Design & Innovation

Ever since our trip to Neutron, I’ve been trying to find a way to connect their brand strategy to design thinking to my own business. I recently stumbled upon a book/web site that connects much of what we’ve been learning. It is called, Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People. The jist of the concept is that companies in developing their branding strategy need to stray away from the product and utilize the consumer. He’s also about to launch a think tank to study how branding and communications affect emotions. I’m interested in seeing how the web site is setup and how users will contribute. I’m also still struggling with a measurement tool to study the success of this type of initiative, but I think the more the topic comes to fruition the closer we are to a wholistic approach.

Here are the 10 commandments as laid on by author Marc Golbe:

1. from consumers to people
Consumers buy, people live.
2. from product to experience
Products fulfill needs, experiences fulfill desires.
3. from honesty to trust
Honesty is expected. Trust is engaging and intimate.
4. from quality to preference
Quality for the right price is a given today. Preference creates the sale.
5. from notoriety to aspiration
Being known does not mean that you are also loved!
6. from identity to personality
Identity is recognition. Personality is about character and charisma.
7. from function to feel
The functionality of a product is about practical or superficial qualities only.
Sensorial design is about experiences.
8. from ubiquity to presence
Ubiquity is seen. Emotional presence is felt.
9. from communication to dialogue
Communication is telling. Dialogue is sharing.
10. from service to relationship
Service is selling. Relationship is acknowledgment.

I got a little sidetracked this week and haven’t posted what I gained from days 2 to 4 from our trip. I know its late but figured it would still be applicable.

Day 2: SAP was awesome and I think it was because I had no idea what to expect. Everyone did really well on the design challenge presentations and it was interesting to see all of the different ways the project was approached and presented. Professor Yoo’s and matt Halloway’s presentations were good overviews of design and business and Professor Yoo’s example of digitizing real world experience to create other experiences with the mens urinal was awesome. Innovations like the mens urinal with the buzzing fly that keeps score is a perfect example of bringing the human experience into technology and then using technology to create another positive experience.

I found Neutron’s approach to branding unique in that they considered themselves the shrink to companies going through change. This is interesting because change is probably the hardest thing for companies to manage, which could be why many unconsciously choose not to change and eventually die off. I still left that day kind of curious how Neutron approached their clients and the process they use to be effective change agents, but I was intrigued by their overall approach.

Day 3 - Stanford and the D-School were awesome. How can we get a D-School experience here now, is how I felt. I found the fact that the first class students in the D-School focused, Extreme Affordability to be very appropriate and I like how it challenges the traditional notion of design as something that looks good and is expensive. Anybody want to create a D-School?

Ideo - Ideo was the quintessential design firm. It was great to see their space and see how they actually have fun and organize themselves to be creative. The support for such an atmosphere from the top of the company is so refreshing and made me envious. I found Peter’s examples of transformation by design to be very powerful and pertinent; the cue cards for nurses and hospital administrators to begin talking to patients and the color coded name tags to differentiate between patients and visitors in the waiting room both seem so obvious but when implemented change the lives of the people who use them. Also the framework Peter presented at the end of his presentation was a good visual representation of the process for integrating design.

Stanley Saitowitz/Natoma Architects Inc. - The most insightful part of this visit was seeing the transformation of an idea into a design for a space. The example he gave was a client that said they were looking for a space that represented the idea of “water”. It was interesting to see how that idea was represented as a space and how different constraints, such as budget, would need to be take into account to design that space.

Day 4 - DeSimone - Seeing the structural engineered perspective of Gehry’s buildings really showed how he forced all of the people involved with his projects to be innovative. It was also cool to see how involved Marco would get with the final design because of how much it relied on the structural engineering. The presentation really spoke to the need for collaboration between all disciplines in a project.