Manifest Digital Human Experience Society

Symbol: Transfer

Text: An education-based toolset to begin and sustain the empowerment of smart people in a world transformed by digital. Knowledge expansion.

Interpretation: Manifest is a teaching company. Several of the agency’s designers and executives offer courses at local universities. A number of employees have backgrounds in instructional design. But more fundamentally, teaching and learning are necessary components of the processes the company initiates with clients. Manifest clients will always learn more about their users, and designers inevitably teach clients about the tools they have used to understand those users.

In one sense, Transfer refers to that unconscious exchange of data and ideas that comes with any collaboration. Yet it can also be a more intentional pedagogical act. For large clients undergoing complex change (as in a Transform) ongoing education and training can be a necessary component to re-center the company or organization around its users. Transfer can also occur independently when an individual or group needs to rapidly acquire knowledge or skills that Manifest has mastered.

In any case, Manifest personnel skilled in Transfer exhibit the virtues any great teacher must have: patient and perseverance. They understand that the true measure of successful teaching is not simply the retention of knowledge by students, but a change in their behavior. To tweak a common proverb – show a client how to serve users and you will lead them for a day; teach a client to serve users and you will lead them for a lifetime.

Commentary: “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” -John Dewey

Connections: Can occur as an inevitable outcome of many Manifest services, but especially Transition. Often essential to Transform.