Change By Design

In his new book, the CEO of design shop IDEO shows how even hospitals can transform the way they work by tapping frontline staff to engineer change

BusinessWeek, September 24, 2009 — As the center of economic activity in the developed world shifts inexorably from industrial manufacturing to knowledge creation and service delivery, innovation has become nothing less than a survival strategy. It is, moreover, no longer limited to new physical products but includes new sorts of processes, services, interactions, entertainment forms, and ways of communicating and collaborating.

Forget Design Thinking and Try Hybrid Thinking

Fast Company, August 25, 2009 — When A.G. Lafley was named CEO of Procter & Gamble during the summer of 2000, the task of turning the organization around looked overwhelming. The price of a share in the consumer packaged goods giant had declined by nearly 55% in just two months. The company was missing revenue and profit targets as it learned to grapple with the Internet and new global competitors. To remain the world's preeminent maker of useful stuff for the house, P&G needed to make a lot of changes very quickly. Lafley saw design as being central to P&G's transformation. Design promised to unleash the creativity of the organization and find new ways to unlock value that a marketing-driven company might not have discovered.

Using Design to Drive Innovation

Designers must deliver the orchestration of the total experience with a brand, product, or service or face irrelevancy

BusinessWeek, June 29, 2009 — In a previous era, all the talk was of strategy, strategy, strategy. More recently, it's been innovation, innovation, innovation. As design thinking seems poised to sweep away some of today's celebrated innovation practices, we must be wondering what new provocation is on the horizon. Relax, I'm not planning to conjure one up.

Ten Things to Demand From Design Thinkers

Fast Company, May 26, 2009 — Design thinking is currently an "It" concept, the topic of countless books and blogs and conference panels. While it can mean a lot of different things to different people, for me, design thinking is a methodology, a tool, a killer app, and a problem-solving protocol to be used on virtually any problem. It can be equally effective in designing a new product or creating a new brand, to envisioning a new approach to health care or to reinventing city management. Mayor Daley in Chicago, where I live, is a pretty effective design thinker. That's right, Mayor Daley.

Is Information Visualization the Next Frontier for Design?

As design work shifts to infrastructure and problem solving, sexy infographics are part of the new skill set.

Fast Company, May 10, 2009 — You've seen them. Those tag clouds in the right-hand column of Web sites with jumbled type of varying weight and size indicating the relative usage of words. Tag clouds may be the most common example of an emerging field known as "information visualization," an offshoot of graphic design devoted to the clear display of complex information. Executive pay in relation to shareholder returns. Senate voting patterns.

Circle of Saturn

Hub, March 2, 2009 — Jill Lajdziak says it’s the retail experience that makes the Saturn difference.

Between the time we spoke with Jill Lajdziak and the publication of this interview, General Motors announced plans to close Saturn. Well, here’s another news flash: This doesn’t necessarily mean the end for Saturn. And it certainly does not change the enlightened view Saturn brings to automotive retailing.

'Breathtaking' Is One Word for Purported Arnell Pepsi Doc†

Mad Ave Buzzing About the Deep Thinking That Supposedly Went Into Brand Logo Redesign

Advertising Age, February 11, 2009 — Over the past 24 hours, adland has been abuzz about "Breathtaking," a 27-page document purported to be the thinking behind Arnell Group's recent revamping of Pepsi-Cola's logo. Littered as it is with marketing jargon, images of yin-yangs, mobius strips and Da Vinci's Vitruvian man, you'll maybe wonder whether Michael Phelps wasn't the only one hitting that bong.

Lessons from innovation's front lines: An interview with IDEO's CEO

Tim Brown, whose company specializes in innovation, distills the lessons of his career.

McKinsey Quarterly, November 15, 2008 — Many companies claim to be innovative, but few can claim innovation as their raison d’être. One such innovation machine is IDEO—a designer of products, services, and experiences ranging from Apple’s first mass-market computer mouse to aspects of Prada’s store in New York City to the patient-care delivery model at SSM DePaul Health Center, in St. Louis, Missouri.

IDEO’s single-minded focus makes it an intriguing port of call for executives seeking insights on innovation.

Businesses Take a Page From Design Firms†

Sloan-Kettering Taps Industry for Innovative Ideas on Management, Dealing With Unexpected Rivals

Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2008 — When New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center wanted to make the chemotherapy process easier on patients three years ago, it sought help from an unusual place: the design firm IDEO Inc.

The IDEO consultants approached the problem the way they design eggbeaters or CD players: by closely watching patients and testing little changes.

The process delivered surprises. Clinic staffers thought patients disliked long waits for treatments. But patients said other worries were more stressful, so the clinic changed how patients are tested, how they learn about chemotherapy and how they get to the clinics.

Thinking by Design†

Brandweek, November 2, 2008 — While marketers have appreciated the value of distinctive design for some time now—at least since Apple and Target started making it a key differentiator about a decade ago—design thinking is something else. The premise is that if you tap a designer, or a designer's problem-solving approach, to tackle standard business problems, you will get game-changing results.