what's the vision, what's the, what's, what we want to change in the world, and this kind of stuff, where I think we both agree on that part, which is that A lot of our, a lot of companies, are, try to say, Oh, we are here to save the world, or to make a meaningful impact.
And you say and we are both a bit critical of that kind of stuff where we say, Hey, you're trying to create meaning in something that has meaning, but not that one. Where, yes, it has meaning, but it's much lower on the scale of world change, world changing thing. Where we can just say, Hey, the meaning is just, We're going to help these few people do that task a little bit better.
That's already good. It's sufficient. We don't need to save the world every time. And and I think that's like a danger that I hear from you, which is when trying to make the workplace more meaningful, don't make it snowflakey meaningful which then, goes in a place where where, it's fake when you say, Oh, we're going to save the world.
We're going to do this and say, no, let's be honest. We are not, we're not surgeons, doing heart surgery here, but what we're doing is this. And that's pretty good already.
Loris: I hear you. I hear you. The surgeon comparison for me, the thing is I go to, especially to the point where companies try with the happiness officer, I'll come back on the bullshit to build a common narrative I'm not saying only the religion had these capabilities of structuring communities beliefs, myths, and others. I'm not saying this is only the religion. There have been on the side many other aspects of culture that drove many human beings to together to fight for a common cause.
A lot of this is, and even if you hear like people who are specialized anthropologists, specialists of religion geostrategic politicians, even them, there is never a clear answer on how you structure that. And my problem is that this happiness officer and these slogans that the company have, they are trying to enforce a common, like a common narrative Bye.
Using some recipe like ingredients and saying this will work and I don't have data, but I'm pretty sure I've heard like through interviews, documentary, I've heard, but I only hear negative stance or you have to be a, I don't know how you say in English, but a mythoman. You have to believe a lie, repeating it enough to believe in it without questioning it.
And even if some people who do not practice one of the three monotheistic religions, Islam, Judaism, or Christianity, A lot of people say, oh, it's imaginary people and this is a myth like this. Yeah, but it's more than just, it's not like being a mythomaniac, like believing in a lie. There is, it's way more structured.
And I'm not, I don't want to say only common narrative can come from origin. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that this is cannot be artificially be implemented in the company. Like when you say company culture, yes, but what is it? And you need to question it. The question is like being aware of your client is not enough.
It's what do you get back from this? And you get back not only hearing the feedback, but discussing with others. Because you can all, even a CEO can listen to the feedback. But when you come back and say, Ah, this user is shit. Ah, this user doesn't know anything. Yes, good. You did some client support.
You heard that. Good. What does it mean for you as a human group to hear that?
Daniele: The critique I hear there is a danger to making things meaningful just in words and words aren't enough to create meaning in in the workplace.
The power of a shared challenge
Daniele: So I'm quite curious, in your experience as a worker what are. Elements where you felt, Oh, this is helping me to see the meaning in my work. This is stuff that is helping me to stay motivated. Do you have maybe a story or an example to share?
Loris: I have an answer for me, which why not me? Applicable to other people, but I feel great in a company when I feel we're going to a battle, I will give you an example and it's very geeky, but when Tilden of Rohan arrives on the Pelenor field, When it's being attacked by the orcs, they all align before charging, they all aligned and the king, of course, gives a motivational speech, which in that kind of case might help quite a lot.
But then you see people who are probably going to the, for their death. They are all chanting and I don't know how to say in English, but playing from their horn. And that's the moment I feel sometimes when you are. And I had that with the Bluebrain project where we all, in our speciality, like we know we need to fight otherwise it's going to be a problem and we all fight and we exchange ideas and we try some stuff and for me it's like you show a prototype, I will take the example we have.
We are working still, but we have the core of the subscription model for the app we're doing, which is quite complex because there is some computation time, there are some features that you have access like in any other app. There is a lot of hard data connected to each other, a lot of things that needs to be paid and it's Neuroscience Computing, so it's massive amount of data that you need to, so it's not like you will pay 40 francs for one simulation, it's like more than that, so you need to really be careful and integrate a lot of things, and we were going to present a document of the strategy for the app, and I've looked at it and I was like completely shocked, because It was so complex.
It was not making any sense, and it was complex for the user, complex to maintain this model, and I went to the person in charge, a great, absolutely amazing person. He's a neuroscientist. He's really great. But I said, this is absolutely not understandable by any people. No matter the generation, no matter the gender, no matter the amount of understanding of neuroscience, it's absolutely understandable.
An understandable we don't know how much you will pay at the end of the month. You need so many things. And he started a bit panicking. The product owners was like, I don't get it. And we did like Sprint or we worked together and we said, we need. To succeed, because this is what we need to maintain and justify the app.
And we work all together with the person of the communication, the person of the scientist, the scientific part of our practice. And it was really like, you are fighting for a common cause, and that's what I felt like that motivates me, and I had so much energy at the end of the day, I slept quite late because I was so happy that we could work together, take decisions quickly, and here, because what is nice is that there is not one person saying yes, just because he wants to get back or he or she wants to get some stuff and don't care about the meaning and the importance, but we were really questioning each other, and at the end of the day, you've learned a lot of things.
On your the domain in which you work, on the application, the product you work, about other people, about your knowledge of the product in neuroscience, and for me, that's when you can say at the end of the day, my day.
Daniele: I have images of you being an orc, with medieval stuff on you, but it's a, you created a lot of
Loris: great images. I was scrubbing myself on the other side, on the Hoan side. I hope, I don't know if I would have been there. Maybe I would be like in the middle, like taking some flowers and say, Oh, that's quite nice.
Daniele: I'm not geeky enough to know which is the right side, which is the wrong one. But but one thing that that. that strikes me is that it's less about, the kind of, Oh, we are going there. We're doing this mission. It's important, blah, blah, blah. But it's more about kind of two elements that I see, which is one, which is there is a challenge, it's hard.
It it needs our full energy. It needs our full brain. It needs, it's not easy. And then there is a second part, which is. I'm not doing it alone. I'm doing it with peers. And then there is in French we say, we have this expression, which is we are soldiers in the trenches, and and that makes you friends, and I feel there is like this thing where there is a common struggle, a common challenge, where we worked together, and this creates this feeling of, oh, this is not just a workplace. For you, you feel this, oh, now I'm part of a community, of an army, of something where we have the same goal, we have the same thing. But it's less about the selling of the goal, but more about the struggle that we live together. I think this is a very interesting way to say yes, struggle is good, but can we have it together?
Loris: I would join, I like your definition, I would join with what you said before. Actually, you understand that actually with this struggle, what you call struggle, it's like a car. And the car needs to go ahead. And you understand in that kind of moment that you are a useful part of the car. It's not you're not hitting your ego.
It's not an ego thing. Absolutely not. It's just Only nihilistic people will say, I don't need to be useful in any ways, and that's okay, I can continue living my life. I think without talking about ego, knowing that you are the centerpiece of this car, you have in life to understand that I'm a useful part of this car, this airplane this house.
Like I'm a, not important, but I'm a useful brick in this house. So for me that's why, it's like when you hear, and you, that's when it's going to become weird. When at the end of the struggle, you become someone different. You acquire knowledge, you acquire practice. That's also what, in my case, makes me happy to go to work.
Daniele: And so we explored a lot about the kind of positive aspects of how to make the workplace a more meaningful chapter.
The bad stuff
Daniele: And I'd like to pick your brain on What's one element or more where you would be more critical?
Loris: Actually, without entering the subject of personal tastes and personal preferences of, I like to work with a big chair, a small chair. I like to have lots of space around me and my colleagues, I love to have lots of meetings, not a lot of meetings, a lot of, if you remove that, for me, Again, we're going back to stop trying to reinforce spontaneous behavior in human beings.
I'm sorry I won't kick very hard like on this happiness officer, but like there are things that you can do yes, and you need more space for spontaneous and unexpected. Events. Like you said, I think that I've had in my many it's quite personal, but many colleagues who had miscarriage, and I know that some colleagues got closer to each other because they shared the same story, some of my colleagues, and that's something that you cannot reproduce with anything.
This is like human Behaviour, finding comfort in common struggle, common understanding of one story. I think that's my main my main critics, which leads to something don't hear it as a, like, how can I say that, leftists crazy about fighting capitalism.
The Problem with Trying to Enforce Pleasure at Work
Loris: What I'm going to say is not about that, but I think that there are some jobs that you cannot enforce pleasure.
And there are this myth that There is always a recipe or a potion that you can take to be happy at work. Everybody can be happy, it's just about yourself. There are some jobs it's not possible, there are some personal situations it's not possible. And I agree with many people saying work is important and makes sense to your life, which is why we fight so hard against unemployment wherever we are in the world.
But it doesn't mean that every work makes sense. And lots of other, we have, there was many articles about the new generation only choosing jobs which make sense. But there are jobs where it doesn't make sense or you don't find a sense in your job. And try to reinforce this behavior at work.
I think it's tricky.
Principle: Start with appreciation at the start of a new project
Loris: And another thing I would like to touch your topic, next article, start with appreciation at the start of a project. Lots of great things. The way you describe it, I agree with you.
The importance of honest feedback
Loris: Be construct, be as constructive as you can. And especially when you arrive in a new team and you are supposed to take the position of a lead.
If you are, if the leads coming in the team and leaving are constantly like, saying this is trash, you should know that. Me, I'm coming and I have the truth, I have the right methods. You will have anywhere, employees who says, okay, new person's gonna say I'm leading the revolution and I have the best.
IDs for this project or I will bring you a bright new republic better than anything in the world. If you do that in chain, people will not understand and you will not be able to re inject this sort of common narrative. But it's true acknowledging that there are some, that there is no human being that makes a work totally And entirely wrong, doing bad choice on bad choice and just jumping from one level to the other like this.
So coming and saying this is all shit. I, even the worst company in the worst state never been able to deliver on their product. It doesn't exist. So acknowledging that there are some great things. I think it's also structured like. Saying, I respect you, I respect what you've done, and if I believe in you, I need to believe in what you've done before I was here, and I think it's very good.
I have, I used to work for a good patch company in Germany with absolutely lovely colleagues, some of which became became friends with. They had methods of giving feedbacks, and I was always a bit careful with the way, because there was, like, a sort of lots of layers of Kindness before reaching to the negative feedback and even the negative feedback you needed to package it in some sort of positive things.
And I think they were, they understand much better than me the current generation, the current culture. For me, yes, you cannot be a destructor all the time and being negative, but I think there is also a way to build ourselves together by receiving negative feedback and building a sort of shield. of wiseness, to be able to hear the story and being able to not take it deeply inside you and let it destroy you.
And I find that we sugarcoat a lot of things, or we go to the extent of, and I'm going to take a very sensitive subject, fat shaming. We transform a negative aspect of life, which is taking weight. Nothing to do with the beauty, but taking weight, which medically and biologically is a danger. And we sugarcoat it to be like, first of all, an insult, saying someone is fat, fatphobia or whatever.
And letting, so you cannot even criticize it. Because you automatically have bad intention and you want destruction of the other person, which is not automatically the case. And for me, I feel like we need to find a balance. You will tell me everything in life is about balance, and I agree with you most of the time.
There are some subjects, and I think that's where we Leave the objective area where we can be subjective. But I think that, yes, you need to give also credits for the human. It's like coming to a team and saying, oh, it's shit. Now we're going to do it like this because it's the good way. It's also saying as a human, you have not been able to justify your existence in this company.
So in our society, and then me, the prophet. I'm going to give you all the answers. First of all, you are doing a big bet, because people who hear that and are violently attacked in their ego for most of the people, they will expect from you the right answer. Not the approximated answer, the right answer.
So you put yourself in danger. So I would say you are all always better with with allies in battle than alone fighting the whole army.
The danger of too nice feedback
Daniele: Yeah, it's it's again this notion of balance that I'm hearing, which is yes, if we take this principle of saying, hey, show appreciation when you jump in a new project which has a past, show appreciation for the work that was done, even if the project is not going well show appreciation for what's been doing well, to not take it as seriously.
Yeah. Yeah. Sugarcoat everything in in compliments and hide the shit under the carpet. I think that's the, that's like where I'm hearing you saying also, Hey we can be gentle. But honest, I think we both share this kind of trying to be very honest, but in a way that isn't aggressive which means that we can also say harsh things.
I remember the time, the one time we went we became deep friends in some way was the time where I invited you to lunch after after work to tell you, mate, I'm disappointed. And then I told you like the story that we had, where I said, Hey you promised me something, or at least I felt it was a promise and the promise wasn't kept.
I feel disappointed, blah, blah, blah. And then you could share your context. And we had a very good conversation that I think it's strangely enough, if I would pinpoint one moment where we changed from colleagues to friends, it will be that. Strange conversation, which was deeply honest, but not at all aggressive.
Which was like, this is how I feel, and it's not good. And so give me reasons to understand why I feel like that. Because and I think that's what I'm hearing here is this, how I'm turning it into a question because I don't have the answer. How can we use? And, appreciation, yes, but how can we still stay at the level where we can say stuff, where we can say this doesn't work, this part is not working because the way you read the feedback is biased, and I think we need to be able to say that.
And we need to also to be able to say that. at a certain speed, where we can also expect that in a workplace that we can say stuff without taking 20 minutes of sugarcoating before, but doesn't mean that it has to be aggressive, doesn't mean that it has to be painful, painful, yes, in some ways painful is It will be painful, but it doesn't feel to be like an attack.
I think that's like where I would say the difference. Obviously, we'll feel negative feedback has always felt a bit like an attack, but at least that's
Loris: where we're going to speak. You are using the word silly. And we both know where does it lead. It's feeling is something that is in an emotional context in which we are deeply and triggered and excited and amplified by the media, social media, the more classical ones, like the TV show and other things like this.
The word feeling, the one people, the people we're going to win. With this environment of feeling, are always those who are going to be able to trigger an emotional response. So I'm, when you say attack, I would like to ask you define attack. When you say negative feeling define negative feeling.
And I'm careful with this word, not because I don't want to hurt anybody. I, there, there are some people I will hurt. I will feel bad because I know that objectively I was bad. But there are lots of people who are going to feel bad because they decided. That their ego needs to enter the game instead of their argument and their logic.
And that's where I will never be sorry. Because I'm very, I think I'm a deeply empathetic person, and I feel bad for other people before they feel bad even for themselves when I do something that can hurt. And I will be the first one to apologize and say, I'm really sorry, I shouldn't have said that, or I would do everything to make the person comfortable after my first mistake, but I know that it's also a game now, something that you can sell, it's a marketing argument, your feelings, so that's why when you use the word feeling, I'm very careful because That has been so much weaponized.
Daniele: And I will not go deep in that specific topic. As that's not the topic I'm exploring. And maybe one pointer I can give, which was something that, I would say good friend now back then my manager gave me when I was at good innovation in the UK he come, he came once with the, they say, Oh, I read a great book this weekend.
And it was, I think, Radical Candor which was a book about this idea that, you can share feedback, which is honest, in a way that. Works, which means that, that people then can work on it, make things happen, and that doesn't block the whole situation by people feeling too shitty.
But still, you can say the things that you have to say. And I didn't read that book yet. So I will pass the recommendation of a recommendation. Have you read it
Loris: or have you heard of it? Yes. My manager recommended me to have it is my current manager. It's really lovely.
But it's really like you, like full of good intention, goodwill. And it's also, of course, so tolerant towards the Daily bullshit I'm throwing at him, so yeah, it's a really interesting book. helpful, so
Daniele: maybe the book is helpful. Awesome. So we covered a lot obviously when you're speaking with friends, we tend to cover more and go deeper than with people that you don't know so well.
Is there something Anything else that you had on your mind? I know you've prepped a bit for this call. You've sent me pictures of you highlighting parts of the chapter. So was there something else that, that while you were preparing yourself, you said, Oh, that's one thing that I'd love to to explore in the conversation that we didn't cover yet?
Or did we do a good how can we say that? Did we do a good honor to your preparation?
Loris: First of all, we did, I think I didn't do a good honor to your book because I read your other books and this one looks quite different and there is a different approach of it and I'm very excited to read the whole book.
I have it, of course, but I would like to honor your printing version. But it's, I like how we, I don't have much more to go deeper in this a bit, but I like the book, how you structured it and the action question. The introduction, the core of the, it's really, there are a lot of books built around the fact that you can pick at any point in the book subject and.
And absorb it. And I really like yours. There is a real truth to this concept in it. And there is what you call your action question. You could have a very light, very easy question and close a chapter, an article, a principle, but it's really it. You have created a rollercoaster, so you bring us like a subject, and you think yeah, I covered it, now I'm aware of what Daniele tried to teach me, but there is, then you're like, ah, there is a question, okay, and then to go up, I need to think about it and to develop it, and it's more than just reading this chapter and being like, check, I really like this how you honor this concept.
Daniele: So I'm hearing there is some challenge in the book with the action question, which is a good thing, which is a good thing. Yes, absolutely, yeah. So it's it's I often describe it as a toilet book, in the way that, you can pick it up while you're meditating on the throne and just have a short read.
And but then where maybe the kind of, this idea stops is that with the action question, once you go out of the toilet, you'll be thinking about the concept a bit longer than just. That's your meditation time on the throne. Love it. One more question that I have for you is resources.
Recommended resources
Daniele: Do you have recommendations of things to read, things to watch, things to experience that you would recommend to peers? Do you have anything that you would like to share with the community?
Loris: So I will start with something and I don't want to look, I don't know what you're saying in English but Pedant but has a very nuts As a reasonable person, I tend to try to rebalance and have some sort of rationality in what I'm doing.
I would recommend the book that I think you've all heard about it is Marcus Aurelius Memory and is part of a school of philosopher. That, at least for me, helps me a lot in terms of rethinking what you do in life, your role. In life and how you are and how you, you tend to work to become not better for other people, but better for yourself.
So that's the only one I would recommend that I could honestly recommend. The rest is like Again, be curious. And even if learning a completely new thing looks like a mountain, impossible to, to hike, go for it. You need
to embrace any kind of like platform that offers you new knowledge. And even if some people say, I'm too old. It takes too much time. It's too difficult. I was completely amazed by code and programming, especially in JavaScript or Python. And for me, that's always been like a huge mountain with Forrest, and I say really go for it.
Resources to learn coding
Loris: Go for it. There are so many amazing resources online to learn. For coding, you have Frontend Master, you have React. dev, you have Westbos, you have Superhigh. You have Code Academy and I can tell you that I'm giving you some resources for code, but I'm pretty sure in every field you have such amazing things and really explore, experiment, and broaden your spectrum instead of debating about stupid shit, political shit, where people are all pretending they have the truth.
And they are bringing the good of the world every time they open their mouth beakers, develop an idea of the world through new crafts, discussion. I would recommend, I'm trying to do that as much as I can. I know the algorithm on the different platforms, YouTube YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, they are targeting your interests and floating you with the same topics you were looking at all day long.
A recommended approach: curiosity
Loris: But try also to play with these. I'm trying many times to listen to very different opinions than mine. Even opinions that hurts me, even opinions that makes me uncomfortable. And that's one of the best resources because you're also questioning what you think. And when you have something that you disagree completely.
This is a resource that you will take and try to question, have double view, triple view, four four eye view on a subject, on a topic, and try to really understand with your brain and don't ask someone else to think for you. That's my problem with recommending you with a resource, is that you're giving too much power in one single source.
From what I recommend stop having pretension that you will find a resource that will solve all your problems and what you want to do. Thank you. And pretend that this person have the truth in his hands, or her hands. For me it's be curious and be careful with reality, be careful with truth.
Even if in service design you are offering lots of, in your book, of principles, but also this principle tries to question them and having look at them from a different angle, and I'm saying that for all your practice, graphic designer even you talk about surgeon, and I think that all of us have either individually experienced that or have people around us asking different opinions from different doctors.
And why do we do that with doctors and not with the rest? When someone brings you a truth, why is it something that you need to be crazy about and being some sort of ideological warrior? You should step back and be able to say, okay, now I need to hear this opinion and these extremely different opinions.
Not try to find the middle. It doesn't exist. That's bullshit too. But try to become a good human being, you need to try to find something around to define the space in which you think. That's why you look at different, but it's to define the space.
Daniele: One thing that I love about your recommendation, your not recommendation is that you're saying, look for new and different opinions. The opinions that you're not looking for usually, the ones that disturb you, the ones that, that tackle you the bad way, go look at those, learn why they think that way, and in the end you don't have to agree or disagree, but just learning that these different ways is also interesting and I think that's the richness of of The internet is that you can find this kind of stuff pretty easily and therefore use that as a, as something useful.
Get in touch with Loris
Daniele: So you shared a lot today, mate. It's been a pleasure as always. So you, you gave a lot for the, to the community. What can the community do for you?
Loris: I am always more than happy to discuss and have feedbacks on the adventure I share with my wife, which is the lo-ol project. Type Foundry. I'm always more than happy to hear feedbacks, not only about typefaces, because that I will hear all day long, and I would thank everybody, anybody who wants to try typeface my wife is developing, or like ideas of how to sell and how to interact with the phone's products.
Business, development, ideas of function on a website feedback about the type type design industry. My wife is South Korean, so also more than happy to hear people who wants to talk or learn more about Hengel. The type of the South Korean script. I'm open for type design, business, fonts feedbacks, and I exchange with people I'm more than happy because I think there is so much to do so much.
I don't know that we can do so many ideas that could be taken into account, developed and we all have different skills. And I think that working together, we can develop some amazing things. My email is open and I am more than happy to discuss about it. And even if you are looking for coaching for type design, purely type design or typography, I'm more than happy to discuss with you and exchange.
Daniele: And you'll get honest feedback. That's one thing that But I'm sure that people will get and I think you're a very good mentor Yeah, you don't do that, but I think people should should ask you because you are one of these guys who you're a too lovely human to, to give shitty feedback.
And I think that's and you're too smart too, which are two of your biggest problems. But. But interact with Loris share feedback, but also ask for feedback because he is really good at it.
Closing words
Daniele: Hey mate, it's been a pleasure. Great conversation. Great to have seen you, wish you a lovely end of the day and greetings
Loris: to the wife.
Thank you very much. Greetings to all the family. Bye bye. Cheers.
Daniele: Bye bye.