Among other things

Forget your market segment... stakeholders matter.

Fri, 6 Jun 2008 11:54:01 -0700

Ideas, even really great one's, aren't really worth all that much. What is of value is how, and for what purpose, an idea is applied. The ultimate value of an idea must be assessed with reference to the impact it has on those for whom a product, service, or system may have no value, but who are still affected by its presence in the world. Stakeholders, not users, not consumers, neither demographic segments, or constituents either... stakeholders are the unrecognized segments that we must pay more attention to. They are the people who live at the edge of your district, who work at the beginning of your supply chain or live at the end of your products' life-cycle. Most importantly, they are unrepresented and often have no clear advocates because they have no influence and are not a large enough or interesting enough cause. Stakeholders span economic, ethical, social, and intellectual segments making them hard to identify and even harder to satisfy.

If you design, plan, manage, or judge then you have stakeholders to consider. Start identifying them, make profiles, write narratives, talk to them, argue with them, and begin to consider them EARLY in the design process. The result will be more satisfying for both you and them.

CHI 2008 ... Blur of fascinating interactions

Sat, 5 Jan 2008 09:31:00 -0800

I've just left CHI 2008 and while I have more to say, the most prevalent comment I can think of right now is 'wow, I've just met a majority of my literature review (and those of many others)!'. The amazing thing about CHI is that it is a community dedicated to sharing and interaction across MANY disciplines. This is the push/pull nature of conferences of this size. There is just so much being brought into this 'carnival' that it is always a rich and heady engagement. I am always a-buzz with optimism and possibility here.

To top things off, Bill Buxton gave a rousing closing plenary. It was fantastic, rich, and argumentative. ,and it challenged everyone to think more critically and realistically about the impact that the products they make, and the research they do, has on people beyond their market, research, or user constituencies.

Sep 28, 2007 4 Reasons why small sustainable strategies are tough to work.

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 05:47:03 -0700

I'm working with a group of students who are trying to replace the paper cups that they and their colleagues use with Reusable travel mugs. The effort is wonderful, the vision is clear and simple. So why won't one coffee shop in the area help them?

I think that they may be speaking to the wrong people. Let's strategize a bit more about this (after the jump)...

The footwork is great but you've got to remember that in any one store the highest on the corporate food chain that you're going to get is to a store manager... maybe an owner if you're lucky. These are some more reasons why I think the personal approach is a real challenge...

Starbucks is NOT a franchise operation. This means that whomever you speak wth will almost certainly default to 'no'. The truth is they can't say yes even if they wanted to. "The Starbucks Experience" is central to their business model and they control it from a central group. BUT, they way might consider finding a voice with this group is to work smarter, not harder. The students are at Harvard and in that academic membership they may indeed find the bully pulpit they need. The students may may not get to Howard Shultz (CEO, Founder of Starbucks) but they might get to an executive who is affiliated with Harvard...
- See this article about Shultz to get some insight into his MO... according to the article at least. http://www.myprimetime.com/work/ge/schultzbio/
- Also check out the 'Ethos' water project. Personally I think it is pretty silly to try and protect the 'environment' by selling plastic bottled water... but that's just me, or is it? ;)

Franchises are handcuffed... at best. Now Starbucks may be a white whale for a project of this scale to hook so participants have to be careful not to burn out on it. Places like cinnabon, au bon pain, and dunkin are a different kind of issue. These are franchises so the owners can run their own store but are often restricted in particular ways due to contract agreements. Sometimes these agreements make it hard for the own to make any money even though they do a ton of business. To convince these folks you've got to convince them that it will increase their margin. Remember that is why they pay franchise fees. MONEY. The same strategy may work as the above, again... you've got to do the research... bring something to the table if you want them to ante up.

Smaller shop owners have a different problem in that they are constantly being threatened by the two big guys above. These are your most likely partners... and your least likely. They may really want to partner with you but they've got to think about the two gorillas above waiting to pummel their cute little shop into submission. Remember that even HU Catering uses 'Official Starbucks Coffee'.

MOST importantly, you've got to keep in mind that asking ANY of these folks to make a commitment to the project means changing their process model. The first thing they think is... "NO WAY. This is going to screw up my inventory and make it harder for my already stressed employees to get anything done... and I might lose money!" Remember that they still have to buy the same amount of cups and they do so in bulk either monthly or annually via contract agreements. Harvard Catering may be compelled to change and engage your project because it is in their best interests and they probably have to work with a tighter budget... but they have a shelter for that (the U.). To change the minds of these other folks you may have to move upstream into their B2B network. The wholesalers and distributors... for a project of this scale you can really forget having that kind of an impact. Its not worth your (or their) while. Bottom line... If you are going to get the coffee shops to do this, you've got to prove to them that it will bring them more business... or find that special owner who really cares that much... even they may hedge unless you can prove the shift.

In order to get anything done today you MUST use the social networks you are connected to! THIS is what they are there for, and they are no longer isolated to the simplistic affiliations of the Ivy League or Fortune 500 set. A real network incorporates the ethics and values of its constituents. These kinds of systems harbor a complexity that belies simple conjecture. No social network can function on any one, individual node. Therefore the goal of infiltrating a social network with an idea can only be met through careful identification of the wide spectrum of value systems it embodies.

I hope this information is helpful to the project. I don't have much time at all these days to work on these things but I really appreciate their work and the perspective they are trying to give the GSD. This is the kind of project that makes me think that there is hope yet... I hope.

Review of the NDM's new online resources...

Mon, 2 Apr 2007 09:45:54 -0700

Robert Kirkbride and Anna Slafer have led an interesting workshop titled "Design Charrette: Thinking and Making: Mindmapping and Worldmapping; Space & Place" that can be seen online here. The workshop was hosted by the National Design Museum and can be seen at their new online education resource site. Just by looking at the work being done in the video, you can see a great example of guided creative thinking. The use of silhouette to kick off the activity is elegant, simple, and accessible. Nice job!!!

More to come as I dive in...

Design Thinking as a strategy for all education

Mon, 2 Apr 2007 09:15:16 -0700

I agree with and appreciateBruce Nussbaum's assessment of the National Design Museum's online education resource center and Kudos to the NDL for recognizing the expansive value of 'design thinking' and of bringing the 'non-designers' in from the cold.

... design, politics, business, friendship, and family ...

Isolation and hegemony only begets backlash and revolt.

Technorati Tags: design thinking, pedagogy, design education, nussbaumondesign

Interesting Topics in D+M

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 19:10:49 -0700

I was asked to spend 15 minutes to consider what is interesting and novel in the context of Design and Management.

I now cast these ideas to the web... My 15 minutes worth of brain inventory...

1. The most interesting thing happening that I see is companies and individuals alike leveraging information in fascinating ways. I think that this is fundamentally possible because both companies and individuals can leverage the use of databases, the web, and dynamic - interactive content to create interfaces that can quickly aggregate huge amounts of raw data, and that massive amounts of people can access almost simultaneously. Combine this with ever-faster and cheaper equipment (a la 'moore's law') that can be linked via networks and you've got a never ending source of raw data that is always getting delivered in different ways, at faster speeds, and in higher resolutions. The results of which I see in some well documented phenomena (freakonomics, flat-world, long tail theory, etc.).

Some examples of this ...

a. "crowd sourcing" - using the contributions of MANY (100's, 1000's, +++) to develop or inform responses to specific, complex, or ill-defined problems. This is not demographic modeling nor a method for survey development. The key here is using the unique perspectives, interests, and applications that individuals have to better inform a designers decisions and to do so in a way that maintains the rich individuality that people bring. Fundamental to this idea, of course, are the widespread forums, bulletin boards, email lists, and websites that attract people from around the world almost constantly. This, in effect, provides many people with 24/7 'experts' for feedback and ideas. Something I find fascinating about this is that communities of professionals or even "affinity associates" can almost always find one another.
i. some good examples for crowdsourcing are sites that support coding applications such as macscripters.com codeproject.org actionscript.org ... there are MANY of these sites. I think that this works well with programming applications because the 'code' can easily be cut-and-pasted into a web-form. A few minutes in the forums on any site like this can show how easily people can find answers to vexing problems AND how many solutions there actually are to a single problem.
ii. large companies use similar tactics & strategies to develop their products. Again, this has occurred most often in 'developer communities' such as Apple's Developer Network and MSDN (Microsoft) where the company can actually 'seed' the community with buggy or incomplete products and elicit responses from people who are both experts AND zealots. More applicably, companies like Lego have actually leveraged the global community of users to re-shape their products and redirect their marketing efforts. Patricia Seybold's book "Outside Innovation" has a decent case study on how Lego and Texas Instruments were able to work together to create a new product for their market and a new market respectively.

b. The prior point brings to mind the value of 'hacking cultures' that have developed around a variety of interesting product lines and industries. Different from 'innovation', hacking is done by a single user or small group who found "an itch that they couldn't scratch" in dealing with a given product, tool, or system. The key here is that the 'hack' is often so particular that it only suits a VERY small group of people or a VERY specific goal. Often amateurs, hackers are experts but often in a non-traditional way or from a non-traditional background. These kinds of people have developed knowledge through intimate use and thus have a unique understanding of a product. In the past 10 years companies have begun to find the value of these types Again, techies have been doing this for years and are probably the most robust group, but the idea hacking has also been critical to a broad range of industries including:
i. agriculture
- wine making in soil selection, splicing, and x-pollination
- crop selection
ii. car & motorcycle design
- the origin of the term "chopper" comes from the culture of motorcycle enthusiasts who 'chopped' their bikes down to the bare essentials, making them original and faster. This resulted in an uncomfortable ride but also gave the bike a sense of personality that can be attributed to the rider. Think hell's angels and the so called 1%'ers.
- in car design this has, of course, been going on for a long time with the low-riders, buggys, jalopies, hot-rods, and even in the way that demolition derby enthusiasts modify the car's shell to strengthen the car and protect the driver.
- more recently, this kind of hacking or modding (a derivative kind of hacking) has hit the mainstream in the form of mass and moderate customization by companies such as:
... Mattel in association with FAO Schwartz (custom hot wheels)
... Cooper USA's Mini which allows slight modifications pre-sale
... BMW with so-called "open-source" design... I think that this might go better in the next point.
... can't remember the name but I know that there is a company that let's you choose from a wide variety of parts and paint jobs to make your own car.

c. Open Source Design & Development has also become a significant part of the common cultural lingo and, mainly in software development, has proven its worth in the design of interesting, useful, and well-functioning tools. Open-source design takes a very particular kind of leadership to be successful in that the problems that come with I.P. seem to often get in the way of the goal. I think that this is in direct conflict with our current understanding of product and business valuation where intellectual property is often more valued than physical property. IBM still makes a lot of money on what it calls defensive patents, and of course, the wealth of actual patents that it has. Companies are always wary of letting people in though and the licensing models are messy. That said, I think that some interesting approaches coming from start-ups. Bottom line, open source is an interesting idea but it is very difficult to leverage effectively without getting tangled in a licensing net.

--------------------------
Some less (half?) baked thoughts....

2. A second direction that I find to be critical is an investment in thinking about the 'design process' which has elicited some very valuable methods for designers and a kind of standardization (or stabilization) of terms like user-centered design, 'wizard of oz' prototyping, persona development, narrative and use-case scenarios. These may seem like old hat but I think that it is becoming a much more acceptable rationale. I also think that the broader acceptance of these methods can be attributed, in part, to the wide range of "profiling" data that is available through the web and through data wholesalers.

3. Support industries... With so much activity now relying on data and 'uptime' (the time that your computer is not broken) a wide range of support industries have sprouted. These include call centers, tech support consultants, data warehouses, data wholesalers, and of course, web hosting operations. Many of these companies are service oriented

technorific

Fri, 9 Mar 2007 11:48:21 -0800

Technorati Profile

"Living Glass"... more like interactive silicone... but still cool.

Thu, 8 Feb 2007 09:31:36 -0800

Mark Meagher of boldtoad repute has posted a neat project. I recommend reading Mark's thoughts as well as the project site as well.Its an interactive wall that spreads apart like fish gills based on sensor input. The authors' original intention was to use CO2 sensors to control the modulation but their prototype uses infra-red sensors instead. I originally thought that the CO2 sensors were for an ecological purpose but I now think that they were actually intending a completely different purpose... breathing on them. It makes sense to me that when a person's face was close enough, their breath would read on the sensors, which would then actuate the wall.

The construction is pretty interesting. The author's decided to use shape memory wire that is molded into silicone panels. The result has a nice effect. I also appreciate their documentation and the use of sequential "decks" to explain their process as well as the simple and clear research objectives that they use to present the project.

Design With India... many voices, more ideas, few conclusions...

Wed, 7 Feb 2007 14:08:42 -0800

Two nights ago, I attended the Design With India strategy session at New York's Asia Society. The event was VERY well attended with some very significant voices in the global Design community, including some wonderful participants from India itself (ex-pats & travelers both). On the "stakeholder panel" was Sanjit (Bunker) Roy, founder of the Barefoot College in Tilonia, India, Bruce Nussbaum, Associate Editor of Business Week, and Dr. Vishakha Desai who is the current president of the Asia Society. All were introduced as "non-designers" who represented concerns that somehow reflected the concerns for Design as it relates to India. The moderator of the panel was Mary McBride, chair of the Design Management Graduate Program at Pratt and the keynote speaker was Neelam Deo, Consul General of India, who delivered an opening statement on the importance of collaboration with the global community in innovation, business, and (of course) design. See the Design With India website for more information on the panelists and the "resource orchestra", which was a group of design professionals from around the world representing a broad variety of disciplines.

Although I felt that there were many interesting and valid ideas offered, there was neither coordination of values nor of meanings with reference to Design. Some advocated for a kind of Design only relevant to the people of rural India, others queried the opportunities for business collaboration with "Design" as the meeting point, still others were advocating for the India that looms large in the various technology industries... still Design but with a very different flavor.

There were so many interesting people in attendance who came to share their views and there just wasn't time for all of them to speak in one massive session and threads of discussion didn't last long enough to dig very deeply. This is common, of course, at an event with a high profile, but the billing of the event as a 'strategy session' seemed to imply some breakdown of the audience into smaller components. I had in mind that I'd be part of a breakout group around some topic at least part of the time. This unfortunately didn't happen in favor of the "10,000 foot" statements that kept the conversation spiraling outward. [I hope that some documentation of these ideas will be published.]

As I listened to comments about sustainability, technology, culture, architecture, engineering, products, markets, and needs some chose "design for India" and others chose "design in India" but it was clarified in the course of discussion that what is important is
a kind of participatory design that included anyone who wants it, and
that incorporates all of the values that signify India. Design WITH India.

I thought... "what does it mean to design with an
entire country? For that matter, what does it mean to design with a
culture?" I ask with reference, not only to India (or rather the people of India), but what of America? Can we design with America? Is it even possible to incorporate the values, the goals, and perhaps most importantly the identity of so many with so much difference between them?

When the opportunity to ask questions was offered to the general audience I asked...

"What are we talking about when we say 'Design'?" (my comment/question was longer... but that's the gist)

Consul General Deo defined Design as "Art, plus
culture, plus commerce" in her keynote address. Assuming that there is
some universal notion of what THOSE three terms mean (which I don't
believe there is), their intersection does not necessarily imply Design
and furthermore, the equation doesn't really help us understand the
particularity of Design WITH/IN/FOR India. The comments of other
members of the audience made it clear that we all didn't have the same
idea of culture, art, or commerce either.

Bruce Nussbaum took the question head on, qualifying Design as
the output of more general "Design Methods" , which, according to
Nussbaum, can play the same role in business that it plays in fashion,
architecture, and product design. Nussbaum's description seemed to
suggested a kind of generalization across disciplines that could help
professionals find accord.

As the event continued at least one thing became clear; design with India is going to be complicated.
The country has incredibly disparate economic, cultural, social, and
physical characteristics. So disparate, I think, that we can only design with part of India at a time and hope that we'll be conscious of, and careful with, the rest as we do so.

EncycloMedia: Content for TEACHERS to use media more effectively within their own lessons.

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 07:32:54 -0800

KET's EncycloMedia is an interesting venture. I heard about it on a BBC News report and from the interviews and sound bytes, it seems to be a productive methodology for increasing active engagement. I saw something similar in classrooms in Seoul, Korea when I visited.

The thing that I appreciate about it, is that it doesn't seem to have false expectations that the media (content) can more effectively teach than an actual teacher. That said, it gives the teachers the material that they need to teach without undermining their capacity to do so. I think that this is critical not only because it keeps teachers part of the equation of learning in schools, but because it gives teachers the thing that they need MOST.

Taking a hint from the past 50 years of television programming... BETTER CONTENT! But wait... there's more... it's free (via streaming) for public school teachers in Kentucky through a collaboration with KET.

I think that this is just the tip of the iceberg regarding what is possible with educational content. This is a good start, I'd say.