On Human Infrastructure

Ask Dr. Janice has a new look and a new page.  That’s what happens when there are fresh inputs, both from the environment (feels like Spring at last in Philadelphia!) and the growing human infrastructure in my entrepreneurial life.

I took music instead of art in college (it was a choice in those long ago days) so I figured I was remembering wrong when I thought, form dictates function.  Googled it to educate myself on who said it and what they meant by it, vaguely remembering it had something to do with buildings designed to house manufacturing plants.  It’s actually from this, by American architect Louis Sullivan who coined the phrase in 1896:

It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,
Of all things physical and metaphysical,
Of all things human and all things super-human,
Of all true manifestations of the head,
Of the heart, of the soul,
That the life is recognizable in its expression,
That form ever follows function.

I think he meant form should follow function.  Because in the real world, I see much more form dictating function.  That is, we have a form – often in the guise of a policy or procedure or even an architectural structure like a cube farm outside a corner office – that tells us how we should interact.  Consider the hierarchical organization where cross-level discussions are frowned on.  This creates horizontal silos and limits the natural human urge to interact – to function.

For the human infrastructure to be strong there needs to be no limit on thinking, on synergizing, on the production of the fresh and new. It needs to follow Vision.