Posted by: Helen Walters on May 07
I'm a big fan of the work of designer Branko Lukic. Having spent many years at consultancies such as Frog and IDEO, he branched out in 2006 to found his own design firm, Non-Object. A part of what he and his team of four, split between Palo Alto and Lukic's native Belgrade are working on is a book which will feature 45 radical design ideas and experiments. Lukic dubs the thinking behind the book "design fiction" and proposals includes concepts and prototypes for products such as cell phones, cameras and cutlery. Now here's travel, and an exclusive first look at nUCLEUS, Non-Object's alternative fuel motorbike concept.
Image of the bike, ready to roll
Looks unlike anything you'd see on a road, huh? Well that's exactly the point. These concepts are not necessarily meant to be produced, but to start a conversation about received design wisdom and to get people thinking about design -- and those elements we take for granted. More from Branko -- and more images of the motorcycle, after the jump. Also, check out the film on the Non-Object site.
Continue reading "A truly alternative motorcycle design from Branko Lukic"
Posted by: Helen Walters on May 06
Everyone's been talking about the Nike Plus community of runners and athletes for years now. It was a really smart use of technology which displayed its creators' grasp of how to tune into social networks in an appropriate and useful fashion. Now Nike's at it again, with the 1/1 program.
This is more of a stretch -- an attempt to build a community of artists around the Nike brand and the theme of football (soccer). People join the 1/1 community and submit a football-themed piece of artwork which is then displayed in the online gallery (which has a bit of an annoyingly complex interface, but bear with it). 11 winners will be shown at a real-world exhibition in Basel, alongside the work of 11 professional creatives. One will be used on a limited edition pair of shoes.
The whole thing is being curated by the uber-hot fashion/design/creative site, ShowStudio, pioneered by photographer Nick Knight, which has been at the forefront of multimedia experimentation for many years now. They picked the 11 pros, including the designer, Dominic Wilcox, whose stunning case for a pair of Nike shoes and sculpture (both made from toy plastic football figures) are shown above and after the jump.
It's a smart move for Nike, whose brand has worked hard to align with the creative community. In this instance, the community aspect of the program is hosted on Myspace, so no need to build a costly backend system. And while the quality of the resulting artwork will surely be mixed, it's a really fun, loose and open project. Closing date for entries is 18 May. Meantime, check out another of Wilcox's pieces here...
Continue reading "Nike's new community -- of artists"
Posted by: Helen Walters on May 05
I was in London last week, and attended a breakfast meeting at the Design Council, the UK's "national strategic body for design", which is funded by the government and which does a pretty good job of promoting the importance of design to business in both theoretical and practical terms. (See Kerry Capell's piece for specifics on the Designing Demand program, which helps small businesses use design strategically to build their firms.)
Three people, including Paul Edwards, senior design manager from Virgin Atlantic and Mat Hunter, the London partner at IDEO, briefly gave their take on design leadership. The ensuing discussion was a little all over the map, with apparent ongoing confusion among designers about how to define their role. (Note to designers -- please stop the navel gazing and just get on with it. You have earned your place at the table. Business leaders are taking you seriously. Now prove your worth.)
So that's probably why I was taken with the views of Ralph Ardill, Founder and CEO of The Brand Experience Consultancy, who said firmly "the number of designers I hear who say a client is a nightmare or a project is a nightmare. Get real! Design is change. It will hurt and you should expect it to hurt."
For a long time, Ardill worked at Imagination, one of the first firms to understand that experience, not product, is at the heart of everything a designer does. These days he works with the C-suite on long-term projects that make a difference. And he was smart, down to earth and had some slick aphorisms for all to bear in mind.
After the jump: some of Ardill's tenets for good business and good design leadership.
Continue reading "What makes a good design leader?"
Posted by: Helen Walters on May 01
I'm racing through a copy of "Bottom of the Pyramid" guru, CK Prahalad's new tome, the hefty book: The New Age of Innovation: Driving Co-Created Value through Global Networks. CK's a really smart thinker and while much of what he's saying can seem obvious, we all know that what might seem obvious in theory can be devilishly difficult to apply in practice. So the examples and the stories and the hammering home of the lessons to be learned and practices and processes to be applied should make this book prescribed reading. The two lynchpins of his argument are:
Firms have to learn to focus on one consumer and his/her experience at a time, even if they serve 100 million consumers... No firm is big enough in scope and size to satisfy the experiences of one consumer at a time. The focus is on access to resources, not ownership of resources.
CK and his co-author, MS Krishnan, are coming into BW Towers next week and I'll be recording a video interview and chatting with them for a piece we'll run on the Innovation channel some time soon. Do let me know if you've got any questions for them...
Posted by: Matt Vella on April 29
The importance of the global service economy continues to grow. Earlier this week, IBM and the University of Cambridge jointly released a detailed report partially based on the findings of an international symposium devoted to service innovation made up of some 100 academics and businesspeople. The report is a clarion call for increased research and development – it suggests investment be at least doubled to create a rigorous "service science" – by universities, private companies, and governments.
Though the sector is often misunderstood as a container for the soft, largely undesirable “McJobs” most vulnerable to economic malaise, the report tries to show the diversity of the sector, pointing to old-line companies such as Rolls-Royce (the aircraft engine manufacturer) and BAE Systems which have profitably transitioned their businesses from simply selling commodities to providing services. Rolls-Royce, for instance, now leases its engines to airlines rather than selling them outright.
(You can read an executive summary here; download the entire report here; and, better yet, hear a discussion with IBM’s chief service researcher about the report here.)
Of course, IBM itself is likely one of the most successful examples of a company that has made that transition. So it’s not entirely surprising that it would aggressively back this kind of effort. What’s more, issuing a report like this is a return to first principles in effect for IBM. The company was instrumental in helping establish computer science as an academic discipline in the 1950s and 1960s. Now, the company hopes to do much the same thing with the service sector, helping to establish, legitimize, and staff future ventures with a new crop of graduates and executives.
More importantly, the report convincingly makes the case that now is the time for such investment. Citing UN labor statistics, it notes that, for the first time ever, service jobs outnumbered agricultural and manufacturing jobs worldwide in 2007. In the U.S., the service sector accounts for more than 80% of GDP. However in developed economies, research and development investment in services typically accounts for just a third of R&D spending, whereas the sector accounts on average for two-thirds of GDP and employment.
So what does the report suggest? It encourages universities to offer courses in service science, management, and engineering to graduate employees that can work beyond traditional boundaries. It wholeheartedly embraces interdisciplinary approaches to academic and business research. And, it urges employers to create hiring policies and career paths that support service professionals.
Broadly, the goal is to foster the creation of “adaptive innovators,” or those sometimes referred to as the “T-shaped” people. So-called T-shaped employees have a deep proficiency in one area, engineering for instance, but are also conversant and comfortable interacting in a profitable way with other departments, marketing, industrial design, and finance for example. So goes the theory, a work environment generally filled with T-shaped workers is naturally collaborative and not excessively siloed.
All in all, it's a worthwhile read which, while deep, is accessible enough. It will be interesting to watch forthcoming academic and research developments pegged to such reports. If IBM can make itself as vital to the development of a rich, profound service science as it did fifty years ago with computer science, it may once again prove a beacon.
(As an aside, one nice touch in the report is a rich glossary that is helpful, especially with terms that may have acquired multiple meanings with varied usage. It helps cut some of the jargon – "adaptive innovators" – and refresh the memory – "service sourcing.")
