Wow, even the mainstream is picking up on the effect of strategic design! Check out this episode.
Oh, not that you wonder and cannot find the two and their show. The entire podast was generated by AI, based on a paper I wrote on design capability in companies.
A recording of my speech at the TIDE conference, January 2018. A short introduction to what Design Thinking is, and how it is best enabled in organizations!
more…How can we prove that an investment in design correlates, or even causes, an increase in stock value? Marty Neumeier recently tweeted: „It seems to me that design investment is a leading indicator of higher profit margins and stock prices. Need to prove!“ more…
It was a tough time for me, being a designer employed at a company whose reasoning was based on financial indicators, such as turnover, gross margin, return on investment, and so on. Eventually, you, as a designer, also have to define your reasoning according to such parameters. Unavoidably, the question of ‘return on investment’ (ROI) will pop up, like “What do I get back for every Euro I spend on, what’s actually the ROI of design?” Tell me!
Do you have leadership skills? If not, it’s going to be tough in the future, because next to professional specialists (like electricians and plumbers), the economy is after ‘leaders’! Given the many wicked problems facing us, it takes true leaders to guide us into a better future.
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It’s the time of year, so I was strolling the local Christmas market and passed by a craftsman weaving a basket. Somehow, I was instantly impressed and stood still, observing the basket-maker: his movements were swift and confident, and he even managed to hold a conversation with other observers whilst craftily weaving this basket. All of a sudden, he paused – he was about halfway finished with his piece – as if he felt something was not right: and indeed, the basketwork at the bottom had a different color from the one at the top, also the braid seemed thinner. So he pulled it all apart and started over. Upon which an old lady couldn’t resist and mentioned how pitiful this was, and that she’d never noticed, and that he was almost finished anyway. “Dear Madam, he replied, you have to this work with conviction!” Baskets, he added, should only be sold if they’re tip-top. “If you can improve, you have to improve, even if it means starting all over. You can’t sell inferior crap!” he finished off in a truly convincing manner and continued weaving. The older lady patiently waited until he was done, then bought the basket. more…
He was truly ‘special’, to say it mildly… but actually he was a true choleric, hysteric and narcissistic person, narrow-minded, unforgiving and pungent according to many, many others. He would not let loose; he could be rude, direct, and insensitive, but most of all, he was obsessive – everything he did, and equally all others did for him, had to be perfect, nothing less. It had to be insanely great. more…
In some companies, the design, be it for products, communication, or services, seems to be conceived and executed by a single person: everything just fits together perfectly. But we know that many design activities go into creating this perfect picture. Brands that have understood that a well-orchestrated, holistic experience across all touchpoints solidifies their identity are creating the basis for customer loyalty and are a leading example to all other companies. Like an orchestra playing out of tune, customers will turn away from companies that cannot harmonize the ‘interplay’ of their organizational parts to create a collective performance. Remember the story of the kitchen nightmare? more…