Images of the earth on the Earth Observatory site…

Have you checked out the AIA Committee on the Environment’s Top Ten Green Projects?

There are a couple of local connections:

• We’ve been working with Alberici (their Detroit GM is a former partner of mine) on strategies for ThyssenKrup
• The Immaculate Heart of Mary Motherhouse is local, and Randy Reeves contributed strategies for their property development in a recent (last year) planning charrette

We are developing a proposal for a major new project in which the word “symbolism” emerged as a value to our client. I do not believe I have heard this word from a client as a key criterion in all of my career. I am delighted!

It reminded me of a very interesting event in my experience. I had been working on this project for close to a decade, and now had about 3.5 million square feet under construction.

In addition to my role as design lead, I had also been directing the master planning of the project. We had always protected a place in the landscape for the corporate headquarters of this organization (this was their technical center, as well), and it was now time to define just what headquarters should be.

Based on a sensed set of priorities and principles of the Chairman and his CEO, we prepared two models to insert into the larger model of the overall complex.

One model was a 3-story building with a number of internal courtyards–a very special executive domain, internally reflective and, except for these internal gardens, like the rest of the complex.

The other model was a slender, cylindrical, 21-story tower. It was actually a number of 3-story buildings stacked on top of each other, making a very different kind of high-rise prototype, made more of interconnection than separation and hierarchy.

We presented to the executive committee, a 6-person team of the chairman, the CEO, the CFO, and other key executives. We had a large 6-foot by 6-foot model of the larger complex, currently under construction, on a side table in the Board Room and began our presentation at it. The models of the alternative headquarters buildings were at the side.

I spoke of values for the company. I spoke of perceptions about its singular purpose versus a potential future of a more diverse enterprise. I spoke of the role of the company in the larger context of its industry. I spoke of the very local context of the dramatic turn-around of this company from a bankrupt manufacturer to its rebirth as a leading design organization. I spoke of its current as well as its future culture.

Did I speak too long?

The Chairman, relatively short and unassuming man, but very powerful and visionary, standing at my left shoulder, reached out and picked up the 3-story model and placed in in its spot in the larger model. He spoke of its harmony with the rest of the complex–3.5 million square feet in 3 stories–and the importance for the executive team to be indistinguishable from the 10,000 other people who would work in this complex. This egalitarianism, and sense of common purpose, and culture of dedication to great product would be the future of the organization.

The President, a very tall and charismatic individual, with a 21-story cigar in his mouth, removed the 3-story model and put in its place the 21-story model. He spoke of the importance to announce the new organization with a powerful statement, and establish its place with a new landmark. He spoke of the need to change the “topography” of the complex, to differentiate corporate strategic vision from the more tactical development of product that characterized the rest of the complex, to use the figure of the headquarters as a representation of the design focus of the enterprise.

I found myself pressed in by both of these individuals as, at least another two times, at my shoulders, each removed the other’s preferred model and placed his preferred model in place and spoke of its values.

Nothing in our relationship with these men, preceded, of course, by the very laborious process of design vetting by their VP’s and facilities people, had anything other than functional and economic considerations in the conversation. To have talked about symbolism would have been to enter into the realm of the absurd.

But now, in this place at the emergence of what would become one of the largest industrial organizations in the world, here were two men using architecture–as symbols–to express their beliefs about the priorities, values, cultures and futures of their organization.

In one of my first lectures in architecture school, I remember an historian talking about how the colonnade represented community—individuals standing together in common purpose. In this current project context, we have a community choosing an historic rotunda–a domed place defined by columns standing in community–as the centerpiece for a new government complex.

What is it that keeps us, in our modern, efficient, cost-conscious, objective age from engaging discussions, and encouraging interpretations, about form as representation of what matters to us…especially with these realizations that our clients, and communities, read what we do as symbols of their shared values?

Hmmm….That picture? It’s of the Cleveland Trust Rotunda embraced by a tower by Breuer, only one part of which was built. We are proposing on a new government center for Cuyahoga County on this site, and here is some local discussion:

Blog on the City
Improvised Schema
Steve Litt

I had the great opportunity, as a member of Gensler’s Consulting Practice Area, and a member of its Steering Committee, to attend the IIT Institute of Design “Strategy” conference last week, held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

The core concept of the conference was to explore the space where design, value creation and strategy come together. The conference, begun just last year, attracted some very creative people from design, business, and education to present ideas, chat about the challenge, and network.

I thought I’d offer you a summary of some of the content of the conference, provide some links for your own exploration and, hopefully, start a conversation about this “space” and the influence it might have on our own practice.

For me, there were several interesting threads:

• The concept of “user experience”
• The rigor of process
• The cleverness–and benefits–of research
• The competitive landscape for designers

I’ll leave it to you to find and, I hope, discuss, your own threads of interest in these materials.

The following entries on my pretend/test/feeble/developing blog are merely, and minimally reportorial. I have not yet had the chance to reflect on them, but perhaps your comments can lead me to a more robust presentation and discussion of these ideas.

Jim

Chris Meyer is CEO of Monitor Networks and the idea man behind the FutureMonitor, a tool that attempts to envision what business will be doing in the next two years.

He is also the author of a number of books, including Blur: The Speed of Change in the Connected Economy.

Chris’s presentation, with a theme of “memes,” resonated throughout the conference (he also did the conference endnotes).

In these presentations, I am impressed with the subjects that seem to show up with consistency in conversations and references. Early in his presentation, for example, Chris mentioned Richard Dawkins and his book, The Selfish Gene. Dawkins talks about the end of genetic evolution and the continuity of cultural evolution. In the book, he coins the term, memes, to describe the replication of an idea through imitation. He calles memes “the new replicators.”

Chris had established a definition of “memes” as a copied behaviors or ideas, reproducible in the mind.

Chris traced the path from the industrial economy to the information economy by tracking the path of an idea from science to development in technology to implementation as a business and the growth of the business into an organization. He called a business “a set of capabilities” capable of “recombining to make things.”

He charted the behavior of network growth from simple binary interactions. Not much happens until there is a critical mass that develops, and then, suddenly, there is a phase change (“vastly accelerated change through networks”), and a whole new platform of operations occurs.

Mapping other characteristics of networks, Chris established that there is a “sweet spot” in the small world between randomness and order where great things can take place.

He said that human behavior—what people are willing to do—is the key constraining factor in the potential for innovation.

Establishing the importance of speed, he quoted Jack Welch, “When the rate of change outside exceeds the rate of change inside, the end is in sight” for organizations. He cited Affinnova as a great example of how new processes are increasing the pace of innovation.

I was especially impressed with the concept that “connectivity doubles progress every decade.”

Rob Forbes
Founder, Design Within Reach

Rob Forbes is the Founder of Design Within Reach, a company he launched in July 1999 as a San Francisco based catalog, internet retailer and resource for modern design. Over the past six years DWR has expanded to include 60 studios across the country and an online publication, Design Notes, which reaches an international audience. He is currently a member of the SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) Architecture & Design Forum, and sits on the Board of Directors for San Francisco Jazz. He also serves on the San Francisco Mayors’ Council for Greening and is an advisor to the National Institute of Design for Mayors.

Rob was surprisingly candid. Speaking of his recent business problems, he said he’d fired his CEO and his Chief Marketing Officer, and said, “I think my CFO is still working for us.”

Rob’’s presentation was around the question “Is design central to my strategy.”” He then went through several aspects of his business idea and its history.

He used the term ““design” to mean ““an artful arrangement of materials or circumstances into a plan.” He speaks about the cultural content of design.

Rob is a passionate believer in cities. He says he walks a lot and takes about 5,000 photos a year. You’ve seen them in his newsletter, I expect. I goes out to 400,000 people per week.

PS

This is a story that is also about your story that is about user experience. Its a small event, one that all of you have had in some similar form. What is interesting is that in this context I began to think, again, about the experience our clients have with us.

I had placed a small online order with DWR a year ago. Something–a credit card company call, I think–cued me to the horror that my $300 order was creating a $30,000 charge against my card, and it was growing as time went on. I was in crisis mode, calling DWR through every channel I could, and getting no satisfaction.

Somehow, I found a path to Rob’s phone number (should I link it here?) and, with his acknowledgment that he especially did not want to hurt his “friends at Gensler,” said that periodically their software acted wierdly (sorry, Rob). Rob got in touch with others and resolved my problem for me.

Any customer experience that creates anxiety is distracting, in the least, and terminal in most cases. Imagine the impact that, were this blog really public, the story I’ve told would have on a public company’s fate. Imagine the impact that a comment one of our clients might make would have on our fortunes!

Roger Martin
Dean, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

A Canadian from Wallenstein, Ontario, Roger Martin was formerly a Director of Monitor Company, a global strategy consulting firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During his 13 years with Monitor Company, he founded and Chaired Monitor University, the firm’s educational arm, served as co-head of the firm for two years, and founded the Canadian office. His research interests lie in the areas of global competitiveness, integrative thinking, business design and corporate citizenship.

I met Roger as we arrived for the conference. We had each come to the main entrance of the Museum, looking up a long flight of stairs, seeing no evidence of activity other than a couple of people repairing the entrance doors. Up the stairs we went only to be told at the top that the Museum was not yet open. We referred to the conference, and were told to go to the Chicago Road entrance. We made our way down Chicago, then turned through the park, then back up the other side of the block, making our way about 345 degrees around the building to find a small corner entrance for the conference. Along the way we had an opportunity to talk about Toronto (where he is), Montreal (where he was coming from), and Detroit (where, it seems, nobody wants to be).

Roger made something of a keynote address. His presentation, “Designing in Hostile Territory, ” was referred to frequently during the rest of the conference.

The “hostile territory” Roger spoke of is the space in between the culture of the clients of designers, “business people,” and that of designers. Roger depicted a line with a range of values between “reliability” on one end and “validity” on the other.

He then developed characteristics of the cultures in the ends of this spectrum.

This was a key image. Roger placed a speculative distribution of people on the a scale from 100% reliability to 100% validity.

Roger spoke of the behaviors that might reduce the hostility in the environment. He outlines 5 key responses to the business mindset:

1. Treat design unfriendliness as a design problem, itself
2. Empathize with the design unfriendly elements
3. Speak the language of reliability
4. Use analogies and stories
5. Bite off as little a piece as possible to generate proof of the idea

He offered an unusual observation: Any company that says “prove it” will not innovate.

Jeffrey Li

Country President, Novartis China

Jeffrey joined Novartis in 2004 from the Pritzker family, where he worked in a number of positions of advisory and general management responsibilities for 11 years. In the last five years at the Pritzker family, he was President of Getz Commercial, an international sales and marketing company. Jeffrey has BS from Beijing University of Aeronautics and MS from Illinois Institute of Technology.

Jeffrey spoke of the very significant shift in the Chinese economy from imitation to innovation.

He outlined three key drivers of change:

• Market demand (a key shift from the supply-based economy of the older regimes)
• Government policy (and it can change the market overnight)
• Quality is a given (you now must have more through innovation)

The current climate of overcapacity means that innovation as differentiation is increasingly important.

The podcast of Jeffrey’s presentation is here.

Scott Durschlag
Corporate VP, General Manager, Global xProducts, Motorola

Global xProducts is focused on co-creating Mobile Devices with rich experiences together with key strategic partners and partner ecosystems, commercializing new experience-based devices and innovating new business models. Previously, Scott was Corporate VP and GM for Motorola’s Mobile Devices business in South Asia, where he led a dramatic turnaround of the business. Scott joined Motorola in 2002 as Corporate VP of Strategy and Business Development for the Personal Communications Sector.

Jim Wicks
Vice President and Director of Consumer Experience Design, Motorola

Jim Wicks is responsible for user interface and industrial design of Motorola personal communications products. Jim joined Motorola in 2001 as Director of User Interface Design and Human Factors, and functioned in this role until 2004 when he was appointed to his current role. Jim spent many years in Japan, first as a designer for GK Design associates and then with Sony Corporation. He later joined Sony’s design group in the US with a focus on personal communications, computing and new audio products, culminating with his establishment of the Sony innovation and design center in San Francisco.

Scott, recently made chief of Global Product and Experience Innovation at Motorola, spoke of their goal to make “wickedly compelling” products.

He presented the results of a recent two-year study in 25 countries of changes in culture. They identified 10 trends that Motorola is now designing product strategy around:

1. Inflationary time currency—and the desire for simplicity in place of complexity
2. New connectivity—including the ability to hide when you want to
3. Self preservation—the ability to control things, to avoid conflict
4. Self obsession—how the apparent accessibility to fame (American Idol, e.g.) has generated a “me” culture
5. Gender expressionism
6. Age play—the interplay of roles and age stereotypes
7. Experiential society—the growth of gaming as a great example
8. Authenticity—spiritual connections with an authentic base
9. Transparency–integrity
10. Information management—having a “dashboard” of life

Jim Wickes unfolded the portfolio of Motorola product design, and spoke of their strategy of “seamless innovation.”

He outlined 6 key areas if focus for his design innovations:

1. Self expression
2. Active lifestyles
3. Create and extend
4. Enterprise productivity
5. Entertainment
6. Everyday communications

He mentioned 3 horizons for their activity:

1. Basics
2. Rhythm
3. Partnering

And the objectives of simplicity, honesty, richness and surprise in what he called “perceive quality”—the characteristics that make sense to people in terms of quality.

Their strategy is to each year develop an “iconic” product—one that defines the brand. They then carry that product innovation forward in time as they become “anchors” or “flagships.” Then these become the base for extensions or “derivatives.”

He mentioned the importance of linking the design process and innovation cycle to the business cycle.

He also talked about the importance of the design of the retail environment and is alignment with the product. He said their current retail strategy is “give me a square foot” as he showed their delightfully small products arrayed on a tray.

Jim extended Scott’s strategy formulation: “Lustfully beautiful/wickedly cool” products.

Carol Coletta is president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, and host and producer of the nationally syndicated public radio show Smart City. She is currently pursuing a Master of Design Methods at the Institute of Design. Previously, she served as executive director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design in Memphis. Among her accomplishments, she created and hosted the Memphis Manifesto Summit with Richard Florida, the first gathering of the creative class to write their call to action for cities; and conceived and wrote the Talent Magnet Report, the first city blueprint aimed at attracting and retaining the creative class.

Carol Coletta spoke of her work with CEOs for Cities.

Some interesting observations:

• 64% of people in a recent survey chose the city they lived in before they chose the job they had. They wanted clean and attractive cities, and they wanted cities that would allow them to live the life they wanted to live.
• Successful cities seek talent, get connected, are innovative, and distinctive
• Cities based on transit die–time has become too precious; transit is slow and indirect and the car is flexible and fast
• Nobody lives in Detroit except those who have no other choice

If you’ve been paying attention to the Creative Class and Creative Cities dialogue, you may have come across the Memphis Manifesto, Carol’s work in her home town.

Like some others at this conference, she is a very accomplished professional but now back to school to study design methods and advance the next step in her explorations and influence.

I talked with Carol after her presentation, (I thought I was talking with Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics!) I was uniquely concerned about her comment that “the only people who live in Detroit are people who have no other choice.” She quickly sought to correct my reference to her comment by saying that “It is people’s impression that…”

Carol had made reference in her presentation about her work with Kwame Kilpatrick. I discussed some aspects of more local impressions. Referencing Mayor Dailey in Chicago, she offered great formulation: “Cities are only a mayor away from greatness.”

We also talked a bit about Create Detroit (are you all involved with this organization???) and the implications of some of the work we are doing currently.