Making companies better.

Can the approach that revolutionized product design change the way entire companies are organized and work?  Can a corporate culture be design centric?

Design Thinking simplifies complexity and makes customer interactions more intuitive and enjoyable.  It emerged out of Stanford's D-School and IDEO.  It is not about aesthetics – it's a business strategy to achieve differentiation, customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Design Thinking forces a company to embrace a more intimate understanding of its customers and their interactions with the brand, and then be very reductive in creating more valuable experiences.  Principles such as user empathy, rapid prototyping and learning from failure make Design Thinking practical and action-oriented.

This practice has been embraced by companies as diverse as Hermann Miller, Apple, Kohler, 3M, Method and Target to improve products and customer experiences.  David Butler, Coke's head of innovation, stopped using the squishy "D-word" and instead talks about how his team can "make stuff better."

So this makes me wonder if Design Thinking can go beyond "stuff" and make entire companies better.

For example, applying Design Thinking to a professional services firm like an advertising agency could have a tremendous impact.  It would inspire us to reorganize in a way that emphasizes what clients value most (e.g., ideas, innovation, results).  We'd simplify how we solve complex marketing challenges to create more time and space for big ideas.  We would emphasize rapid prototyping and use an iterative ideation process to create bigger and more effective ideas.  And together, agency and client, we would have to become more comfortable with risk, an essential ingredient in a test and learn culture.

Team Detroit was born of change.  If any team is capable of being the first to apply Design Thinking to itself, it is us.  After all, it's what we do!

How to love what you do.

Three decades into my career I am happy to proclaim that I love what I do for a living.  Each time I lecture at Chapman University or UC Irvine, I always start by telling this to the students and sharing my hope that, regardless of what they end up doing, that they too will stand up some day and proclaim this.  Life's too short to waste time on things you don't enjoy doing.

Clearly, the first step is to know what you're passionate about and then find someone who will pay you to do that.  But then what?  How do you stay engaged and passionate for three decades or more?  Here's the advice I tend to share with the students.

Pursue a profession, not a job.  You can punch in and out each day, doing what's required and no more.    Or you can be constantly curious, always pushing yourself to learn more and develop new skills.  Not to get ahead, but for the satisfaction of knowing you are the best you can be at what you do.

Be great at something.  Sure, you work in a department and you have many responsibilities and functional duties.  But what are you the best at?  What is that one skill that you are known for and that your coworkers depend on?

Accumulate skills.  Attend as many training programs as your company offers.  Volunteer to work on project teams that are outside of your day to day responsibilities.  Listen to a TED talk on issues related to your field.  Read.  Discuss.

Fail. Improve. Repeat often.  There's an old saying that it takes a lot of hard work to get lucky.  Successful people are simply those who took the time to learn from their mistakes.  And those who willing to learn from mistakes also tend to be the same people who are more open to taking chances.  Courage and humility often go hand in hand.

How digital video changes story telling.

Thought provoking discussion on how storytelling differs between TV and digital video.  This goes deeper than length.  It's about breaking free from the traditional closed loop story arc (having a beginning, middle and end) to a more open ended storyline.

What we're doing online.

Great infographic.  It is mind-blowing to see the change in our online behaviors and growth of new platforms in just three years.

source: BusinessInsider.com

Google's take on the future.

I met with the team from Google today and continue to respect the ideas that come out of the Googleplex.  Yes, they're always right on the verge of Big Brother type stuff.  But the stuff they do helps organize our lives and enable us to do more (consistent with their mission!).  Since the future of Google is increasingly the future of us, this is worth watching.

Happy Birthday, Moore's Law.

Today is the 50th anniversary of Moore's Law.  And I'm typing this on a tiny device that is smaller, more powerful and less expensive than any of its predecessors, yet will be larger, less powerful and more expensive than the device I will likely be using in two years time.  

I became enamored with the power and clarity of Moore's Law when I worked with Applied Materials to help market the world changing merits of nanotech. Moore's Law is one of the primary reasons why we live in awesome times, and why business is increasingly more productive. 

Thank you Gordon Moore.

Never stop learning.

It was good advice then, it remains vital advice today, given the increasing pace of change.

SXSW Panel: What marketers can learn from political campaigns.

From the emergence of mass media via Television, political campaigns have used the medium with great effect to build belief in their candidates. From Eisenhower’s patriotic “I like Ike” campaign, to LBJ’s “Daisy Girl” commercial, campaigns used the broad appeal of television to create belief. Today, technology has democratized conversations and put power into the hands of real people—emphasis on real.

What can Madison Avenue learn from this transformation?

In this panel, we discuss how brands and marketers can adopt the road-tested tactics of successful political campaigns, including smart data segmentation, rapid response, emotional storytelling, and influencer engagement. By moving supporters up the ladder of engagement and asking them to take more and more meaningful actions on behalf of the things they care about, brands can create a community of advocates prepared to act on their behalf anytime, anywhere.