20th Anniversary celebration with technology pioneers Bill Moggridge, Jason Kottke, Anil Dash, and Kevin Kelly
Timestamps are as accurate as they can be but may be slightly off. We encourage you to listen to the full context.
Podcast Summary
This Design Matters anniversary episode brings together excerpts from Debbie Millman's interviews with four technology pioneers over the past 20 years. (04:01) The episode features Bill Moggridge, co-founder of IDEO and laptop inventor; Jason Kottke, influential blogger and web designer; Anil Dash, software engineer and tech ethics advocate; and Kevin Kelly, Wired co-founder and technology philosopher. (03:41) Each conversation explores how technology emerged, evolved, and shaped our modern world, offering insights that feel both prophetic and timeless given today's digital landscape.
- Main themes: The evolution of user-centered design, the responsibility of tech creators, the inevitability of technological progress, and the human impact of digital innovation spanning two decades of technological transformation.
Speakers
Bill Moggridge
Co-founder of IDEO and pioneer of user-centered design who helped invent the laptop computer. He authored the influential book "Designing Interactions" published by MIT Press, which was named one of the 10 best innovation and design books by Business Week Magazine in 2006.
Jason Kottke
Designer and blogger who created one of the longest-running blogs on the web, kottke.org, which began in 1998. By 2013, he had published over 21,000 entries and built a readership of hundreds of thousands, making him one of the most influential bloggers of the early internet era.
Anil Dash
Software engineer, entrepreneur, activist, and writer who was the first employee at Six Apart, creators of Movable Type and Typepad blogging platforms. He later became CEO of Fog Creek Software and is known for his advocacy work making the tech industry more humane and ethical.
Kevin Kelly
Co-founder of Wired magazine and technology philosopher who has spent his career thinking and writing about technology's role in society. He's the author of several influential books including "The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future" and "What Technology Wants."
Key Takeaways
Start With People, Not Technology
Bill Moggridge's foundational principle that "the relationship people have to whatever you're designing is the most important factor" remains as relevant today as it was decades ago. (04:24) This user-centered approach focuses on understanding what gives people long-term rewards, pleasures, and excitement rather than being driven purely by technical capabilities. The principle serves as a reliable constant even as technologies and social relationships evolve rapidly around us, providing a North Star for designers and technologists navigating an ever-changing landscape.
Embrace the Responsibility That Comes With Platform Power
Jason Kottke's evolution from content curator to someone grappling with his platform's influence illustrates how creators must recognize their responsibility to their audience. (16:20) After events like Hurricane Sandy and the Connecticut school shooting, Kottke realized he had "hundreds of thousands of people reading" and began questioning what he should be doing with that platform. This shift from passive filtering to active consideration of impact demonstrates how influential voices must move beyond entertainment to consider their role in driving meaningful action and discourse.
Acknowledge and Atone for Unintended Consequences
Anil Dash's reflection on the early days of social media reveals how today's tech problems stem from design decisions made when teams were small and the stakes seemed lower. (30:16) He describes how creators of early blogging software and social networks unintentionally enabled harassment, misinformation, and abuse through their technical choices. This takeaway emphasizes the importance of considering long-term societal impacts during product development and the ongoing responsibility creators have to address negative externalities of their innovations.
Integrate Ethics Education Into Technical Training
The absence of ethics curriculum in computer science programs represents a critical gap in preparing technologists for their societal impact. (31:11) Unlike lawyers and doctors who receive extensive ethics training around "do no harm" principles, many technologists enter their careers without frameworks for considering the social implications of their work. This educational deficit contributes to the creation of technologies with harmful unintended consequences, highlighting the need for systematic integration of ethical thinking into technical education.
Understand Technology's Evolutionary Nature
Kevin Kelly's concept of technological inevitability provides a framework for understanding how innovations emerge predictably while their specific implementations remain open to human choice. (35:26) Technologies follow natural sequences—electricity leads to telephones, which lead to the Internet—but we still control their character, ownership, and accessibility. This perspective helps us focus our energy on shaping the qualities of inevitable technologies rather than trying to prevent their arrival, allowing for more strategic and effective interventions in technological development.
Statistics & Facts
- Jason Kottke had published over 21,000 blog entries by 2013, with his site kottke.org running continuously since 1998, making it one of the longest-running blogs on the web. (12:24)
- Bill Moggridge's team determined through testing that 8 pounds was the maximum acceptable weight for the first laptop computer after having all seven company employees carry increasing numbers of one-pound weights in their briefcases until it became unbearable. (11:22)
- More than 85% of Fortune 500 companies use the ServiceNow AI platform according to multiple sponsor mentions throughout the episode, demonstrating widespread enterprise AI adoption.
