Lee Shupp — 20 January 2010
Virgin America has succeeded in redefining the flying experience for me. This is no mean feat, as airlines have to work within many constraints like FAA regulations, safety considerations, and limited space. But constraints can actually spark creativity, and Virgin has managed to be creative in just the right ways for me. Why am I such a fan of Virgin America?
Darrel Rhea — 10 January 2010
Since Roger Martin and I co-chaired a DMI conference on Design Thinking in June, I have been hearing and reading a lot of very good designers respond by expressing their discomfort, mounting all out attacks, and some even denying the existence of the subject. While there are a larger number of designers that are enthusiastically embracing the notions behind it, it is clear there is a backlash. Where is this coming from?
Darrel Rhea — 5 December 2009
Most of my career has been spent on the front lines of commercial design where the rules and standards are quite clear. Design needs to be clearly understood by the masses. I am in Miami attending two events this week; Art Basel and Design Miami where the rules are very different.
Art Basel is the largest contemporary art fair in the Americas where the fewer people understand and appreciate the art, the better. While you can find works by Picasso, Chagall, Duchamp, Dali, etc., this is really a place for recent works by artists that few have heard of except in the rarified circles of the global art elite. It is place where technique and craft might not matter at all, and where concept might either be everything or nothing (the lack of concept might be the concept…). Novelty, cleverness and uniqueness are what are important. As a designer and artist, I can appreciate much of what I am seeing here (many thousands of works from several hundred dealers), but I must admit, it is a cerebral response. I get it, but most of it leaves me cold. Call me old fashioned, but I like to be moved and inspired by art.
Design Miami plays on a different edge of art....
Leigh Marriner — 24 November 2009
My current thought about how Cheskin AV can continue to leverage the skills of Customer Insight, Design Thinking, and Business Consulting on innovation projects is to try to increase the involvement of people with different kinds of learning styles. Since much of what I understand is Design Thinking involves approaching problems from different points of view and feeling comfortable applying different sets of tools, integrating people on a project who are inherently comfortable in different approaches makes sense.
The Accenture Award-winning paper “Innovation as a Learning Process: Embedding Design Thinking" by Sara Beckman and Michael Barry talks about it in this way: “Role assignments on teams might be best made based on learning style: Leader (concrete experience), artist (reflective observation), writer (abstract conceptualization) and speaker (active experimentation).”
There are challenges to implementing this approach. A skills assessment needs to include learning styles. Not all projects can support the overhead of having a large team, so we need to figure out how to move people in and out of projects on a part-time basis. We’ve made good strides toward this objective with our internal Brainstorming Sessions, that have proven so valuable. This will be fun to continue to work on, and will increase our understanding of the contributions made by the different disciplines to great client results.
Leigh Marriner — 22 November 2009
Carl Bass the CEO of Autodesk said that Design Thinking = Thinking in his Pecha-Kucha talk at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.
This question is at the heart of many of the emotional hurdles Cheskin AV has had in developing an integrated approach to problem solving using the expertise of Customer Insights, Design Thinking, and Business Consulting. Since Cheskin AV tends to work on the tougher problems, and most of our practitioners are senior in their fields, we all apply sophisticated analysis and thinking to our recommendations. At first Design Thinking practitioners, in an attempt to describe what they do, described what they added to a project as integration of findings into a model, or a framework for analysis, or development of project insights. Naturally, senior practitioners are not willing to cede development of project insights to some other group of people. After all, insight is what we are paid for.
Leigh Marriner — 19 November 2009
Cheskin is ahead of the curve on thinking about what Design Thinking is, even if we are still working it out ourselves. Our approach building on the design literature’s four quadrant model to show how we move from “What Is” to “What Could Be” seems clearer than most of what I heard at the Pecha-Kucha talk at the Haas Business School at UC Berkeley on the Accenture annual award winning paper on “Innovation as a Learning Process: Embedding Design Thinking," by Sara Beckman and Michael Barry.
A number of leading lights talked for 6 minutes and 40 seconds each on What is Design Thinking? Speakers included Carl Bass, CEO, Autodesk; John Edson, President, Lunar; John Jamieson, Design Lead and Dept. Manager, Design & Innovation, Clorox; Barry Katz, Professor, CCA and Associate Professor, Stanford Art Department; Peter Lawrence, Chairman, Corporate Design Foundation; Lara Lee, Principal, Jump Associates; Peter Merholz, President, Adaptive Path; and Elizabeth Windram, Senior User Experience Designer, Google.
No one on this panel agreed on what Design Thinking is, and several people said there was no such thing.
Leigh Marriner — 16 November 2009
There is a lot of confusion about what “Design Thinking” means, both among the design community and the broader business community. As a Boston Consulting Group-trained strategic business consultant, I have been struggling to understand what design thinking is and what it adds to solving a client’s problems. Cheskin Added Value integrates the disciplines of business consulting, design thinking, and understanding the customer experience in order to deliver innovation ideas, strategy and guidance to our clients. During my seven years here, I and many others have been working to figure out how design thinking and business consulting should be integrated in a firm that started as a market research firm 50 years ago, but now delivers innovation guidance which doesn’t stop at customer insight.
I have bristled at the used of the “design” word, because it sounded fuzzy and un-businesslike. “Design” conjures up graphic design or industrial product design – with the emphasis on how the product looks. I don’t think a CEO or division director cares as much about design as he/she does about producing results. I thought leading with describing ourselves as an innovation design firm risked setting up an initial hurdle that we would have to overcome by long explanations of what we meant by design.
Kelli Peterson — 20 August 2009
There are many cynics out there that critique and question the future of sustainable products and businesses. It’s easy to side with them, mostly because it’s difficult to understand what comprises a “sustainable” product which in turn creates a domino chain of skepticism about achievability. We don’t endorse what we don’t understand. The industry is in self-defining mode and most of us lack the degrees in chemistry, biology, natural sciences or any other course of study that might support our inclination to trust what marketers tell us is “safe” and what is not.
Leigh Marriner — 9 August 2009
A designer quit Google because every decision was made according to what design changes tested the best. The NYT published this provocative article last May, with a subtitle of “ Should Design be Held Back by the Tyranny of Data?”. Although I am part of an innovation and design firm, I support listening to the data. Google is in the fortunate position of being able to test almost everything, with very little investment. They can try out 3 alternative designs and see which ones generate the most clicks, in one day. Most businesses would love to be able to get actual consumer data that easily. Companies pay lots of money to services like BASES to get forecasts of what consumers will buy. We had a client that was able to do similar tests by trying out products at home shows and changing the value proposition and labels in response to actual consumer sales. It’s rare and valuable to be able to see what consumers will actually buy (either with $ or their time), instead of judgment or projections.
Darrel Rhea — 25 July 2009
Here is a short history about the integration of design and research practices…… In the olden days, not so long ago….
Mars & Venus. Consumer Insights professionals and Designer were from different worlds. They attracted different types of people, different ways of thinking and problem solving, and different processes. The practice of market research was managed, funded and initiated by one group of people in an organization, and the practices of packaging design, brand design, and industrial product design by other teams. While they might have worked on cross-functional teams led by Brand or Marketing Management, they mostly operated within their silos. (In my early P&G days, there was an “Art Dept.” and designers were not allowed to talk to brand or R&D folks.)
No common language. First, insights were used to help evaluate the effectiveness of creative design -- research “tested” design. Gradually, market research was incorporated earlier and...
LiAnne Yu — 16 June 2009
What makes Disneyland the happiest place on earth? Those of us love Disneyland understand that there’s pure magic in the park, our sense of reality is suspended and, long lines and overpriced food aside, we step into a sense of wonder. But how is this achieved? I recently read Designing Disney: The Art of the Show, and was captivated by Walt’s vision and leadership of his design team, called the Imagineers, and how they developed principles for what we at Cheskin Added Value call Experience Design. As unique as the Disney experience is, I believe a lot of those principles can also be thought of as universal guidelines for truly remarkable experience design. Here are some of the principles:
Darrel Rhea — 31 May 2009
The business world has woken up to the need to manage their relationships with customers with a more holistic framework than “products services and brands.” And many of us in Design have long been asserting that “experience” is the way to think about and guide the organization on their value-creation journey. But many of my peers in Design and Innovation claim that design managers should be accountable for the customer experience, and I disagree.
While designers have unique skills and processes for creating and managing experience, I believe there needs to be experience principals and a defined strategy at the corporate executive level. Designers usually contribute to only a few of the touch points of experience and have limited exposure to many critical areas of influence. The Experience Component dips into too many of the operational crannies, the technology aspects, engineering, marketing, customer service, finance, etc.
So who determines what the experience is?...
Tommy Stinson — 22 May 2009
FrontlineSMS is a free mobile phone software solution that allows mobile phone users to send text messages to large groups of people. It's specifically geared towards non-profit organizations and NGOs. The initiative is sponsored by Kiwanja.net and nGOmobile and is achieving some pretty exciting and impressive things on the ground in emerging markets.
Kiwanja.net's blog has had a recent series of guest blogs sponsored by other innovative leaders; most recently by Anthony Papillion, founder of OpenEMR HQ.
Anthony's entry features a really innovative - and important - potential use of the FrontlineSMS software: allowing women in abusive relationships to make safe calls to authorities that can't be traced but can be used in future court action - or to summon help immediately.
This is a great example of innovative extensions of innovative solutions. Read more here.
Darrel Rhea — 3 May 2009
Following my last post, I recently met Roy Green, Dean of the Business School at UTS (University of Technology, Sydney, an impressive B-school with over 10,000 students). Roy is leading the enlightened charge to bring Design Thinking to Australia’s academic world. While Australia has some great design talent, the country hasn’t really been known for its leadership in design innovation. Now that consulting company’s like Sydney’s “2nd Road” are successfully bringing design strategy to senior business executives, it is inspiring a renaissance in trans-disciplinary thinking skills largely centered on the latest approaches to design, and UTS is moving to aggressively support the shift with up-to-date curriculum.
They may be down under, but they won’t be left behind in this global economy…
Darrel Rhea — 2 May 2009
Today I visited the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western. I had meetings with 10 of the faculty and have a half a dozen students in the MBA and Doctoral programs. Like other leading Business schools, Weatherhead is integrating Design Methods with more traditional B-school curriculum. Why? They certainly aren’t doing this to follow any fad…
Their visionary faculty (including Fred Collopy and Dick Boland) concluded that Design Thinking is a critical missing skill set for future business leaders and they are building up an impressive academic program to deliver industry the creative managers they need. The fact that leading experts in Finance, Economics, Entrepreneurialism, Organizational Behavior, etc. had the open-minded vision to embrace another discipline like Design is exceptional. It’s evidence that this is “not your father’s B-school.” (The other clue is their world-class building by Frank Gehry… amazing.)
They have attracted thought leader faculty like Dick Buchanan (Former head of Carnegie Mellon’s School of Design) and they are leveraging CIA (The Cleveland Art Institute, a gem of a Design School with a rare 5 yr. undergrad program led by Dean Mathew Hollern).
Weatherhead is one the move, and I expect that in the coming years they will join the ranks of leading progressive programs that promote integrative or trans-disciplinary practices.
Tim Hyer — 28 April 2009
Last week, Cheskin hosted entrepreneur and innovator, Peter Hart for a discussion on the future of innovation. Peter was a pioneer in the early days of artificial intelligence and search algorithms, and he founded Ricoh Innovations where he currently serves as chairman and president. Very stimulating guy. One of the first conversation topics posed to the group was, "Is there a difference between innovation and invention?" Considering our crowd of innovation consultants, the room quickly perked up and began a debate of semantics. Although the words sound similar, subtle differences in meaning are at the core of why some products enjoy great success while others fall by the wayside.
Darrel Rhea — 13 April 2009
I’m not sure how I ended up on the stage at the Design Museum in Milan, an imposing temple to Italy’s product design genius, flanked by internationally renowned Italian designers. Sitting next to me was Stefano Giovannoni (a best selling Alessi rockstar), Francesco Lovo (Pininfarina’s design head), Luisa Bocchietto (President of Italy’s prestigious design organization, ADI) and a couple of others. We were there at the DMI International Conference to debate what Milan needs to do to maintain its prominence as a world design center.
Let’s be real, I really know relatively very little about Milanese design (a subject that there is much to know about spanning thousands of years), but I do know that Milan’s design changed the course of my life and had everything to do with my being there. As fate had it, 38 years earlier I was a teenager roaming Europe on my own with a backpack seeking to find myself. Walking down the streets of Milan one cold winter day, I looked in a furniture showroom window and found the most glorious expressions of design I had ever confronted – subtle combinations of sumptuous leather, chrome and minimal form. I spent the next week going from studio to gallery in awe, and I knew that I wanted to be part of that world. I promptly changed the course of my education.
So I was thrilled and honored to...
Tommy Stinson — 3 April 2009
According to MediaPost, Intel Corp has become a major new sponsor of PBS' "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." As part of the deal between Intel and PBS, Intel will get ample opportunity to highlight innovation in the American economy. Intel will fund a set of mini-documentaries focusing on the topic, and PBS, Intel and the Aspen Institute will also jointly host a series of dinners in the Washington, D.C. area with a similar focus.
Source: MediaDaily News
Tommy Stinson — 19 March 2009
On a recent trip to Denver to do some work for a retail client, I stayed at a new addition to the Starwood Hotels line: the Aloft. Billed as "a vision of W Hotels", the Aloft aesthetic reminded me a lot of the upscale professional "hostel" hotels in Europe (like the Clarion Hotel Stockholm where I recently stayed). According to the Aloft website, there are 25 hotels currently accepting reservations in the US, with other properties in Beijing and Montreal. The aloft Denver Airport just opened in December 2008, and it looks like expansion plans are aggressive, with a total of 69 (yep, 69!) new properties scheduled to open between 2009 and 2011 across the globe. But the brand still has a lot of work to do to make the chain successful with travelers.
Jennifer Gray — 27 February 2009
I feel no need to smell my books. A shelf loaded with books does not impress me. It makes me sneeze. I am notorious for finishing a book and leaving it behind. When reading paperbacks, I often tear off what I’ve read and toss it in the trash to lighten my load. When people absentmindedly rub pages together before they turn a book? Oh my God. I cannot stand that.
So I love my new Kindle 2. It’s clean. It’s simple. It delivers on its promise. My Kindle 2 is a humble piece of hardware that doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not. But people are dissing it right and left. The emotion of reluctant adopters and geek critics is strong.
Ido Mor — 27 February 2009
Last night Leah and I joined some friends at Lung Shan – a nondescript Chinese restaurant in San Francisco’s Mission District. (At this point those who know me are wondering, “why???” –Ever since I came back from a summer trip through Asia, I’ve been disappointed – to say the least – by the Chinese food options available in most of the Bay Area. That is beside the point; and this story isn’t about food.) But unlike other nights of the week, Thursday and Saturday evenings at Lung Shan offer no Chinese food. “What’s that?” you say, “a Chinese restaurant without Chinese food?” –Exactly. For two nights a week, this restaurant’s kitchen is taken over by Mission Street Food and their guest chefs, serving up fantastic creations, sometimes theme-inspired, always enticing.
Steve Diller — 24 February 2009
This winter, I’ve been teaching a “Marketing Insights Studio” course in California Academy of the Arts’ new Design MBA program. The idea of a design-oriented MBA may surprise some people, but the logic is impeccable. Just like we have MBA programs that specialize in marketing, like Northwestern’s, or finance, like the University of Chicago’s, it makes sense to train business people with a focus on the design of experiences and offerings. What’s surprising about the course for me is the ubiquitous suspicion of marketing from students who in fact are the unwitting inheritors of marketing ideas.
Leah Hunter — 17 February 2009
Speaking as both a shop-aholic and someone who focused on how to improve the retail experience in a tight economy, I know: Shoppers want to make sure they're spending money in the smartest way possible. They want to be sure they're making good decisions, getting a great value -- and they need you to reassure them of that.
Want to know how (and what in the world donuts have to do with anything)? Read on.
Tommy Stinson — 6 February 2009
At Cheskin, most of us travel pretty heavily. We spend significant time in hotels, in airports, and in taxis. As we all know, routines often go un-examined and the standard of service - and subsequently the experiences we encounter - go unnoticed and are accepted norms. The only thing that prompts surprise is a particularly good or bad experience.
Darrel Rhea — 1 February 2009
This morning I’m painting a landscape in Photoshop, trying to overcome my early training as a technical illustrator to get loose and wet with the ‘paint.’ It is clear that when I tighten up my painting style, it becomes both more technically accurate/realistic -- and totally uninteresting. When I use the brush spontaneously, the image still communicates in a believable way but is much more compelling and authentic.
At the same time, I am listening to a draft of a song my friend Gordon Grey is recording and producing with Barry McGuire (California Dreaming, Green Green, etc.). The studio is in Beijing and the song is intended for a Chinese audience (and I’m at a total loss on how to respond to their request for a critique of it). But I am reminded that Barry’s #1 hit “Eve of Destruction” was recorded in one take in the last 30 minutes of a session. It was both spontaneous and authentic, and resonated with a whole generation.
Design and innovation in business is similar. Yes, it is critical to have the intent and strategy clear, but sometimes crafting the expression is best done with an emphasis on spontaneity. When creative design is done by committee and reworked endlessly, the sparkly passionate parts fade away. While the expression might be technically correct, it just isn’t as compelling. It’s the difference between a draftsman and an impressionist painter. Next time you are ready to articulate a solution, try putting your heart into it and “do it in one take.”
Lee Shupp — 30 January 2009
Tough times test leaders. Turbulent economies amplify the decisions of leaders, both good and bad. Good judgment can help a company thrive even in rough times, while bad judgment can be lethal in a an environment of thin margins and little room for error. It's been interesting to observe several of the Titans of Tech over the past couple of weeks, to see how leaders act under pressure.
I've been paying lots of attention to the leadership of three companies: Apple, Yahoo, and Microsoft. The companies have very different cultures and leadership styles. What can we learn from watching them?
Darrel Rhea — 25 January 2009
When the result of thoughtful synthesis reveals a basic truth and presents it with elegant simplicity, it often appears in retrospect to be obvious. There is something about that level of intellectual coherence that becomes irresistible. This is especially true with consumer insights work and design research, but it also extends to design more broadly. The output of our best work is not complexity or the blinding flash of creativity -- it is simplicity and authenticity.
My friend, Vahe Katros passed on a great quote by Alan Cooper that really hit home in this regard.
"If, as a designer, you do something really, fundamentally, blockbuster correct, everybody looks at it and says, 'Of course! What other way would there be?' This is true even if the client has been staring, empty-handed and idea-free, at the problem for months or even years without a clue about solving it.... Most really breakthrough conceptual advances are opaque in foresight and transparent in hindsight. It is incredibly hard to see breakthroughs in design. You can be trained and prepared, spend hours studying the problem, and still not see the answer. Then someone else comes along and points out a key insight, and the vision clicks into place with the natural obviousness of the wheel. If you shout the solution from the rooftops, others will say, 'Of course the wheel is round! What other shape could it possibly be?' This makes it frustratingly hard to show off good design work." (From “The Inmates are Running the Asylum”)
Darrel Rhea — 19 January 2009
Stepping back and looking at the practice of innovation more broadly, what is shifting?
A lot of big things are happening. Anyone who reads knows that innovation and design have been getting a lot of attention in the media in the last couple of years. Not surprisingly, we learn that there has been a lot of experimentation and investment happening across the board. I see three major shifts happening: ...
Darrel Rhea — 7 January 2009
It’s always satisfying when one’s work is acknowledged and spreads within a community. Since writing Making Meaning with Steve Diller and Nathan Shedroff, the ideas we put forward have been widely embraced.
We’ve had dozens of positive reviews, with scores of articles and books referencing or quoting our book. One good example is how Pine and Gilmore’s new book, Authenticity, acknowledged our definitional work on Meaning. Additionally, Making Meaning is being taught in academic institutions around the world. Plus, a useful summary of the book just came out on Julio Terra’s blog on Learning Interaction and Experience Design.
Many US and international conferences have focused on meaning, and we have spoken at many (but certainly not all) of these. Look for the upcoming IDSA conference this year that will focus on Meaning and Design. There is even a design company in Oslo that named itself after ideas the book. Probably more gratifying to me is how often I read blogs and articles that refer to the ideas indirectly. This demonstrates to me that the importance of creating authentically meaningful experiences for people has become embedded in the discourse with the Design and Marketing communities. It’s now foundational. Nice. It is another example of how ideas can spread and change conversations in a very short period of time, and it is very fun to be a part of it.
Darrel Rhea — 4 January 2009
Given the unprecedented changes in the economy, is innovation still relevant in this environment? Fundamentally, innovation is about finding new and better ways to attract and delight customers. It’s about being more effective and more competitive in producing value. In an economic contraction such as we are experiencing, the environment is clearly even more competitive: businesses are chasing fewer and fewer dollars. So innovation is even MORE important in a recession. It is survival of the fittest.
In an expanding economy, growth masks a multitude of sins. You can be mediocre and still depend on size and inertia. But evolution doesn’t happen in a linear way. It putters along until there is a crisis event, …then bam, you get a big shift. The dinosaurs become extinct. That’s what we are seeing in the auto industry. Those big dinosaurs are being pushed over the edge by the financial crisis.
So the answer is yes, innovation is very relevant in this environment -- even urgent now. But how are businesses reacting to the economic conditions? ...
Darrel Rhea — 25 November 2008
Recently, Roger Martin, Dean of Rotman School of Management, and I shared a conversation on stage at The Commonwealth Club. We discussed innovation from various angles, such as why companies should leverage innovation during times of economic stress.
But it’s not just the economy that is making innovation an imperative. There many parts of our social system that are also driving the need to innovate. One of those areas is Education.
A couple of decades ago I moved my family to Palo Alto in large part because we wanted our sons to benefit from its renowned public school system. As great as it is for many families (it ranks as one of the best in the nation), it has still failed many of us... How?...
Leah Hunter — 27 October 2008
Friend and fellow brand strategist, Matthew Fenton, just wrote an excellent blog about what brands can do to surf this economic tidal wave. I come at the question from a slightly different angle – looking at what consumer trends will be on the upswing as things get tighter. (Opportunities, people! The glass is half full.)
Here are a few trends I see:
Steve Diller — 27 July 2008
Many of us offering innovation consulting services are engaged in a relentless debate about the concept. For some of us, "innovation" is about fresh product concepts. Others focus on a broader agenda that includes re-inventing corporate structures. Yet others argue from a more ephemeral standpoint, concentrating on the dynamics of creativity.
Whichever approach you're taking, if you're playing in the space, you're trying to define the nature of this "innovation" thing, because the stakes are so high. If we can get clarity, we can direct all our resources to developing the optimal solutions.
Stephen Palacios — 21 July 2008
A recent article in Ad Age, “Consumer Chasm: Distance widening between consumer types,” put forth an interesting notion regarding the growing importance of consumer segmentation in the corporate organizational structure:
“The emergence of the title of chief marketing officer elevated the marketing function to a level of importance equal to that of finance and the chief financial officer. Within the C-suite, we may see the creation of a new position under the CMO: consumer-segments communicator.
That person will be the one who keeps everyone in the firm up to speed on the different and fast-changing channels through which each segment of consumers can be most efficiently reached, queried and persuaded.”
Why is this particularly of interest to multicultural marketers? Because it is the encapsulation of the debate on whether separate infrastructures (strategies, departments, and agencies) are required to effectively reach the two largest and fastest growing consumer segments in the United States, namely: Hispanic and African American.
Ironically, without highlighting Hispanic marketing, this article underscores a point of view I’ve been advocating a lot – that multicultural, and specifically Hispanic marketing is now relevant on a much larger corporate scale. The evolution of Hispanic marketing in conjunction with the evolution of the Hispanic market itself (to one of power, influence and acculturation), gives enlightened Hispanic marketers the advantage.
Let’s review why this evolution has created the optimal foundation for segment marketing competence…
Steve Diller — 20 July 2008
In the last decade or so, it seems like marketing departments have come to see "ideating" as a core test of their coolness and creativity. Since few of us in business maintain parallel careers as artists, this expectation creates anxiety about corporate managers' capacity to be creative on demand. The success or failure of an ideation session often seems focused on whether people's inner creatives were liberated, that the session had been fun and cool, and that the experience produced novel, far-out ideas. While I enjoy creative thinking exercises as much anyone, I think these expectations are way out of whack. The thing is, when it comes to success in the marketplace, creativity isn't what matters. Relevance is what matters.
Lee Shupp — 8 June 2008
Veeeery interesting article in the New York Times today entitled "Moving Mountains with the Brain, Not a Joystick." We discussed brain/computer interface possibilities on the "Kill Your Mouse" panel at South by Southwest Interactive this spring, but I can't say that I thought I'd see a commercial application of it this fast!
Lee Shupp — 8 June 2008
This blog is a tribute to Bo Diddley, who was a musician, cultural icon, and astute innovator. I salute the man, his life, and his music. I also salute his ability to innovate, and his marketing genius. Now, you may ask, what does Bo Diddley have to do with innovation and marketing?
Tommy Stinson — 28 May 2008
Dori Tunstall (professor of design anthropology at University of Illinois, Chicago) has just written a great piece for the Adobe Design Center's Think Tank on the intersection of anthropology and design.
Tommy Stinson — 21 May 2008
I recently returned from an extended series of work-related trips throughout the US and Europe. During my travels I was struck by how common it's becoming for individuals to carry permanent bottles with them for water - a few years ago it was Nalgene bottles, and now I'm seeing tons of Sigg bottles throughout the US.
Tim Hyer — 15 May 2008
In my previous blog, I highlighted the role that insiders play in the innovation process. Today, we’ll look outward. On the flipside to looking within a company’s walls to inspire invention, plenty of organizations find themselves searching outside for the insights required to make the next creative leap. At Cheskin, this is our primary focus for client engagements – to bring the voice of the consumer into the design and development cycle for products, services, and experiences. In order for innovation to occur, one must understand the people who use it, the cultural implications, and the impact the change will have on other facets of life. It’s all about giving the consumer a voice, and getting to know them is the first step. Consumer research isn’t a new thing, but companies are getting more and more creative about their methods of collecting these insights.
Tim Hyer — 12 May 2008
Let's review some simple math:
0 + 0 = 0, correct.
0 + 1 = 1, correct.
1 + 1 = 2, wrong!
Well, at least when it comes to ideas.
We've all heard the phrase, two heads are better than one. When applied to idea generation, this phrase takes on a whole new meaning. The principle of collective intelligence suggests that multiple minds thinking about the same problem will yield an exponential output compared to that of a single mind. As Marty Neumeier suggests in his book, The Brand Gap, the equation 1 + 1 = 11 is most accurate for illustrating the generative power of teamwork.
Tim Hyer — 2 February 2008
As a Business Development Manager, a huge part of my job here at Cheskin is secondary research. Aside from client calls and meetings, I find myself spending the majority of my time online, investigating company news, industry shifts, and latest business trends. It’s important for me to track down the most relevant and current information, so it may come as a surprise that my homepage is Wikipedia. Not Hoover’s. Not BusinessWeek. But Wikipedia.
Darrel Rhea — 4 January 2008
I was corresponding with Reid Walker, VP of Communications at Lenovo this week. Reid is a certified global guy, emailing me from around the world including exotic places like Katmandu and Lhasa. (I’m jealous.) He is writing a manifesto for companies attempting to go global on Changethis.com. Lenovo is a unique company -- the first truly global company to emerge from an emerging market.
I was riffing off of his ideas, thinking about what my version of the 5 most important principles for driving success:
WorldBrand: Build a global brand promise (a value proposition that is truly scaleable – you know that most everyone starts with a local brand that gets extended. Start with what is truly meaningful to humans, base your positioning on that, then develop the plan for the global extensions at the outset.)
Darrel Rhea — 20 December 2007
Today is an exciting day in the evolution of Cheskin. By joining with Added Value’s powerful network, we’re adding resources that will allow us to continue our quest for leadership in the consumer-led innovation consulting business. I’m thrilled to be gaining hundreds of colleagues from around the world to collaborate with, to challenge our thinking, and to and have fun with.
For years we have been telling ourselves and our clients that “change is good.” You just can’t innovate without change. This change will assure that we will be growing in ways that will provide greater value to our clients, while honoring our organization’s culture and values. If you want to know more about the exciting new improvements at Cheskin, call or email me!
Darrel Rhea — 13 December 2007
I attended an intimate event on innovation by I L O Institute (Innovation in Large Organizations) yesterday with several senior executives responsible for innovation in their organizations. Most of the day was dedicated to group discussion on the subject of innovation, but we also had Dr. Henry Chesbrough (the author of “Open Innovation”) speak at lunch.
Henry is a smart, articulate guy who has looked deeply at some specific aspects of innovation. He talked about the problem of getting "false negatives" from innovation processes (where commercially viable ideas wash out, only to be picked up by other organizations and made successful) and "false positives" (where bad ideas take on a life of their own and don’t get killed until too late). We have certainly seen a lot of examples of both instances happening to Cheskin’s clients, but what are the causes?...
Denise Klarquist — 12 October 2007
These two phrases might seem the same, but from my point of view, it's the former that really matters. Here's an example of what I mean...
In a previous life, when I was at Ampex in the early 90's, the company talked a lot about the future of video technology - how could they make their technology relevant for the inevitable market desire for video on demand. While we can't deny that Ampex has been credited with a lot of invention, their approach to innovation was flawed. They tried to "make their technology relevant" by cramming more and more terabytes of capacity into a smaller footprint instead of understanding what would be relevant to the end-user experience.
A brand and product that was loved by consumers never leveraged the underlying and changing needs of their audience to "make relevant technology." And so what was a thriving giant in consumers' minds disappeared from our radar. A brand once associated with the wonder of music and entertainment now makes ugly boxes for data.
I contrast that to YouTube.
Darrel Rhea — 10 October 2007
Innovation is still a sizzling topic, evidenced by the dozens of speeches requested of me by a wide range of industry groups this year around the world and which I delivered to keenly interested audiences. I have presented to many large groups of CEOs, CMOs, CIOs, Designers, Design Researchers, and others in the US, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and beyond. After a hundred thousand air miles and scores of conferences and hundreds of personal dialogues with the individuals attending….What have I learned?
CEOs want the outcomes of innovation. They don’t want design, they don’t want process, they don’t really want a culture of innovation. They want growth. Topline, bottomline, organic growth. They want the financial markets to love them. If you are looking to get internal support for your innovation initiative, you had better be in that business.
CMOs want love too. They want innovation that is recognized and associated with their brands, and they want their brands loved. Your innovation initiative had better move and inspire customers.
Kathleen Chattin — 6 August 2007
The rural poor in emerging markets may or may not ever be able to buy their own PC…or even want one. But there’s an alternative, already developed by Intel, to provide a shared “Community PC.” . It was designed for a shared usage model, at a village “kiosk”, somewhat similar to the Internet cafés that are already a widespread phenomenon in many emerging markets. So there are technical and financial alternatives to the one-per-person model.
Low-cost PCs are ‘sprouting up’ all over, whether the $199 PC from Lenovo, or Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child initiative, or Intel’s Classmate PC . There’s lots of goodness, people claim, in making PC’s accessible to everyone. But what’s good for short-term market penetration may bode ill for long-term innovation in the category.
Lori Hobson — 27 July 2007
The first kids born into a world with the Internet got jobs this summer. Melissa, my seventeen-year-old stepdaughter, earns a paycheck and has a new Wells Fargo check card.
It must be a little disturbing to live in a household where your parents observe you not only out of parental love but also because they are interested in understanding how you use products and services as a mini-case study. In particular, I observe Melissa to understand how technology – especially the Internet and mobile devices – may shape future lifestyle and habits for her generation. Now that these kids are reaching adulthood, how will they be different?
Lee Shupp — 17 July 2007
Oscar Pistorius is a South African runner who happens to be a double amputee. Known as "Blade Runner," he runs on carbon fiber legs, and he is very fast. So fast that the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) is considering banning him from track meets, claiming that he may have an unfair technological advantage over other runners. The problem for IAAF is that Pistorius is attracting much media and attention to the sport, while other runners are now threatened by the increasing possibility that they may be beaten by someone with no legs.
Lori Hobson — 30 June 2007
When it comes to technology, I am generally more a bridge to crossing the chasm than a first adopter. But I do like being part of big events in Silicon Valley, where I live, like early viewings of Star Wars movies or the launch of much anticipated products. And we are more than Apple fans at our house -- consider that my disclosure. So here's a perspective for those who have chosen to wait...
Lori Hobson — 11 June 2007
In 20 years, no one will remember Paris Hilton, but someone will write a book about Bob Brunner. Last week, Ms. Hilton went to prison, an event covered by every major news source, and Mr. Brunner and Jerry Manock spoke in Mountain View at the Computer History Museum, to little fanfare. Mr. Manock was instrumental in the development of the first Macintosh, and Mr. Brunner, with the first Apple PowerBooks. Jerry and Bob were moderated by Bill Moggridge, an early notebook designer and modern-day father of interaction design. All three men’s work has broadly influenced computer design today down to the ThinkPad on which I am blogging. OTOH, Ms. Hilton has not done much more than, well, time.
Darrel Rhea — 10 June 2007
The world of design is maturing at a very fast clip. I’ve keynoted several conferences outside the US this year (Copenhagen, Montreal, Auckland, Toronto, Sydney, etc.) and the growing importance of design around the globe is clear. Europe is ahead of the US in many ways, with Scandinavian countries leading in the theoretical understanding of customer-led innovation (but weaker on the systemized implementation of that understanding within organizations). Meanwhile, countries like New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, and China are aggressively adopting design practices to boost their competitiveness. It has been exciting to see the eagerness of all types of organizations to use design as a basis for innovation. This surge of interest will be pushing the field of customer-led innovation to innovate itself. After meeting literally thousands of business leaders and designers from around the world this year, I am excited not just with the enthusiasm for the field I love, but by the incredible work being done by practitioners around the world.
Lee Shupp — 30 May 2007
Microsoft announced Surface yesterday, and the announcement has spurned lots of media attention today, with articles in the NY Times and USA Today. Glad to see it making such a splash, because it's a really cool product, and Surface provides a more more interesting and intuitive computing experience than the traditional desktop PC.
You have to see it in action to really get what it does. For a video demo, see the CNET site
We've had the privilege of working with the MSFT team the past 4 years on Surface, and it's been a really fun journey. I feel like a proud papa seeing it go public. It's wonderful to be able to contribute to our client's success. Congratulations to the MSFT team for their hard work on a really innovative product!
Leigh Marriner — 30 May 2007
Congratulations to Microsoft for launching this cool new product. It’s an acrylic tabletop with an embedded 30 inch screen. You interact with it through hand gestures. It can recognize small objects such as a digital camera with WiFi and download photos to the table surface, where you can sort them by pushing them around the table with your hands.
It’s been fun to be involved with Microsoft on this innovation effort – brainstorming, understanding the consumer experience, and helping identify market opportunities.
Darrel Rhea — 13 May 2007
The “Better by Design” conference held in Auckland, New Zealand last week was an impressive event. This was a conference aimed at CEOs to enroll them in adopting design thinking and tools to improve their bottom line. I keynoted this event, and was joined by a strong roster of international and local speakers. The New Zealand government is a primary sponsor (along with industry players) and is taking an enlightened approach to developing their economy’s competitiveness. They understand the importance of design in the export business and are actively supporting the country’s emerging design infrastructure. As evidence of that support, the Minister of the Economy and the Prime Minister each spoke passionately about design at the event.
What impressed me was that the conference organizers didn’t just talk about the importance of design thinking and user-based design tools – they applied these ideas effectively...
Lee Shupp — 28 April 2007
I spent last weekend in Vancouver, at the annual gathering of the Association of Professional Futurists. The APF has consistently put on great conferences in cities where the locale fits the conference theme. (For example, a past gathering on "The Future of Reality" was held in Las Vegas; what better place to explore what reality is, and what it may mean?) This year the theme was "The Future of Identity," and one of the unique identities that we explored was the identity of Vancouver as a city. Vancouver has developed a successful model for cities of the future, and the city has done that on the premise that traffic congestion is a good thing, rather than a problem to be addressed.
Tommy Stinson — 12 April 2007
Last weekend, the Washington Post published an interesting piece about an experiment in culture. Joshua Bell, a highly-acclaimed concert violinist, put on a baseball cap and casual clothes and posed as a busker in the L'Enfant Plaza station of the Washington, D.C. Metrorail. His goal (or rather, the goal of the journalist who wrote the piece) was to see if morning commuters would stop and listen to his music.
Now this is an accomplished, highly-decorated artist playing extremely difficult musical pieces on his 18th century Stradivarius. And the end result of his 45 minute incognito concert? $32.17. And only a small handful of the thousands of morning commuters even seemed to give him a glance as they walked past.
Lori Hobson — 8 April 2007
Inspirations pass. What stirred us bolt upright in bed yesterday doesn’t even get us out of the hammock today. So it’s not a surprise that we are witnessing the end of a theme that has been a social cause, design mantra, and political crutch for over a decade. “Simplicity” is on the decline. It started making its way to the door a while ago, and like a busy host at our own intellectual party, we hadn’t noticed that our stylish guest had decided to slip out. From here on, “making things simple” as a mission will be pursued primarily by the people who are driving the idea into decline or those who take a while to catch on. (Hint: usually those are the same group.)
Which leaves the Masters of Innovation, or at least me and my coffee klatch, compelled to consider what is next.
By now you may be shaking your head in disbelief, but if I told you that the future – the next muse that will tickle our minds and stir our souls – has made a cameo appearance at my house, would you try to sneak a peek through the window?
I have seen the Apple iPhone. They are not released, but one of them lives where I live.
What I saw is a hint of what is to come. The antidote for dumbing things down. The means for organizing the disparate and embracing the wild wooly reality of the connected world. A metaphor for communications that don’t gloss over the facts. Not to give Apple too much credit – there are other examples I could highlight – but this product embodies a new approach to the complicated that doesn’t balk at detail.
To sum it up: it’s made the complex engaging, even beautiful.
Terri Ducay — 3 April 2007
Like most people, I never seem to have enough time to read. But when I received renewal subscriptions to the New York Times and The Economist, I didn’t hesitate to sign up. While the integrity of the information and the quality of the writing and reporting is at the core of what interests me, what is valuable is the manner in which the information is designed and visualized, enabling me to easily absorb and understand it.
I especially find that design and visualization does not just make things easier to access - it actually heightens my level of understanding. News, information and ideas become visceral and thus more powerful. So what I am buying is not only the information but the experience of that information as well.
Here is what I love:
Leigh Marriner — 26 March 2007
The AMA's Marketing News has a cover story on innovation in the February 1, 2007 issue. This point of view is upheld by what we have discovered in our client work. Line extensions do not lead to real innovation. True innovation means designing a product that delivers significant new value to the customer. And success is first and foremost a function of senior management, not just R&D and Marketing. The culture has to embrace innovation and what comes with it – risk, uncertainty and failure. A few of our observations about successful innovation:
1) Being afraid to fail and not embracing risk stifles innovation. You need to be willing to go in the wrong direction in order to be open to true innovation as opposed to product extensions
2) Stage-gate processes need to be modified to allow true innovation to flourish. You can’t come up with reliable numbers that will pass the stage-gate process early in a true innovation process. Stage-gate processes push products into an existing mold. While it’s important to have some method to make rational go/no go decisions before too much is invested, a company needs to be willing to pursue questionable ideas for some time in order to be able to show potential if it exists. Truly new ideas often look wacky at first.
3) Often truly new ideas come from outside a company, not just from the R&D facility. Companies that manage to avoid an NIH mentality have an advantage.
4) True innovation need not be based just on core product innovation. Starbucks has shown that consumers’ emotional experience can create innovation. Orange Glo showed that a customer’s experience with a cleaning product can create a truly innovative experience, even though the underlying cleaning technology isn’t new. Although the Prius represents new technology, the reason it is so successful is due to emotional considerations – a substantial consumer segment care enough about being (and being seen as) environmentally conscious to make that a primary purchase criterion for their car.
Darrel Rhea — 15 March 2007
This week’s Design Management Institute’s European Conference is focusing on the Metrics of Design. By any measure, the conference is well attended with over 150 designers, design managers, researchers, senior executives and others… gathering to be inspired and informed. It’s a tall order, though, to mix a conference cocktail of “design” and “metrics,” despite how critically thirsty our business public is to be reassured they are on the right path with developing products and services that will serve their customers well.
As keynote speaker on the first day, I felt responsible for communicating that there is a viable balance between intuitive and rational approaches. In fact, my position is that any company needs both to succeed in creating and communicating products and services that are meaningful to its customers.
Craig Millman — 13 March 2007
This is a poignant story with a twist.
A few weeks ago my adorable niece Nicole turned four. I attended her birthday party at the local children’s gym, took snapshots and video and ate too much pizza. There was, of course, a mountain of presents, to which I contributed.
Lori Hobson — 2 March 2007
Do you care if you buy the real thing? Do you mind if a company dupes you into using its product if in the end you are glad you did? If you found out most of the parts of your PC, auto, handbag or mobile phone were repackaged in China and sold for less than 1/10 the cost, would you lament it? Would you buy the Chinese versions if you had access?
In design these days, “authenticity” is mentioned as a key global trend more often than JetBlue strands customers on the tarmac. And yet there seems to be an endless market in knock-offs, me-too products and services, and campaigns that are at their roots deceptive.
Is authenticity really a trend or are consumers actually ogling its evil twin at the local Wal-Mart?
Lori Hobson — 9 February 2007
Has Steve Jobs demonstrated that high impact innovation is best done sans exploration with consumers? In case you don’t know, Apple is a company that largely arrives at innovative product and business concepts based on the gut feel and apparent genius of a handful of people – Messieurs Jobs, Ive, and a small cadre of designers and engineers. With the phenomenal success of the iPod and its larger ecosystem, it might be hard to say that all winning innovation starts with a Cheskin-style deep dive into consumers’ meaningful experiences.
Yet, most organizations do not have the vision, design savvy, drive, dictatorship, infrastructure, secrecy, or funding-processes that Apple has.
Lori Hobson — 25 November 2006
As I slid my key in the door, the ring of the phone inside the house made my head jerk upright and eyes snap forward. Instinctively I knew that I had been found out. I had just cheated fate, and I was sneaking back into the house with the spoils of my win. A momentary pang of anxiety shot through me as if being discovered could somehow jinx the situation.
It was October 2002, and where I live, in Silicon Valley, things were pretty bleak.
— 7 November 2006
Every Election Day, there are numerous articles and news segments talking about democracy, and how we are fortunate to live in a country where government and law comes from the consent of the governed. And just about every year, we hear about voting “glitches” and how nice it would be to “improve the process.” Design for Democracy is an organization that has some thoughts about how.
Lori Hobson — 15 October 2006
Where I live, the neighbors just bought a winning tech lottery ticket. YouTube sold itself to Google for $1.65 billion, turning co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen into hundreds-of-millionaires. (YouTube: another valley garage-to-riches story) Apparently, the whole thing started in Hurley’s Menlo Park garage, and – assuming he still lives here – the sale makes him the latest in a legacy of rich residents in our little bedroom community.
Lori Hobson — 12 October 2006
Where I live, “technology” has a meaning beyond its functional purpose, its inherent marvel of invention, or its potential as a status symbol. We are a community for which technology has a deeply valued significance that transcends even fundamental emotional satisfaction. The meaning of “technology” in Silicon Valley nestles somewhere among our hope for prosperity and the American dream, our unity with our neighbors and friends, and our belief that intellectual prowess applied over time can resolve any challenges humans face.
Darrel Rhea — 23 September 2006
To say that “Innovation” has become a buzz word in media is just the least of it. Major business publications – magazines, books, and online publications -- are full of why businesses should pay attention to innovation, what it is, how to make it happen, and who is responsible. But I wish that authors, journalists and pundits would make a sharper distinction between “innovation” and “invention.”
Invention is about solving problems in novel ways. However, that doesn’t mean that the solution is necessarily beneficial, either to the consumer or to the company that worked hard (or not so hard) to create it. There are hundreds of thousands of inventions that never even make it to the market, and many thousands that do get there but don’t last, for good cause. Despite their seductive novelty, inventions often don’t achieve business goals for two reasons: they don’t solve a meaningful or relevant problem, or they solve a problem and don’t do it in a meaningful way.
Innovation is about generating improved utility that really matters to people, and this in turn creates value for them. Consumers will gravitate to these products and services, and the subsequent consumer preference, price flexibility and loyalty, results in significant competitive advantage & economic rewards for the seller. Both the customer and the manufacturer get tangible benefits.
Why is this distinction between invention and innovation important?
Lee Shupp — 28 August 2006
I've just finished reading "Stumbling on Happiness" by Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard professor of psychology. The book applies research from psychology to analyze how we think about the future, and why our visions of the future are so often wrong. He starts by examining happiness, and what it really means. He then focuses upon three illusions of foresight:
Jan Yeager — 26 July 2006
I have a small collection of children’s books that I’ve acquired over the years. A favorite is Where’s Waldo, one in a series of books based on an iconic character dressed in a red and white striped shirt, matching stocking cap, and black rimmed glasses. Readers are challenged to find Waldo in visually dense scenes filled with crowds of people and elaborate environments. There is so much information to look at that it’s easy to become distracted from the search for Waldo and get caught up in the myriad of detail.
This book came to mind recently as I was helping a client craft a presentation to be delivered to a group of business partners. The objective was to show evidence of a market opportunity in order to prioritize product development efforts.
Miguel Gomez Winebrenner — 27 June 2006
Many sports consumers, especially Americans, have been commenting on how much more exciting this year’s World Cup has been. In great part this has been due to the fact that the U.S. team has improved a lot over the past ten years, and because there has been a sustainable US soccer league (MLS) for some time now. What few people know is that FIFA (soccer’s governing body) has made two substantial innovations to the game in order to create the level of excitement that is being felt this year.
The first was an innovating change to the design of the ball. This new design introduced in 2006 (called the Teamgeist) has fewer stitches and as a result is much quicker and more difficult to catch when struck. As opposed to older balls like the Buckminster design from 1970, which was purposefully slower and heavier, this new ball creates less friction with the surrounding air and easily swerves past goal keepers when struck from a distance. Now, it seems, many strikers can “bend it like Beckham.” The result of this innovation in soccer ball design has led to more scores, especially from long-range, and has made the World Cup much more exciting to those who favor lots of goal-scoring, like sports consumers in the United States.
Craig Millman — 9 May 2006
Me? No, that’s the tagline for Threadless.com. I’m a big fan.
A few weekends back, I was roaming around downtown San Francisco with some friends. One of them led me into the Virgin Megastore on Stockton to check out some T-shirts he liked. They were ok – mildly humorous, with war-inspired, apocalyptic graphics and headlines. Unfortunately the uninspired visuals couldn’t match the content.
Darrel Rhea — 30 April 2006
Making innovation happen in the best environment is tough. Making innovation happen when the lines of authority are foggy is exponentially harder.
In the ideal world, someone owns each of your company’s brands. That is, he or she is accountable for the brand’s performance, and has the authority to control brand touch points and mandate changes. Without this structure of authority, there will be “brand by committee,” or “brand by politics,” or “brand by pecking order.” Usually it’s all three, and usually it’s ugly. If this occurs in a franchise business, which is where many consumer products and services are distributed, it’s worse than ugly.
If you are the brand manager and you own a brand, your responsibility is to define the brand experience. If it is clearly articulated (functional benefits, emotional benefits, economic benefits, and an explicit way the brand creates meaning in our culture), you can define criteria to evaluate how the brand is delivering today. And you can provide a tight creative brief for efforts to improve it. This focus provides a critical context for innovation research.
Lee Shupp — 15 April 2006
I recently spent a weekend in Santa Fe learning about chaos, complexity, and social network theory at the annual conference of the Association of Professional Futurists. It was a fabulous weekend with stellar speakers, including Mark Klein of MIT and Cristopher Moore of the University of New Mexico and Santa Fe Institute. Cris gave a fabulous talk entitled Diversity: A Weapon of Mass Construction, that contained some very interesting insights about complex systems that has some application to business organizations.
Craig Millman — 3 April 2006
In my last post I described my frustration with my cell phone’s interface. Here’s an example in which confusing design proved not only frustrating, but costly as well.
Example 2: Lost in the forest of signs
Challenge: Figuring out when it’s ok to park
Cost: $300
I had occupied my apartment for about four months when this incident occurred. I let a friend park in my gated spot and tried my luck in the street. I’m generally responsible and circumspect about avoiding tickets. I found a choice location in front of my building and spent a few moments studying the street signs.
Darrel Rhea — 2 April 2006
It’s been a few years since I was last in Sydney, so my experience here is as if through new eyes. What I am seeing this week is that Australians are a very straight-forward lot – sort of a combination of Brit and Pioneer. It’s refreshing.
The Pioneer aspect makes itself apparent in many unexpected ways, not the least of which is innovative programs developed by the government, as unexpected as that sounds. Rarely do we think of government as a source of enlightened design thinking.
Jennifer Gray — 15 March 2006
Sitting in today's new employee orientation, I explained what people need to know when it comes to the Cheskin Employee Experience. At the end, the org chart slipped out and I realized I'd forgotten to cover it. Because, after all, it means little to me.
There is an expectation of hierarchy, particularly when employees join a company. A navigation tool, a reminder of who's who, a guide for who to lobby -- whatever it might be, it feels irrelevant. As head of HR, I probably shouldn't be disdainful of tiles and roles. Yet, I'm in good company (and in a good company) when it comes to this perspective. Cheskin has never been a hierarchical place that relies on the strength of a strong baton.
Darrel Rhea — 2 March 2006
Often when clients begin to work with us, one of the first questions they ask is “How do we get our customers to accept and buy our products?” Given that is what their work is almost always measured by – numbers that represent units sold, profit per unit, and overall profitability – it’s understandable. But it's the wrong question to be asking.
Traditional “common sense” has taught manufacturers to develop products first then work hard to get the market to accept it. When innovating in this mode, designers get reduced to “putting lipstick on the pig” and design researchers are called on to optimize the best possible color and shade of lipstick. You get the idea. It all creates an egregious waste of energy and resources because the basic product concept might really oink.
The best way to get customer-acceptance of products is to design products (and services) that are a direct expression of consumer or customer needs, wants and desires. This practice is Customer-Led Innovation, and it is the most effective way to produce value for customers – which is the primary job of innovation in the first place.
Craig Millman — 6 February 2006
At some time or another we all become victims of confusing user interfaces and poorly executed information design. Ordinarily the effects are inconsequential. We tolerate the shortcoming, adapt and move on.
In some cases it’s more difficult to ignore. Poorly designed products and systems can cost us more than headaches; they can cost us time and money. In the most extreme cases, the results can be fatal. S. M. Casey documented some deadly design mishaps in his “Set Phasers on Stun: And Other True Tales of Design, Technology, and Human Error.”
Lately, I’ve had a string of bad luck with convoluted design. While none has been life threatening, some of the experiences have put a dent in my wallet…
Joanne Mendel — 29 January 2006
I really enjoy it when I’m diving deep into something and find a wealth of applicable knowledge in an unexpected place. In this case it took someone outside my field of expertise (namely Christopher) to point me to it. Knowledge communication, an emerging field of study, is currently being incubated in the University of Lugano and the University of St. Gallen, by Dr. Martin Eppler among others. Central to Epplers’ inquiry is how communications occur between experts and decision makers in a business context or, how effective business decisions happen.
Joanne Mendel — 29 January 2006
Organizational decision making is becoming increasingly complex and dynamic. Experts (with specialized knowledge) and decision makers (having awareness of the business context in which knowledge is applied) need to work in an integrated way to improve decision making.
Denise Klarquist — 23 January 2006
This weekend I attended the compostmodern conference in San Francisco, a collaboration between the AIGA and IDSA to promote sustainability. I was inspired by the likes of Kalle Lasn from Adbusters and Chris Hacker, Senior Vice President of Global Design and Design Strategy at Johnson & Johnson, that latter underscoring the business case for environmental sustainability - a nice change from the typical "do it because it's good for you" message.
Paul Saffo wrapped up the conference on a more threatening note, essentially saying "do it or perish." He too noted that we need to create a stonger motivation in order to shift from a throw away culture to one that values conservation, environmentalism and sustainability. Like all the speakers who proceeded him, he made a strong case for the power of design.
Terri Ducay — 22 January 2006
In preparation for a trip to Beijing, I bought a travel guide book by DK Publishing – Eyewitness Travel Guides.
I am a huge fan of DK publishing. They were the first publisher to design a format that is highly visually and informative, a ratio of images to words that is roughly 80% to 20%. The images, both photos and illustrations, give a huge amount of information in an elegant and easy-to-use design.
DK’s design objective is to “provide information in an attractive and easy to reach form.” It aims to inform, excite and inspire. Oh, and did I mention their books are fun to use? They accomplish all this by employing a few tricks of knowledge visualization.
Darrel Rhea — 2 January 2006
New Year’s resolutions are almost always well intended…but unfortunately, they’re usually short-lived. A couple of days ago I discovered an interesting website, 43 Things, that provides online community support for its users to achieve their aspirations throughout the year. It’s an engaging concept, for a community-oriented website. What’s even more interesting are the goals that are cited the most by the thousands of people who make their declarations public. They tell us a lot about what is meaningful to Americans today.
Terri Ducay — 18 December 2005
While scanning a Slashdot New Technology online news listing, I found a story entitled Journey Towards the Center of the Earth. Visions of Jules Verne popped into my head. It turns out that there is a Japanese-led deep-sea drilling project to begin in 2007 called Chikyu, which means ‘Earth’ in Japanese.
Chikyu the project is an attempt to collect the first samples of the Earth’s mantle. It seeks clues on primitive organisms and will use information gathered to help detect earthquakes.
If the story was not interesting enough, what surprised me for a scientific/academic article was the simple yet informative way the article explained the mechanics of the drilling vessel. A PDF containing the story used visualization to communicate complex information in a user-friendly way.
Denise Klarquist — 18 December 2005
I just read Niti Bhan's provocation on the benefit of design councils on CPH127. While some success is apparent in other countries, I think that the ability of the US to establish a successful national design council could be challenging at best.
While we Americans may be becoming more sophisticated in our appreciation of attractively executed products, I'm not sure that we generally agree on what constitutes good design, or design in general.
Darrel Rhea — 20 November 2005
Writing Making Meaning has been an interesting process. Not only was our topic and material born from hundreds of thousands of interviews over many years of professional work, but as we get closer to the publication date, the book has also resulted in an increased intensity at Cheskin of internal discussions about our own treasured objects and the respective personal meanings behind them for us.
This round of discovery was kicked off when I asked all my Cheskin coworkers to do a short exercise and send me the results. My requested was that each person choose an article that he/she had purchased and which had provided a meaningful experience, to write a short essay about it and to send me the results. I also requested a photo of the object with the author.
To make clear what I was requesting, I wrote one myself and attached it to the request. Here’s mine:
Darrel Rhea — 12 November 2005
The Effective Executive has long been one of the first books I turned to when I’ve needed a refresher on management skills. It was, in fact, a book I picked up immediately when I first became CEO of Cheskin. I knew it would help to ground my thinking once again, at a time when I needed to be reminded of ways to touch move and inspire a team. What I have always appreciated about the thinking behind that book is that it isn’t about managing one’s team; it is about managing oneself…and clearly that is the best place to start. To lead well is to be a leader.
The thinking behind this, of course, is from Peter Drucker, author, teacher, consultant, self-proclaimed social ecologist. I was sad to read that Mr. Drucker died yesterday at the age of 95. He was the consummate leader himself, teaching many of us to be more effective through improved time management, better decision-making, setting priorities, listening, communicating. I really liked that he viewed employees as resources and not as a cost, which is a point of view not embraced often enough by corporate executives. I was always moved by his increasing focus in the nonprofit world, and he inspired me to start spending more time with colleagues to figure out how we can leverage our resources to serve humanity in ways that the for-profit sector can’t.
I like especially his thinking about innovation, and how important it is to “turn on the tap” so that the corporate imagination will flow. “The tap,” he wrote in The Effective Executive, “is…disciplined disagreement.” How cool is that? Almost any executive can be a visionary, but it takes an enlightened executive to collaborate with his team to open up the ideation to all players and then to build the systems (discipline) required to succeed in implementation.
Darrel Rhea — 4 November 2005
My wife bakes a cookie that my boys and I think is the best in the world. “A keeper!” we declared after she first tried a recipe she got last year from Cook’s Illustrated. She whipped up a batch just this evening, in honor of our son visiting from New Zealand. Ummm. The fragrance of the cookies baking brought to mind the recent New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell about a long-time Cheskin colleague, Steve Gundrum. Steve heads Mattson & Co., a food R&D firm that innovates products that you probably have on your shelf, if not on your table, right now.
But this isn’t about cookies, much as I like to ponder them, or the interesting story Gladwell weaves about Steve’s Delta Project and the Great Bake Off. It’s about…yes, you guessed it: Innovation. And it’s about how to fashion a recipe for success for innovation that’s a keeper.
Steve Diller — 26 October 2005
One advantage in writing a book about meaningful experiences was the opportunities it provided to plumb the depths of Cheskin's history. It's a pretty illustrious history, with engagements that often had impacts far beyond what Louis Cheskin, our founder, might have anticipated. It also has implications for all of us who work to enhance customer experiences.
A particularly interesting example was his work with McDonald's. The historical documentation indicates that, back when that company was seeking to expand more quickly, its management hit on the idea of altering the legal definition of their establishments, from "hamburger stands" to "restaurants."
Gary Feldman — 26 October 2005
I'm really excited about a new service that recently debuted in New York that demonstrates how a company can create a meaningful, innovative experience by bundling together existing products and services (which are innovative in their own right).
The company: OZOCar, "New York's 1st Eco-Luxury Car Service".
At first glance, OZO Car is a car service that uses a fleet of Toyota Priuses, one of the most fuel-efficient hybrid cars out there. So no more guilt about single passenger trips to and from the airport in gas guzzling Town Cars.
But it gets even better than that.
Davis Masten — 25 October 2005
The New Yorker has influenced me all my life. My Mom used to read it. So I was particularly proud to see my friend and colleague, Steve Gundrum, profiled in it last month in a story by Malcolm Gladwell. The article, “The Great Bake-Off,” describes a real project that Steve conceived and led: the development of a new cookie using different approaches taken from technology, primarily open source versus specialized teams.
Steve first came up with the idea to experiment with open source development after hearing it described at the TED conference in 2003. Like a true entrepreneur, he grabbed the idea from one area (after talking with Mitch Kapor) and ran with it in another, getting several notable companies to join him in the experiment. Which approach worked better? The results are too interesting to give away. Read the article or hear Malcolm talk about it in a podcast at foodcom.com.
Darrel Rhea — 25 October 2005
Despite devoting my meaningful work life to helping companies create meaningful innovations in products and services, I must admit that once in a while I am surprised when a financial institution comes up with a new service that is truly different and not just another marketing trick. This one is Bank of America’s new Keep The Change™ program.
Only recently launched, this is indeed meaningful to its potential users, meeting the criteria we delineated in our book Making Meaning (which is soon to be launched itself). And, in this case, it’s meaningful not just for each individual consumer, but ultimately – if it kicks off and becomes broadly successful – can be meaningful to our savings-starved economy.
What is Keep The Change and how does it work? It’s an electronic rendition of what some of my buddies did for years – every time they had a handful of change, they tossed it into a jar and when the jar was full, they rolled the coins and banked them. This is a little less visible, but equally painless way to save for consumers who buy with a debit card: the electronic debit card system rounds up on the cost of the purchase to the nearest dollar and stuffs the difference into the holder’s savings account.
Davis Masten — 9 September 2005
It's odd what makes an innovation suddenly move from niche to mass. So often it is unplanned and unexpected events.
Cheskin has been actively involved for years in helping consumers use digital tools to tell their side of an experience. Even before they hit the market, we believed tools like camera phones, PDAs, blogs, and podcasts had immense power to convey a new, more intimate and individualized point of view. But our efforts paled in comparison to the stimulus provided by recent events, in particular the London bombing and Hurricane Katrina.
Denise Klarquist — 6 September 2005
While collaboration is defined as people working together, I like to think of it more as the sharing of ideas, techniques, tools and even objects that result in something greater than the sum of parts. Two recent examples come to mind:
I ran across this website today as I was scanning the Cool Hunting newsletter. Alyce Santoro's Sonic Fabric designs are beautiful, no doubt, but what I was more impressed by was the inspiration that lead to the innovation and how the concept of collaboration is woven throughout (pun intended).
Dimitry Shkolnikov — 6 September 2005
I love high-powered cars. The fact that these amazing automobiles, like the Chevrolet ZO6 Corvette or the BMW M5 sedan, are also gas-guzzlers didn't bother me in the past. I watched the price of gas climb, but it didn't moderate my desire to drive the latest and greatest sports cars on the market; that is, until now. For some reason--maybe because the price of gas has simply gotten too high or maybe it’s because the Katrina disaster sobers us all--these cars that used to bring me uncompromised pleasure have started to become embarrassing.
This is very similar to what happened in the 1970s, when American's replaced their muscle cars with compact, fuel efficient Japanese imports. The shift was dramatic and changed the face of transportation for decades. Will this happen again? Will these dream machines disappear, or will their makers retool and find a way to improve fuel efficiency without compromising the experience? I'm not yet ready to give up my love of fast, fun cars, but I've started to take a hard look at their impact on me and others. I can't be the only sports car driver who cares about this.
Christopher Ireland — 22 August 2005
I have the first 12 or so issues of Wired magazine. It used to be my Bible back in the pre-dotcom days, but it seemed to lose its way after awhile and I stopped reading it. That is, until my recent vacation.
Christopher Ireland — 2 August 2005
Building a company is not for wimps. At its best, it is extraordinarily difficult work that depends a great deal on circumstances beyond the control of any one person, or even small team. It's probably not quite as risky as a slot machine, but it's close.
I was reminded of this today while listening to HistoryPodcast. The author, Jason Watts, delivers interesting and obscure (at least to me) historical stories about people or events, but he also adds in small comments about the development of his company (which he prefers to think of as a hobby). Today, he mentioned that the whirring sound heard in the background of his podcast came from a $10.99 fan that he would like to replace if donations help out. He's also reported on how his fan base is growing--he has 150 subscribers so far--and his thoughts on revenue generation (he doesn't believe in paid subscriptions).
In adding these personal comments, Jason gives listeners a inside view of what it's like to build a small company. It adds an interesting dimension to his podcasts--one that is surprisingly engaging. I was even tempted to respond to his request that listeners send him their ideas for a logo, but my lack of drawing skills thankfully interceded.
Darrel Rhea — 2 August 2005
Because our work was profiled in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “Blink,” it generates a lot of questions for me on a weekly basis. It makes sense to comment on how “thin slicing” connects to the reality of shoppers making buy decisions on packaged goods. (For tips on how to deal with the retail experience overload, see my previous blog, “Mastering the Grocery Shopping Experience.”) People base their buying decisions on a strong feeling they get which isn’t necessarily rational but usually justified on some levels. The feeling that drives their decision is intuition, and what Gladwell calls “thin slicing” – but it’s not always right, just as any subjective opinion isn’t always right.
Why do we thin slice in the store? People do it out of self defense, simply because there’s so much stimuli in any retail environment that it virtually impedes shoppers from operating rationally. After all, most stores carry between 25,000 and 40,000 separate products, each with multiple packages. If you attempted to consciously “see” even a fraction of those, you would experience mental overload! --your brain would slow to a crawl and you would vulnerable to predators (like those old ladies with shopping carts that might run you over). It’s an evolutionary coping mechanism.
Lisa Leckie — 25 July 2005
It must be something in the air. Like Terri Ducay, I've been looking for change in my life. Unlike Terri, I decided to get it from fashion rather than four wheels. Also unlike Terri's experience, I can't find the exact thing I want waiting for me in a showroom. I have to create it myself.
Today, the most fashionable consumers are those capable of experimenting. They can't just adopt a luxury brand or a new designers' unique look. The top "fashionistas" are capable of creatively assembling clothes from many sources, both old and new, cheap and expensive and seeing how it works for them. Their fashion reputation is based on their personal decisions about color, texture, design and brand pairing. Those who are good at this have an amazing skill for putting things together in innovative ways; for example, combining a feminine vintage top with a emerging brand of fashion jeans, or their Dad’s 70’s leather coat (made in Siberia) with a pair of striped tube socks and knit scarf from H&M.
At its essence, this is about creating personal meaning through selection and combination of clothing and accessories. It's fun for me, but what does this have to do with innovation in the marketplace and why would my clients care to read about this?
Davis Masten — 22 July 2005
I was riding in a car today in Battle Creek Michigan. One of my hosts told the story of how he left his keys in his car. He had his cell phone though. So he called his wife, who hit it open the car door button on her set of keys for the same car. The door unlocked.
I’ll remember this the next time I lock my keys in my car. Hope this helps you too.
Christopher Ireland — 14 July 2005
I blogged recently about adding podcasts to my life. The Daily Podcast offers a good overview of what's happening in this space for those interested in more details.
Unlike most of the technology products or services I try, this one is actually changing my behavior. I don't know how long it will last, but I actually look forward to my morning workout now because I get to listen to new podcasts downloaded overnight. When I was in college, one of my favorite activities (along with cheap beer night) was to wander the library aisles and randomly read passages from books. For me, this type of spontaneous information adventure was blissful, and listening to podcasts comes as close to recreating it as anything else I've done.
Although I've chosen the categories to match my pre-set desires, the podcasts themselves are wide ranging. This morning I was treated to a discussion of the physiology of orgasm, an interview with a woman struggling with Alzheimer's disease and a talk by film maker David Lynch on the power of mediation. With that start, it's going to be hard to have a boring day.
Denise Klarquist — 7 July 2005
I was recently introduced to a new blog on Design and Innovation - CPH127. As we at Cheskin address design and innovation challenges for our clients regularly, it's clear that these fields, if we can even use that term, are increasingly fluid and evolving.
Ask just about anyone now to define "design" and you'll get as many answers as people you ask. Innovation is not far from that as well. The guys at CPH127 underscore this just by their very nature... "Our team consists designers, MBAs, dot-com entreprenours and all the other folks you would never expect to be on this kind of blog."
I was especially fond of a recent post by Ian McArthur on new skillsets for designers.
Christopher Ireland — 30 June 2005
iTunes caught me by surprise this morning. Instead of my normal email announcing some new music they thought I'd like, I got a note headlined "This just in: Podcasting on iTunes." Hmm, that's fast, I thought. Podcasting has been around awhile on the geek circuit, but most normal people don't have a clue what it is yet.
I decided to follow iTunes advice and check it out. The result is what makes Apple so amazing...
Claudia Knight — 27 June 2005
We often hear about brands refreshing or reinventing themselves to stay current, but exactly how is that done? Is it like a make-over where a person lets experts change his or her look, style and manners, ala Professor Henry Higgin's re-do of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady or the more recent incarnation "Extreme Makeover"? Is it a more subtle process, like going to a therapist and analyzing past behavior and future options? Or is it just a straight forward business process that some how combines the predictive validation of number-crunching with a creative inspiration of what's possible?
In our experience, it's a little of each and there are pros and cons to each approach. Here's a challenge to any of our readers--I'm going to describe an organization (it's real, but I can't reveal its identity) in desparate need of a make-over. Let me know what you would do.
Darrel Rhea — 25 June 2005
Recently Ed Batista and I traded emails on Malcolm Gladwell's Blink – specifically Gladwell’s positioning of focus groups as a "a tax on revolutionary ideas.” Batista asked my take on Gladwell’s comment on focus groups as being detrimental to innovation. My reply was that market research has already evolved beyond where Malcolm is talking about it. Focus groups are an easy target because they are misused and over used. There will be 950,000 focus groups conducted in the world this year, and yes, some real atrocities will result from some misapplications of a perfectly good methodology. But that is only one method used in research, and there are plenty of others that do a great job of informing designers and the design process. Cheskin’s been making speeches about this since the early 80’s.
Contrary to Ed’s POV, Malcolm doesn’t pose a stiff challenge to traditional techniques. What he posed instead is a challenge to the mindless application of one specific technique by clients who demand focus groups – and an industry of researchers who don’t know better. The reality is we evolved a highly sophisticated design research practice decades ago, using ethnography and a host of other tools proven to be effective and fully endorsed by design innovators.
You don’t use focus groups to evaluate revolutionary ideas. They can provide context for them. They can facilitate the generation of them. This is old news now getting broad exposure, but better late than never. That’s Gladwell’s welcomed contribution.
Stephen Palacios — 20 June 2005
Last week I began this blog series about the vast opportunity the Hispanic population represents to US business. Today I'll continue to develop the context of why any sane business, and most notably the health care industry, should invest in this market.
Although Hispanics on the whole still have only a small share of America’s wealth, their participation in the economy is growing. Let’s look at some market projections.
Davis Masten — 10 June 2005
Leah's blog make a good case for why Black & Decker's decision to extend into kitchen mixers was probably a mistep. But if HP decided to spend some time in the kitchen, they may find a more hearty welcome. According to 12,000+ consumers in over a dozen different countries, the HP brand can stretch into home appliances. Why?
Darrel Rhea — 9 June 2005
As Terri Ducay's blog notes, we just returned from the DMI Brand Design Conference more convinced than ever that business demand for design innovation is getting hotter every day and is likely to explode. This isn't the first time we've heard this. What is different from past predictions is who is doing the predicting and what its implications are.
Terri Ducay — 8 June 2005
It is professionally gratifying to know that this is the "Decade of Design." I just returned from the Design Management Institute (DMI) Brand Design Conference, where speakers like Bruce Nussbaum, Editorial Page Editor of Business Week, describes designers as being the new consulting gurus of the 21st century. When companies like Procter & Gamble and General Electric, call on designers to take the lead in transforming their companies, this signifies a big shift in how corporate America is beginning to think. Good bye Six Sigma, hello Designer.
Why the shift? Why are design conversations taking place in CEO offices? Well, there are several reasons given by Nussbaum:
Leigh Marriner — 8 June 2005
Collaboration is an important part of any consulting assignment, but to work effectively at Cheskin, I've had to take this skill to a whole new level. I've had to learn to collaborate remotely with team members scattered in different countries, operating in different time zones, and using different communication tools. I've had to adjust to working with people who are at home, in their car, in a client's lobby or at the zoo with their 3 year old. Usually they have road warrior laptops or web-connected PDAs, but sometimes all they have is a phone.
Collaboration is important here for a number of reasons: Whether we're thousands of miles apart or sitting face-to-face, we know the only way we'll succeed is through the sum of our efforts. Our competition is just too tough for a one man act to beat. Because we know how to collaborate across time and space, we are truly flexible about where people work. This allows us to hire from a much broader and deeper talent pool. The type of creative, intelligent thinkers we desire find us far more attractive when they learn they can work from their home in Las Vegas or Redmond or Mexico. And because we invest in the latest collaboration tools (like Sharepoint TeamServices, MS Live Meeting and Smartphones or Treos, we are exposed to new visions of sharing and communicating, which end up regularly influencing and improving our work processes.
But no matter how strong a company's philosophy and tools are, there's one aspect of collaboration that matters above all else...
Gary Feldman — 7 June 2005
In a recent column in AdAge, Scott Donaton comments on a plan to simultaneously release films in theaters, on DVD and pay TV, leaving the decision on how, when and where to watch the movies to filmgoers. This seems progressive to me and very much on track with putting the consumer in control, but apparently entertainment execs fear it will doom their business model. They explained to Scott, “we just need to remind people how much they like going to the theatre."
"Remind?" If people enjoy going to the movie theatre so much, why do they increasingly prefer watching movies elsewhere? What part of the theatre going experience would you remind them of--the fixed times? the over-priced, low quality food? the lack of parking? the dirty floors? the noisy kids behind them? the scratched screen? Rather than remind them of something that they most likely do only because, up until now, they haven't had an alternative, I'd suggest the entertainment industry rethink the entire theatre going experience. This experience is so badly broken, it almost screams for innovation. And once the choice is real--once people can choose when and where they watch a new release--the theatres won't have much time left to convince crowds that they are even worth consideration.
Other businesses have survived this type of competition by innovating their core offerings. Here's a few examples:
Darrel Rhea — 7 June 2005
Ed Bastista’s blog today talked about Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, and how important design is for influencing people’s perceptions of products and services. Bastista’s focus is on web design, and his assessment is spot on.
As Malcolm and I discussed in the book, most viewers can not and do not distinguish between the content of the product or service, and the appearance or “packaging” of the site (made up of its graphics, navigational, and branding elements). We have done hundreds of studies that have confirmed this. Design absolutely alters our perceptions in significant ways.
Christopher Ireland — 6 June 2005
Fifteen years ago, we got a call from a small company in Redmond called Microsoft. They needed some help with their packaging for a new version of Windows. We were happy to help, even though we were all happily using Apple PCs at the time.
The next decade and a half whizzed past as we worked with one project team after another: Encarta, Word, Excel, Schedule+, Access, PowerPoint, Cinemania, Office, FrontPage, SQL, MSN, Passport, Outlook, Project, Optical mouse, ergonomic keyboard, SharePoint, Exchange, SmartPhone, OneNote, XBox, and more. We helped with software development, hardware development, positioning, messaging, branding, support manuals, even internal communications (and as needed, career counseling).
Keeping up with the breadth and depth of expertise this relationship demanded has been no easy trick. But we've done it, and as a result, we can celebrate this 15th anniversary with the relationship in very good shape, supported by at least a dozen very talented Cheskin folks and backed up by a history of over 500 projects, many of them global. Of course, we wish we would have traded our services for stock back in 1990--but, we're just as happy and confident to own it now.
Darrel Rhea — 21 May 2005
We all know that Bill Gates is the media’s favorite nerd, and Microsoft is the media’s favorite evil empire. So this week’s media coverage about the new X-Box 360 introduction represents a seismic shift of these entrenched negative stereotypes. Suddenly, Bill is being characterized as “unleashed,” “hip,” “lose and happy,” and “cracking jokes and making fun of himself.” Time magazine said “somehow humanity’s most famous nerd has become kind of cool.” (Yes, we’re talking about the same Bill Gates that has been demonized decades.)
What force drove this epic transformation? Design. The new X-Box is a multi-billion dollar bet that a stodgy engineering culture within a monolithic global corporation can produce a cultural hip thing of beauty and relevance. So far, the media is declaring them successful, calling
it “cool,” “sleek,” “feminine,” “sophisticated.” And this coolness is creating a positive halo that is coloring perceptions of Bill and his whole enterprise. Time Magazine crows “from geek to chic.”
The hard part wasn’t creating the design. They simply hired some of the best industrial designers in the world, like our friends at Astro. The hard part was listening to them and accepting their work. That’s where design research comes in. Cheskin did research with all types of gamers in Asia, Europe and the US on the new X-Box designs.
What gamers told us was that the elegant console “had to be made either by Sony or Apple.” Bingo! That provided the confidence do an “unnatural act.” That is, it gave a nerdy corporate culture the confidence to accept the authentically cool and hip innovation of their development team.
There are a lot of other reasons why this product is likely to be a success, but if it was as ugly as the first X-Box, it would be a sure failure. Congratulations to the development team for listening to their consumers – and achieving a breakthrough in innovation!
Leah Hunter — 18 May 2005
I scored tickets to a Star Wars opening! It’s a regional sneak-preview, not the whole Hollywood red carpet shebang. But still. I get to see the movie before 98% of the population, and that makes me giddier than a juiced up Jawa.
Like everyone else in the world, I am drawn to the idea of exclusivity, though I have rarely had the chance to rub up against it in the popcorn line.
Leah Hunter — 17 May 2005
I am in furious mural mode.
At home, I’m sketching line-drawings of birds in my bathroom. At work, I’m lobbying to create 30-foot painting to disguise the concrete wall outside our office. At first I thought the mania was just mine, but recent spreads in Elle Decoration and Surface confirm: walls are where it’s at right now. They’re the latest focus in fashion retailing.
Darrel Rhea — 20 March 2005
Recently one of my colleagues wrote a fairly scathing review of Blink, Malcolm Gladwell’s newest tome after The Tipping Point. While I agree with some of her concerns about the conclusions people may take away from it in terms of unfounded or unfair snap judgments, I find that much of my work (many thousands of research studies) confirms his premise that people process visual information rapidly and on an unconscious level. In fact, his work echoes Cheskin's pioneering work a half a century ago. Blink will likely become Gladwell’s newest contribution to Twenty-first Century cultural idiomatics. But that doesn’t mean that rapid conclusions are always correct, or even that it is a good way to make decisions. Hence, the broad and deep customer studies proffered by Cheskin -- which do, in fact, support well-founded decisions that drive many millions of dollars into wise investment or away from product and brand concepts that would otherwise clearly fail.
Unfortunately, while many businesses do invest in the type of sophisticated research it takes to predict success, not all do—and not all take the advice that they pay for either. And sometimes, they fall prey to their own blinking, such as the failure of New Coke, which Gladwell discusses in Blink based on his interview of Davis Masten and me (most of which is paraphrased in the book).
Denise Klarquist — 14 March 2005
Amazing how easy it is to forget that there are opportunities that exist outside of what we think we know. I work for a company that bases its value on this simple idea - you'd think I wouldn't need a reminder.
My neighbor and I need to replace the fence that separates our yards. I called our contractor, got a bid and passed it along to her. Her first response was, "That's great! Now we just need to know what kind of fence we want."
Christopher Ireland — 8 March 2005
I've been attending the TED conference since 1992. That means I've watched it grow from an unruly toddler, barely able to function, to what it is today: a mature, sophisticated "adult" with fully developed values, personality and lifestyle. This has given me an unusual vantage point to study how a successful conference evolves.
Gary Feldman — 7 March 2005
The competition is pretty fierce in the cellular category, right now, with lots of advertising by carriers and handset makers, and new features like multi-megapixel cameras and video recording.
Yet despite all these new bells and whistles, I think all the companies are missing something:
Where is the cool, must-have, "it" phone whose design evokes gadget envy not only among the technocrati, but among the style movers and shakers.?
— 18 February 2005
Although I was only able to walk the exhibit hall of MacWorld for a brief period of time, I was overwhelmed by the amount of third party vendors riding the iPod wave.
Christopher Ireland — 4 February 2005
Ed's fabulous post on the innovation failures of AT&T reminded me of how difficult it is for any company to truly innovate in pace iwth the market's demand. While I agree with him that AT&T had some particularly troublesome blindspots (in the early 90's, we suggested to them that "beepers" would hit big with teens and we were nearly laughed out of the room...), no company is immune to the stresses and strains of change--and change, plain and simple, is exactly what innovation requires.
Much has been written about people's resistance to change. Who Moved my Cheese is my personal favorite. But the challenge really comes home when you experience this first hand, as Cheskin does each time it adapts to its customers' needs.
— 2 February 2005
I read about SBC’s decision to purchase AT&T with some interest, as I spent several years as an SMTS with AT&T Labs. It is a sad story best summed up in the Wall Street Journal Editorial, “Not to Big to Fail” (subscription required).
Here is the key paragraph:
Like so many once-great firms before it, the telephone company that was once a monopoly fell victim to competition, or what economist Joseph Schumpeter called the gales of "creative destruction." Following its antitrust breakup by the feds in 1982, the company once known as American Telephone & Telegraph never did find a successful business model beyond the cost-plus regulation and pricing it had known for decades. We sympathize with its executives who had to cope with ham-handed federal rule-makers, but in the end the company will be acquired at a discount price by a competitor that faced the same political forces.
But I can tell you with certainty that AT&T’s not finding a “successful business model beyond … cost-plus regulation and pricing” was despite a heavy investment in research and development. So what went wrong?
— 30 January 2005
I have seen lately many alarming articles about the falling dollar, its causes, and consequences around the globe. These articles often had a political agenda and focused on macro-economic perspectives, blaming the astronomic national deficit. As important as all this is, I inevitably abstracted myself from the economic speech, and fell in a delicious thinking cycle around the notion of reality dictating our behaviors vs. our behaviors dictating reality. I mean, aren’t we who with our consumption behaviors created that deficit to begin with?
Christopher Ireland — 26 January 2005
How do you take several decks of data, totaling over 100 pages, and reduce it down into 5 slides that accurately communicates all the essential knowledge you've gained from research conducted across 3 countries?
We do it here by switching to a visual language. Our inhouse design team uses a wide palette or "vocabulary" of colors, shapes, sizes, shadings, drawings, photos, spatial relationships and icons to capture and convey marketplace opportunities, concept opportunities and positioning or identity direction.
We've learned that we can communicate much more information visually than thru text or data. We can also reach a more diverse group of people since not everyone spent their formative years in stats class....
Steve Diller — 25 January 2005
As I've mentioned in an earlier entry (I think), I've been writing a book on the design of meaningful experiences with Nathan Shedroff and Darrel Rhea. We're at the point now where the book's largely written, and we're in discussions with a few select publishers.
One of them has noted that business book publishing is "in the toilet." Apparently, the bursting of the bubble in 2001 burst much of the enthusiasm for innovative (or supposedly-innovative) ways of thinking about business practice. A "back to basics" movement, whose symptoms include such trivialities as having people wear ties again, supposedly rejects "newness" in general.
Christopher Ireland — 20 January 2005
I currently have two pens in my purse. One is a beautiful silver heavy-weight pen sent by Jaguar in an attempt to win back my business. The other is a simple plastic ballpoint courtesy of The Bellevue Club from a recent stay.
I'm reasonably sure both were the result of a marketer trying to extend his or her company's brand experience as far as possible. One pen does this very effectively; the other has actually driven me further away.
— 12 January 2005
Having spent the first few years of my career in advertising, where the Apple computer is king, I considered myself part of “the Apple tribe.” I prescribed to the idea that the world of Apple is a fun one, where icons are happy and colors are bright and the programs are easy to use. Working on a Mac made me feel...
— 12 January 2005
Today many rely on the emergence of future technologies to solve problems that are being created now. Our world is not a credit card. We need to take the time to understand the risks of our reliance on future promises and quick fixes to look beyond our culture of immediate gratification. The ability to deliver sustainable meaning and value begins by making intelligent decisions that consider the long-term implications of our current collective actions. Let’s raise the bar and start to think about how to address structural causes so that the solutions we create can maintain their purpose and intent as well as strive to realize the full extent of their value.
One field that has excelled in this sense is Sustainable Design. It has emerged as a highly collaborative discipline that is being contributed to by a diverse group of innovative leaders. By understanding the interrelatedness of business, ecology and culture, these leaders have developed an extremely effective approach...
Christopher Ireland — 28 December 2004
The recent issue of Wallpaper introduces their first annual design awards. When I first saw the cover, I thought "oh god, not another design bake-off...". But I was very pleasantly surprised to find that they recognized several dimensions of design that others, most notably BusinessWeek, do not.
Gary Feldman — 20 December 2004
The internet has enabled many companies and brands to innovate and raise the bar when it comes to the "customer experience." Amazon pioneered predictive "cross-selling" with personalized recommendations, Barnes & Noble offers same-day delivery from your screen to your door, the list goes on.
When comes to the "service" part of the customer experience, the promise was that email and live chat technology would allow companies to provide a higher, quicker level of service at even lower costs. Sometimes that's true.
Unfortunately, too many companies focus on the technology and not the actual experience someone has trying to communicate with them.
Lisa Leckie — 10 December 2004
The title of this blog is the slogan for iRobot – an exceptionally cool robotics company with “big, innovative ideas and brilliant mad scientists who make them work in a variety of applications.”
Roomba is our new pet. I think it’s a he. I know so because he’s very straightforward and rationally minded—he rarely does something he hasn’t fully thought through first and he’s an incredible problem solver. He shows little emotion unless he’s in the worst of situations—these tend to involve a floor mat or an oven with a four inch crawl space underneath.
Denise Klarquist — 2 December 2004
Reading Lisa's and few other colleagues' posts just now reminded me of my own product obsession - my vacuum cleaner. Mine is not just any vacuum, but a big bright yellow muscular Dyson. A vacuum that many of my designer friends covet, since it appears in museums and the pages of ID magazine, while other friends think it's the most ridiculous thing they've seen. To be honest, I was part of the former, and managed to acquire my machine at a design auction. But that was only the beginning of the experience.
— 5 October 2004
I can consider my self an alternative beverage junky, alternative beverages are distinguishable from mainstream carbonated soft drinks in that they tend to contain less sugar, less carbonation, and natural ingredients.
As a general rule, three criteria have been established for such a classification:
— 5 October 2004
Why do the English drink warm beer?
Because they have Lucas refrigerators.
Maybe you need to be a fan of old English motor vehicles to appreciate the joke, but you probably know that Americans, unlike our cousins across the pond, like our beer cold.
Of course, beer starts getting warm as soon as it leaves the ice-box, a problem which has vexed beer drinkers for years. Now, Alcoa and the Pittsburgh Brewing Company have announced an “innovative” new aluminum bottle that they say will keep the beer colder longer.
But, according to an article in Forbes, the aluminum bottle technology they are using has been around since 1991. Furthermore, Pittsburgh Brewing is not the first brewer to use an aluminum bottle. So a very old problem is being solved with a not so new technology. Is this really an innovation?
Davis Masten — 22 September 2004
My friend Steve and I trade photos from our camera phones and a host of other digital devices (but mostly via our phones) as a means of communication. We send pictures to each other, often without explanation. The other day I sent Steve a series of photos that show the power of real time pictures.
It was Sunday morning. Steve and I agreed to meet at the Pacific Athletic Club. We had agreed that I would let him know when I headed out for the workout. However I did not know what time I would leave and if it was too early I did not want to wake him or his family. So as I got to my car to leave, I snapped this photo to and sent it to his phone.
Darrel Rhea — 17 September 2004
Home Depot has recently opened a very nice store next door to Cheskin's NY office. This $20 million project is “Home Depot for the urban city dweller.” It has very clean contemporary retail design, with a selection of merchandise focused home décor. No tall racks, no raw building materials -- think carpets, window coverings, hardware, plants, furniture, etc. It is very similar to the feel of their Expo franchise that they seem to be fazing out. Very nice signage, nice fixtures, atrium, escalators. What is this supposed to signal for the Home Depot brand experience? A kinder, gentler and more female friendly space?
It doesn't have the style of a Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn, or Restoration Hardware. It is a strange positioning -- more functional than style or lifestyle oriented. But it doesn't seem to have the utility of a real hardware store. It will be interesting to see if consumers spark to this middle ground. Personally, I’m one of those man-guys who loves to wander around and check out the tools and strange supplies of a traditional hardware store – I find it entertaining. But the women I know don’t share that attraction, and hate (hate!) the regular Home Depot experience. I can't figure out why I would go to this new version except for price. I left feeling that if I had a project, I would need to go this store and another hardware store too.)
The store is filled with point of sale technology. When will retailers learn that they need to make a serious investment in the design of these systems to assure they work? When these interactive kiosks don't work, it equates to poor service. At least a salesperson can apologize and not waste your time. The system I used seemed like a repurposed online website, with dead ends that even the service people on the floor couldn't make work. My rule of thumb, if the technology doesn't work as reliably as a human service person -- keep designing.
Darrel Rhea — 6 September 2004
I had an experience yesterday that literally touched, moved and inspired me. It was the result of a design that was so well conceived, planned and executed that it blew me away. An "Experience E-Ticket"
I was up early in Washington, D.C., on my way to the airport. I decided to drop by the Vietnam War Memorial to pay my respects to my brother, but was disappointed to find that it was closed off for repairs. Walking back towards the car I found myself drawn to the marble stairs of the Lincoln Monument. I climbed them as the summer sun rose from behind the towering Washington monument, its long shadow darkening the huge Reflecting Pool. I paused to take in the vista from the top of the stairs, and from there I could see only a couple of distant guards and a lone jogger. I turned and entered the tomb, alone, in silence.
— 19 August 2004
Yesterday, I stumbled onto a great series of short biographies by Business Week on great innovators of the past 75 years.
You will not be surprised to find several of our clients represented in the list, including the founders and important leaders from General Motors, Toyota, Hewlett Packard, Sony, and IBM.
If you have a moment, enjoy some of their stories.
Gary Feldman — 16 August 2004
There has been a lot of debate and speculation in the last year about a rumored "video-iPod", namely a new version of Apple's portable MP3 player that would do for video what iPod has done for digital music.
To some people's dismay, the most recent version of iPod (the so called "4th generation" released this summer) turned out to NOT incorporate video, or even a color screen.
Meanwhile, other companies, such as RCA, Archos, and GoVideo, have already launched portable video players (PVPs). In June, Cnet.com proclaimed the Archos AV420 "by far the best PVP we've seen," praising its VCR-like controls, small size, and high quality screen, though admitting it's still fairly expensive.
While many are still debating "if" or "when" Apple will release its own PVP, I think it's worthwhile to take a step back and look at the bigger picture (no pun intended).
— 15 August 2004
A few weeks ago Microsoft announced the introduction of its new mouse designed by famous designer Philippe Starck. The newness of such partnership, the design itself, and Starck’s sexy brand drew considerable attention from the media. However, there’s something more important behind this news that goes beyond Starck or Microsoft and that went unnoticed; an experiment about the next grounds for competitive advantage in the personal technology industry: vanity and fashion.
Darrel Rhea — 14 August 2004
We have been having conversations about the impact of ubiquitous monitoring technologies for years. Paul Saffo was arguing passionately about this with me over a decade ago. While I have understood the cultural implications on an abstract, theoretical level, it is starting to come more into focus for me. I have never been paranoid about Big Brother, but I am noticing several things coming together.
Gary Feldman — 11 August 2004
Why is it that sometimes a truly innovative product or service just doesn’t make it in the real world? Didn’t they do the research? Is it just ahead of its time?
Two recent articles in the The New York Times—one about how TiVo is “struggling” and another in Stuart Elliott’s “In Advertising” weekly email newsletter about the potential growth of satellite radio—got me thinking about how such a seemingly counter-intuitive situation could arise.
Isn’t everyone, from industry pundits to “regular” people, talking about how great TiVo is and how this “killer” app is going to change the way we consume media? The advertising community is searching for a way to either leverage or bypass the breakthrough technology.
Steve Diller — 10 August 2004
I had the dubious pleasure of some laser eye surgery last week. The design of the experience of eye enhancement has undoubtedly come a long way in the last few years.
The Nob Hill boutique I went to, plush in a mid-century style, seems designed to simultaneously create feelings of comfort and trust. That's less easy than it seems. After all, comfort and technological sophistication often appear to be near-opposites, with tech's focus on dymamism, and comfort's cushier, slower style.
Cynthia Chan — 16 July 2004
I’ve always thought the application of nanotechnology in fabric was very cool, however, nothing really strikes me enough for me to grab a pair of spill-proof pants, or shirt that keeps bugs away until 10:12pm on July 13, 2004.
My patience almost went out the window when my seafood chowder was finally brought to my table. Before I could dive into my soup, the server knocked over my glass of milk tea (which was very full)! There was no way I could avoid the splash – it was a head-on crash. Next thing I knew, I was (together with my gray slacks) soaked with ice milk tea waist down. It was a shot of shock, helplessness, and embarrassment, all bundled together.
— 15 July 2004
I admit it. I’m a philatelist, but please don’t rush to conclusions; philately isn’t a new disease or anything to be afraid of. For many of those who don’t know the meaning of the word, philatelist means a stamp collector in proper English. However, there’s a difference between a philatelist and a stamp collector that goes beyond wording issues. A philatelist is someone who enjoys learning about history, geography, art, and cultural manifestations as they occurred or were perceived at different points in time. Collecting and studying stamps provides us with an opportunity to own a testimony, a glimpse of what happened years or centuries back in time, as well as what happens today- that is-if the postal system allows you.
In the midst of the research project I was working on in Paris, I managed to run to the post office to send a couple of pieces of mail.
Jennifer Gray — 13 July 2004
Some companies get it right -- not just the product, but the experience they provide. I spent Sunday in the emergency room with my dad. He has an automatic defibrillator implanted in his heart and the unit kept firing in an attempt to regulate his heartbeat.
In the emergency room for about eight hours, he was surrounded by nurses, doctors and technicians. You'd think all those people would provide a measure of comfort and reassurance. But it wasn't until (in my dad's words), the 'gal from Medtronics' showed up that he visibly relaxed and we knew he was finally in good hands. Over ten years ago, Dad received his first Medtronic defibrillator, which saved his life.
We've come to regard Medtronic as a true health partner. They aren't a brand to us. They're a group of people with leading edge technology who provide the best health care experience one can hope for. They do a ton of patient research, in which our family has participated. Seeing their medical devices in action is a thing of wonder.
These guys know what they're doing -- innovative product development and a thorough and personal understanding of who they help. They never refer to us as a 'customer'. Medtronic employees exude technical competence and patient empathy. It's no surprise the stock is strong and they're rated a top company to work for in the U.S. Strong research, excellent product design, continual innovation, and training their team to provide a holistic partner experience - it shows up everywhere you look.
Darrel Rhea — 6 July 2004
This is a question that both of our firms get asked often. We collaborate, we compete, we have overlapping offerings, and our marketing materials and the language we use to describe our value has much in common. How do I think about the differences?
While IDEO and Cheskin share a commitment to the importance of understanding the customer in design, we are substantially different in our approach to design research. IDEO's focus on research is directed at improving their creativity and effectiveness in generating product-based solutions. The deliverable that they get rewarded for is industrial design. Research is the means to discover and produce a design solution as efficiently as possible. IDEO research is focused on observational and experiential methods. It is fast and when done with this narrow focus, it can be done by designers or less experienced researchers. This approach fits into IDEO's highly-margined prepackaged process where the industrial design or product solution is the hero.
Darrel Rhea — 29 June 2004
I’m a guy that truly enjoys tech gadgets and am an early adopter of them. But the true tech geek has the patience and skill to delve deeply into the programming details to make them work and loves that challenge. Me? I’m a show boater. I want the benefits of the new thing but don’t like paying the price for being on the bleeding edge of technology. I’m lazy. So when a cool new technology comes that works right out of the box, I'm thrilled.
Christopher Ireland — 19 June 2004
I'm spending much of this month in NY, primarily in support of our rapidly growing office here, but also because I love it here. I didn't always feel this way. I've been visiting NY for over 20 years, but I usually stayed in a mid-town hotel, complete with $20 continental breakfasts, constant sirens and harshly sterile recirculated air. My adoration of this remarkable city only came when I took the risk of becoming a resident...or at least, a temporary resident...courtesy of Craig's List.
Darrel Rhea — 10 June 2004
OK, we admit it. We're envious of our friends at IDEO getting a cover story in Business Week. Kudos to IDEO. And kudos to Bruce Nussbaum for highlighting design in a way that millions of readers can relate to.
It gets people thnking and talking about design and that's gotta be good. It also gives companies like us (Cheskin) an opportunity to show our nuanced approach to research, consumer understanding, and ultimately, design.
What I liked most about the article was that it actually talked about the design process and the way innovation happens, not just the slick output of the process. Those of us who have spent our careers in design know that the clever, elegant, and aesthetically beautiful product represents the tip of an enormous iceberg of activities that are invisible to the lay public. Lurking under the sexy appearance is often years of hard work, thousands of man hours -- work done by designers and design researchers whose output is less easy to photograph but is critical none the less.
Christopher Ireland — 6 June 2004
I recently presented at a DMI conference on Brand design. I have no interest in recapping my talk because I was so knocked out by the presentation of another. Bruce Mau presented an overview of his Massive Change project.
I'd seen Bruce present at The Art Center Design Conference a couple of months ago, but some how missed the full power of his idea (my coworker, Terri Ducay blogged briefly about it). Earl Powell at DMI wisely grants his selected speakers an hour. Bruce used his time wisely to explain and elaborate on concepts such as the following:
Steve Diller — 23 May 2004
I've been working on a book, in collaboration with Nathan Shedroff, on Designing Meaningful Experiences. The process of pulling our ideas together has been hugely exciting and stimulating. One key aspect of the work has involved trying to read everything I can get my hands on on design, meaning, and experience. A lot to deal with, I know.
We realized that there'd be a lot of verbiage to work through, and wasn't disappointed. Massive amounts of information are available on all three areas. What surprised me was the frequent lack of sophistication in the business arena on all three subjects, compared to the academic press.
Christopher Ireland — 17 May 2004
After leaving Bristol last week, I spent the weekend in London and now am in Amsterdam. The transition from London to Amsterdam turned out to create a wonderful juxtaposition of design aesthetics. London appears to have never seen an architectural flourish they couldn't use. The buildings are crawling with textures, icons, sculpture, fixtures and literally hundreds of decorative motifs. These are, in many respects, the fantasy castles of my childhood.
A brief hop across the channel to Amsterdam and suddenly its gone, replaced by a lovely, but spare architecture of geometric planes, startlingly in its absence of artifice. I am a naive tourist with very little knowledge of Dutch history so I won't even attempt to explain how this could be. But I would love to understand it better. So if anyone knows of a great book or site explaining the driving motivations of Dutch design, pls let me know.
Christopher Ireland — 12 May 2004
I'm currently attending 2AD, a conference hosted by HP Labs in Bristol, UK. It's a small gathering focused on improving the design of information devices (or appliances as they're known here). The conversations I'm having are very good--and that's how I judge conferences.
They're also being a bit experimental with the format, which I think is healthy. As I write, there's a wireless robot soccer game going on to my left. Two people are doing Tai Chi in front of me, with a juggler practicing off to the right. This morning there was a class on how to prototype with cheap tools like pipecleaners and clay, and a class teaching how to draw rough sketches. They have the normal collection of speeches, white papers, posters and demos, but the sense of play and "street fair" nature of the gathering helps it to stand out.
Steve Diller — 5 May 2004
Just came back from an incredible week in Shanghai. The reconstruction of the city is arguably the most important urban design initiative since the rebuilding of Paris in the 1800s. Undeniably glamorous, the new Shanghai is consciously, centrally-designed, to project an image of the ultimate in internationalism. Architecture is about as out-there as one can find anywhere. Greenbelts make the city both attractive and the most environmentally progressive in China.
In a way, the Chinese Communists have found a formula that has allowed them to become the ultimate modernists, something always promised by Marxism but rarely seen in previous Communist regimes. And yet.
Jenny Daley — 4 May 2004
I don’t like to buy things hot off the assembly line. Perhaps I’m too cynical, but I’m convinced that the bugs in the first version of any product negatively outweigh any fun I might get from being the first on my block to own it. Sometimes I wish I were an early adopter… over the last few years I’ve seen them on the train each morning with their iPods, their flip phones, their jack-of-all-trades PDAs/Smartphones, looking quite smug with themselves as they enjoy whatever is most of that moment.
However, 99% of the time I’m happy with the fact that I have generation two or even three. For example, last summer I bought a Volkswagen Jetta. Yes, that same Jetta body that’s been out since ’99. Everyone who bought the Jetta in ’99 hated it and told me about the problems with the windows, the doors, the engine – you name it, it was a problem. Not a problem on the 2003 version I’m happy to report. In fact, every conceivable flaw I was warned about had been fixed in a manner that considerably improved the original design!
Lee Shupp — 27 April 2004
I’ve just purchased Dell’s Digital Jukebox, and I’m a happy camper. Right now I’m sitting on a long plane flight listening to Cassandra Wilson, who has taken me to an alternative reality that I much prefer to the drudgery of a cross country flight. (I could rave for days about Cassandra, one of my favorite singers, but I won’t do that here.)
Adding a soundtrack to life completely changes your experience of reality. You can proactively pick your mood (blues for a long Monday, fast funk for a work blitz, moody jazz to detach and relax) and transform experience to something much more pleasant. My digital jukebox has gone with me to the gym, the grocery store, the New York subway, and the airport, and all of these experiences have been much improved. Yes, I know social critics rant about detaching from reality, but I’m not a zombie. I still observe external reality, and I can easily hit pause if something happens worth paying attention to.
Jenny Daley — 12 April 2004
When it rains it pours… since writing about WiFi at SBC Park, I’ve noticed other places where WiFi is going to be available, and not the typical “coffee with a side of WiFi” that we’ve been seeing at places like Starbucks and other coffee chains, or “McWiFi” at McDonald’s. (As an aside, Denny’s recently announced they’ll be offering wireless access in their restaurants.) This new WiFi offering is all about enhancing or providing a deeper experience of whatever the consumer is visiting physically.
Darrel Rhea — 9 April 2004
No Guts -- No Glory
Cheskin has provided me a front row seat to observe businesses attempt to innovate products and brands for 25 years. The industry swings over time, and now I am seeing greater interest in innovation emerge once again. Not surprisingly, we have seen a lull recently. The dot bomb exuberance made risk-taking appear idiotic. Sarbanes-Oxley has riveted senior management’s attention on providing steady-handed corporate governance. And the poor economy has punished many companies for attempting innovation initiatives.
Now the economy is picking up, and the time for retrenchment and tail-covering is over. Customers and consumers are demanding innovation and the market will reward those capable of the gumption for delivering it
This time around, however, managers are most interested in big innovation without risk. Can’t we engineer a process to deliver transformative change and be smart enough to eliminate risk? While Cheskin’s approach certainly substantially reduces risk and provides focus and efficiency, real innovation fundamentally does involve risk. Unless you embrace that risk, you are very likely to fail.
Consider this analogy: you are trying to learn to ski on steep downhill runs. If you lean forward and embrace the risk you gain control. There is still risk and you are aware of it, but it does not impede you. If you resist the risk and attempt to gain control by being tentative and going slow, not only do you expend more effort, you are more likely to fall.
Jenny Daley — 5 April 2004
I spent a cold afternoon watching the Giants play the A’s yesterday at SBC Park with some out-of-town guests who nearly froze in their seats, expecting bikini weather, not San Francisco’s famous fog. We warmed up with Gilroy garlic fries and enjoyed the Bay Area rivalry unfold from our noisy bleacher seats. Sitting there, I thought how great it was to think about nothing more than baseball (though I’ll admit I’m not much of a sports fan until food is involved) and enjoying time with people we don’t get to see very often. That is until my cell phone rang…
Darrel Rhea — 2 April 2004
What a great place Barcelona is to visit to increase your design awareness, or just get stimulated. This is a beautiful city, and it appears to have been that way for centuries. The architecture is delightful everywhere you turn, demonstrating that the Spanish are never afraid to add details with the sole purpose of delighting people. Every time I come to Barcelona I am more taken with the brilliance of Gaudi. Here is a sketch I did of his apartment roof, La Pedera.
I did this on my tablet PC. I am enjoying learning to draw again, after years of laying off. The tablet is a fantastic tool for serious art and quick sketches too.
Darrel Rhea — 2 April 2004
I have teaching innovation processes and research for quite a while now. This week I have been in Barcelona, Spain, working with 25 executives from around the world. There is nothing like public speaking to an international audience to make me aware of how many figures of speech and how much slang I use to explain myself. Participants included people who flew in from Brazil, New Zealand, Australia, US, China, UK, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Spain…and other countries! You can’t take anything for granted with an audience like this.
Next time I go abroad, I am going to review my slides for slang. It is a good idea for my domestic talks too. Using slang gives me a casual style that is fun and personal, but I now realize how inappropriate and insensitive it is for those who don’t get the joke. Sometimes it is hard for me to recognize my own use of slang words. (Sharing materials with any non-native speaker can usually reveal then quickly, so I’ll just have to remember to schedule time to have one of my many international Cheskin colleagues review them.)
Christopher Ireland — 2 April 2004
Jenny Daley turned me on to Kinja, a very simple blog aggregator that unashamedly states it is "not aimed at early adopters." Thank god.
I'm in the very earliest stages of trying Kinja, but I like several features (in addition to the simple interface). I like the unobtrusive way they integrate ads. I'm happy to have someone else subsidize the site--just don't make me wince. I like that it doesn't require a download so it can be accessed whereever I happen to be. I love the organization of highlighted blogs into simple categories that make sense to me (tech, baseball, sex, liberal, conservative, etc). The "Showcase" section was somewhat disappointing in its collection of featured blogs, but I found several cool sites under the Science headings, including Future Now , Transterrestrial Musings, and SteveBerlinJohnson (very pleased to find his site as I loved reading both Emergence and Interface Culture).
Christopher Ireland — 1 April 2004
As a very early web cruiser, my email address is now on just about every junk mailing list out there. I innocently signed up for services in the mid-90's that promised to pay my bills, connect with lost friends or organize my life. Mostly what they did was go out of business and sell my address. Like many others, I open my email each morning to find offers to improve my "love muscle," get Vi@gra cheap, watch hot chicks do things I never knew were possible and get out of debt fast. Two spam blocking programs save my day.
Darrel Rhea — 31 March 2004
Forget what I said about Lufthansa, I take it all back!! (see previous Blog).
The efficient Lufthansa ground crew met me at my late connection in Munich, hustled me down some stairs and into a sedan, raced me across the airport, alerted security and customs by radio, whisked me through backdoors, marble staircases, gleaming glass security doors, and delivered me to a waiting Airbus A340-600. We encountered almost 15 people along the way, each who anticipated my arrival and knew my name. I walked on the plane and the door shut behind me. Welcome Mr. Rhea. Whew. I felt quite the VIP. What a customer experience!
I found my seat in business class and noticed that this was a brand new plane. How new? The photographers were on the runway snapping pictures. The Airbus A340-600 is the new flagship for long-haul international travel and the Lufthansa people were very proud of it. It is huge with completely redesigned interior components. When you sit down in the Recaro-designed seating system, you enter a personal space that is reminiscent of the complexity of an aircraft cockpit.
This brings up a classic design innovation problem. It is clear that the designers were definitely in touch with the needs of long-haul travelers and did substantial research on features, ergonomics, user interaction, and aesthetics. But in responding to these needs and desires, they have created a system that is incredibly complex. I was blown away at first, a kid in a candy store. Finally, a seating system that wasn’t designed to hurt my 6’4” body. I started tweaking buttons to get comfortable without quite getting it right. Then I did what I almost never do; I read the 12 page user manual.
— 31 March 2004
Walking down the baby aisle in Target last week, my husband and I stared at shelf after shelf of bottles. Tall ones, short ones, fat ones. Knowing that we are first time parents, it comes as no surprise that we are completely bewildered and a little overwhelmed at all the "stuff" that we supposedly "have to have" for the baby (or else)...but a whole row of bottles? Not only are there different manufacturers, but there are different product lines by each manufacturer and then you have to know what size hole your baby prefers to select the appropriate nipple size. I won't go further on that topic but, you might imagine, the cold sweats start. How am I supposed to decide? If I don't get the right ones will my baby slowly starve to death?
So logically, to make a quick decision, I call my mother. This is the woman who makes all her purchase decisions based on what is most practical. Well, unfortunately, I come to find out that 30+ years ago, you didn't have a choice - there was one - your baby either liked it or they didn't. As we walked away, deciding to do more research before we made a purchase, I thought to myself, "Do we have too many choices?"
Jenny Daley — 26 March 2004
Unlike a number of people here at Cheskin, I didn’t attend TED 2004. Based on the glowing posts of the people who did attend, you think I’d be devastated that I missed such a rewarding experience.
But I’m not. Sure, I missed TED in the flesh. I didn’t listen to Jennifer Lin’s piano piece at the moment she composed it, I didn’t get to see how fantastic the flying car was in person, nor did I get to nudge the person next to me and exchange glances about how much we were mutually enjoying one of the many great presentations.
Davis Masten — 23 March 2004
I await my first SONG flight to taxi here at Tampa airport. I flew in two nights ago on TED. My virgin tours of America's new airline entries do not inspire hope for the parent companies.
As our group of six executives waited to board we were befuddled by Zone confusion. While Zones may work for Southwest, here they begged coherency. Add this to not being able to hear or read what zones were boarding, it did not did not sing sweetly to us. Once seated the attendant barked directives sharing her obviously bad day with the rest of us. With over 2 million actual miles in the air, I rarely hear attendant say something fresh. But hey, maybe they will sing a new song, play a new tune, whatever. I am open new experiences. Well, here is what we got. We were scolded for putting coats in the overhead bins before all the bags were in. We were instructed to stand up, take out coats out of the bins because people insist on carrying on so many bags. This song is starting off key.
Terri Ducay — 22 March 2004
Having just returned from the Art Center Design Conference, Bruce Mau has reinforced my belief that designers are brilliant at problem solving complex issues.
Christopher Ireland — 16 March 2004
Denise's blog on SNAM reminded me of the reaction I had when first exposed to networking sites. With Friendster, it was simple curiousity that motivated me to join. I stopped paying attention when I suddenly had 34,000 friends.... But as the networking invitations increased, including LinkedIn, Spoke and Orkut, I became more intentional. I only have so much bandwidth for this type of experimentation, so I needed to choose.
I looked at the services, the software features and the interface. In some cases, the choice was easy. Orkut is clearly positioning itself to young singles--that's not me. With LinkedIn and Spoke, the decision was tougher. I actually preferred Spokes' approach. The privacy factor scored high with me and it seems to have a more deliberate business focus. But in the end, it was my friends that won out. When I compared who I knew in Spoke with who I knew at LinkedIn, i noticed that my "party list" was better represented at LinkedIn. Since for me, networking is all about friends, I chose LinkedIn, despite its shortcomings. This could get interesting...
Darrel Rhea — 14 March 2004
An old friend of mine shows up every 8 years. Each time, he has transformed himself and entered into some new wacky reality. I always love seeing him – he makes me feel like such a conformist.
In his previous incarnation, he was designing fiber optic networks in Silicon Valley. One employer after the next grew quickly and was then acquired by some larger company. He was constantly changing jobs in the go-go years until the bottom dropped out of the networking business in the dot.bomb. Always the entrepreneur, he scanned the globe for opportunities and settled on China as the epicenter of the Next Big Thing.
He sold his house, packed up his family, shipped his car and moved to Beijing. This is NOT a small thing. Beijing is not prepared for foreigners to immigrate there. Sure, they can handle executives from the big multinationals who live temporarily in gated western-style enclaves. But an individual guy and his family, moving in to set up business in China (as a Chinese company)? He is one of the very first of what I call “cultural smoke jumpers” to land, and he has had to learn how to navigate in the middle of a 5000 year old culture that is experiencing a firestorm of reinvention. His aggressiveness is the essence of why the US can lead in innovation.
Darrel Rhea — 7 March 2004
I recently got a new tablet (see previous blog) and am discovering new delights all the time. Here are several details about it for those of you who are curious.
Writing on a tablet computer is a big deal. It changes everything. I'm writing this message with a pen directly on my tablet. It’s translating my cursive handwriting into typed text. I actually have very neat printing (that anal designer/architect hand), but surprisingly, it doesn't work as well as a messy cursive for the tablet. I’m not making any effort to be neat or precise, and so far this paragraph has not required any correction -- except my misspelling of the word "tablet," and even that only required a click of the button on the pen to pull up the correct spelling to fix it. While I have not converted to cursive entry for the majority of my input yet, I may soon. I am not a fast typist, but I sure can write messy script faster than I can type.
The power of this format really starts showing up when I combine typing input with the handwriting. So far, I am much faster editing text on a keyboard and some kinds of input just works better typing, such as serious text documents or spreadsheets. I can't imagine not having the option of both. (That could change as my skills improve.) The bottom line: the power of the tablet is not in replacing the keyboard input -- it is in adding the handwriting function.
Christopher Ireland — 1 March 2004
I noted earlier this week that I was attending TED, a conference built around Technology, Entertainment and Design. The event was started in the early 90's by Richard Saul Wurman--a man who knew how to host a conference, but who apparently didn't know how to find talented women to speak at one. Every year, I'd look at the list of speakers and count the number of women on one hand (and usually at least 3 were singers).
One year, a brave soul in the audience asked Wurman why he showcased so few women. He replied that there were none talented enough for this particular conference. I've remembered that statement for years, so it was with profound satisfaction that I watched at least a dozen excellent presentations by females, and in particular, one performance by a 14 year old girl. Her name is Jennifer Lin and she is a creative genius capable of bringing a roomful of CEOs, VCs and wild inventors to tears.
Darrel Rhea — 29 February 2004
Yes, I’m crazy in love with my wife Nancy (blush), but that isn’t what I want to write about (this time). Of all things, I’m in love with…a new computer.
That's right. After getting new computers regularly for 25 years, I just took delivery on one that is making a quantum leap in my experience of using these nasty boxes. It is fundamentally changing my behavior at work and at home…and in a good way. My new computer/software combo is allowing me to work and play in a way that is natural to me. Designed to adapt to the ways I like to work, manage, and communicate, I have more freedom to be at my peak creative. This shift is profound and completely surprising, given that the product is the result of incremental improvements of technologies that have been around for a long time.
As a reader, your defenses should be WAY up about now because this is sounding like computer ad copy hype you have been reading for eons. But bear with me. This system represents a wave of changes that will probably impact you soon.
Darrel Rhea — 22 February 2004
When one lives in Palo Alto, one is expected to celebrate unabashed nerdism. Here, brilliant nerds bask in the attention of an elite technology community who slathers attention upon them. The more esoteric the research inquiry, the higher the status.
Dropping by PARC research center after dinner, my wife and I listened to a talk by Gordon Bell (a “Father of Computing” figure and a driver behind the VAX computer), and researcher Jim Gemmell of Microsoft. Their project is called “MyLifeBits.” Here is my sketch of Gordon:
They are attempting to log into their computers as much of their human experience as they can, and prototype a system for searching it. Everything goes in, and I mean everything. Every website they visit, every CD, piece of video, audio recording, phone call, photograph they own, ad infinitum. Very ambitious.
This is interesting in terms of its implications on operating systems (this research will impact Longhorn (the next version of Windows) and therefore will be something that impacts most of our lives). But much more interesting to me are the thorny questions this inquiry raises about the future.....
Christopher Ireland — 19 February 2004
We’re headquartered in the Bay Area, so we have a front row seat to the recent debates over Gay marriage here. Personally, I support any form of commitment people want to have, and I’m amused to see various groups explaining why it’s good to love some people, but not others. But this is a business blog, so what’s my point?
This whole uprising underscores what my colleague, Lee Shupp, has told me repeatedly—“The government is the last adopter of a trend.” If the government is now acknowledging the possibility of Gay marriage, that says that most of the country has already considered it, debated it and decided—one way or another—on what they think. SF’s mayor is simply responding to his marketplace.
— 19 February 2004
When Apple released its iLife ‘04 suite containing a music creation program called Garageband in early January, they successfully tapped into a longstanding and deep cultural current. In his keynote address, Jobs cited a Gallup poll asserting approximately half of all US households include at least one member who actively plays a musical instrument. While that number seems high to me, it is historically resonate, if not currently accurate.
Christopher Ireland — 12 February 2004
Hopefully, some of you have noticed that we've not blogged for a couple of months. We are neither dead, nor bored with blogging. To the contrary, we rapidly outgrew our previous blog infrastructure and needed to build a new one. To that end, we hired Stuart Henshall to architect our new blog and give us "room to move."
We had no idea what a smart idea that was. It's taken two months, and we've been aching to blog, so I was very impatient and grouchy. He moved us from Blogger to Moveable Type, taught us the importance of category tags, blog rolls, news readers and a host of other useful concepts and tools. He's coached us how to use blogging as both an internal as well as an external tool. And he's excited a whole new group of bloggers here at Cheskin.
I invite you to visit our blogs again--we promise to keep them very up to date and to continue exploring this fascinating space. It's not our full time job, so I doubt that will win any Technorati popularity contests, but we have a pretty interesting seat at the table right now and we're happy to share.
Darrel Rhea — 9 November 2003
While unwrapping an item that was in storage, my brother-in-law noticed the newspaper page it was wrapped in and sent it back here from New Zealand. The December 1984 SF Examiner had two items of note.
First, a story about hackers. Hackers were first covered in Newsweek and ABC News that week, and the reporter said “I guess most pros can handle the mob and the Middle East terrorists. It’s the kids with tape on their glasses who really scare them.” He equates hacking with “simple pranksterism,” equivalent to putting soap in the local fountain or burning a bag of dog poop on the porch. “When this all blows over, I sure hope we don’t see some weird anti-computer legislation. I’m sure the pint-sized threat to society, the techno-punk prepubescent “hackers” will get what they deserve – a good spanking.” Now, I hope that reporter has lived through his share of worms…
Second, an ad for a 128K Macintosh for $1700 and an Apple IIc for $1050. What a deal!
Christopher Ireland — 1 November 2003
I am the proud new owner of a Prius Hybrid. For those of you who don't know about them, hybrids combine both gas and electric engines to deliver roughly 60 mpg fuel efficiency. You don't have to plug them in and they aren't sluggish golfcarts.
In some ways, this was an easy choice for me. Since I believe our behavior in the MidEast is largely motivated by our thirst for oil, and since I am adamantly against the war, I realized that driving a car that got less than 25 mpg made be a big ole hypocrit. But that car was a gorgeous blue Jag XK8 convertible that I had wanted all my life. I hoped that the car makers would notice that people like me are starting to define luxury to include environmental and political responsibility. But no luck. GM and Ford are promising fuel cell technology about 10 years from now--way too late in my book.
Toyota and Honda both offer hybrids. I went with the Toyota Prius because it looks different (the Honda hybrid looks exactly like every other Civic). By looking different, I'm making a clear expression of my choice. Apparently, others are starting to make the same choice. Over 100 Prius's were pre-ordered from my dealer. Most of us loaded them up with extras and installed leather seats (you don't buy a Prius to save money, but unfortunately, Toyota markets them like they are economy cars).
The biggest surprise--in fact, delight--with my new car is how incredibly modern it is. I have a fabulous GPS navigation system, a keyless entry system that makes me feel like a magician, an excellent touch screen sound system, Bluetooth enabled connectivity, and built-in PIM software (rudimentary, but an impressive effort). I still miss my lovely Jag, and the minute they offer a hybrid engine, I'll reconsider them. But the bar is definitely raised now that I know all the good things I can get in a car for a grand total of $30K.
Davis Masten — 30 October 2003
Typically I love articles on design. I remain disturbed by Michel Marriott's recent article For Mars and Venus: A Midpoint in Design (NYT CIRCUITS, October 9, 2003). I agree with many of the points in the article, particularly the quote from my old friend Brenda Laurel “If you are a man you are not a wuss for carrying it around. That’s the bottom line.” Brenda has had to fight in a man’s world and understands that if the product is” too fem”, it narrows the market. But I object to the article not drilling down a deeper gender and design issues.
Design, at least in the world of industrial design, interaction design and product development is still a man’s world. Women are still a small minority in the design world. While Steve Jobs can inspire great design out of men and women, most of the design infrastructure is biased towards the considerably less complicated world of men.
Christopher Ireland — 20 October 2003
We recently published a 35-page study on innovation, detailing how it's changing and what senior execs are emphasizing in this increasingly crucial process. We had a very tough time getting any media attention, so you can imagine our surprise when our web traffic shot up within hours of the study's release. Why? Blogs, for the most part, as Denise recounted last week.
In addition to the great distribution advantage of this grassroots media, it works both ways. As sites linked to us or referenced our study, we learned about their capabilities as well. One interesting find was Innovation Tools, a site that captures, shares and organizes the tools and techniques devoted to increased creativity. The blogging network is starting to remind me of a very good street market, where everyone's both a seller and buyer, working together to make a market. This is going to get interesting....
Denise Klarquist — 15 October 2003
The other day I received a very nice email from Gunnar Loy, the Managing Partner at Triibe Media, a brand and media consultancy. He was kind enough to translate the posts I had mentioned earlier in the German blog, Industrial Technology & Witchcraft. Thanks Gunnar!
Triibe's site is nice and incorporates audio in an interesting way. You don't find audio very often as part of a web brand, perhaps because it still has its pluses and minuses. (We wrote about audio branding on the web years ago, and other than the technology, not a lot has changed). The downside is that in an open office environment like ours, the sudden explosion of unexpected audio from a website can be quite startling. And sometimes embarrassing - I was recently researching toys which everyone near me knew as soon as they heard my laptop exclaim "hi, I'm Barbie!"
Perhaps it's time for some headphones ;-)
Darrel Rhea — 14 October 2003
Most of us have read articles like the one below from the NY Times, but there is a momentum building. The PowerPoint format is becoming synonymous with poor communication, and some segments of the culture are starting to agree that it should be avoided.
This is a lot like saying that electronic keyboards and computer music tools are responsible for there being so much bad music. No....music is now accessible to another 100 million people with no training and little talent, and these tools allow for mass distribution of this ineffective stuff. In the hands of pro musicans the medium allows good musical ideas and expressions be communicated efficiently and artfully. It aint the medium, its the message. (Hey, that's catchy.)
The vast majority of the 400 million PowerPoint users are "trying to play music with no training or experience." With no training in synthesizing information, designing presentations, graphic communications, and public speaking, they produce painful experiences.
Christopher Ireland — 9 October 2003
I can usually tell what's starting to get hot in the marketplace by the types of projects that cross our path here at Cheskin. Right now, I'd say the top contenders are grassroots marketing, cultural nuances, and hidden (or underserved) markets. The rising interest in grassroots is particularly intriguing because of its relation to social network theory. If this topic stays popular, it could fuel some very needed research into patterns of influence and how they've been impacted by social change and personal technology.
Denise Klarquist — 1 October 2003
Yesterday Cheskin and Fitch:Worldwide released a new research study on corporate innovation. Much to PR team's dismay, in spite of vigorous pre-pitching, the study didn't seem to catch on with the media (at least not yet). Nevertheless, on the day of the release, with only a BusinessWire distribution to our credit, our web traffic soared. To date we've had over 500 downloads of the report just from the Cheskin website (it's on the Fitch site as well).
Clearly, innovation is a hot topic. An equally important factor is the power of the blog - a huge amount of our web traffic yesterday was via blogs. Blogs and bloggers spread the word, including apple news, Rob Korver, and a German blog - Industrial Technology & Witchcraft (if I could read the site, perhaps I'd get the name, anyway...).
PR firms, PR departments and companies themselves need to take note of the power of this media over traditional media. It is truly amazing.
Christopher Ireland — 16 September 2003
I know that being an early adopter of technology is only for those with high frustration levels. And generally I qualify. I don't mind reading manuals, calling help desks, crawling under my desk to check connections, or walking into Fry's or CompUSA with a shopping list of needed accessories, all of which have names like XMB-200563 v.24. What I do mind is design that seems to have no concept of what a user is really like.
Let's take my home wifi network, for example. First of all, shouldn't there be some very clear and visible warnings about interference from microwaves and phones? Doesn't every home have these appliances? So why should I have to search the web to learn why my connection fails every time my child makes popcorn? Here's another easy one: if I'm supposed to pay attention to the tiny lights on the front of the router, the labels identifying them need to be large enough to read (and I have perfect vision). These are the no-brainers. I could spend all day on the instructions....
Christopher Ireland — 29 August 2003
This week I heard the comment "information flowing like a river" about a dozen times. Seems to be the metaphor de jour. Normally, this type of buzz wouldn't bother me, but in this case, I think it reflects a deep and dangerous misunderstanding of the nature of information flow. I noticed that most of the people referring to information flows being like a river were tech oriented folks. From their point of view, I can see why the metaphor makes sense. If your information is flowing over a network, thru routers, hubs, portals, et al, then the flow will seem very linear and like a river. But that's not how information exists in the world.
A more apt metaphor is an "information ocean," complete with currents, tides, canyons, mountains, islands and shores. We are immersed in information. It surrounds us and impacts all of our senses. We can not step out of it or "float" exclusively on a narrow band of it. As a good example, I'm sitting in my kitchen typing this blog. I can hear a movie playing in the family room, the lights above me are humming softly, the picture on the wall is a favorite satire of dinner, the calendar next to it reminds me of upcoming events, this site is filled with "help" info if I need it, I'm thinking of my friends, I can smell my daughter's hair as she moves past, I can still taste dinner, and my legs are reminding me that I had a hard workout today. All of that information is coursing through my mind simultaneously.
The same thing happens when I'm at work. The flow of information is constantly waxing and waning, responsive to the "temperature" of the office, the economic climate, the entities passing each other, the obstacles that pop up and the rescue vehicles on hand. I'd love to be able to chart this flow and figure out its physics. I know it would be massively helpful in terms of productivity gains and efficiencies. But "dumbing it down" into a river will not make the task easier--it will just make it less meaningful. Charting an ocean takes a long time and a lot of effort.
Darrel Rhea — 26 August 2003
The convergence of media, computing, communications, audio, home theater, gaming and security devices is starting to happen as predicted, but boy, are we a long way off from having a compelling experience of their integration. Shopping, purchasing, installing and using these products together is a nightmare or just impossible. But many of us really want it, in fact, we're dying for it. But unless you are a wealthy nerd button tweaker, yer out of luck, buddy.
Home Decorators are from Venus, Consumer Electronics are from Mars
The products are made separately by different companies and it really shows. The cliché for the breakdowns are the pile of 6 or more remote control devices on the coffee table, but it goes sooo much deeper. It is clear no one is designing the whole enchilada, the whole experience. But what a business opportunity!! Imagine one integrated system of components...
1) Start with a beautiful architectural space that was design for the consumption of media and entertainment, with many of the functions built into the envelope of the home. Windows that become flat screens, walls that become projection surfaces and speakers. Light control, ventilation, security all designed together with how the user will actually use the space in mind.
2) Then add space planning that works for your life style. Not a space filled with tech products -- a space that is comfortable, functional and social.
3) Add furniture and accessories designed specifically for these uses -- with aesthetics that match your personal taste. Cup holders, tables, outlets, task and reading light, storage cubbies, printers are all built-in. Not cold repurposed office ergo-wear, but home decor with style…your style… regardless if it is tech or American traditional.
4) Now (and only now) add the capabilities for media and entertainment with ONE intuitive interface. The components are invisible (unless you need to worship the tech alter and stare into stacks of black boxes with sexy glowing LEDs). Wireless connectivity is just there.
5) And consider that you went to one store to buy this experience, perhaps even one brand of products and installation service. One brand of design services, electronic hardware products, cable/satellite/broadband, communications, furnishing, accessories, installation and maintenance.
Is there an Analog?
What is the existing analog for this? The automobile. I just bought and Infinity FX. There is a tremendous amount of complex technology (home theater, GPS, satellite radio, video cameras, distance sensors, etc.) that is all integrated, with an interface that is simple. The experience is NOT about a network of individual components sharing technical standards. It is about the driving experience, including the social aspects of what a family wants to do on a trip. Architecture, space planning, furnishing, accessories, media, integrated interface, purchase experience….all integrated and accessible.
What’s it going to take?
When home design gets designed from the ground up as a packaged experience (like a car), we stand a chance of having a connected home that will fundamentally change our experience of “home.” Who could do this? A marketer that can lead a group of talented designers, architects, engineers, technologists, and design researchers. While I love the work we do for the leading global component makers, designing the home experience is what I long for.
Christopher Ireland — 24 August 2003
Denise gently reminded me that the fatal temptation of blogging is talking too much about yourself. I suppose that's just an easy place to start, but she's right. Fortunately, my vantage point provides me dozens of other topics. Design is one of them.
I had an interesting conversation with a client last week, who apologized for some very mediocre industrial design by explaining "the form factor is set by the manunfacturers." He went on to explain that only a few companies can make this particular device and every part of the design represents a tradeoff between features and components. Hence the product can be either pretty or powerful.
In this case, that may be true and there may be no options. But in most cases I've seen, ugly or boring design is not inevitable, it's just most safe and convenient for the marketer. Form factor is a limitation, but it's also a platform for innovation. For a dramatic counter-example, look at clothing design. The form factor (humans) hasn't changed in thousands of years, yet the design of our "covering", clothing, has gone thru countless morphs. By varying structural form, texture, color, size, depth, transparency, accessories, material and brand, clothing manufacturers continue to delight audiences with new looks season after season (well, this past season was pretty "undelighting", but most of the time they succeed).
This type of design takes great talent and close attention to market tastes and trends, but it pays off handsomely. To those of you who fret over consumers who won't pay more than $100 for a device, consider that men and women routinuely pay that for clothes that they may toss after a year. They pay up to twice that for shoes and bags--reacting solely to their design. And this is from the mass market--focus in on fashion's "early adopters" or upscale purchasers and you'll see them drop a grand on the perfect shirt.
When Palm first hit the market with their gorgeous PDA, I hoped they would jumpstart a more broad-based exploration of industrial design options. Certainly, Nokia and Sony have made some efforts in that direction and Apple continues to hold the high ground. But most of the computer manufacturers are barely breaking new ground (ok, so now we have a few curves and an accent color...), phones have much more room to experiment, PDAs are stuck in a late 90's world, and god help those home entertainment guys who never saw a button or dial they didn't like. As my good friend, Bonnie Johnson, once remarked. The biggest competitor technology companies will probably ever face is Calvin Klein. Once he or his collegues focus on tech devices, the game's over.
Davis Masten — 16 August 2003
My daughter Kelley, an assistant fashion editor at JANE magazine, called me last Thursday afternoon from New York. She said the lights were out in and all around her office so she wanted to know what was going on. "The lights flickered in the elevator and I got off immediately otherwise I would still be in there. Those poor people who stayed on." I'll leave the Blackout stories to those who were closer than 2,500 miles. (I was in Silicon Valley.)
Kelley called my cell phone from her dark office building in Manhattan from the only thing that was still working, her landline phone. I had not heard a thing so I got on the net. I searched Google, CNN, ABC News and only found a couple of paragraphs of vague description on each. When I hit MSNBC, they were streaming video with voice over. I held the cell up to the little speakers on my VAIO laptop and let her hear the voiceover saying that Mayor Bloomberg was calling this a natural disaster not an act of terrorism.
My take away: 1. I found it amazing how I could help out from so far away with a mix of technologies that barely existed in the consumer world a mere 10 years ago. 2. I found it amusing how “natural disaster” applied so well to describing how a technology had broken down.
Denise Klarquist — 23 July 2003
Christopher has been invited to speak on a panel at a CEO Summit in the Fall. The question came up about how she might be able to add something to the tired topic of succeeding in a rebound economy (providing it's really rebounding of course).
INHO, I think one of the keys lies in rethinking the concept of innovation or looking for competitive advantage outside of the tried and true. What comes to mind (just having finished a presentation to my company about the wonders of the blogosphere) is how technology is really changing. I hate the phrase "paradigm shift" but when you think of the implications of [free] weblog technologies on business, just to name one, it's amazing.
One conversation in my presentation was about cost. I couldn't figure out how Blogger made enough money to survive (pre Google), considering how useful the product is and the amount they must spend on supporting and hosting their client base. Then I realized that probably at least 1/4 of blogs use BloggerPro at $35/yr (~200,000 bloggers). That's $7M/yr. doh! Good for them, great for me.
I'll probably add another app [for a small donation] to allow visitors to easily subscribe to our blog, and other parts of our site, and get automatically pinged when we add more content. This will take maybe 4 hours of my time, but will save me dozens of hours in "old fashioned" email newsletter marketing.
Tim asked if blogs could be used for collaborative data gathering and analysis for a global project. Easily [for free] (aside from some server security issues)
Microsoft OneNote may revolutionize the way we organize and manage shared knowledge resources if we decide to use it in a simple unique way. It will be cheap (I think ;-)
The new term I'm hearing for multi-skilled people is "versatilist." I think as people strive for richness and balance in their lives, you'll see a growing talent pool of people with expertise in diverse areas - how can an avid gamer with an industrial design background who writes code and marketing plans be used? What advantages can those types of people bring to an organization?
My point is, a hyper-awareness of and curiosity for new technology and change, and an open mind can yield advantage and efficiencies for business if it's applied in creative ways. And it won't break the budget if the economy doesn't rebound as quickly as we think.
Darrel Rhea — 13 July 2003
Most of the world doesn’t have a pot to pee in, and it is time that we deal with it.
The vast majority (80%) of the people on this earth make less than $2000 a year. Let that sink in for a moment. How would your life (and your family’s life) be different on 5 bucks a day? What about $1 a day?
If you are a marketer or a designer, it means that just about everything you do will impact a very, very small fraction of the people on earth.
I’m not saying what you and I do doesn’t matter. If you are designing a titanium cell phone, it might matter very much to the person buying and using it -- it might be a favorite possession that bestows a veneer of cool upon them. Marketing that new flavor of aerosol Cheese Wiz might make some happy snackers. Your new design for women’s jeans might be the fashion statement that helps the teen click with her desired clique. Or designing a software productivity tool might have so much utility that allows someone to buy a Bimmer. Really, this IS making a difference and it can be fun.
But let’s face it. We might be lucky if our products or services are relevant (or even understandable) to 10% of the world’s population. We can do work that matters very much to those select few, and do work that we can be proud of. But we aren’t changing the world. We aren’t using our considerable professional skills to make a difference on a grand scale.
But WHAT IF we could make a difference, a bigger game, make a contribution that really served those billions that don’t share our wireless/Starbucks/jet plane/Pentium/drive-thru reality? Could it be more fun, more fulfilling, and make us prouder of our life’s work than what we are doing now? Only you can answer that.
For me, the answer is yes. In my decades at Cheskin, we have touched a whole lot of commerce (hundreds of billions or perhaps trillions of dollars of commerce – literally hundreds of global brands, thousands of global products and services. Pepsi, Coke, McDonald’s, Intel, Microsoft, Citibank, Guinness, Motorola, HP, etc.) Most of it has been great, challenging work. I have been on the front-lines of marketing and design and am proud of how we have helped make brands and products meaningful to consumers. And I intend on doing a lot more of it.
And… I am looking for more. What if we could use the experience we have as marketers, researchers, designers, and leverage our knowledge of best practices to solve some of the world’s serious problems? Water, sanitation, healthcare, medicine, protein, income generation.
If we are as good as we say we are, we should be able to identify the products or services that the people who are “of the majority of those on this earth”… actually need. We should be able to design them to be useful, desirable, affordable, culturally appropriate, environmentally sustainable, and most importantly, we should craft a profitable business model that attracts businesses to build and distribute them.
(In comparison, designing for the wealthy should be like shooting fish in a barrel. Hell, sometimes we charge more for it just to make it more desirable.)
That is the conversation I am engaged in now. No blinding insights yet. But like-minded people are showing up and activity is starting. World-class talent, with world-class resources and connections. If you feel the same as we do, and have a desire to test your own ability to make a difference, let me know and I’ll loop you into the action.
Designers without Borders. Extreme Marketing. You game?
Darrel Rhea — 4 July 2003
(And I ain't talkin' Monkey Pox)
You want to go head to head with T-Mobile in your own neighborhood? You can now and a company called NetShare will set you up in business. They allow their members' to share their broadband service with their community. If you have broadband, you can be a wireless hot spot and compete with the tacos.
"NetShare Admins can provide their neighborhood with wireless broadband access complemented by a suite of Speakeasy services like email, dialup, news and excellent add-ons (such as Rhapsody Radio Plus)! The Admin selects the monthly service fees for their customers, and Speakeasy handles all the billing - including crediting the Admin's account each month for 50% of the basic Customer fees."
"NetShare Customers will have the opportunity to experience Speakeasy's broadband services at a reduced cost. They'll also benefit from Speakeasy's excellent customer support and be eligible to take advantage of any special add-on services available only to Speakeasy customers.
Why is this cool? Haallloooowww! The wireless grid gets bigger and more ubiquitous, and out of the direct control of the local tacos who charge me BIG dollars and give me NO service. Viva la competition!!
Christopher Ireland — 27 June 2003
This presentation is a very funny parody of those of us who are PowerPoint dependent. As I read it, I was thinking "oh god, this is so familiar." I was laughing, but inside I was thinking just what I imagine the author wanted me to think---is PowerPoint changing the way I think? Is it making me think in bullet points? Am I losing richness of thought and language? Am I foregoing all possibility of being a national hero to future generations because I like animation?
Who knows. It's an appealing proposition, but I'm sure when the world shifted from hand-crafted, illustrated manuscripts to small printed books, a vocal group decried the end of rich thought. I'm as guilty as anyone of using PP as a crutch when I'm in a hurry and need some outside structure for my thinking. But it's also taught me to get to the point, be more clear, and to think about my audience. Those aren't bad influences. Personally, if Lincoln were alive today, I don't think he'd be a victim of PP--I think he'd be hooked on blogging.
© 2008 Cheskin Added Value