distinct … or extinct: design = differentiator #1 dmi25: design-based leadership in the 21 st...
TRANSCRIPT
Distinct … or Extinct:Design = Differentiator #1
DMI25: Design-Based Leadership in
the 21st Century
Chatham 25October2000
THE BASE CASE: I am a design fanatic. Personally, though not “artistic,” I’m a cool-stuff guy. I love what
I love and I hate what I hate. [Openly.] But it goes [much] further, far beyond the personal. Design has
become a professional obsession. I - SIMPLY – BELIEVE THAT DESIGN PER SE IS
THE PRINCIPAL REASON FOR EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT [or detachment] RELATIVE TO A
PRODUCT OR SERVICE OR EXPERIENCE. Design, as I see it, is arguably the #1 determinant of
whether a product-service-experience stands out … or doesn’t. Furthermore, it’s “one of those things” …
that damn few companies put – consistently – on the front burner.
I. Welcome to the Age of
“Ohmygod!”
NOW THAT’S B-I-G!
“The period 2000-2002 will bring the single greatest change in
worldwide economic and business conditions since we came down from the trees.”
David Schneider & Grady Means, MetaCapitalism
“The corporation as we know it, which is now 120 years old, is
not likely to survive the next 25 years. Legally and
financially, yes, but not structurally and economically.”
Peter Drucker, Business 2.0 (08.00)
Message: Everybody’s scrambling. Nobody’s
“got it right.”
II. The 3B Problem:Better
But Boring!
Quality Not Enough!
“While everything may be better, it is also increasingly the
same.”Paul Goldberger on retail, “The Sameness
of Things,” The New York Times
“We make over three new product announcements a
day. Can you remember them?
Our customers can’t!”Carly Fiorina
“The ‘surplus society’ has a surplus of
similar companies, employing
similar people, with similar educational backgrounds, working in
similar jobs, coming up with similar
ideas, producing similar things, with
similar prices and similar quality.”
Kjell Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstrale, Funky Business
Message: Find an edge. Or else.
III. We Must Lead: Different
or Doomed!
“If you worship at the throne of the voice of the customer, you’ll get only
incremental advances.”Joseph Morone, President,
Bentley College
“These days, you can’t succeed as a company if you’re consumer led –
because in a world so full of so much constant change, consumers can’t
anticipate the next big thing.
Companies should be idea-led and consumer-
informed.”Doug Atkin, partner, Merkley Newman Harty
“Our strategies must be tied to leading edge
customers on the attack. If we focus on the defensive
customers, we will also become defensive.”
John Roth, CEO, Nortel
Message: You are paid to lead. So … lead!
IV. Design: The No.1 Source of
Passionate Attachment!
(Or undying despair)
Design “is” … WHAT &
WHY I LOVE. LOVE.
I LOVE my ZYLISS Garlic Peeler!
Design “is” … WHY I
GET MAD. MAD.
Wanted: Dead [preferably] or Alive: THE DESIGNER OF MY RADIO SHACK
PHONE. Major Reward!
Design is never neutral.
Hypothesis: DESIGN is the principal difference between love and
hate.
Message: Engage your Client in an
examination- exploration of why we
care about stuff. Or don’t.
V. Design is the Plot of a Great
Story!
“Car designers need to create a story. Every car provides an
opportunity to create an adventure. …“The Prowler makes you smile. Why? Because it’s focused. It has a plot, a
reason for being, a passion.”
Freeman Thomas, co-designer VW Beetle; designer Audi TT
Hmmmm(?): “Only” Words …
StoryAdventure
Smile Focus
PlotPassion
PlotWilliams Sonoma = 5 [was 10]
Crate & Barrel = 8Sharper Image = 9+
Smith & Hawken = 8+Garnet Hill = 9
L.L. Bean = 4 [was 9+]Colonial Williamsburg = ?
Message: “What’s the plot?” is a compelling
exercise!
VI. Great Design
is Respectful
“Sometimes I have episodes of wild fury in rental cars. It’s not road
rage. It’s more like design rage.”
Susan Casey, www.ecompany.com
User …
STOP BLAMING
YOURSELF! (Don
Norman/Design of Everyday Things)
Message: Work on Awareness. Start a
Notebook!
VII. Design is not about Lumps!
The I.D. [International Design] Forty*
Airstream … Alfred A. Knopf … Apple Computer … Amazon.com …
Bloomberg … Caterpillar … CNN … Disney … FedEx … Gillette … IBM … Martha Stewart … New Balance …
Nickelodeon … Patagonia … The New York Yankees … 3M … Etc.
* List No. 1, 1999
Lady Sensor, Mach3, and …
$70M on developing the OralB CrossAction toothbrush
23 patents, including 6 for the packaging
Source: www.ecompany.com [06.00]
TARGET … “the champion of America’s new design democracy” (Time)
Message: Design applies to (1) service
companies, (2) departmental affairs,
(3) 79-cent items.
VIII. Design is the Web!
Web = PURE DESIGN MEDIUM
“Most companies would do more business on the Internet if they
fired their entire marketing department and replaced it with
people who could produce interactive content that actually made it easier for users to buy.”
Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group
Red Herring (01/00)
75% of online shoppers don’t complete their
purchase!
SWA
Simple!!!!!!!!!!!! (customers call because the process is so easy they can’t
believe they’re done)
30% of revenues directly from site (vs. 6% for others)
Source: Business Week (09.00)
Message: The Web is the No. 1 entrée for designers into the
mainstream!
IX. Caution!
Message: All the “cool stuff” looks [exactly]
like all the other “cool stuff” in this, THE
BRIGHT NEW AGE OF DESIGN.
“Against Smoothness”
(Harper’s Magazine 07.2000)
Message: Buy a new CAD package. Or a set
of pencils.
X. Design & Work: W.W.P.F.
White Collar Revolution!
So what will be the Basic Building
Block of the New Org?
Answer: PSF![Professional Service Firm]
Department Head
to …
Managing Partner, HR [IS, etc.] Inc.
“P.S.F.”: Summary
H.V.A. Projects (100%)Pioneer Clients
WOW Work Hot “Talent”
“Adventurous” Point of View (Methodology)
W.W.P.F. (100%)When: Now!
Message: W.W.P.F. Prove your worth!
[E.g., get outside work.]
XI. Get Over It: ALL YOU NEED
IS ONE!
The next slide begins the Boss-free Implementation of Stuff
That Matters section.
Many of the slides have notes. Use Normal View to access.
Topic: Boss-free
Implementation of STM /Stuff That
MATTERS!
THE IDEA
“4Fs”: Find a Fellow
Freak Faraway
World’s Biggest Waste …
Selling “Up”
Heart of the Matter
F2F!*
*Freak to Freak … or K2K [Kook to Kook]
“Lead” customers!
K2K redux!
Great + risky design is always [??] a product of
engaging the Client – from the start – in a
journey to the unknown.
THE SOFT STUFF
Show Up!Connect!
Infect!
Message: It’s Community
Organizing, stupid!
See: Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals
“It was much later that I realized Dad’s secret. He gained respect by giving it. He
talked and listened to the fourth-grade kids in Spring Valley who shined shoes the same way he talked and listened to a
bishop or a college president. He was seriously interested in who you were and what you had to say.”
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Respect
BOTTOM LINE
The Enemy!
Epitaph from Hell … Epitaph from Hell …
Joe T. Jones Joe T. Jones
1942 - 20001942 - 2000
HE WOULDA DONE SOME HE WOULDA DONE SOME
REALLY COOL STUFF REALLY COOL STUFF
BUT …BUT …
HIS BOSS WOULDN’T LET HIM! HIS BOSS WOULDN’T LET HIM!
Message: Find one freak. Find one offline project.
Forget selling “up.” Drop
the “attitude.” Quit bitching about
powerlessness.
XII. Design & the Individual: Self-design &
Brand You!
2010 “Demographics”:
By 2010, full-time workers will be in the
minoritySource: MIT study (28August2000)
New World of Work
< 1 in 10 F500#1: Manpower Inc.
Freelancers/I.C.: 16M-25MTemps: 3M (incl. CEOs & lawyers)
Microbusinesses: 12M-27MTotal: 31M-55M
Source: Daniel Pink, Free Agent Nation
Design is … THE PRESENTATION OF …
Me.
“You are the storyteller of your own
life, and you can create your own legend or not.”
Isabel Allende
“The time seems appropriate to rethink the
notions of self and identity in this rapidly
changing age …”
Tara Lemmey, Project LENS, past president Electronic Frontier Foundation
Message: This is an impact issue. Attach
yourself to HR. Help others with
“Brand You.”
XIII. The All-Out WAR FOR TALENT!
“Seller’s Market”: Tomorrow’s Headline*
“Molecular biologists are up 3 points, economists
down 1/4, in moderate trading”
*futureWEALTH, Stan Davis and
Christopher Meyer
The Cracked Ones Let in the Light
“Our business needs a massive transfusion of talent, and talent, I believe, is most likely to be found
among non-conformists, dissenters and rebels.”
David Ogilvy
“Diversity defines the health and wealth of nations in a new century.
Mighty is the mongrel. … The hybrid is hip. The impure, the mélange, the adulterated, the
blemished, the rough, the black-and-blue, the mix-and-match – these people are inheriting the earth. Mixing is the new norm. Mixing trumps isolation. It spawns creativity,
nourishes the human spirit, spurs economic growth
and empowers nations.”
G. Pascal Zachary, The Global Me: New Cosmopolitans and the Competitive Edge
Women and new-economy
management …
“Tomorrow belongs to women.”
Helen Fisher, The First Sex: The Natural Talents of Women and How They Are
Changing the World
Women’s Stuff = New Economy Match
Improv skillsRelationship-centric
Less “rank consciousness”Self determinedTrust sensitive
IntuitiveNatural “empowerment freaks” [less
threatened by strong people]Intrinsic [motivation] > Extrinsic
Message: Design - writ large, as the Mother of Passion – dramatically
affects the basic “Great Place to Work”
value proposition.
XIV. Design: The Most beautiful
Systems Win!
Design + Beauty is Fred S.’s “mediocre” thesis and Herb K.’s
napkin.
Progressive
“We don’t sell insurance anymore.
We sell speed.” – Peter Lewis
Digital cameras, wireless Net links,
etc.: SOME CLAIMS PAID WITHIN 20 MINUTES!
Source: Business Week (09.00)
Message: “Systems business” is
design business.
Inject yourself!
XV. Design & Women:
Opportunity No.1?
?????????
Home Furnishings … 94%Vacations … 92%
Houses … 91%Bank Account … 89%
Health Care … 80%Consumer Electronics … 51%
Cars … 50%+/80%Etc.
$4.8T > Japan
9/27.5/$3.6T > Germany
Read This Book …
EVEolution: The Eight Truths of Marketing to Women
Faith Popcorn & Lys Marigold
27 March 2000: email to TP from Shelley Rae Norbeck
“I make 1/3rd more money than my husband does. I have as much financial
‘pull’ in the relationship as he does. I’d say this is also true of most of my women
friends. Someone should wake up, smell the coffee and kiss our asses long enough
to sell us something! We have money to
spend and nobody wants it!”
STATEMENT OF PHILOSOPHY: I am a businessperson. An analyst. A pragmatist. The enormous social good of increased women’s
power is clear to me; but it is not my bailiwick. My “game” is haranguing business leaders
about my fact-based conviction that women’s increasing power – leadership skills
and purchasing power – is the strongest and most dynamic force at work in the American
economy today. Dare I say it as a long-time Palo Altan … THIS IS EVEN BIGGER THAN THE
INTERNET!
Tom Peters
Message: Men cannot design for women’s needs.
Period.
XVI. Design & the Aging:
Opportunity No. 1A?
Subject: Marketers & Stupidity
It’s 18-44, stupid!
Subject: Marketers & Stupidity
Or is it: 18-44 is stupid, stupid!
2000-2010 Stats
18-44: -1%55+: +21%
(55-64: +47%)
Aging/“Elderly”
$$$$$$$$$$$$“I’m in charge!”
Priorities: Aging/“Elderly”
Experiences … Convenience … Comfort
… Access … Respect!
Message: You wannabe relevant?
This is a [VERY] Big Deal. Listen up.
XVII. Design = Cornerstone of The Age of the
Brand
“We are in the twilight of a society based on data. As information and intelligence become the domain of computers, society will place more value on the one human ability that cannot be automated: emotion.
Imagination, myth, ritual - the language of emotion - will affect everything from our purchasing decisions
to how we work with others. Companies will thrive on the basis of their stories and
myths. Companies will need to understand that their products are less important than their stories.”
Rolf Jensen, Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies
Brand = You Must Care!
“Success means never letting the competition define you. Instead you have to define
yourself based on a point of view you care deeply about.”
Tom Chappell, Tom’s of Maine
Message: THIS IS THE BIG ENCHILADA. Case logic: (1) Brand
is it. (2) Brand = Emotional reaction. (3) Design is THE KEY
to emotional reaction. (4) Designers are “the key” to the
strategic success of the enterprise. [If they’d only flick the
chip off their collective shoulders.]
XVIII. Design & Leadership:
Passion Rules!
“Create a Cause, not a ‘business.’ ”
Gary Hamel, Fortune (06.00), on re-inventing a company (Exemplar #1:
Charles Schwab)
“A key – perhaps the key – to leadership is the effective
communication
of a story.”Howard Gardner
Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership
“I am a dispenser of enthusiasm.”
Ben Zander
“A leader is a dealer in hope.”
Napoleon
Message: Designers – appropriately considered –
are the script writers for The Compelling Story called
Our Company Matters Because …