It has not been easy to keep up with the habit of blogging and I try to do at least 5 posts a week. Mine were exceptionally long so I was told. Particular the last 12 weeks with my weekly travel, I hardly have time for my personal life. I am definitely the opposite of the "slow" movement, but I do need to slow down a bit as my friend Mark has suggested. Talking about "slow", the two concepts of SLOW + LOCAL are now converging in what NY Times called "Slow Design". It talks about designers of everything from T-shirts to housewares, who are sourcing manufacturing from local artisans. Although I am a "fast" personality but I'm loving this. I think the bigger opportunities are SLOW + LOCAL + WEB 2.O. I can easily think of half a dozen of ideas that can bring in tens of millions. Slow Design can bring Fast Growth.
Here's an excerpt from NY TImes: The Slow Food idea is now in its third decades, an established global movement with an official manifesto and about 85,000 members in over 100 countries, Slow Design is still in its infancy. But it does have an increasing number of proselytizers, like John Brown, an architect in Calgary, Alberta, whose year-old Web site, theslowhome.com, urges consumers to say no to “fast-food architecture,” and Geir Berthelsen, a Norwegian motivational speaker whose Web site slowplanet.com, which is to go online in mid-March, has as its goal to be a hub for all things slow, from slow travel to slow shopping to slow design, he said. Ms. Chanin, meanwhile, has a book, “Alabama Stitch Book: Projects and Stories Celebrating Hand-Sewing, Quilting, and Embroidery for Contemporary Sustainable Design” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang) due out in March. It gives instructions on how to make her stenciled, poetry-embellished sheets and teaches her Slow credo, which is to use discarded materials to make something new — and to take as long as necessary doing it.
Back to writing blog, a few friends of mine just started and I think they will bring interesting perspective to things. One of them is Mark Ury's blog Restlessmind (I've added a permanent link here). Actually I am pretty new to blogging (8 months) but I love the idea to sharing my thoughts with a few thousands of visitors everyday on topics from strategy to innovation and design. I am getting some great e-mails now and then from readers and I am very grateful for that. Pls keep coming.
I really want to thank those Very Special Visitors including Andre, Bart, Rory, Morgan, John, Bilal, Peter, Jonathan and many others who always bring new insights and thought provoking ideas to these topics. Someday I think we should publish a book together. I must have missed some names. There are a few emails that I'd like to share with you. Here's twi I received yesterday: one from Natasja, London and one from Scott, Palo Alto. Thank you both.
Hi Idris,
I've been reading your blog on my RSS feeds for a long time now (in fact, I've saved 75 of your posts that I want to re-read because I liked them so much!), and have been meaning to write to say thanks, but kept on putting it off. No more, so: thanks for a great blog!
Your most recent post on design and strategy really struck a chord with me, since I'm a fairly newly minted MBA from LBS (MBA Class of 2007), working in a branding and design firm and I'm also a current part-time student doing an MA in Design Studies at Central St Martin's in London.
I'm very excited by and interested in the intersection of business and design, and your post really hit the nail on the head for me, especially when you wrote "“Design” thinking brings those needs to the decision making core of the organization and activities should be developed around these “Design” ideas. That’s strategy." Bingo. That's what I'm trying to tell people on both the b-school side and the d-school side, but I'm finding that both sides most of the time have a hard time getting it. Or maybe I need to find a better way of explaining it. My b-school friends think that I don't have a 'real' job because all I do is fiddle with colours and my d-school friends think that all businesspeople are evil and that commercial is a dirty word.
So, I think what I'm trying to say is thanks. It's great to see that there are companies out there that do great work where b-school and d-school collide!
Yours,
warmest regards from London,
Natasja
Hi Idris,
what's up man...was checking out the blog, pretty interesting, good dialogue...
With respect to 'Designs seat @ the strategy table' I'm going to sum up the sentiment from within the design trenches... The irony, after having been subjected to 3.5 days of intense strategy disection, It's actually a remarkably simple correlary.
Ready. Here we go =
Before I divulge this truth, a quick context needs to be mutually agreed upon --- "The end-game strategy for companies is to make $$$". Nothing more. That premise can be veiled under the articulation of 'Creating value,' 'Sustaining & driving growth,' 'Increasing market share,'...the vernaculuar is of little consequence --- we exist, you the strategist, me the designer, to advance the corporate ambition of making $$$. Okay, agreed. Now, whether your business is service, consumer product, or durable goods, that goal requires the goodwill of the consuming public. in this game, as you indicate in your blog, the consumer is becoming increasingly sensitive to 'design.' 'Good design' is nothing more than 'brand management'...now, not brand management in the sense of a P&G juggling a million sub-brands, but 'brand management' as 'brand control'...brand ownership. That's it. Brand ownership allows you, the company, to control you destiny----deliver a good product, good value, reasonable price, right sales channels, appropriate segment...so on, sor forth. These are support activities. You get those support activities correct, marginally better than your competitors, you win.
Now, what I know to be true, and what I think I'm reading on your blog (we are in agreement my friend) is that 'brand ownership' is not just some incremental piece of the overall picture...IT IS THE overall picture---the rest are details, some big, some small, relatively speaking. Authentic 'brand ownership' requires design...graphic design, product design, interface design, environmental & retail design, design of advertising, design of PR, design etc....Anything (& everything) that forms public perception of your product/ service requires these design inputs...The proportion & scale of each of these inputs is highly dependant on what is you do (what business you're in), but in essence, you need MANY of these design inputs "SIMULTANEOUSLY"....Not just a good interface, not just a good marketing PR campaign, not just gorgeous ID surfacing, not just a beautiful interior space...it's the intersection of multiple design inputs. ID is one element in this sea of plug-ins. Often times, as in the case of an Apple, or much of my HP work, and truthfully most consumer products companies today, ID is an extremely LARGE component of all of those design inputs. Okay, enough talk, what does this mean.
In consumer products (different for the service business) the Industrial Designer is the only true 'design' representative @ the process table. Add to that the pedigree a good designer has from years of heightened cross-media design appreciation & finely tuned design sensitivity, it appears that the Industrial Designer is the perfect respresentive to help guide this destiny of 'brand control.'
The trick is in finding the right designer...that with the right quiver of business acumen & technical skills, for he will be the single greatest asset that makes the difference.
Thanks for allowing me to opine.
Cheers
Scot Herbst
Palo Alto
If you want to share your ideas and perspectives, pls send them this way. Have a great Easter weekend.
