CPH127

Mark links to an interesting article about different kinds of designers in different points of time. I just looked it through very briefly and what stocked me at the most was the way that “we” - once again - retrospectively describe an evolution. It’s SO easy to see the movement – afterwards.

When being in that very point in time where every thing happens it’s fairly difficult to say what is, what will be.

Niti has described that before – Kairos and Limnos. And I agree with Niti when saying that it sometimes can be frustrating to be in that very point in time where you feel something happen, but it IS in the liminarity that you will turn out wiser.

Many designers of to day, haven’t moved them into Kairos yet; experienced
Kairos - they struggle very hard trying to.

Being in the future describing what happens today is the easiest thing, but trying to find the right path in this very moment is a completely different ballgame.

How to you see your self. Are you a designer? Do you need to be a designer to make design happen. What will be the future role be of the typical designer of today?

Eighty percent of companies believe they deliver a superior customer
experience, but only 8 percent of their customers agree, says Bain
& Company.

So what sets the elite 8 percent apart? They found that
they take a distinctively broad view of the customer experience. Unlike
most companies, which reflexively turn to product or service design to
improve customer satisfaction, the leaders pursue three imperatives
simultaneously:

1. They design the right offers and experiences for the right customers.
2. They deliver these propositions by focusing the entire company on them with an emphasis on cross-functional collaboration.
3. They develop their capabilities to please customers again
   and again—by such means as revamping the planning process, training
   people in how to create new customer propositions, and establishing
   direct accountability for the customer experience

Other things worth considering?

……interesting article from Harvard Business School.

Some of you might already have read Jeneanne Rae’s article in Business Week, but for those of you how hasn’t here’s a brief. The article focuses on how companies can minimize the risk that change and innovation brings.

No whims allowed. You need to work thoroughly. The well-informed insights that help drive innovation don’t come lightly to any organization but they minimize your risk and increase the potential of success in the marketplace!

Expand the collection of insights to all stakeholders. Include channel partners, manufacturing partners and the rest of the entities that can make or break your success in your analysis. This is especially true for service companies who’s offerings usually has a high level of complexity.

Test to learn, not to forecast. Trying to forecast the size of the market in the early phases of development, makes no sense. Instead, budget and run small concept tests with lead users, key customers and channel partners. Avoid being forced to make changes late in the development or even worse, after launch (I guess you could put your small concept out on the market - like Google Beta - as well).

Prototype. Prototype. Prototype. The product development world has been doing this for ages to reduce risk in the development phase. However, service companies doesn’t seem to use it as much as they should, so I guess it’s worth mentioning again.

Make a little, sell a little. Low-volume testing is a version of "test to learn" and suits some industries, like software, well. It is a particularly good idea when the cost of a limited roll-out is low relative to the risk of getting the offering wrong.

Develop with a key customer. Find a key customer. Get them to pay for the development for an important initiative. Take the know-how and intellectual property develop (in that low-risk setting) and move it into a new set of offering for new or existing customers.

Mitigating the risk and balancing the innovation efforts against the existing cash-cows are highly important issues in today’s focus on top-line growth. I am interested in service innovation and service design so I like Jeneanne’s service perspective but I guess the above goes for product innovation as well.

Do you have other ideas on how to minimize the risk of change and innovation?

Arthur Cropley has done a marvellous paper on divergence vs. convergence thinking– “In praise of convergent thinking", where he has some interesting observations.

Convergent thinking is oriented towards deriving the single best (or correct) answer to a clearly defined question. It emphasizes speed, accuracy, logic, and the like, and focuses on accumulating information, recognizing the familiar, reapplying set techniques, and preserving the already known. It is based on familiarity with what is already known (i.e., knowledge), and is most effective in situations where a ready-made answer exists and needs simply to be recalled from stored information, or worked out from what is already known by applying conventional and logical search, recognition and decision-making strategies.

One of the most important aspects of convergent thinking is that it leads to a single “best” answer, and thus leaves no room for ambiguity: Answers are either right or wrong. IQ tests are frequently regarded as epitomizing convergent thinking. Divergent thinking, by contrast, involves producing multiple or alternative answers from available information. It requires making unexpected combinations, recognizing links among remote associates, transforming information into unexpected forms, and the like. Answers to the same question arrived at via divergent thinking may vary substantially from person to person but be of equal value. They may never have existed before, and are often thus novel, unusual or “surprising”. Sometimes this is true merely in the experience of the person producing the variability in question, or for the particular setting, but it may also be true in an absolute sense.

Which kind of thinking do you practice, do you motivate in your organization? When do you see it is nessesary to be divergent/convergent?

However, contrary to what is sometimes assumed, both convergent and divergent thinking lead to production of ideas. None the less, there is a major qualitative difference: Convergent thinking usually generates orthodoxy, whereas divergent thinking always generates variability; otherwise it would not be divergent.

Read more……

• UXmatters
  Insights and inspiration for the user experience community, just launched
  (tags: jacob design experience experiencedesign ux hci ia informationarchitecture magazine servicedesign usability web)

Over at Fast Company the latest of Tom Peter’s statements to capture my attention goes like this:

Consider This:

Contrary to popular belief, confusion isn’t a bad thing. In fact, confusion can be a very good thing. It shows the gaps in your understanding. Don’t shy away from it. Get inquisitive. Ask questions. Use it to get smarter. Furthermore, realize that if you’re confused, it’s likely that others are as well. And sometimes sharing your confusion is an effective way to open powerful and productive conversations.

As someone who is regularly confused I feel reassured [err somewhat]

Thanks to Doug Sundheim for the post

“The most interesting aspect of reflective processing as it relates to
design is that, through reflection, we are able to integrate our
experiences with designed artifacts into our broader life experiences
and, over time, associate meaning and value with the artifacts
themselves.”

This is GREAT stuff.

A lot is being said at the moment about User Experience, Web2.0 and bubbles. But I think we’d all to agree that it is wonderful to see how business is falling in love with UX, and more importantly to focus on recruiting employees with specialized knowledge.

To do so we need to have a lot more people educated, and I know Simona Maschi just moved to Denmark. Why not started a User Experience department at the Copenhagen IT-University?

The inspiration for this post came from two photos that CPH127 Co-pilot Steve Portigal took at DUX:

I had a brief conversation with Jesse James Garrett at a dinner recently and thought about inviting him to write some posts here at CPH127, but how you would you, our readers, think about some more experience design focus here? From the pros that is.

The Experience Economy has witnessed an explosion of new strategic alliances which all have one thing in common –how to use creativity and innovation as a way to grow their business. Some of the most advanced thinking in this areahas been led by alliances formed between the entertainment industry, and brand advertisers that are early adopters of experience marketing approaches. These trail blazers are creating new and creative ways to connect with consumers through experiences.

Experience marketing has currently begun to take on an increasingly prominent role in the advertising industry as a way to reach desired audiences in non-traditional ways to overcome the increasingly distressing problem of being “Tivo’d out.” However, the solution, while driven by concerns over ad-blocking technology, holds the potential to be a far superior form of communication with consumers. As Joseph Pine and James Gilmore point out in their book, The Experience Economy:

People greatly value emotional experiences because memories of the experience, when invoked, bring back similar sensations and emotions that were imprinted into the mind during the time of the experience. When branded products becomepart of that experience, you are inherently creating associations between the brand and the pleasant sensations from the experience which linger in the memory of the individual.

Got it from e-Strategic Research Inc.

Branding = experience design; really?

Months back I had a post about Appreciate Inquiry where I also described the principles of Open Space Please take a look on the important principles of what leadership definitly also consists of…….

Ap-pre’ci-ate, v., 1. valuing; the act of recognizing the best in people or the world
around us; affirming past and present strengths, successes, and potentials; to
perceive those things that give life (health, vitality, excellence) to living systems 2.
to increase in value, e.g. the economy has appreciated in value. Synonyms:
VALUING, PRIZING, ESTEEMING, and HONORING.

In-quire’ (kwir), v., 1. the act of exploration and discovery. 2. To ask questions;
to be open to seeing new potentials and possibilities. Synonyms: DISCOVERY,
SEARCH, and SYSTEMATIC EXPLORATION, STUDY.

Obvious that design apply as a groundbreakting principle as well…..

…..it gave me the idea to create a new "Runway" - Management vs. Leadership. Any resonans in doing so? Please let me know

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