Fresh Perspectives
Account Management Director
As an Account Director at Cheskin, Lori Hobson works with our clients and project teams to define and deliver programs that create the best focus for achieving insightful, actionable results. Over the past decade, Lori has been deeply involved with design consultancies marrying design innovation techniques to address business opportunities, including development roles with IDEO, NewDealDesign, and Munich-based designafairs. Prior to her work in the design industry, Lori was a management consultant helping clients in the energy, technology, transportation and consumer goods industries achieve profitable growth through market strategy, product/service offerings, supply chain management, and broader business strategies.
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?
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Innovation & Design
by 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...
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Innovation & Design
by 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.
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Innovation & Design
by 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.
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Innovation & Design
by Lori Hobson, 0 comments
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?
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Innovation & Design
by 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.
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Innovation & Design
by 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.
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Innovation & Design
by 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.
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Innovation & Design
by 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.
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Innovation & Design
by Lori Hobson
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