Blast from the Past

Good Read

Design Matters

You can create a good design, do it once and do it well, and have a nice object. That doesn’t mean it will be a great product or a good business. It might be mildly successful, it might win some awards, and it might even get some buzz on the blogs. The difference between a great product and a merely good product, however, is that a great product embodies an idea that people can understand and learn about—an idea that grows in their minds, one they emotionally engage with. Right now, you could design a product that looks like an iPhone, has really nice details and materials, and becomes an object of lust. However, this doesn’t mean that it will ultimately be successful. Unless you have a strong idea that pervades the way it looks, the way it operates, what it does, how it’s communicated to people, how it’s branded, and how people identify with the brand, your product is not complete, because these are all things that go into making a great product which becomes a good business.


Do You Matter?

Ask yourself questions such as “Who are you?” (which most people can answer) or “What do you do?” (you will probably get this one wrong). You might answer that you’re a manufacturer of computers. Well, we say you’re not merely a manufacturer of computers; you’re creating systems to help people get work done. In light of this, why does what you do matter to people? Better yet, why do you matter at all? This is the deep soul-searching question we want you to ask yourself. Does your company matter to your customers and constituents? Really, honestly, answer this. Are you a positive force in their lives? If you disappeared, would their lives be diminished in some way? I think if you tell yourself the truth, you might even conclude, “Well, probably not.” Will we shed any tears if Cheer laundry detergent is not on the shelves anymore? No, probably not. Will we shed some tears if BMW suddenly ceased to exist? Yeah, we might. If Apple ceased to exist? Probably.


How to Matter

The crucial point of the evolving iPod story is that if you want to transform your brand to the point where you matter, you have to start with design that’s “designed in” not “added on.” It can’t be a veneer. Design is not an event or a process you apply to physical and mechanical reality. You are designing a customer experience supply chain. If you are the CEO and this is something you really want to do, it’s not just a matter of getting together your executive staff and saying, “Go design some good stuff.” You have to look at your business from beginning to end and see how it all relates to your customer; then you must decide how you will design all the pieces of a customer experience solar system and go about accomplishing true organizational change.


Being Design Driven

Design is everybody’s business. And if a CEO is going to do it right, he or she needs to understand this. As you think about becoming a more design-driven company, you can use baby steps and big steps. But if you want to know in a nutshell, what do you need to do; you must build a development process that centers on people and an experience. You must give everyone an incentive to be an active part of this process. You must build a marketing process that can characterize and communicate those design ideas to people emphasizing design as an integral part of it all. You need to build an engineering system that understands that the people driving design sensibility and values are, at the same time, part of the marketing, engineering, manufacturing, and delivery equations.


Your Brand is Not Your Logo

Another way to look at brand is that it is like an individual’s character. That’s really what a brand is, the embodiment of a company’s character. When you think of the character of people, you find things about them that encourage you to like or dislike them. When you first meet someone, you might draw a few conclusions based on how they dress and style their hair, and few more of their mannerisms. A lot of times you’re right, and a lot of times you’re not. But then, as you gain real insight into their ethics and values and how they treat others, you begin to understand the person’s character. That’s how you really start to define how you feel about somebody. It’s the same way with a company. You can dress up people in cool clothes, and give them a hip new hairstyle, and create some ideas about, “Wow, maybe they’re really pretty cool and hip,” but as you really start to get to know them, you realize that, “No, they’re really moving violations of the truth in packaging laws.” All this is a veneer. You start to wonder about them. It’s the same thing with companies.


Products As Portals

That was how Howard Schultz’s head was working when he visited Milan and said, “This is an experience coffee customers would be willing to pay a little more to share.” Both Alice Waters and Howard Schultz were CEOs of their companies in the sense that they were chief experience officers in the conception of their businesses. Schultz arrived at the Starbucks experience. How brilliant was that? Well, in retrospect it seems one of those things that’s incredibly obvious, but what a few other people probably realized, namely that the coffee shop was about more than getting coffee, Schultz and Starbucks implemented brilliantly. Schultz didn’t think he was in the coffee business, he was in the experience business, and the portal into that experience was a better cup of coffee in a carefully designed atmosphere. We are reminded of our favorite Mae West line here; “I used to be Snow White and then I drifted.” Starbucks has drifted. It remains to be seen if they can rebuild the experience and survive commoditization.


Your Products and Services are Talking to People

So you start thinking about which companies have product lines with design integrity, authority, and self-confidence showing through every aspect of their design, and now you are beginning to understand about design communication and why it matters. It’s about a story— you see, the thing that is hard for most business people to grasp, is that the design language is there to tell a story. It takes a customer’s need or desire and spins its story all the way to an expected fulfillment. Any writing class will tell you too that it is always better to “show” instead of just “tell.” That’s the exact function of design language. It shows. For that shopper at the BMW lot, the scenario playing through the mind might involve a drive up a winding Pennsylvania road in late spring, cornering the switchbacks with tight accuracy while the sound system fills the slick cockpit interior, finally pulling up to a country inn for brunch and being recognized as one of the “Bimmer” elite by fellow patrons.


Building a Design Driven Culture

When you seek to balance risk and research on the path to originality, it’s no easy feat. Many companies employ a management technique where with every project, they set up the boundary conditions, usually around cost and schedule, and there will also be technology conditions. But there is a problem if the development teams see these as hard boundaries. At Apple, we used to say to the team “it’s all right to play in this field; if you cross one of these boundaries, a red flag goes up and we just need to review it and understand it.” This didn’t mean you couldn’t cross a boundary. You just need to know when you have crossed one. More than risk mitigation, you need a program for risk support. If you are going to be design driven to create original products and services, your favorite new mantra needs to be: “Risk is not a four-letter word.”


Go Forth and Matter

Over the years, we have found ourselves in conversations organized around the question, “what is it that people really want out of life?.” Marketers ask this question and promote their answers. So do psychologists. Theologians of course claim to know. And more than a few of the rest of us seek our own answers every day. It is a complex question, pondered for centuries by individuals and groups more qualified to offer answers than the authors of this book. This said, however, we do think we know the answer to that question. Or at least an answer that matters to your business. This answer has been given thematically throughout this book. It has been implicit, but now we would now like to explicitly propose it: People are seeking a great experience of being alive.

St. George

We are in sunny(not) St. George for 5 days. Kel and Ari were able to join me while I was at the UAESP conference. 2 days in St. George and 3 in Mesquite. Hopefully the reat of the trip will warm up. We took Ari to Coraline tonight. It was good but Ari got a little scared at the end. We also went to the Wildlife Museum today. More to come....

Ari after a day of shopping!
Ari with Elder and Sister Abbott. They were with us in Samoa and had not seen her since she was 3 months old.
Ari at the Wildlife Museum.

Ari and Daddy.
Ari on Safari.

The next 4 years......?

Nice try.......

The Tour O Warm continues........

14 days and 4 states and I will be all traveled out. I started in Phoenix for PPA and APSP. I was given the opportunity to present our latest innovation while I was their. Home for 2 days then off to Las Vegas for Western Dealers. Landed last night, home for 2 days then flying out Friday for San Diego for SPAC and The Shooters Group Assoc. I get to present again at both groups. Then a 5 hour stay at home and I drive to St. George for the Utah Assoc. of Secondary Principals. Hopefully the new App I wrote will go over well their and turn into new business. More to come.....

If company logos adapted to the recession what might they look...

Sugar Bowl Champions! Utah finished a spectacular undefeated season with a win over fourth-ranked Alabama.

Asiata and the Boys CRUSH BAMA. Maybe Utah Rugby will bring home the National title this year. Go Utes!

The All-American Rejects cover of "Womanizer"

Christmas Bonus

My Apple experience just got better. I received a iPhone for my Christmas bonus yesterday. It is simply awesome.

Wish my office had this perk!

Away in a Manger

I often think of the first day we saw Ari. It was in this humble Fale deep in the jungle. I think of the Savior being born in similar surroundings. It really helps bring the real spirit of Christmas.

Christmas Girl

Ari and Uncle Lu

In Samoa Lu was Ari's very favorite next to Kel. After 2 years the bound is still there. We had Lu over for dinner and found out that he and Ari are blood cousins.

Nine Predictions for 2009

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
⎯ Viktor E. Frankl


The reality of the coming year is that the precipitous decline in the economy will create a collective pause; a “space” of epic proportions for organizations and individuals. Yes, it will be unpleasant for many. But it will also be an opportunity in disguise for those willing to seize the moment.

#1 The Earth will complete its 584 million mile, 67,000 mph trip around the Sun without incident.
I know, that’s a pretty lame kick-off prediction. But think about those numbers for a minute. We’re all outgrowths of a living mass that is rocketing through space around an enormous ball of fire. Does that make any sense to you? Me either. So stop trying to figure it all out. Stop trying to protect yourself from an unknowable future and instead be a connected and passionate part of the here and now.
“What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.”⎯ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

#2 Many things will change, but many people will not.
Most of us will be doing, thinking and feeling more or less the same things this time next year as we are now. If you don’t want that sameness, grab yourself by the collar and yank yourself off of that comfortable, well-worn path and onto the one less traveled by you. Let go of your past and grab onto your future. Because while you’re waiting for that grand insight to point you in the right direction, the beauty of life is flying right on by.
“Withoutchange, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.”⎯ Frank Herbert

#3 Most people will sit quietly in their seats and watch life unfold around them.
A recent New Yorker magazine cartoon made it comically clear: There’s a lot that we all want to experience, but not much that we actually want to do. Most of us simply want to go along to get along and enjoy the ride. Well, the ride is slowing to a crawl. And when it starts back up, it’ll be a much different ride. What kind of ride? The best way to know that is to put yourself in charge of creating it. Grab the wheel and get moving. Let the pull of what excites you and what you care most deeply about be your guide.
“The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.” ⎯ Robert Frost

#4 A lot of people and businesses will fail.
That’s the unfortunate nature of life. You try something, it doesn’t work. You try something different, it works. If it works big, people copy you (or steal it). You try something new, failure again. If you’re trying, if you’re living, you will fail. So what? Live a life of no regrets. Seize this opportunity to learn and grow and experience, while everyone else snuggles deeper into their comfy routines.
“He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great.” ⎯Herman Melville

#5 Many “friends” will be lost and many new ones made.
Social networks are all the rage today: MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, LinkedIn, Twitter and Plaxo, as well as the many recurring real world gatherings. And indeed, they can be great ways to stay connected and to gain attention. But many of the people who have “friended” you through these groups did so for a reason; their reason. And once that reason goes away, so will they. Don’t sweat it. Keep connecting. Keep reaching out and sharing with people with similar interests and beliefs. But also, spend more slow and deep time with your family and your true friends; those who accept and care about the real you, not the social status you.
“In prosperity,our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends.”⎯ John Churton Collins

#6 The passionate will not only survive, they will thrive.
What’s bugging you? Whatever it is, for your sake⎯and for those unwilling or unable to change⎯do something about it! That’s the key to growth and success. The inventor David Levy referred to it as the curse effect: “Whenever I hear someone curse, it’s a sign to invent something.” Well, perhaps that someone is you and that “cursing” is resonating between your ears. If so, don’t let it irritate you and drain your life and passion. Use it to fuel you and drive you forward. The future belongs to those unwilling to accept the stifling status quo; to those who stay puzzled, excited, frustrated and surprised.
“Whenever anything is being accomplished, it is being done, I have learned, by a monomaniac with a mission.” ⎯ Peter Drucker

#7 Success will go to those with the best questions, not those with the cleverest answers.
Do you know the definition of an expert? An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing? And a generalist? A generalist, like so many afflicted with digital A.D.D., is someone who knows less and less about more and more until he knows absolutely nothing about everything. Successful people know that they’ll never know enough, especially about what really matters. So, they pay attention. They catch on and refocus rapidly. They never stop trying and learning. They’re driven by the questions, by their desire to understand and to change things.
“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”⎯ Mark Twain

#8 Execution is the new strategy.
E.L. Doctorow wrote, “Planning to write is not writing.” Here’s the funny thing: Writing is not writing. It’s editing. You’re really not sure where you’re going until well after you’ve begun; until you’ve put pen to paper (or type to page). And then, the work unfolds in unpredictable and mysterious ways. Sure, vision and planning are important. But with the accelerating pace of change in today’s world, the important insights are more likely to come through doing and editing, than through speculating and strategizing.
“Change will lead to insight far more often than insight will lead to change.”⎯ Milton H. Erickson

#9 Making a difference will trump making a buck.
Walt Disney’s mantra was, “I don’t make movies to make money. I make money to make movies.” What about you? Why do you make money? Think really hard and long about that simple question. If you’ve been putting off being passionate about your work in order to make a lot of money, now may be the time for you to make a change. Why? Because the business of making money simply to make more money is quickly coming to an end. The future is not in making a buck; it’s in making a difference.
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”⎯ Winston Churchill

The great Danish physicist Niels Henrik David Bohr wrote, “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” But, the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, Edna St. Vincent Millay, reminds us, “It’s not true that life is one damn thing after another; it’s one damned thing over and over.” Physics and poetry. Such is the nature of our paradoxical world. Just remember, it’s your future that you have control over, and only you have the power to change that one damn thing.