Ed Wilms, this one’s for you.

In line with the proliferation of talk around execution, there is also much going on as it relates to strategy. Strategy and execution are inextricably linked, they are useless without each other. Without a focus on execution and performance, strategy is a purely academic pursuit. Without a strategic foundation, execution is a “car without a steering wheel” (or any number of fitting clichés). Strategy is one of those things that seemingly everyone talks about, but few actually practice. It is something that is typically top-of-mind as companies think about the imminent new year, but once that new year commences it is quickly forgotten about, and rarely followed through. This plays out everywhere. We have all seen it in one form or another. The same can be said for execution. At the heart of this is determining how an organization is going to get where it needs to go, how it is going to navigate the range of strategic risks before it.

The linking of strategy with execution, and understanding the importance of the relationship between the two, has been gaining important attention. The Harvard Business Review just published an article discussing the rise and importance of the Chief Strategy Officer. There are a number of reasons that companies are creating and assigning this position, the most common of which is most likely that CEO’s now find their attention diverted to an increasing range of priority issues, and the nurturing and development of strategy suffers. The CSO’s entire purpose is around developing and executing on a range of strategies, and ensuring that decision making supports these strategies and aligns with the company vision.

The HBR article does a nice job discussing the importance of linking strategy to execution and lists three critical strategy implementation tasks:

• - Engendering commitment to strategic plans. Articulate a clear definition of your company’s strategy and explain how each person’s work relates to it. This clarity enables the building of the federation necessary to put strategic plans into action.

• - Drive immediate change. Facilitate the change initiatives required to execute the strategy.

• - Promote decision making that sustains change. Ensure that strategic decisions don’t get watered down or ignored as they’re translated throughout the organization. Communicate with managers at all levels to determine whether decisions being made over time continue to be aligned with the strategy.

Now, the role of the CFO is most likely not a reality for many organizations, but the value of this approach is inherent. What this article effectively describes is the role and importance of strategy and implementation for organizations of all types and sizes. This is serious stuff, and with the complexity and speed with which markets change is also potentially the only way to effectively navigate this complexity, stay on track, and begin to anticipate risk.

The mantra of execution is heavy on the minds of everybody these days. Actually, that would be accountability AND execution. Seems that we all need a little primer in business 101 as without a culture based on both… all is lost. Or, at least all is at risk. It turns out that execution is also a top concern with CEO’s around the world. Actually, according to a Conference Board global survey, execution is their number one concern, ranking above profit and top-line growth.

“This year’s overall top challenge shows that CEOs from around the world are realizing that strong execution is a critical factor in driving profits and revenues. These executives are also becoming increasingly aware of the crucial role that people play in growing their companies.”

Jonathan Spector, President and CEO of The Conference Board

As a part of this survey, 769 CEOs from 40 nations were asked to rate their greatest concerns from among 121 challenges. “Excellence of execution” was selected as the top concern with “keeping consistent execution of strategy by top management” the third-greatest concern. Of particular note is that “sustained and steady top-line growth”, which led the list last year, now ranks second, with profit growth fourth, and finding qualified managerial talent fifth. I believe that this indicates a shift in the concept of performance within many organizations, and that the inception of performance is execution. This is being driven by the myriad of strategic risks we face in our industries, and by the ethereal nature of success that is today’s reality.

Of note is that the survey uncovers some interesting regional differences. The European CEOs surveyed expressed greater concern with speed, flexibility and adaptability to change as it relates to getting new, more responsive ideas out sooner. This was a dominant theme in Europe (third place), while in Asia it tied for eighth and the U.S. was back in 10th place.

I do not think that anybody can question or doubt the realities that most creative businesses face. The business environment for creative organizations is changing rapidly and presenting unique challenges to those charged with leading successfully. Specifically, our firms face issues of technology use and integration, team organization, process development, leadership and leadership transition, intense competitive realities (and increasingly global), and the commoditization and devaluing of our work. Many of these specific challenges have been discussed on Schneiderism already. I speak the obvious when I say that determination of success in the future is dependent not on navigating one or two of these challenges successfully, but all of them.

I had the opportunity to recently attend a presentation by Adrian Slywotzky, the author of “The Upside: The 7 Strategies for Turning Big Threats into Growth Breakthroughs“, at an event for YPO. It was especially good, and prescient regarding the challenges that many organizations face, but it seemed especially relevant to creative businesses (design, marketing, advertising, architecture). At a high level everything comes down to innovation, being innovative, and how you innovate. Easy to say, hard to do. But beyond those relative truisms, there was one all encompassing concept that I loved hearing about:

STRATEGIC RISK MANAGEMENT

The presentation began with the concept of business model design and that business models that remain static are destined for failure. The environments in which we all operate are changing and evolving in ways that were not possible 10, 15 and 20 years ago. This demands reinvestigation, in an ongoing manner, of a company’s business model and introduces the opportunity for business design innovation. Most industries have seen dramatic change, and those of us who anticipate change and evolve our companies as our markets change will be around to talk about. Adrian Slywotzky not only aligns with this thinking, he takes it much, much further.

“Our greatest growth opportunities are our greatest risks - reversed.”

Adrian Slywotzky

The strategic risk management piece is important in several ways. Obviously, this is hugely informative as we investigate the threats and opportunities of a given business model, and the proper identification and understanding of strategic risk is what ultimately determines a course of action. Elements of this is knowing the reality of where your center of gravity resides with respect to your customers and clients. To ensure prolonged success, that center of gravity needs to reside at the heart of your company, at the core of what you do and the value you create. Inevitably, though, it resides with the customers who have a range of relatively equal options from which to choose. The challenge is in retaking that center of gravity and subsequently reversing or inverting the value chain. A traditional value chain begins with assets and ends with a customer, inverting it creates a business model around the customer that results in assets. Think about that for a second and get back to me.

Getting into more detail about strategic risk management… it is the perpetual survey of your landscape for those things which will make you irrelevant, those things which can damage your business design. Things like:

• Misreading your customers
• Damaged reputation
• Commoditization of your product or service
• Technology
• Ownership/leadership transitions
• Global politics
• Currency fluctuations
• Supplier changes
• Factor of costs
• Talent deficits
• Changing customer demographics

Now, that list is by no means comprehensive and is pretty high level. So, stop for a second and reflect on your own business. What would your list look like? Can any of these strategic risks be turned into opportunities? To be successful, the answer needs to be a committed “Yes.” We live in an age of volatility and our lives, our businesses, are subjected to a diverse and evolving range of generators and catalysts of this volatility. What we do about this is also evolve our businesses in advance of these risks and in answer to the volatility. When these risks are unmanaged they will affect even the very best teams and the very best business models. No one is immune, and we are seeing this play out seemingly everywhere. There are innumerable case studies of companies not managing this risk:

• Contrast the S&P High-to-Low Quality ratio of A-ranked stocks to C-ranked stocks over the last 25 years. The A-ranked stocks have decreased from 31% to 14% of total value while C-ranked stocks have increased from 12% to 30%
• Why has Procter & Gamble taken 5 years to recover from the 2000 market value drop? Why did they suffer the drop in the first place?
• Other blue chips face the same fate… look at McDonald’s, Siemens, Merck and Deutsche Bank. Their performance lines are nearly identical.
• More specifically, why has Coca Cola lost market value while Pepsi has gained market value over the same time?
• Sony has lost while Samsung has won, Johnson & Johnson is winning while Merck is losing, and Maytag tanks while Whirlpool takes off. Each example, two companies in the same industry. One wins, the other is losing.

What is going on here? The winners sited properly assessed risk and realized that the time of maximum value is the time of maximum risk. This is really tough for most companies, but especially difficult for historically successful companies to address. Legacy thinking persists. This can be scary, and sometimes is not something anybody really wants to talk about or bring up in a meeting. Even worse, it just is not what management wants to hear… they can’t handle the truth. The reality is that strategic risk is the killer of business models. It is killing the US automotive industry, it is working its way through consumer electronics, and (getting back to the beginning) it is challenging creative enterprise.

Knowing this, and anticipating risk at this level begins to tell you how to protect and grow your business. For creative enterprise it entails a concerted effort to identify what the true value is in the work we do. Really, do our clients VALUE the work that we provide on their behalf? Do we create value at all? Who in our space is being successful and why? What are they doing differently and what is setting them apart from the rest of the firms around them? This starts with shrewd competitive analysis, but it cannot stop there. What are the technology risks that we face and what are the event horizons for these risks? Where are we allocating capital to activities that give us no differentiation? Ultimately, after answering all of these questions (and many, many more) what are the business designs that take advantage of the fact that all of our competitors face the same questions, challenges and realities?

How do we turn our problems into our competitor’s problems?

A summary of the risks we face, and that successfully navigated will inform your business model design:

• Technology shift
• Industry economic squeeze
• Brand investment mix (advertising, design, PR, training, information…)
• Project risk
• Customer shift
• Stagnation risk

While automobile companies on this side of the Atlantic determine how best to disassemble enterprise, elsewhere things are somewhat more positive. In contrast to the hard times seen by GM, Ford and Chrysler, Porsche has had a remarkable few years. So much so, that with the strong increase in sales, and the commensurate increase in profits, the employees of Porsche will be getting a significant bonus, and one larger than their bonus last year. I posted about the changes that went down at Porsche in the mid-1990’s, and as a result of those changes the successful strategy that has transpired. It would seem that Porsche is on the right track, and continuing to expand into new markets with new products. This will not last forever, as luxury automotive products can reach saturation in a market very quickly, but for the time it is a reality to be savored. Not fifteen years ago Porsche was on the brink of insolvency.

Porsche is, and has been, the world’s most profitable car company as of late. As a result, its 8,000 workers will receive a bonus of $7,350. Their bonus last year was $4,900. The increase is due to the fact that they sold nearly 98,000 cars and as a result profits rose by 3.4 percent to $10.5 Billion. Fifteen years ago Porsche’s sales numbers were decreasing towards 10,000 units.

That’s quite a turnaround, and I applaud the success. Porsche is an amazing case study in the value of decisive leadership, clear vision, knowing how to expand the value of a recognized and iconic brand, innovation across the board, and a belief in reinvention.

via Winding Road

An ongoing area of interest for me is how we can innovate in the guidance and leadership of a creative enterprise, and thus sustain successful operations. This is centered around the challenges facing most professional services in the creative arena, something that it would seem all are struggling with, at least at some level. The core of this is the commodification of creative work, whether that be advertising, architecture or graphic design. Many firms have allowed themselves to become factories, to become production houses. In some ways, this is the result of our own devaluing of our efforts. In others, it is born out of an entirely different decision-making process that has been progressively gaining ground with the clients for creative services… the prevalence of value assignment based on time worked and not on value created.

I came across an article that was very insightful in relation to these realities by Avi Dan in Advertising Age. It succinctly lays it all out. His article is leveled squarely at advertising agencies, and why so many are facing the music as their business model is yanked out from under them. As I read his article I could not help but see strong similarities to the realities we face in architecture, and those I experienced in other creative businesses. Avi outlines five key areas that agencies, and by extension most creative enterprise, need to investigate:

• COMPENSATION
  Should be tied to value creation and not based solely on labor. Clients and creative firms need to work out a fairer compensation scheme recognizing the value of intellectual capital.
• OUTSOURCING
  Smart creative organizations should evolve into creative portals, outsourcing external creative talent in areas such as production, as well as in logistical operations.
• REVENUE STREAMS
  Firms need to explore ways to monetize new areas of involvement such as licensing, e-commerce applications and even the work itself.
• SPEED
  Creative enterprise must recognize that in a web-based world that moves at warp speed, speed itself is a strategic asset and those that can help their clients with speed-to-market executions will have an advantage.
• SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
  The firm model should recognize that social responsibility is at the core of the modern firm, hand in hand with its financial accountability to shareholders, and is essential for recruiting top talent.

Of special note are the ideas around outsourcing and revenue streams. There is a controlling mindset in most creative firms that they must own all waypoints in the project process. I cannot help but ask “why?” Outsourcing is a tremendous opportunity to not only diversify your talent, but to allow you to focus on what you are truly good at… and seek support from partners who are better at the other project roles than your team may be. Additionally, seeking complimentary and supplemental revenue streams is enormous. As creative businesses we are perpetually innovating with respect to our client’s businesses. Why is it that we cannot bring this same approach, this innovation, to benefit our own businesses? Over the course of a year there will be any number of revenue opportunities available to a firm that are outside of their traditional business model, but because of that model these ideas will make it scarcely farther than the whiteboard.

All of this to say, many companies face an environment of intense change and competition. Those that get it are focused on changing with the environment in which they operate. Some are changing fast, with a cultural premium on innovation and knowledge in the value created by their own people. Those that do not are not going to last. I feel it is that simple.

While scanning the shelves of our local wine store, I found one bottle distinct among the hundreds of others. It is the Voga Italia Pinot Grigio, pictured below, and the bottle form is refreshingly different.

Contrasted against the typical wine bottle, it looks modern, functional, and ultimately pretty cool. I imagine that alone has been enough for this wine to meet with some success in the marketplace. Admittedly, I am a sucker for cool packaging… I think our entire culture is, but the question going through my mind is why more wineries are not experimenting with the packaging of their product. The shelves of your wine shop are essentially dominated by a form factor that has been largely unchanged for hundreds of years. This shape can be traced back to around 300CE. In 1867 earthenware bottle shaped wine containers were discovered in a Roman sarcophagus dating to 325CE. So, the wine bottles on our shelves today are marginally improved versions of packaging created nearly 2000 years ago. Now that’s some serious design longevity. Is it because the wine bottle is the perfect shape in which to store and ship wine? Is it simply an unchallenged convention? Is is a cost issue?

I imagine that at some level the answer to all three of those questions is believed to be “yes.” But is it really? There is a terrifically strong argument that as these bottles compete on the shelves for the attention of the wine buyer that anything they can do to stand out, to be different, is going to be an advantage. This strategy has played out almost comically on our grocery store and discount department store shelves. Look at ketchup or laundry detergent. Products packaged well, sell well. Products that are packaged expertly have the potential to lead their categories. Naturally, to sustain sales the product must also deliver on consumer expectations for quality and performance. Now, we love wine and are constantly shopping for new experiences. It is stunning to me that as we scan the bottles of Califonia Syrah, Burgundy Pinot Noir, Loire Valley Sancerre, and Italian Barrolo we are essentially looking at the same bottle. There may be minor variations in the color and tint of the glass. There may be subtle differences in the glass thickness, in the punt, or the neck length, but essentially… it’s the same damn bottle. Now, some of this is determined by the governing bodies of the regions in which the grapes are grown and these wines are made, like the Appelation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) in France. But plenty of winemakers in all governed regions defy convention and the laws of the governing bodies (and their arcane rules) to do things their own way, and they do that successfully. At least one winemaker understands the value of differentiation, and their packaging (incredibly similar to that used for Voss water) was enough to get us to buy a bottle and try it… and had it been in a typical Pinot Grigio bottle we would have kept on walking. As it turned out, the wine was not bad. It was a nice summer, good value, patio sitting, crisp white wine. For the money, and with the packaging figure in, it over-delivered on the experience.

I state the obvious when I say that wine bottle shape has much to do with tradition, but it is a package that is desperate for creative thinking and innovation. The storage issue alone demands that the bottle shape be revisited. Add to that opportunities for limiting packaging waste, shipping in smaller boxes, and improved durability and there are compelling reasons to think differently about the wine bottle.

Digital Arts had a great post yesterday that speculates, and probably very accurately, on the secrets to the sustained success of Apple in the fiercely competitive consumer electronics category. There is no denying that Apple has honed an approach to engaging the consumer that no other company can claim. Beyond creating loyal customers, Apple creates passionate adherents. Why? How? The article breaks it down into eight secrets:

Secret 1 - Engineering supports design — no exceptions

Typically, design enters the strategic momentum behind an idea at precisely the wrong time, and that is once the idea has been defined by real world constraints in the wrong direction… from the concept to the audience. Success comes out of designing from the audience to the concept. Apple understands that the interaction is the design, and that designers need to drive the strategy for an idea.

Secret 2 - Fewer is better

Apple clearly understands the dangers of product oversegmentation. They work to create the fewest number of products with the broadest possible appeal. This works incredibly well.

Secret 3 - The experience is the product

See Secret 1. But even beyond crafting the experience of using their products, Apple has integrated the experience of interacting with their packaging, and added drama to the unboxing of a new product. Websites are dedicated to this phenomenon alone, and it takes product fetishism to an entirely new level. While competitors look at packaging as necessary, Apple sees it as another incredible opportunity to connect with their audience. This extends to the physical environment of the Apple Stores, and to the Apple website. The experience is consistent.

Secret 4 - The product is the product

As companies become successful, they generally become bigger. At some point, feeding the machine becomes the product that the executives are selling. Look at Microsoft as an example. Apple maintains a relentless focus on their products, on what they do, and everything else is secondary and useless to their audience.

Secret 5 - You can’t please everyone, so please people with good taste

I cannot say this any better… from the post:

“Targeting the low end cheapens the brand. Going after the ‘average’ consumer shrinks margins. Only the high end creates the pixie-dust intangible quality of buzz, brand affinity and, ultimately, brand loyalty, which can be converted into higher margins and higher sales.”

Secret 6 - Leave the past behind

You are either a company focused on innovation and invention, or on supporting legacy ideas, systems and technologies. You cannot do both and keep your customers.

Secret 7 - Product names are important. Really important

A name supports the identity, which supports the overall brand. It gives people something immediate to identify with, something to reference. It is recognizable. A series of letters and numbers is confusing, not memorable, and not user friendly.

Secret 8 - Group affiliation is the driver

This is the biggest, baddest secret of the eight. Basically, people want to belong and they want to identify with things that make them feel secure, or in some cases superior. Apple has created this by maintaining a cohesive “fan-base” around their products and technologies. I pointed this out in my post on Steve Jobs… but how many company CEO’s launch their products to the world? How many do it 2-3 times per year? How many CEO’s command standing-room-only attendance at every event announcing these new products?

The answer is easy… One company. One CEO.

The really compelling thing is how many of these concepts, these secrets, translate directly to just about any creative enterprise, and how concrete an example and reminder this is for all of us. I especially take to heart Secret 5, about pleasing people with good taste. I take this to mean choose your customers, the audience for what you do, and choose them very carefully. Say no to the business that does not move your company forward that you are not passionate about doing. It is better to restructure your company around a solid vision, and around the customers you want to serve than to compromise. This helps you to break the commodification cycle that currently plagues so many professional services creative companies.

Yours truly was referenced at architechnophilia as a blog worthy of checking out. I have enjoyed that blog for a very, very long time and greatly appreciate the mention. Note that architechnophilia has been in the schneiderism blogroll (over there, in the right column) from our very inception. I subscribe to their RSS feed and have a 100% hit rate for viewing posts. It’s comprehensive. It’s good.

There is a terrific article in Motortrend about Ron Dennis and his new “office” (pictured above). Ron leads McLaren… the designers and builders of incredibly high performance road and race cars. Most notably, McLaren has long been involved in Formula One racing, historically building and sponsoring (if not outright leading) some incredible winning campaigns. Think Mika Hakkinen in the late 90’s or so. McLaren is also behind the McLaren F1 BMW V12 powered roadgoing supercar of the mid-90’s that made my jaw hit the floor before I knew any better. It was hand-built by McLaren and sold to very wealthy people for around $1m.

But I digress, and though Ron Dennis is all kinds of cool, and although McLaren is an incredible design/engineering/R+D force in the world of high performance automobiles, this post is actually about workplace design. The article in Motortrend does an excellent job documenting, describing and exploring the new McLaren Technology Center designed by the starchitect Sir Norman Foster, the same knighted gentleman doing surreal projects all over the UAE and Dubai.

The new center is enormous, definitive in its design, and is a hub of quiet and focused activity for the 1000 staff that work there creating and developing high-performance vehicles. It is technically state of the art, and actually looks more like the HQ of NASA… or at least what NASA’s HQ should look like in movies. The environment created by Sir Norman Foster for McLaren is pure and unadulterated Ron Dennis. Ron is very much a top-down leader, and makes no apologies for this. In fact, he seems to revel in his level of control and influence over his organization. The design of this environment was not about focus groups and it was not about surveying employees. It was about listening to exactly what Ron wanted, analyzing that, and turning it into architecture. Here is a choice quote from the author of the article in Motortrend:

“Backwoods philosopher Henry David Thoreau warned we should ‘beware of any enterprise requiring new clothes.’ Dennis now has one of the biggest sets of new clothes of them all, a gleaming monument to the client’s uncompromising obsession and the architect’s near-perfect ability to deliver it. Architecturally speaking, it’s what you should expect when one of the world’s most technically bonkers architects is given a huge budget and a sympathetic brief. And it’s startling. But it’s clearly more than is strictly necessary to build Formula 1 cars.”

It goes on to state that the goal was to give the employees the absolute best environment within which to do their work. I get that, but looking at the photographs, and contrasting that with the facility VW created for the assembly of their Phaeton luxury car in Dresden, seen below, you cannot help but feel the concept of “the best environment” has very different manifestations.

I mean this in the most objective way possible, but where would you rather work? I have spent an inordinant amount of time wrenching on cars, and fast ones at that, and have a love for a clean, well lit and organized garage with everything in its place… but I also crave an environment that I would like to spend time in. This brings us right to the core of issues around involuntary, or non-preferred environments as illuminated by Orfield Labs in an earlier post about the Open Plan Work Group, and efforts to move our workplaces to align more closely with the other environments that we prefer, that we engage in voluntarily. The question I would love to ask the engineers and technicians that spend their days (and probably many evenings) in this operating theater environment is “Does it work for you?” Maybe it does, but I sense a chasm between the efforts to recreate the set of the movie Gattaca and provide the best possible environment for your people to toil in.

Do I sound harsh?

This commentary is in no way to imply that I do not think the new facility is cool looking. It is incredibly cool looking. Maybe too cool looking. The goal here, I believe, is not to just create environments that look “cool.” The goal here is to create environments that work, and this means work in relation to the human factors of the people that inhabit the environment. Given this, and when seen through the lens of architectural dynamics, I cannot help but think the McLaren Technology Center harbors enormous liabilities as it relates to human factors… especially when contrasted with the VW facility pictured above. We see this all of the time, where an organization decides to build a new headquarters and an enhanced presence. Inevitably, this comes down to how design is deployed to reflect the culture and brand of the organization… and it seems to stop there. How these environments actually engage the people that make up the organizations seems to not make it onto the agenda, or not until the very end when it is more of an afterthought. There is more time spent on the public face, on materials that are impactful, than on supporting culture and environments that enhance health. Foster’s firm, Foster+Partners, has a workplace consulting group… they must be engaged in these issues, and they may have brought them to the table in their initial design discussions with Ron Dennis. I surmise, though, that Ron’s style precluded anything being entertained that was not within the boundaries of his aesthetic vision, of which he is admittedly obsessive. The headline, “Dust Can Be Eliminated” is a direct quote from Ron Dennis.

One last quote from the article:

“Staff are allowed no personal mementoes on desks. Dennis tried a total ban on food and drink in the workplace because ‘food contaminates.’ There were slight mumbles from the normally docile staff. Water was offered as a concession.”

Check out the slideshows of VW’s Phaeton facility and McLaren’s new Technology Center, what do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Given my previous post regarding Steve Jobs being a rockstar, and anticipating the Apple product launch of last Tuesday, I found myself feeling a little bit underwhelmed after viewing Jobs’ keynote. Yes, he unveiled some very cool technology and functionality housed in typically cool Apple hardware. Yes, millions of people watching found themselves in the consumerism want cycle. Again.

I was underwhelmed for two reasons. The first is that the presentation given by Steve Jobs seemed rough. There were a couple technical glitches and he seemed unsure at times if things were going to work. It just wasn’t as tight as other keynotes I have seen by Steve, and clearly not in the rockstar league I put him in with my post. Sorry about that. The second reason is that what was unveiled had been nearly 100% anticipated by technology bloggers for nearly a year. Very little shown was unexpected. Even the form factor of the devices had been correctly speculated. For me, at least, it created a sense of having already seen it before… even though none of the products presented had been officially acknowledged by Apple until the moment Steve pulled them out of his pocket. There didn’t seen to be any surprises, any “WOW!” Maybe I am jaded, and I probably am, but I wanted more… and so did countless others.

So, I thought about this for a couple of days and in doing so realized I had missed something of huge importance. There WAS a surprise presented by Steve Jobs on Tuesday, and it had enormous WOW factor. It is, in fact, revolutionary for the world of mobile communications. I think most of us missed it as it was incredibly subtle. On Tuesday, Apple announced a partnership with Starbucks whereby customers will be able to buy Starbucks brand music from their iPod or iPhone while enjoying their coffee. At the time I was thinking… “so what?” But I had missed it. This is actually a really big deal, and not because you can now purchase that John Coltrane song playing overhead while sitting in your local neighborhood Starbucks. Here’s the deal:

• - You are sitting in a Starbucks
• - Your iPod/iPhone automatically knows this
• - A Starbucks icon automatically appears on your device interface
• - Your device syncs to your exact location, in that exact store
• - You hear the John Coltrane song, you hit the Starbucks button now on your device
• - The song is already ready to be purchased on your device, with one button click
• - The entire exercise is seamless and completely location specific and in real time

It’s the last line that is important. Location specific communications. This development could explode the entire mobile communications industry. That Apple cast this accomplishment as more about the convenience of purchasing music at Starbucks, and seemed to play up oddly so this partnership with Starbucks, distracted us from the bigger idea here. It is inspiring that your device becomes integrated with your experience, at that very moment.

All of this means that information is no longer limited to what is on the device, or to accessing a network and actively finding the information you seek. Now, information can be contextual and complimentary to what you are experiencing. It can anticipate your needs based on context. Here are some examples that I came up with:

• - Access to a building directory and directions to your destination
• - At the airport, real time access to arrivals and departures
• - In a hospital, wayfinding assistance, information access and patient support
• - What is on sale or special at the grocery store, or any store… and a recipe catalog
• - Information and background on the wines on the shelf of a wineshop
• - Card catalog access and directions to a specific book in a library
• - In your car, immediate access to traffic information specific to your route

That was about one minute’s worth of ideas, but you get the picture. Our mobile devices can begin to contextually understand our tasks, and our needs, and efficiently surface supporting information… unprompted. This is integration at a whole new level, and the partnership with Starbucks, believe me, is only the beginning of a revolution of location specific functionality that iPhones and iPods gain to take advantage of with the WiFi networks they join. An implied revolution, at least at this point.

A post over at knowlesystem got me thinking about nanotechnology, and how researchers and scientists are experimenting with nanofactories that build nanomaterials like carbon nanotubes, and then assemble those nanotubes into larger nanostructures. Think about the possibilities for material science utilizing nanotechnology. Structures that assemble themselves from unseen particles. Your home could assemble itself wherever you need it. You would never need to stay at a hotel again… or own land.

I started looking into research being done with nanomaterials, but became sidetracked by metamaterial. Metamaterial is a material that gains its properties from its structure rather than directly from its composition. The term was coined by Rodger M. Walser of the University of Texas at Austin in 1999, and metamaterials were defined by him in 2002 as follows:

“macroscopic composites having a manmade, three-dimensional, periodic cellular architecture designed to produce an optimized combination, not available in nature, of two or more responses to specific excitation.”

Unique, customizable, producible, controllable materials based on periodic elements. Essentially, these unique materials are special, and of special importance in electromagnetism, communications and optics - three key areas with a number of promising technology applications. For optical applications alone there are an enormous number of potential uses for metamaterials… like laser guidance and modulation and high capacity directional lenses. Things not acheiveable with traditional optics technologies.

Interestingly, there has lately been much talk about how metamaterials might also possibly allow for the invisibility cloak often used in science fiction, and long on the wish list of our friends at DARPA. Not exactly THAT invisibility cloak, but researchers at Duke have been able to use the materials to hide an object from being detected by microwave sensors. That is still incredibly cool, and still of great value to a wide array of military technologies. It also makes me think of the scramble suits worn by the characters in Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly.

Only until recently, metamaterials were used to modify light. Researches have begun to investigate their ability to modify sound, another form of wave energy, their thinking being that an acoustic application of these materials would do the same for sound as it does for light. If acoustic metamaterials really can do the same for sound as they do for light, that could mean better lenses for ultrasound machines, and perhaps even cloaks that can hide submarines from sonar. I am guessing that is on DARPA’s wish list as well.

references:

Journal of The Optical Society of America

Purdue University

I had the opportunity to participate in a design charette yesterday put on by Steve Orfield and Wes Chapman at Orfield Laboratories. The charette is part of their Open Plan Working Group, which seeks to address issues of building performance, user experience, and innovation in workplace design. Steve Orfield has been working, through effective and substantive research, for over 30 years to support investigations into workplace quality, worker health, and challenging accepted norms of office design, organization, and function. Human factors is a huge driver of Orfield’s work, and the belief that the concept of “Architectural Dynamics (AD)” can change the world.

Organizations like Herman Miller and Lutron support his efforts, and sponsor the OPWG. Both were present at the charette yesterday. Specifically, this event was to explore opportunities to improve a building environment by the creative application of Architectural Dynamics. AD refers to environments that are controlled and influenced over time based on knowledge and inputs from occupant preferences and actual occupant behavior. AD seeks to effect change in these environments through such things as bio-mimicry, cuing, stimulation, calming, and other forms of occupant reinforcement. The goal is to change the workplace from a non-preferred and involuntary environment into a preferred and voluntary environment. Specific areas of influence are lighting/daylighting and view, thermal comfort, and sound addition and attenuation. Lofty goals, to be sure, but Steve and his group are far down the path of effecting real change.

The charette began with occupant research presented that challenges suppositions and assertions we all have about the places in which we work. A great example of this research was measurements of occupant valuations in regards to daylighting and view. Having an outside view is shown to greatly outweigh valuations of natural daylight. That was surprising.

The design charette involved looking closely at an existing structure with significant design liabilities, and how the individual design teams might mitigate the building limitations by creatively applying AD concepts. The results were very, very cool. While there was quite a bit of similarity between the teams, there was also great difference… especially with regards to how far each team was able or willing to push the concepts. Ultimately, there was tremendous alignment on enhancing audience experience, both from a macro (building-wide) and micro (individual) perspective. There was much discussion on how much control should be given to individuals, and how to manage this control to maintain energy efficiency and minimize negatively affecting other individuals in close proximity. I came away with a much enhanced understanding both of the impact of design decisions in the workplace, and how to design to more effectively enhance the occupant experience. We want the environments we create to enhance health and well being, and to align appropriately to an individuals work style preferences. Yes, this has dramatic affects on productivity, but first and foremost it supports more healthy work environments. Increased productivity is a nice result from this goal.

All of this seeks to challenge and change the reliance on the 1950’s metaphor of workplace design. This is a metaphor that needs to be cracked open as the places in which we spend upwards of 8 hours a day, five+ days a week are not designed to support us in our work or in our interactions. They are created out of economic decisions based on minimizing expense and gaining as much space efficiency as possible. They are created out of building practices that have stood largely unchallenged by research and health assessments. We have a responsibility as designers to hold ourselves to research based standards of performance in the environments that we create, to ensure that our designs are adding health and NOT detracting. To paraphrase Steve Orfield, we should look to the Hippocratic oath for inspiration and commit our work to “doing no harm.”

A colleague of mine has launched his blog at knowlesystem. His focus is honed and specific to the forces changing and shaping the world of architecture and design. Cool stuff. We have had an infinite number of incredible discussions and brainstorms on this topic, and this was suggested as a way to begin capturing this content, and involve others in the conversation. I highly suggest subscribing as there will be a proliferation of compelling content coming forthwith.

Congrats on the site, Stephen.

Another colleague introduced acmesiren a couple weeks ago, and I wanted to offer a more formal welcome and congrats to Nick as well. His blog is focused on finding and revealing what is new, cool and interesting in the world of experimental music. Also, very cool stuff. And a terrific resource.

Both blogs are featured in the schneiderism blogroll in the right column, which is naturally an incredibly high honor.

I just read this article at Fast Company and, while a little simplistic, it does a nice job both describing how business needs to embrace design thinking, and the value of design in business. The author, Mark Dziersk, lists six tips to help business understand design and incorporate strategy along with the design approach to problem solving:

1. Design strategy is not an oxymoron: Creativity is the key to innovation, strategy is the mirror equivalent for business.

2. The world is upside down, embrace it: Embrace the death of the controlled business model.

3. Invent new training, train thyself: If you understand little about design or creativity, learn more.

4. Understand your DNA: At the core of every go-to-market effort is a strategy based around the DNA of the consumers’ experience.

5. Visualize strategy: Visually map your processes. Designers are visual people.

6. Stop using Powerpoint and start telling stories: Use creativity in your presentations and get it back in spades.

While the article is directed at a more traditional business audience, one that is maybe unsure about how to incorporate design into their strategic approach, there is something here for all of us. In fact, the article pulls together several thoughts that have been expressed here on schneiderism into one cohesive narrative. We all need to understand how our audiences have changed, and how we need to change in order to best communicate our value and engage them as they wish to be engaged. We all need to become massively better at telling stories and move away from reporting. The value for understanding is in the story, in the context within which a situation exists. Reporting delivers a snapshot, and business moves too quickly today to base decisions on snapshots.

Ultimately, what the article describes is a competitive necessity. Design brings a deeper understanding and more substantive connections to our audience, and these are the things that are supporting innovation in business and success in the most competitive of industries… think personal computing, music, automobiles, fashion, publishing… I can keep going. In each case, there are businesses that are still governed by a business model born out of another time, and those that are fast moving, adapting and innovating, constantly reinventing the business model for their industry. My money is on the latter for being around in ten years.

I’ve been reading and really enjoying “House: Black Swan Theory” by Steven Holl. The book comprises a selection of 15 of Holl’s more recent residential projects, focusing on site-specific homes that range from a +20,000sf ambassadorial residence (see image above) to a small and efficient sub-100sf lakeside studio. This idea of the ‘black swan theory’ stems from analyzing design needs from a “specific-to-universal” point of view, one built upon dissimilarity and variation. Each of the examples in the book is a house that has a completely different focus. One grows from a musical analogy of Bartok, one inspired by Moby Dick, while another is the reinvestigation of an 18th century nail factory. All are elemental in their use of natural light and the integration of the surrounding environment, with the result being that each home is an integrated dynamic instead of simply being an object. Each home represents a series of relationships.

The homes featured in the book are from all over the globe, including an intimate and private location in Hawaii, to the Hague in the Netherlands. Each of the projects includes examples of Holl’s initial sketches and ideations for the project, as well as specific details and observations that were incorporated into the design solution. It is a beautiful book, and Steven Holl is an excellent designer. Getting a window into his process and approach is immensely interesting.

I have really enjoyed the Manifesto issue of ICON, and posted earlier the manifesto of Bruce Mau. It is interesting to read the results of a person’s efforts to catch something smart and concise for the benefit of us all. Admittedly, some of the manifestos are pretty weak. But some were pretty great. Joshua Prince-Ramus’ was pretty great.

Prince-Ramus is an architect and designer, and a partner in the recently formed architecture studio REX. He came out of OMA, the studio of the famous “starchitect” Rem Koolhaas, where he led various projects like that for the Seattle public library. My first exposure to the thinking of Prince-Ramus was via his presentation at TED in 2006 (absolutely worth watching). In that presentation he dropped more than a few bombs on the world of architecture. Nothing we didn’t know or acknowledge already, but powerful to hear spoken out loud. He described a “hyper-rational” approach to architecture, explaining how logic can act as the catalyst for extraordinary buildings and yield opportunities otherwise hidden by the bias of the designer. This hyper-rational approach is something paid lip service to by most design fields, but Prince-Ramus lays bare the the essential mechanics, and results, of this approach to solving design problems.

His manifesto in ICON is a summary of that TED presentation, and essentially forms the mission statement for his studio. Following are a few of my favorite excerpts:

“We design collaborations rather than dictate solutions. The media sells simple, catchy ideas; it reduces teams to individuals and their collaborative work to genius sketches. The proliferation of this false notion of “starchitecture” diminishes the real teamwork that drives celebrated architecture.”

Design is riddled with myths, and designers are perhaps the best at perpetuating those myths. The reality is that successful design solutions come directly from a thorough understanding of context, constraint and audience. Meaningful design is also most often the result of effective collaboration and the blending of perspectives. These perspectives, and the efforts of the team to develop a 360 degree understanding of the situation, are the foundation on which opportunities are built. Anything less is at best a stylistic bias.

“We embrace responsibility in order to implement vision. The implementation of good ideas demands as much, if not more, creativity than their conceptualisation. Increasingly reluctant to assume liability, architects have retreated from the accountability (and productivity) of Master Builders to the safety (and impotence) of stylists.”

We see this all of the time. Sometimes we are like gold miners. We strike a rich vein of ideas, or a successful approach, and then mine the hell out of it. We become identified by those results, it becomes our genre. Ultimately, this leads to commodification and the disregarding of the importance of context, constraint and audience. It is a one size fits all approach to design.

“We side with neither form nor function. REX believes that the struggle between form and function is superficial and unproductive. We proffer the term “performance” instead: a hybrid that doesn’t discriminate between use, organization and form. We free ourselves from the tired debate over whether architecture is an art or a tool. Art performs; tools perform.”

If you watch the TED presentation that Prince-Ramus gave last year, it is abundantly clear that REX is practicing what it preaches. The approach that resulted in the team’s solution for the Seattle public library is exposed for exactly what it was… total understanding of the context, constraints and diverse audiences for that project. It is also clear that from its inception, that project was about performance and the inextricable integration of form and function, of the aesthetic with the need for the solution to work.

“We love the banal. REX dares to be dumb (like a fox).”

Great piece in todays New York Times about the work being done to update the ubiquitous highway sign. Now, I am not a graphic designer… though I play one on tv, but I will admit to being among the first to get totally geeked out about this sort of thing. Here’s why. This is the culmination of a near ten year effort by a team including an environmental designer and a type designer. Their goals? Improve readability at a distance and at speed. Sounds simple enough, but it’s not. Think about the generational differences in the audience and how (or how well) those audiences see. Think about the variables… like inclement weather, fog, night, dusk, dawn, differing road speeds, oncoming headlights, and screaming kids in the back seat. Needless to say, these folks had a lot to think about.

This article is a terrific window into an evidence based design process. 10 years is a long time, but consider that the current road sign design has effectively been in place since the 1950’s. That is serious longevity for any design, and really, the efforts here are building on the effectiveness of the original sign system, while also addressing its deficiencies. This is an excellent example of graphic design being deployed to solve serious real world challenges, and help us all get to where we need to go.

Image from the NYT slideshow

“So long as architects self-marginalize by purposely excluding the business of development and its real burden of complexity and decision making from their education, from their business, architecture will remain a gentleman’s weekend culture, unwilling or unable to take on the heavy lifting and big problems, happy to polish fancy baubles for our urban entertainment.

The business model for architecture is singularly unsuccessful. One in a thousand architects can afford to enjoy the pleasures that they are capable of producing for others. Architects accept enormous risks without the commensurate rewards. It is time, in this new millennium, to get dirty, to take on more of the scope of urban projects, to contribute more to a sustainable future and to participate in more of the wealth architects create. The world would be a better place if more of what we built in our cities was determined by people educated and trained with culture, civic awareness, aesthetic sensitivity and historical knowledge. I look forward to the first school of architectural development!”

Bruce Mau - 50 Manifestos, ICON magazine

That, my dear friends, is going to leave a mark.

Think about this for a moment, why do most workplaces today look much like they did 10, 20, or even 30 years ago? How is it, with all of the changes in our society, in technology, and in the ways in which we work, the workplace still looks like a 1950’s cliche? It does not make any sense. The stasis that office and workplace design finds itself in cannot have a very positive effect on worker performance, happiness, or quality of life. Really, this is huge.

A big realization that I’ve had recently is beginning to understand the disconnection between the cycle of workplace renovation/investigation and how frequently work itself is changing. I know that facilities renovations are rare and infrequent largely because they are expensive, and most companies resist rethinking their workplace because of a combination of perceived expense, complexity, and fear. The sad result is that so many people are working today in office environments that reflect assumptions about the nature of work (and technology) that are even older, in many cases, than the actual employees.

My team recently toured a number or organizations recognized for having innovative and creative leadership and cultures, organizations that promote distributed work and enable employees to create their own optimal work patterns and methodologies. They provide their people with a diversity of ways in which they can work, with options. These organizations have had tremendous success in their respective industries, have hugely productive staffs, and generally exhibit a great culture and quality of life. Clearly, there are benefits to investigating the ways we organize around our work. And yet, most office remodels that occur are really just updates on the 1950’s model… some new carpet, new cubes, and maybe a kitchenette over there. The people that work in these “new” offices still have to deal with issues around thermal comfort, lighting, isolation, work interruption, and general discomfort. There is no psychology, no research backing the decisions made in most office rethinks. But what if there was?
Things are beginning to change, as there is some quality research out there that supports very smart changes to the ways we work, the strategies behind the way offices are designed. The good news is that we are seeing more and more examples of workplace layouts that are inherently flexible and open (in a good way) with mobile, modular furniture, terrific lighting, and reconfigurable working space. We are seeing more office design that takes advantage of new technologies and anticipates how technology in the workplace will be changing over time. We can remain optimistic, and the merits of reconfigurable, technology supported working space are becoming more and more accepted. This is partly because of the strength of the research that is out there, and also because almost none of us does precisely the same thing day after day, week after week, and most of us are sick of working in crappy environments.

I was going through some old resources this evening and found this page of quotations related to design by Erik K. Antonsson, a professor at Caltech. Below are two of my favorites:

“If a major project is truly innovative, you cannot possibly know its exact cost and its exact schedule at the beginning. And if in fact you do know the exact cost and the exact schedule, chances are that the technology is obsolete.”
-Joseph G. Gavin, Jr., discussing the design of the lunar module that landed NASA astronauts on the moon.

“And let it be noted that there is no more delicate matter to take in hand, nor more dangerous to conduct, nor more doubtful in its success, than to set up as the leader in the introduction of changes. For he who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new.”
-Niccolò Machiavelli, “The Prince”

The first quote, by Joseph Gavin Jr., just nails it. It also covers well the ruts that teams fall into when they “think” they are being innovative, but really just operating on retread. The quote by Machiavelli kills me… I mean, how many times do we see this play out? I read The Prince back in high school. I think it is time to read that book again…

Machiavelli also said “Men ought either to be well treated or crushed… injury ought to be of such a kind that one does not fear revenge.” Right. Must remember to crush or injure people so badly so as to not fear retribution. Got it.