Google CEO Urges Graduates to Unplug and Get Outside

May 20 2009
by

Giving the commencement address in Philadelphia on Monday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told graduates to “turn off your computers,” urging the departing students to “discover all that is human around us.” He also tried to assuage students’ fears about the job hunt in the midst of an economic recession, advising them to use the financial turmoil as a source of inspiration and innovation. Those innovators at Google didn’t create a Web empire by trolling Facebook — they did it with their minds, which, incredibly, do not require Wi-Fi access to function.

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from: Academic, Critical Design, Education, Web

4 Comments leave a new comment!
May 20 2009
rc permalink

Thanks for posting this. Well timed!

May 20 2009
vantes permalink

I felt the timing of this speech would help put into perspective all the work you guys put into your thesis projects.

May 20 2009
rc permalink

And it’s nice to have advocates that can value a broader definition of design, and particularly Interaction Design.

The critiques I heard during the Degree Project presentations seemed (to me) to focus on the practical; on the applicability of each student’s proposal to design with a clear outcome – problem-solving. I don’t question that the intentions are noble: preparing students for the real world of design practice.

At the same time they seem short-sighted and rigid in that if there is a place and time to be provocative, meandering, fuzzy, and even stubborn, it is school.

It felt like the students presenting less conventional work this year only had other students as advocates. I went to a couple of presentations of the graduating students last year, and think there was a better equilibrium of opinions. But maybe the projects were simply more uniform and easier to judge.

I’m just sharing my thoughts because it would be sad to see our school take a turn towards teaching wireframes and use cases and business-centric design, rather than a studio pushing Interaction Design outward and forward. More than sad, I think it’s unfair to encourage students to play it safe, to be practical, to contain the urge to attempt something more risky and harder to judge.

May 23 2009
Mikko permalink

Hear, hear! University is the place to give the system a jolt it needs. Businesses main objective is to make more money, not to push boundaries, discover anything new or try them out. We should do this here, now and forever after, because it is the only way we learn. Our imagination and passion will otherwise crumble away as soon we get out of the safety-net of the learning environment.

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