Liz Gerber

Welcome or welcome back to the Technical Difficulties Podcast, where we celebrate the careers of amazing female designers and technologists. We are so excited to welcome Dori Tunstall. Dori is a design anthropologist, a public intellectual, and a book author of Decolonizing Design, a Cultural Justice Guidebook. Her guidebook inspires us to transform the way we imagine and remake the world by replacing pain and repression with equity, inclusion, and diversity. As the first black female design, as the first black female Dean of Design of OCAD University in Toronto, Dori's global career has earned her prestigious awards for setting new standards in the design industry. She's been called a crusader, a trailblazer, and a visionary, and I think you'll see why shortly.

We can't wait to speak with you, Dori. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Dori Tunstall

Thank you, Liz.

Liz Gerber

So some quick questions to begin. What's your favorite way to start the morning?

Dori Tunstall

I go for a walk with my aunt. Like from seven, yeah, so I live with my 74 year old aunt. And so the thing is now like we get up around six, six, 37 in the morning. So when the light comes out, like between seven and eight, we go for a 30 minute walk almost every day.

Liz Gerber

With your aunt.

That's beautiful. Do you have an agenda that you talk about or is it silence?

Dori Tunstall

It's like silence or just like humming or whatever. It's mostly just the like just absorbing the beauty of the morning. There's not a lot of cars out. We have different routes that we kind of take. So it's just so to avoid kind of doom scrolling the first thing in the morning. I was like, OK, let's just get up and go for a walk and then we can doom scroll.

Liz Gerber

Aww.

Dori Tunstall

So that's my, I've been doing that now for like three months. I feel like it's three months we've been doing that.

Liz Gerber

You inspire me. I'm going to do the same. May I? May? Copy that practice?

Dori Tunstall

Yes, please, please. I offer it generously and I've learned it from others, so you know.

Liz Gerber

It's beautiful. Well, now that begs me to ask, what's your favorite way to end the day?

Dori Tunstall

Watching Japanese anime.

Liz Gerber

Unexpected. Why?

Dori Tunstall

I think it started, I've always loved Japanese anime and I realized during the pandemic, it was the only thing that my mind could consume because it's like 20, 22 minute episodes. And there's a bit of resolution. Most of the time it's like, the underlying theme is like overcoming oppression and things like that. So it's a thing where like what calms me down, reading I get into. So if I try to read before I'll read the book the whole entire night and I won't go to sleep. But if I watch like I'll watch like maybe one or two episodes of Japanese anime and it's enough to kind of depressurize me, take me out of my head, and then lull me into kind of a gentle sleep.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm.

That's beautiful, thank you. Final warm up question is what is your favorite creativity tool, broadly defined?

Dori Tunstall

Video, it's a thing I grew up, I grew up in the, I came to age in the 1980s with MTV. So music and videos have always been like, like the creative medium of expression. So I really like, and again, you have to write, you have to understand graphics, so it brings all those things together, but I really, really love making video and the technology tools now to do that are so, so much easier. It is actually my true form of creative expression.

Liz Gerber

Interesting, are you willing to share a project on which you're working?

Dori Tunstall

Well, so you'll ask me about like where, you know, where people will find me. So I have, I have a Patreon, which is called Living Libertory Joy. So I post, I do meme dance Monday. So I post my dance videos there and it is me dancing.

Liz Gerber

And it's you dancing. I love it.

Dori Tunstall

Like every two weeks I try to find like a popular meme dance and I train myself to do it for those two weeks and then I do like a short snippet of it and then I post it. But again, there's like video production that comes into that.

And then there is Joyburst, which again, twice a week, I do like a one to two minute quick video. And again, it's like the choir sound, I have to write a quick script, I have to like, you know, film content. And so those are like my form of creative expression. You thought those were gonna be quick.

Liz Gerber

Yeah.

You are the gift that keeps giving. just, it's like, yes, there's so much in there. Starting with your career, moving on, you are described as a design anthropologist. So first I would love you to describe what that is. And then the other thing I'd like to say is how did you get started in design? Did you start off as a design anthropologist? Was it a slow progression?

Dori Tunstall

So as a design anthropologist, what it means is I'm really interested in three things. I'm interested in values, so kind of people's values, community values, and how that gets translated by design into tangible experiences, right? So how design helps make tangible and visible and debatable and whatever the values that we hold, right?

which the values that we hold is just culture, right? That we want to pass on to future generations. Like that is the modality of culture is to say these are the values. And the way in which we do that is there's intangible form, right? But there's also tangible form. So I focus on the tangible forms in which we say we want to pass this off to future generations. And then I look at, okay, where's a misalignment between the design and what people are experiencing?

Liz Gerber

Yeah.

Dori Tunstall

and can we redesign stuff so people experience what they're really wanting to? Or do we have to think about a whole new set of values to which we need to give design because the experiences that people are having are so terrible? So that's what I do.

Liz Gerber

Yeah.

I love that. Can you give me a really concrete example of how, how am I interested in that?

Dori Tunstall

The example I always talk about is like, in my career, I did a lot of work with design for democracy. So this is coming off of the 2000 elections debacle. And so...

Liz Gerber

Which was what, just for our listeners in case they don't know about the debacle.

Dori Tunstall

So in year 2000, the design of a poor ballot in Dade County, Florida decided the whole direction of the election. And so at the time we had George Bush versus Al Gore, very, very close as most of our elections have been.

And because some people misread the alignment between what's called a butterfly ballot, so you have things to vote for on both sides, that people chose in that county the wrong person that they voted for, and Al Gore...

through intervention of the Supreme Court lost that county, which meant he lost Florida, which meant George Bush won the election. And it changed the whole trajectory of the United States based on that. So after that, lot of designers got together to address the specific problem of design, right? I got involved, there was a group called Vary in Chicago.

I got involved with them at the time I was doing again user experience strategy for. Well.

eLab slash Safian. So I got involved in terms of helping them do the ethnographic research to understand what the voter's experience was. Then we created an opportunity map on that research. And then the students, again, because we working with University of Illinois Chicago students, developed a whole wide range of prototypes to be able to support that, including new ballots, which then led to work with the election assistant commissions,

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm.Yeah.

Dori Tunstall

where Design for Democracy actually designed kind of the prototypes for all different types of ballots to make them inclusive, to make them again, so that you don't have a design error in how you vote. So in that the value was what is democracy? What does that mean to people?

Then again, what do you have? All the designs that came out of that. So there was things that were for election judges because that's a key part of their gatekeeper in the democratic process. There were things around the ballot. There was things, and again, electronic versus print ballots. There were things around the signage that you had in the election center. So again, the students prototyped all of these different things, which again, were put in implementation.

Liz Gerber

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing.

Dori Tunstall

And then again, we then evaluated through usability, evaluated through things, what people's experiences were, and then redesigns happened with that. But also again, we went through and like, okay, what is democracy actually really mean to people? So there was things about, well, we've improved the voting experience, but people don't understand, like the reporting that happens, like what's the outcomes of your vote? Like not a lot of places, let's say in Chicago,

you vote for judges. I'm in LA, you vote for judges. The outcomes of that you don't get a report on in the same way that you could report on Senate and whatever, but those are the kinds of things that really matter on the local level. So then there's the work around like, how do we improve the information that comes back around the outcomes of election? Because that's actually what makes people feel that they're in a democratic society, right?

Liz Gerber

Okay. Yeah. Mmm... Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

So that's, so all of that was like a design anthropology engagement, right?

Liz Gerber

So how, okay, back, that was a great illustration, but how in the world do you get into this? Like when you're like five, or when you're in kindergarten, in kindergarten, you're learning how to count, count and read and things like that. Like what were you learning how to do? And how'd you get into this?

Dori Tunstall

Okay, so this is the design and anthropology part. So the anthropology part is I've always been curious about people and why they think the way they do and why they engage in the way that they do. for a long time when I was younger, I was like, I'm going to become a neurosurgeon because that's around like trying to understand how people think. So you're right. But I.

Liz Gerber

Okay.Iinteresting. Okay. Okay. But surgeon is surgeon is also an intervention. It's interesting, right? Like you were so you're always an interventionist. You knew you wanted to intervene, not just study. Okay. Okay. But you thought you'd have a scalpel, not a graphic, you know, not a, I don't know, Photoshop or whatever you

Dori Tunstall

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And that's where...

Well, so when I did my undergraduate degree at Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia, again, I was going to be a biochemistry double major. But I took my first anthropology class. And it was a thing where was the first one I took was physical anthropology because it's the best way to learn anatomy.

Liz Gerber

Yeah. Yeah. Because you're wicked smart.

Dori Tunstall

And they had a medical anthropology course where I was like, I'm to be a doctor and can't just let people think this is perfect. I can understand how medicine needs to operate different places around the world. So once I took an anthropology class, I was like, this is what I love. Like this is instead of a scalpel, this is actually a better tool to understand.

Liz Gerber

Okay.

Dori Tunstall

How people think in their own way, right? Like the beauty of it is like with the scaffold is just like you're cutting out pieces of stuff, With this is like you're trying to understand people from their own perspective without the imposition of like any kind of scaffolding that comes from the culture that you belong from, right? Or at least try to put those in dialogue.

Liz Gerber

Yeah. Mmm. Mmm.

Dori Tunstall

So that's like, this is a better tool. Anthropology is a better tool for intervention. And the design came about through the fact that I was always in art classes and engaged in art classes. So I knew the importance of form making as a way of, again, intervening in the world, offering new possibilities. So even through my, did my, did even, so my junior project in my anthropology class in college was a puppet show making, using, I made Indonesian shadow puppets, Japanese Bunraku puppets, designed all the costumes, designed and made all the masks. I was working in with a,

Liz Gerber

In college. Okay.

Dori Tunstall

a puppeteer who was our theater professor that year. So that was like my junior project was like a puppet show on homo habilis, which is the first humans that we say discovered the use of fire, the story of Prometheus from Greek mythology, and then throwing in all this other stuff from other cultures. So that's when I was like, I didn't have the language to say I was a design anthropologist.

But I already knew that I was combining together form and content, right? In ways that was contextualized around culture. So by the time I get to grad school, my PhD thesis is considered one of the most challenging and original because for every chapter, I had a different format based on, I did my PhD research in Ethiopia.

Liz Gerber

Yeah.

Dori Tunstall

And so every chapter had a different format based on my understanding of like the vernacular expression of the place. And again, the things that I was in. So one of the places that I visited as part of my research is I was looking at Ethiopian tourism and development. And so there's a region called Aksum, which is in the north.

Liz Gerber

Can you give a concrete example of what that looked like?

Dori Tunstall

And this is where they tell the story of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. So this is where that story comes from. And again, they use these very graphic strips to tell these stories. So my entire chapter on Axum was in the form of that graphic strip.

Liz Gerber

Wow.

Dori Tunstall

So I did all the drawings for that chapter. And my four professors, they didn't know what to do because they're like, we're just assuming she's a genius. You know, the documentation is all there, but we have no idea what to do with this dissertation. But there's nothing they could do because all the data was there. again, I...

wrote the first chapter in perfect academies where I was explaining that the rest of the story will be told in these various forms of like Ethiopian vernacular expression. And so they had no idea what to do with it. But I passed. That's how I got my PhD from Stanford. But that's again when I knew I didn't have the language for it, but I knew I was doing something.

Liz Gerber

Yeah.

Dori Tunstall

that worked on the intersections of design and anthropology. And when it wasn't until I went, so from that, I'm in Stanford during like Y2K, right? So pre, I graduated, got my degree from Stanford in 1999, right? This podcast is for people who very young. So in the 1990s, there was a great fear that,

Liz Gerber

Can you explain what Y2K is?

Dori Tunstall

When we turn from the 90s into the year 2000, a lot of technology would fail because they had been programmed with kind of like a reset date, in which they would go back to zero because no one was thinking about 2000. So, so much money was put in by companies in a way that like so much money is put into AI now. So much money was put into companies to prepare

for this impending global technology disaster of Y2K so that all of our technologies didn't fail when 1999 turned into 2000. So I was in the heart of Silicon Valley during these times. Again, no ambition necessarily to go into that space.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

But there were companies like eLab, which became Sapient. There were companies like IDEO that were there trying to figure out what this technology, what is this internet going to mean to people? And again, there was already models. So we had like Dr. Genevieve Bell, who was like a sort of a senior of mine, right? Who had gone into Intel Corporation.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

So I knew that there were people who were already looking at what technology would mean. Like, is this, what are the values that are coming through, through this new technological design that needs to happen? And I was like, okay, I can go into an anthropology department and, you know, talk about Ethiopia and tourism and development, or I can be on the forefront of in some ways helping to define and design.

Liz Gerber

Mmm. Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

What these new technologies would mean to people in everyday life, right?

Liz (20:30.218)

Mmm. Mmm. Okay, I... I wanna...

Dori Tunstall

So that's how I got into technology design. I was always a thing when all my classmates said that I had gone into like e-Lab, safety and all of these sort of things, they were like, we are not surprised. We are not surprised that this is where you would be. But I didn't have a name for it until Ken Anderson who had done his title when he had a short stint at Apple.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So. Yeah.

Dori Tunstall

And he had gone to Intel, his title was a design anthropologist. And so all of a sudden I had a title for what it is that I been doing actually for a really long time, but didn't have the language to describe it.

Liz Gerber

Hmm, language. So two things that I'm hearing come up are your conviction of intuition that you were onto something. You didn't have the words for it, but you were onto something. And then coupled with confidence, right? You write this PhD dissertation. The first chapter is according to the rules and then the rest is not. So, tell me.

Dori Tunstall

Yes.

Liz Gerber

Where does, what is your source of confidence and where can we get some of this? It's brilliant. How, how do you decide to do that? And what keeps you going when all, when there's so many messages around you saying, do it the way it's always been done, Dori.

Dori Tunstall

Well, this is where I think my identity actually comes in 204. So again, I am a black cis woman who...

again, has a neurodiversity and I'm gifted. So people don't think of giftedness as a neurodiversity, but it is. My brain actually operates in different ways, right? And so like the combination of all of those things means I'm always on the outs.

Liz Gerber

Okay.

Dori Tunstall

I'm always on the outs. So then the question becomes is like, you assimilate into it? Do you begin to redefine yourself so that you fit into it? Or do you just say, OK, I'm on the outs, so let me just do what I do. And hopefully people will see it. Hopefully people will recognize it. Hopefully I can build a community around it.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

But, again, I have to be true to who I am. from a perspective, the advantage is that I've entered spaces where innovation is really considered of value or of value. So you only get new stuff from people who are bringing different and new perspectives that you've not encountered before. so even at Stanford,

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

Stanford rewrote the rules for how you do a PhD dissertation because there was nothing actually I had followed all the they expand them.

Liz Gerber

Did they expand them or did they constrain them? They expanded them. Okay, this is good.

Dori Tunstall

Well, they constrain them because what it is is that like they because you go through this check. So they went through all the things and like I did everything that you said you were supposed to have. Right. But I did all these extras where I like I had I didn't have in notes. I had side notes because I was like, well, why would you want to go to the bottom or somewhere else? You should just read them side by side. Right. And and they're like, no one's done that before. And I'm like, I had for some reason I have my name on each page at the

Liz Gerber

Yeah, right. Yeah, sure. Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

bottom of the header with a thing and they're like no one's done that before and I had all this imagery I had gone and working to get all these programming so like have the language in Amharic script, Gia script and so I've done all these things that didn't break any of the rules but they just never saw them and then all of a sudden they were like we might need to change the rules.

Liz Gerber

And you graduated in 99. So this may explain why I, when I submitted my dissertation in 2007, there were an inordinate amount of rules. And I thought, why in the world are there all these rules? So now I know it was you. you. Thank you, Dory. No, well, and what I'm humored by is similarly, was, did not do that with my dissertation, but I was in a PhD seminar at Stanford and we were supposed to write essays, reflection essays, weekly reflection essays.

Dori Tunstall

Yes. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Liz Gerber

and instead I submitted a cartoon and I submitted it and my classmates said, you're gonna get kicked out of the program for doing that. it's, well, thank you. Maybe you, this professor said he had never received a cartoon response to academic, you know, written papers and still speaks of it to this day. So I think you were ahead of the time. I wish I had known that. Okay, so you've already listed several…

Dori Tunstall

I do that all the time. Yay. Yeah, places that I've worked.

Liz Gerber

Several, yes, several and several defining moments or learning moments perhaps. I'm wondering if there's a surprising thing you learned in your journey. Was there that you haven't shared yet or that you would like to share? It sounds like I don't know if much surprises you, but I still want to ask that.

Dori Tunstall

Mm-mm. Well, I guess the thing I would say, and I was thinking about this a lot, where the thing that I found most surprising is that once you get a seat at the table, you realize that it's not so special to be there. this is, well, I guess, so again, it's a thing where, you know, like,

Liz Gerber

Okay, say more. And what tables are you sitting at? Give us an example. Give us a concrete example, please.

Dori Tunstall

If you are smart and talented, then you're kind of, there's this expectation set that you want to belong in these elite spaces. again, know, Bryn Mawr College, it's an elite institution, Stanford elite institution, working in these high tech, you know, elite institutions. so again, it's a, and so it's a thing.

Liz Gerber

Absolutely.

Dori Tunstall

you're told this is what you should aspire to, this is what you should aspire to, this is why you're working so hard. And you get there and you realize it's not so special to be there. And I'll give a very concrete example.

Like Stanford is a place that has really, really smart, intelligent people. So this is like not saying anything about that, right? Like it is what it is. And for me, what was special about it was actually just more so than being surrounded by really smart, intelligent people.

was actually the diversity of people that I was around in the sense of like there was a strong Native American student population. I was in anthropology. So again, was quite our classmates were quite global and diverse and whatever. And that to me is like that was the thing that was special about being at Stanford. Like everyone's like, let's add 50 points to your IQ because you went to Stanford. but to me, it's like, actually, what was special about Stanford was like that was the first time.

Liz Gerber

Yeah.

Dori Tunstall

that I saw reflected the level of like domestic and global diversity can exist in a room and the interchange of perspectives that could happen when you have that level of diversity. And so in all aspects of my career, I gravitate to those spaces and places. So when I went into industry, again, working at Sapient, what I loved the most about it was the diversity of people from all over the world who are working there. Again, all people like on the top of the game. would say to this day, I've never worked with smarter people than I did on my teams at like Sapient. But again, it's a thing where we're told the thing about being in those places is to have the seat at the table.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm. Just common language.

Dori Tunstall

But actually, and that's like to earn the prestige of being in these places. But what you find is that the value is not in the prestige of being in these places. The value is, at least for me, was like to be able to be surrounded by so much diversity of perspectives, so many diversity of experiences and be in...

be in exchange with that so it broadens your whole perspective of what is possible in the world. And so that's the thing that has surprised me in my journey as most, because everyone's like, Dory, there's this elite place. You should be there. And I'm like, yeah, OK. But I'm not interested in the prestige part. I'm interested in who is there in the room. And that's the thing that's really sad that's happening right now.

in terms of the intent to dismantle the diversity of gender, the diversity of peoples in the room, because that was actually the thing that was special in any of these elite institutions that I am. And if that disappears again, then like I said, those places are actually not very important actually tables to be at, right?

Liz Gerber

Yeah. Yeah.

Dori Tunstall

Because you're not going to learn anything being at those quote unquote seats at those tables.

Liz Gerber

Yeah.

Hmm. This is making me think about your book and, and what I love about your book is you introduce new frameworks, from, from non Eurocentric cultures. And I'm wondering if there's frameworks or ideas or principles that we could take that would help us think about that. Cause even just the language of the table, right? There's so much, so much to dissect in that as a, as a Eurocentric construct construct. So I'm curious.

Dori Tunstall

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Liz Gerber

if there's what it makes you think of, are there models we can learn and be inspired by? I know you've talked, you taught me first about the seven generation principles, which I'm hoping we can get to and you can define. Is there anything in that that we can draw on when thinking about where we are right now in the time?

Dori Tunstall

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, now. Well, I think actually the term I think of that really expresses kind of the moment we're in now is actually sort of the indigenous concept. And for me, it comes to me through the Anishinaabe who are again, one of the original custodians of land of Toronto and other areas, but a very large Native American indigenous group, right? A language group, actually. There's this concept of all my relations. And all my relations, what it does is that it broadens our understanding of to whom we have relationships of obligations of care.

Liz Gerber

Okay.

Dori Tunstall

Right, so in the sense of all my relations is that you care for other human beings and you, and in the broadest sense, right, like anyone who is needed, anyone who is vulnerable, the ethos is that your first response is a response of care. That is your obligation is to care. Yet we are in kinship with the...

the land, we are in kinship with the other plants, we're in kinship with the other animals, we're in kinship with all of these other, we're in kinship with the air, we're in kinship with the moon, we're in kinship with all these things. And so the other aspect is reminding us, let's say, if your sense of a relationship between, let's say, you and your siblings is one that is expected, obligated to be of love and care.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

your this animal is your sibling, this water, this lake is your sibling, this piece of land here, this heel is your sibling. The air that you breathe is even it's not even your sibling. It's like it's your grandparent or great grandparents to whom you owe great obligations for giving you life. Right. So for me,

Liz Gerber

Yeah.

Dori Tunstall

is that sense of all my relations because the ideal of getting the ideal of having a seat at the table is actually to constrain the sense of like who we're meant to care for, right? So if you're at the table, then you're only supposed to care about the opinions of those who are at that table, right?

Liz Gerber

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

But if you're coming from a sense of all my relations, there doesn't have to be a table. Everything that is there around you, everything that you're in interdependency with, is something that you have an obligation to care for. It's not about rights. don't have a right to be cared for. It's about your obligation to care. And that's kind of the...

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

That's what I was feeling when I was in these spaces, where it's like I am optimizing my ability to care for people across all ranges of differences that I hadn't even taken in consideration because I hadn't encountered them before.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

Whereas the sense of like, okay, you're at Stanford University, you're the elite of the elite of the elite. Like I was like that's not a table I want to, I don't want to sit at that table actually. Right. I'd rather roam around. I'll roam around in the heels and bring a bunch of people with me because this table is too small. This room is too small. This lecture hall might be too small. So let's just go hang out in the foothills and commune with everything. Right.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. This is something I've always admired about you is you're to make something new. Like you're not afraid to walk out the door and start something new and, have confidence that, that people you'll, you'll do this in community with others. You're not going out at it alone.

Dori Tunstall

Yeah. And that's always the challenging balance, right? Like I always say to people, you're not a leader unless until there's two people who are willing to follow you.

Liz Gerber

Hmm.

Dori Tunstall

And then they're the ones who actually make the leader, right? Like you could just be the one wandering out there alone. But it is, and the first person who might be there, like they just might be like, out there with you. But if you get two people who are willing to join with you in that, like, okay, that defines the space of leadership, right? That designs amplification, but the leader is created by the...

Liz Gerber

Yeah. Yeah.

Dori Tunstall

of those two people to see themselves in the possibilities that you've opened up. And so there's always a moment of feeling like that isolation until those two people join in, right?

Liz Gerber

Yes. And I love, I'm sorry, go ahead.

Yeah, I want to, I've been thinking lately about the, I think the pedestal upon which, and also an interesting word with problems, but the pedestal we put leadership upon and the criticality of followership. And that I think too often we say people go for leadership, but don't realize that my point of view is that to be in a successful society, we need people to take in both roles. You need to be both a leader in subdomains and a follower in others. And I'd love to hear your reaction to that. How do you think about that? And the word pedestal. I'm so sensitive to the language I'm using with you because I'm realizing how problematic so much of it is.

Dori Tunstall

Okay, so the thing, yeah, It's okay, like again, like what I appreciate is like your willingness to engage in like the understanding of like, this has a, there's something that comes with this word, right? It is heavier than we actually use it, right? So let's dig in. So the thing that I'm learning,

is I am a terrible follower. And it's a thing where you're asked, what are the things that you want to learn to do? I want to learn to be a better follower. Mostly because to be the path breaker.

Liz Gerber

Okay, say more.

Dori Tunstall

is a lot of work, it's a lot of labor, right? And the advantage that the follower has is that someone has already broken the path for them a little bit. So it's a little less work for them to be able to follow. So there's a part of me that wishes I was a better follower, just because it would be like far less energy to expend.

Liz Gerber

Yes.

Dori Tunstall

to be able to have impact in the world, right? So it's not like a sense of laziness. It's just like, I wish I could just kind of follow along with others are doing and contribute in a way that they find useful or whatever, where I'm not having to, again, open up a new pathway, right? I don't have to carry the machete. I can carry the light. Right?

Liz Gerber

Yeah. Well, I want to push back and say, I think this is a first. I'm seeing this as an act, not your first, but an act of followership and that you agreed to talk on this podcast to be sure you were. We asked you, we asked you because you're a leader. We asked you because of the things you've done, but this was an invitation for you to engage, you know, in the questions, in the questions. So I think you are on the right path.

Dori Tunstall

Okay.

You will take it. I will take it. Yeah, thank you. will totally take that because I need it. I need it. But again, it's a thing where, but it's also a thing like for me, leadership is following, right? So I'm going to contradict myself in a way. The thing that I find like, there are a couple of gifts that I bring as a person.

Liz Gerber

Okay, say more. Please do, please do.

Dori Tunstall

My first gift is that I'm actually able to synthesize a wide range of different perspectives. And I can hold them, I can hold all that complexity in my head and act upon that in a way that in some ways people feel, people realize that they are part of whatever it is that I've set up, right?

Liz Gerber

That's a gift.

Dori Tunstall

And I, again, it's a thing like I own it as a gift. Again, it's one of those things that you hone as a skill as an anthropologist, because again, your job as an anthropologist is to be able to imaginatively leap out of your own thoughts and systems to be able to connect to someone else's. Right. The other gift that I bring in many cases is that like I think

at the level, I can see the connections between the vision, the strategy, which is in some ways for me the prioritization and the tactical stuff that needs to happen. So when I have an idea, that ideal already comes with the plan and the number of toilet paper rolls that have to be bought, right, in order to sustain that.

Liz Gerber

Can you, I love, can you give me a concrete example of this? I love that it comes down to the toilet paper rolls. Can you give me a concrete example of something that's happened in last couple of years where you both had the vision and the strategy and the number of toilet paper rolls all figured out?

Dori Tunstall

Yeah, okay, let's see what the, again, this is thing, this is what I do every day, so it's really hard to pick out an example that's like super cool. But what I'll do is, so there was an initiative I started when I was a Dean of Design at OCAD University, which is called It's My Future Toronto. And what was the, the point was to engage eight to 12 year olds.

Indigenous, Black and POC focused in designing in some ways like in this case, the immediate thing was what should be the recovery response from COVID for the city of Toronto, because I was on their recovery board and I was like, okay, there's a voice missing and it's the voice of youth. So let me set up something to embrace that voice, right? And so

Liz Gerber

Okay.

Dori Tunstall

The moment I had that idea, I had already had conversations. So again, this is coming after 2020 and the murder of George Floyd. So you had a lot of companies wanting to like, how do we do the right thing? And so I was like, this is how you do the right thing. We were gonna set up this initiative.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

We're gonna engage with Globe and Mail, is the major newspaper in Toronto. Sid Lee, which is one of the major advertising agencies. They're the ones, you're into basketball, they did the We the North campaign for the Raptors when they won.

Liz Gerber

Yeah. Okay.

Dori Tunstall

Okay. And then, and then the city government. So I'm like, we're going to knit all of those things together. I already had the Gantt chart. So the moment I had the ideal, I already knew like, these are the players that I can slot in. Here's the Gantt chart. So we need to develop all of these videos. We need to have them up there. And then we'll engage in all of these zoom sessions with the youth to be able to bring their projects forward. This is how long it's going to take. We'll have a big…

Liz Gerber

Okay. Okay.

Dori Tunstall

a big event, the virtual event, Written up in the newspapers, all these kinds of things for it. So when I first conceived of that idea, like instantaneously, the Gantt chart was in place because I already had conversations about how to slot.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

the different teams and then it was a thing like refining in terms of like again, okay, we're gonna need more time for this because we have this deadline coming up, we're gonna have any more time for this but again, in that moment where I said, we need a It's My Future Toronto initiative, boom, here's the Gantt chart and this is what needs to happen. And then the toilet paper aspect of it, again, it's like.

Liz Gerber

Hmm.

Dori Tunstall

Okay, I need to get the domain name, so I need to research and make sure someone else doesn't own the domain name. Okay, so let's get the domain name. Okay, we need to get people who are really good at making films. So we're gonna talk to one of our top directors in the city, and then they're gonna help create the guide, right, to be able to do this, right? So all of that happens really rapidly for me.

Liz Gerber

Yeah. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

because it's composed in my head and then it becomes transcribed into an Excel spreadsheet that helps me communicate this to others.

Liz Gerber

Okay.

How do you feel when somebody comes to you and questions a premise of one of your visions and how do you handle it?

Dori Tunstall

Well, okay, so that is the thing, that is something I've learned to cultivate. It used to bother me a lot because what it meant, like again, it's like I see the whole picture.

So sometimes it's frustration because something someone was suggest like I already thought through all the ramifications of what that is. And I can tell you all the 964 ways in which that's not going to work, which people don't like when you do that. So I learned very quickly to stop doing that. Even though I was right, it's just not nice to tell people that.

Liz Gerber

Yeah?

Dori Tunstall

The other thing that I've learned to do is, the best way in which I've done that is like I say, okay, I'm gonna lay this out and I've learned to do it in forms that are, like I don't do the full color thing anymore or whatever, I try to do it so that people feel that they can enter into this space. So I've learned to not.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

present things as fully formed as they may actually be in my head. The other thing I've learned to do is to, when people give that, I don't give an immediate reaction. So I said, it's like, this sounds very interesting. Let me give a day or so to process what this might all mean, but I feel like it's a good idea, right? So I've learned to do that. And then, then what I'll do is I'll take what it is they do, synthesize that and see how it changes the whole configuration. And if it fits in, then it's like, okay, that's fine. If it doesn't, then what I can do is sort of explain is like, if we do this and I'm fine with going in this direction, the things that we have to address will be this, this, this, and this. And then that way…

Liz Gerber

Mmm. Great. Yeah.

Dori Tunstall

They don't feel that they reject it, but then they have to take on the obligation of figuring out the problems that now have to be solved if we embrace this approach. And it's not aligning with everything else. So I've learned to cultivate different ways of approaching that. so it doesn't bother me anymore. I just expect it to happen.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

and I allot time for it to happen and I don't take it personally. But I'm also in a place where I just, I very quickly realize when things are not in alignment.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

And so just this week there was someone who wanted to work together on the project. again, my instincts were saying like, this doesn't feel right, this doesn't feel right, but this doesn't feel right. But said like, let's just trust the process and see if we get there. And it got to the point where it's like when they fully laid out what it is that they were about.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

I was like, OK, we're just not in alignment. And that's not personal. There's nothing wrong with that. It just means we need to each go in our own direction. And if there's another opportunity in the future connect, we can do so. But this is not it, right?

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Dori Tunstall

And so I've learned to respect that aspect as well of just like, actually some things are just in misalignment and it's not, and that's okay. Cause it just means you now have the opportunity to focus your energy on that, which is an alignment. Right.

Liz Gerber

Beautiful. So what is on the spirit of alignment? What is an alignment right now? And very specifically, what are you excited that you are working on today? What's one thing you're excited about?

Dori Tunstall

So I'm really excited about, so I'm working on my second book, which is Super Tokens, the first and only is in design and tech. And it's,

Liz Gerber

Ooh, super tokens is the title.

Dori Tunstall

Yes. So it's taking the idea of super tokens that I talked about in chapter four of the book of decolonizing design book. And I've been interviewing. So I've done about 25 interviews. I want to do maybe like 10, 15 more of people who have been like the first and or the only's in design and tech. And it's all very like again, it's a thing where.

Liz Gerber

Yeah. Fun. Great.

Dori Tunstall

I'm writing it from the collective we because what people, many of the people that I've interviewed again are under NDAs.

Liz Gerber

Hmm?

Yes, right.

Dori Tunstall

And so they have been so open and generous in sharing to me like what their true experiences are in these elite institutions, right? That they belong to across business, tech, academia, whatever, whatever. And so I'm excited about that because even now as things are really difficult for, again, people who have been able to benefit from the policies that ever see equity inclusion, right? As they are finding themselves constrained or threatened in their institutions. Again, I'm taking a lot of calls with people about like how to...

Liz Gerber

Mm.

Dori Tunstall

work through that and decide where it is that they really want to be. And this book, because people have been so open and generous around what their true experiences are, will help guide people in terms of like, how do you navigate your career and figure out whether you are aligned with being in these elite institutions, So that's what I'm most excited about.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm.

Wow, I can't wait to read that. We'll end on the question of what unexpected advice do you have for those entering design right now?

Dori Tunstall

I think for me it's two things. One, stay in trouble. I say this all the time. I used to say this all the time to students at OCAD and they would always be surprised because it's like the last thing you expect is your dean to tell you to stay in trouble. But what I mean by that is that if you are pushing against...

Liz Gerber

I love it. Yeah.

Dori Tunstall

In some ways the injustices that exist in our systems, then you will always be in trouble. Right? You will always be in trouble. so, you know, I'm I'm I don't want to characterize it as like rebellious because it's a reaction to something. But I think again, if you if you come.

Liz Gerber

Yeah.

Dori Tunstall

from a different perspective on things, right? You're always going to be challenging the system that exists and lean into the fact that you're going to stay in trouble, right?

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yes, I love that.

Dori Tunstall

And that and I think and let's let's let's let's meet the moment where we are right in this is like fascism works because people are afraid to get in trouble. Right. So the willingness to stay in trouble is is the is is the seed of every liberatory act that one makes..

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

not just for yourself, but also for others in the world. So I always say stay in trouble and it makes people laugh. But it is the only way that we can push back against systems of oppression, systems of exploitation, systems of harm that we, again, like what's happening now is not new.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

The thing that it is, it is hyper transparent in a way that it hasn't been before, which means we know exactly what it is that we're facing, which means that we can cause the trouble, right, with greater accuracy, right?

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. I want to share there's a wonderful running race in San Francisco called Beta Breakers, where you run from the Bay out to the ocean and 99 % of the runners go in one direction, the seven mile run, but there's a small group of runners that are called the salmon runners who run the race in the opposite direction.

Dori Tunstall

Yeah

Liz Gerber

And I'm reminded of this because what I love about them, and they wear salmon costumes, it's just fabulous. But what I'm reminded of is that they know that by running the opposite direction, they will run into people. Like there's no, it's not, there's no question. They're gonna run into people. They're gonna do their best to swerve in and out, but it's not gonna, it's not the easiest way to run the seven miles, but they're committed. And so I'm thinking about, stay in trouble. Be a salmon swimmer is what I'm, that's the metaphor I'm coming up with. Did you have a second one you were going to share? You said you, I thought you said you had two.

Dori Tunstall

Well, again, I think it's just this idea of like, especially in your career, it's really important to align the work you do with your values, right? And sometimes you feel like you're not able to do so.

But I always say is that like people are like, well, you know, how did you come to, you know, lead and help all this work in decolonization? It's like, I started always started with like, what is the area in which I have control over? If I have control over just like what image needs to go on this particular page, then I'm going to make it. Yeah. Like then I'm going to make a decision about that image that's aligned with my values, which is again, my values are like liberatory.

Liz Gerber

Yeah. Yeah. As a graphic designer. Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

Right? What is it liberation is being able to say no to things that might harm you in your communities and your environment. Joy is about connection. So dismantling anything that keeps you from connecting to another person. So whenever I make a decision or something, even if it's just a tiny image, I'm like, how is that contributing to liberatory joy? Right?

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

So that is the value system that I am carrying with me. So it means that like in the work that I do, I'm working very, very hard to make sure the engagements that I'm having isn't aligned with that. And it means in some ways letting go to some of like the elite institutions that I would probably like to embrace or be embraced by. But realizing it's like, but they're probably actually not aligned with the values that I'm trying to be.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

So what would I bring in terms of my talents if I'm in that space? And again, sometimes you need to be in those spaces to help the institution see how they can transform. But again, it's that thing that's like, but I'm only there then.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

to bring them into closer alignment with my values, which is very different attitude to enter a space or an institution than saying, I'm trying to belong here.

Liz Gerber

Mm-hmm.

Dori Tunstall

So those two things kind of go in together, right? It's like, the salmon is going the way they're meant to go, which is you to go, know, up, you know, they go against the stream, right? So they have to be in alignment with that, but it means they're gonna be in trouble.

Liz Gerber

Ugh.

They do! Ugh. Dori, I can't thank you enough. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your time and your stories with us. What an absolute gift. Every time I talk to you, I walk away with so many new insights and I know our audience will as well. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Dori Tunstall

Thank you, Liz. Again, it's always a great conversation.

Liz Gerber

Always, you are just, you make me think in new ways. And I, that is a gift. I can't thank you enough.

Liz Gerber

Thank you for listening to the Technical Difficulties podcast produced by the Center for Human-Computer Interaction + Design and McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University.