Regenerate!

Yesterday I met a bright young man. He is remarkable in many ways. An NID (National Institute of Design) alumnus,  he runs a small outfit for conducting research in customer experiences. He has as his mentor (sort of) a senior business leader. This mentor of his had asked him to get in touch with me regarding some business idea that he had. ” Meet Hemant, he has done some very intersting work in user interfaces design ..”, his mentor had told him.

The young man said that he was approached by a reputed and well established company (not in customer research space) for setting up their customer research group. “should I take this up?”, he asked me.

Before this, he had told me his story. He wanted to be an artist, but his parents ‘pushed’ him into NID. As if that can be done! Any ways, once out of NID, he discovered that ‘design’ is subjective and clients put up only that much money as much they can without worrying about returns. He found that while many design firms talk about ‘researching customers’ mostly the design that they like are back fitted into the ‘research’.

He said that clients treat research as real and are willing to pay for it if done properly. That is the reason he focused on research.

Now about his proposal. I told him, ’since you believe in research and clients pay for it, the proposal should be pursued. ‘However, ‘ I cautioned him, ‘It will be good idea to decide what all you will not do and that can include design itself…. Also please find out whether the company is serious about it and that it is not just someone’s whim.’

He nodded.

You would have noticed many remarkable things about this young man. Remarkable indeed.

Think of the company which approached him. Isn’t the company also remarkable?

That is the point.  People like this young man and the company which approached him embody the changes.

Leadership is not just about vision, values, and communication. Important though these are,  great leaders do much more -create brands, create great products, and achieve process breakthroughs. Here is an example. The Tata Swach. Design Directions, our associates, provided industrial design to Tata Chemicals for Swatch -water purifier based on nano technology and rice husk.

I work with Design Directions on several projects involving branding, user interface design, industrial design, and product design.  You get a lot with us… Leadership Learning, process breakthroughs, product, UI, and communication design!

Read on for more details….

First the disclosures: I am not an Apple user \ fan. But I admire ‘design’ aspects of the products.
Apple’s success is design led (with spend in tech to back that). Much has been written about this. To many it appears that Apple does not mind limitation on its market share (due to price levels and \ or proprietary nature) since it gets better margins.
Coming to its strategy I see following factors
1. Limited market share (premium - exclusive positioning) is great for branding and can be a valid strategy if you have ability to unleash product after product that users love.
2. This ability is by no means a given thing even if Steve Jobs is around.
3. Windows or MS is not a great factor -they might sink under the weight of their success.
4. Google docs \ Android or Linux may change landscape once again.
5. If Apple’s product creation waves peter out, it is in a dangerous game of having to fund your ‘attitude’
6. Who knows tide may turn against the current absurd patent regime (read a fortnightly in BS) due to shift of center of Gravity from western civilizations.
7.In any case today there are many non-Apple touch screen based devices and Apple’s uniqueness will wear off unless it keeps come up with something new.
8. It may be the sign of times that Apple had to open of API for Iphone to encourage third party applications. But according to some mobile application developers, it is a pain to deal with Apple.

That’s the way things appear to be at this time. What do you say?