MIND THE FOOTPATH

There’s a photograph Energi strategy director and co-owner Lew Bentley likes to show staff and sometimes clients during meetings. It depicts a scene of a carefully constructed road crossing that requires pedestrians to zigzag through the gate, forcing them to look both left and right before walking over the tracks. To the right of this marvel of urban design, you see a track worn down by the feet of the countless folks who bypassed the crossing gate entirely and probably didn’t even see it. It is an intuitive path.

The point Bentley makes is that in spite of the best-laid plans of strategists and designers, people