@ Steven Smith: I have conducted extensive fieldwork in both artist’s communities and design companies and the academic grounding of my findings is not going to be performed here – so no luck for you in that department Steven. I’d be happy to send you my master’s thesis when it is complete. There you will find the data, the philosophical and theoretical background and a much more broadly structured argument.

@ Johannes:
‘Open ended’ is definitely not a goal in and of itself. However, it seems the method to acquire the goal (the new business solution/service).
Designers are trained to handle visual imagery but everyone else handles it as well. Maybe just in a qualitatively different way? This is also a focus of my thesis.

“Design as a much more affirmative part of capitalism than art”. I love it! I’ll need to think it through but it seems to hold some kind of potential.

Thanks for your input.
/Jesper

I found your notion of experts having to abandon their expert role particularly interesting. As a designer involved into co-creative processes, I wonder whether I still do design, moderation, or just collaborate with others.
Bruce Sterling said in Shaping Things: “Everyone can’t be a designer” because designers are trained to look and to work with loads of impressions.
If we declare designers (in their classic understanding) obsolete in this new process, because all ideas are shaped collaboratively – will this produce the same quality? Who does define quality then?

And a second point:
True that (some) artists work purely out of the material they have or find – leaving the outcome open. However, design is different from art and a totally open ending hardly fits the goal of solving problems. So maybe this analogy doesn’t work so well.
(In this sense, you can also argue that design is a much more affirmative part of capitalism than art)