What does it actually take for design to matter inside a massive organization? In this episode, hosts Giulia Donatello and Lee-Sean Huang sit down with Seth Johnson to talk about design at enterprise scale, and what designers get wrong about building influence.

Seth Johnson is Design Director at IBM's Chief Data Office, where he leads a team driving AI-first enterprise data transformation. Over a 12-year tenure at IBM, his work has evolved from designing artifacts and experiences toward designing the conditions under which good design can happen at scale. Before IBM, he founded a Minneapolis-based design practice. He has served as president of AIGA Minnesota and as an adjunct faculty member at Parsons School of Design.

In This Episode

From a used bookshop to IBM. Seth's path to design started at age 12, flipping through Dorfsman & CBS in a used bookshop, and seeing for the first time what design could look like as a system at scale. That same impulse, he says, is what he's still chasing at IBM, just at a different altitude.

Design as infrastructure. At IBM's Chief Data Office, Seth's team exists to provide the company with a single, trusted view of how the business is performing. Design's role there is turning data from something people dread into something they rely on every day.

The business doesn't care about design. And it shouldn't. Seth's most provocative argument: design only earns influence when it connects itself to outcomes leadership actually cares about: revenue, risk, speed, and fewer defects. Designers are always outnumbered. That means assimilating into the organization's dominant rhythms before earning the right to ask anyone else to change.

Treat your team like volunteers. Seth's core leadership philosophy, drawn from years of running AIGA Minnesota: talented people decide every day how much energy and creativity they're willing to invest. You might get the work, but you won't get the commitment. And you definitely can't fake caring at scale.

The era of the lone genius is over. On design education: Seth argues that schools still do a reasonable job of preparing designers to work independently, but fall short in preparing them to lead within teams. Design is a team sport, and design students should be partnering across disciplines—biology, nursing, public policy—before they ever step into practice.

Resources Mentioned

• Dorfsman & CBS by Dick Hess and Marion Muller - ⁠https://amzn.to/4unbsHT⁠ (out of print; available secondhand)
• Humanizing Data Through Design with Giorgia Lupi (AIGA Design Podcast on YouTube) - ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZZIR8W9AlY⁠
• Giorgia Lupi on the AIGA Design Podcast (Other Platforms) - ⁠https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/aigadesign/episodes/Humanizing-Data-Through-Design-with-Giorgia-Lupi-e3fi3h1/a-acg9jrh⁠
• Seth Johnson & Jenny Price: How AIGA Leadership Changed Everything - ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12f7g-YG8cY⁠  
• Designing Change in Bureaucracy with Ivan Boscariol (YouTube) - ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f5zESGtKb8⁠
• Designing Change in Bureaucracy with Ivan Boscariol (Other Platforms) - ⁠https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/aigadesign/episodes/Designing-Change-in-Bureaucracy-with-Ivan-Boscariol-e32eemt⁠
• Corita Kent, 2016 AIGA Medalist Video - ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tivdlh2mhIU⁠ 
• IBM Design - ⁠https://www.ibm.com/design ⁠

Subscribe to the AIGA Design Podcast on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts: ⁠https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/aigadesign ⁠

Send us your questions, comments, and voicemails at ⁠[email protected]⁠.