This makes an interesting case study on designing an effective environment for innovation.

Apple is a functional organization. Unlike almost every other large company it’s not organized in “divisions” which have responsibility for “a business” in the sense of profit or loss. At Apple most people or teams are assigned a function like “design”, “engineering”, “sales” etc. When a product is being built, they are assigned to that effort. When the product is complete, they go to another product.

[snip]

Seen from this perspective, the architecture of their proposed campus makes perfect sense. If it was a divisional structure then each division could live in its own building or campus. In fact, each division would not have much to talk about to any other division. But as a functional organization Apple needs to move people quickly between projects. It needs to re-configure itself frequently. Being in the same building means they can do this much more efficiently.

This is why there needs to be one building and this is why the shape chosen is probably optimal: each point within can be reached with minimal routing. The fact that it’s aesthetically pleasing is a coincidence.

Via: Asymco

Whenever we talk about Design Thinking’s user-centered approach to finding opportunities and understanding your customer better, someone always reminds me that one of the worlds most successful company (in my humble opinion), Apple, does not do market or user research.

Similarly, Scott Anthony writes:

It feels like a classic battle — the scientific approach of a company (Procter & Gamble when run by former CEO A.G. Lafley) that launches 80 market research studies a day versus the intuitive touch of the iconic innovator of our time.

But it’s a false comparison. Both approaches rest on the belief that you need to understand your customers better than they know themselves so you can predict what they want without having to ask them to articulate what they want.

Here is my usual answer to this: basically, what we are saying here is that there are 2 approaches to design.

The first one takes a user-centered approach to design. This is where Design Thinkers or Designers spend time in the field observing and researching humans for potential insights that can inspire and innovate. This sort of approach is ideal for organizations with large diverse portfolios and multiple types of customers. It is also a great activity to use on mature market services and products.

The second approach is what I like to call the customer proxy design approach. This is when there is someone who lives and breathes the product or service in such a totality that it becomes a lifestyle. He or she is then able to take it to the next level in an almost craft like manner all for the good of the consumer. This sort of approach lands really well for businesses developing a focused product range, or even a small niche player in a competitive market.

At the end of the day, it is all about that intuition or insights derived from knowing your customers better then they know themselves. But how you come up with these insight can be from either one of the two approaches. Personally, I prefer a combination of the two approaches simply because of my 4 golden rules of understanding humans:

1) People don’t know, what they don’t know. (To get it right, you’ll need to repeat this a few times while pausing deliberately at the comma!)

2) People don’t do what they say, or say what they do.

3) People know what they dislike, but often can’t articulate what they like.

4) People often can’t distinguish between their wants from needs, as well as why they need it in the first place.

So my 2 by 4 (2×4) approach to design led innovation basically revolves around using thought leadership and intuition for insights, and then iterating and validating with data.

What’s your approach?

Via: HBR

I so love this term.

Apparently it was created by Peter Gorb and Angela Dumas for a London Business School paper:

“A great deal of design activity goes on in organizations which is not called design. It is carried out by individuals who are not called designers and who would not consider themselves to be designers. We have called this ‘silent design’.”

When companies and organizations become design centric, Silent Design automatically happens. The activity of design becomes part of the corporate culture and done by everyone. The issue, as implied by the cartoon, is that Designers are afraid to let go. I for one have no problem with this.

However, design centric corporate cultures do make a Designer’s job a whole lot easier and harder at the same time. It becomes easier because everyone has become people-centered, and harder because the role of design has blurred.

I would not worry though as this is pretty normal in multi-disciplinary teams, and when design is applied as a holistic activity. As long as there is mutual respect between roles and competences, Designers will have a very important role to play in organizations for many years to come.

Via: Marketoonist

I assert there’s something else that makes Apple is unique amongst its (asymmetric) competitors (e.g. Google, MS, Samsung):

It only focuses on one customer: The Consumer.

In my experience, the behaviors and culture of an organization (large or small) that focuses on the Consumer as a customer is diametrically incompatible with the behaviors and culture of an organization that focuses on Business as a customer.

Focusing on the customer/consumer resolves all the horrid debates people from different departments have, especially when the people around the table has to meet their own individual KPIs, quarterly results, or agendas etc. If not properly managed, these debates often result in compromises in strategy and watered down solutions.

Focusing on the consumer, focuses problem-solving efforts around one basic question: what would our consumer want? Any other issue after this becomes less important.

Quote Via: cek.log

Television’s Secret Sauce

AppleTV, Google TV, Netflix, Ikea Uppleva… So why isn’t TV disrupted already? Where is TV going?

Longer term trends in human behavior can show us where TV is headed. Technology shapes Culture but Culture determines which technologies thrive; and culture changes more slowly than technology. An earlier post looked at television’s job to be done. This post looks at the Anthropology of Television.

The history of television use can be described in terms of four dimensions. These dimensions define the value space of television and we predict they will continue to drive its future evolution:

- Availability of Content,
- Convenience of Control,
- Sensorial Immersion, and
- Social Engagement.

Availability

…anything, anytime

Description
The availability of content in terms of:
- Extent (What)
- Location (Where)
- Time (When)
- Cost (How Much)

Convenience

…as easy as breathing

Description
- The ease of getting the right content for any situation.

Immersion

… sweeps me away

Description
- The extent, degree, and quality of sensory stimulation

Social

…how I express myself; how I find myself

Description
- The social and cultural aspects of our relationship to media; shared viewing enhances the experience.

Hit this link for a A3 High Resolution .pdf suitable for printing.

Maurice McGinley works at AVG as a User Experience Architect. You can follow him on Google+, on Linkedin or on his awesome UX/UI research blog: “How I got my Kink“. This post has been reproduced with permission. Credit for the project goes to Philips Design.