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The Four Phases of Design Thinking

THEM! — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:29:34 +0000

10:54 AM Thursday July 29, 2010
by Warren Berger

What can people in business learn from studying the ways successful designers solve problems and innovate? On the most basic level, they can learn to question, care, connect, and commit — four of the most important things successful designers do to achieve significant breakthroughs.

Having studied more than a hundred top designers in various fields over the past couple of years (while doing research for a book), I found that there were a few shared behaviors that seemed to be almost second nature to many designers. And these ingrained habits were intrinsically linked to the designer’s ability to bring original ideas into the world as successful innovations. All of which suggests that they merit a closer look.

Question. If you spend any time around designers, you quickly discover this about them: They ask, and raise, a lot of questions. Often this is the starting point in the design process, and it can have a profound influence on everything that follows. Many of the designers I studied, from Bruce Mau to Richard Saul Wurman to Paula Scher, talked about the importance of asking “stupid questions”–the ones that challenge the existing realities and assumptions in a given industry or sector. The persistent tendency of designers to do this is captured in the joke designers tell about themselves. How many designers does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Does it have to be a light bulb?

In a business setting, asking basic “why” questions can make the questioner seem naïve while putting others on the defensive (as in, “What do you mean ‘Why are we doing it this way?’ We’ve been doing it this way for 22 years!”). But by encouraging people to step back and reconsider old problems or entrenched practices, the designer can begin to re-frame the challenge at hand — which can then steer thinking in new directions. For business in today’s volatile marketplace, the ability to question and rethink basic fundamentals — What business are we really in? What do today’s consumers actually need or expect from us? — has never been more important.

Care. It’s easy for companies to say they care about customer needs. But to really empathize, you have to be willing to do what many of the best designers do: step out of the corporate bubble and actually immerse yourself in the daily lives of people you’re trying to serve. What impressed me about design researchers such as Jane Fulton Suri of IDEO was the dedication to really observing and paying close attention to people — because this is usually the best way to ferret out their deep, unarticulated needs. Focus groups and questionnaires don’t cut it; designers know that you must care enough to actually be present in people’s lives.

Connect. Designers, I discovered, have a knack for synthesizing–for taking existing elements or ideas and mashing them together in fresh new ways. This can be a valuable shortcut to innovation because it means you don’t necessarily have to invent from scratch. By coming up with “smart recombinations” (to use a term coined by the designer John Thackara), Apple has produced some of its most successful hybrid products; and Nike smartly combining a running shoe with an iPod to produce its groundbreaking Nike Plus line (which enables users to program their runs). It isn’t easy to come up with these great combos. Designers know that you must “think laterally” — searching far and wide for ideas and influences — and must also be willing to try connecting ideas that might not seem to go together. This is a way of thinking that can also be embraced by non-designers.

Commit. It’s one thing to dream up original ideas. But designers quickly take those ideas beyond the realm of imagination by giving form to them. Whether it’s a napkin sketch, a prototype carved from foam rubber, or a digital mock-up, the quick-and-rough models that designers constantly create are a critical component of innovation — because when you give form to an idea, you begin to make it real.

But it’s also true that when you commit to an idea early — putting it out into the world while it’s still young and imperfect — you increase the possibility of short-term failure. Designers tend to be much more comfortable with this risk than most of us. They know that innovation often involves an iterative process with setbacks along the way — and those small failures are actually useful because they show the designer what works and what needs fixing. The designer’s ability to “fail forward” is a particularly valuable quality in times of dynamic change. Today, many companies find themselves operating in a test-and-learn business environment that requires rapid prototyping. Which is just one more reason to pay attention to the people who’ve been conducting their work this way all along.

This post is originally from the Harvard Business Review and can be found here.

It’s All About Communication And Engagement

THEM! — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:48:26 +0000

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Creativity as a commodity

THEM! — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:39:58 +0000

Businesses have been trying to make creativity a commodity for years now. If only it was that easy.

Coca-Cola announced on April 27th, 2009 their intention to move toward a pay-for-performance model. P&G has been experimenting with this model for a while now. The idea in itself is nothing new and honestly is not a bad idea. At first glance is seems a great idea for both agencies and their clients. Agencies are challenged with a goal and have to provide the “creative” ideas and executions to answer them. That’s what we all claim to do, right? Step-up or shut-up. However, there are many things to consider in the actual application of this theory that makes it challenging.

Who actually determines what these “goals” are and what is financially reasonable to reach them?
How do we define that these “goals” have indeed been reached?
If the model is a percentage, how is the level of “success” decided?

From the 10,000 foot perspective all of these questions are easily answered. In all honesty, it is quite similar to what the “traditional” process has been for quite a few years now:

A goal is set = the brief;

the agency develops strategy, tactics and execution = the creative;

the effort is reviewed and critiqued by the clients = the feedback;

the creative is modified and launched = the execution;

the goals are either met or not = the results.

Simple. The difference is, the agency is only paid based on the results and not on a previously generated estimate.

Here, in our opinion, is the way that the pay-for-performance model could work:

The agency and the client need to work hand-in-hand to set goals. It will take a mutual respect at this phase. While it’s great to set huge goals, the goals should be based on at least on a semi-realistic expectation and then add a bonus option for quantifiably overachieving. As the relationship evolves and the agency continually “over-delivers” on results, then raise the bar. It’s good for both of us.
Recognize that some goals are quantifiable and some are not. If the assignment is coupon, direct mail or click-thru based, it is easy to track specific redemption of offers. If you are working on more “brand” driven efforts, it is much harder to quantify exact results. Again, agree on some attainable general results that can be justified. Please, please, please don’t under-value the power of brand. It is always a vital part of your marketing equation, but most definitely not the only one.
When setting the goals and targets of the project be perfectly clear of what the definitions of success are. If this is not implicitly done the project will invariably end up in a “he said – she said” stalemate. And we’ll tell you right now, the client will always win – and they should.

Accountability vs. Ownability.

One of the other difficult points comes from the perspective of client changes. If the agency has done complete due diligence and the client makes changes that the agency thinks will affect the performance of the effort, where is the line drawn?

“If all targets are hit, the agency could make as much as 30% on a project; if all targets are missed, the agency won’t make any profit at all.”

To use the Coca-Cola model above as an example, if the client wants to make changes to an effort the agency believes to be the most effective, does the agency’s “risk factor” go down? In real world ideals this (very roughly) means that if the client makes significant changes, can the agency charge for work done as the client will have to accept more of the risk since their changes are being included? Also, the wording “if all targets are missed, the agency won’t make any profit at all”. Does this mean that the agency can charge hard costs and then gets a percentage bonus on performance review? Confusing indeed.

What now?

In all honesty, we’re not against the pay-for-performance model at all. In fact, we like the basic premise of accountability and shared risk/reward. We’re not afraid to stand behind what we do. But we need to find a simple (or as simple as possible) way to handle the nuances and risk/reward balance.

We welcome and would love your comments and thoughts. Please chime in!

UPDATE: June 8,2009

Unilever is now looking to some really stringent guidelines as well? What does this mean for agencies?

Unilever Set to Join Cost-Cutting Push

Agencies working for the CPG giant face lower margins, extended payment times

June 7, 2009 -By Andrew McMains

NEW YORK There’s no shortage of major marketers taking a hard look at agency compensation. InBev Anheuser-Busch has shifted away from retainer relationships and extended the time it takes to pay agencies. Coca-Cola has made agency profitability solely contingent on meeting performance metrics.Now, Unilever is asking roster shops to accept less profitability up front, and questioning the hourly rates that agencies charge and whether it should extend the time it takes to pay its bills, according to sources. Some of the terms, such as payment timing — currently at 30 days — are negotiable. But Unilever, which last year spent $7.2 billion worldwide on advertising and promotions according to its annual report, has told its agencies that the new upfront profit margin of 5 percent is not, said sources.Previously, the base margin was 10 percent, with the opportunity to earn more via a bonus if certain performance metrics were met. Now, roster shops will have to hit such performance measures just to maintain their previous margin. As such, Unilever, like Coke, though not as acutely, is shifting more toward performance-based compensation. Unilever’s major creative agencies were notified of the margin change in March, and it was retroactive to Jan. 1, according to sources.

Given that Unilever’s creative shops cut across four holding companies — WPP Group, Interpublic Group, Omnicom Group and Publicis Groupe — the impact of the margin change alone is significant. What’s more, sources describe the cut as “structural” and therefore unlikely to revert to the previous percentage even when the economy — and Unilever’s business results — rebounds. As one agency CEO put it, “Once things go this way, they tend not to come back again.”

While Unilever’s drive to slash agency costs comes during a downturn, that’s not necessarily the driving force. Rather, sources point to the influence of new Unilever CEO Paul Polman, a former CFO at Nestlé who replaced Patrick Cescau as the packaged-goods giant’s top gun this year. Before Nestlé, Polman spent 27 years at Procter & Gamble, originally in finance roles and lastly as group president for Europe.

“He’s there to shake up Unilever and to shake up the status quo,” said one source.

Said another: “He took a look at the overall marketing costs and believes that too much is being spent on fees and production” costs. “He has got benchmarks from Nestlé and P&G.”

When contacted about the rationale for changing aspects of its agency compensation, a Unilever rep said only, “We don’t usually comment on our remuneration policies.” Likewise, affected agencies including Ogilvy & Mather, Lowe, DDB, JWT and Bartle Bogle Hegarty, declined to comment.

Executives from roster shops and their holding companies are said to be involved in the compensation talks, which are ongoing and date back to the end of last year. Unilever global CMO Simon Clift is playing a leading role on the client side at the direction of Polman, said sources.

One source characterized the talks as collaborative, noting that agency pushback on payment timing may result, in some cases, in keeping it at 30 days, though Unilever this year has raised the notion of extending it to 60 or 90 days. That said, sources acknowledged that agencies these days have little leverage with major marketers, short of resigning the business — not really an option in an ever-shrinking marketplace.

To some, the situation is paradoxical.

“Clients have never had a higher demand for big ideas, greater creativity and innovation,” said a source. “At the same time, they have never been more prepared to treat everything we do as a commodity.” The source added that the trend “has been happening for a while, but the intensity of it now … is just pervasive.”

The trend leads some sources to suspect that certain clients are using the “wet blanket” of the recession as an opportunity to extract further concessions from agencies. “It has happened a lot,” said an agency CEO. Some clients do it “because the business needs it,” while others use the “moment to stand on the shoulders of an agency to push down.”

Lost in the focus on agency costs — and in particular the base profit margin — is the concept of value, according to Arthur Anderson of Morgan Anderson Consulting in New York. “Clients are under pressure, tremendous pressure. They are trying to contain costs without loss of quality in advertising work,” said Anderson, who described the syndrome as “cost containment with loss of value.”

That, of course, puts the onus on agencies to demonstrate value and differentiate themselves from others. Such efforts may be lost on client procurement executives, but shops will continue to make the case. As one agency CEO said: “The only leverage that you have in any service industry is that you have to be very good and you have to be such a valued resource” that clients can’t do without you.

Original article from Adweek can be found here.

Beautiful animation that inspires us.

THEM! — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:18:42 +0000

The work of Joaquin Baldwin originally from Paraguay. The voodoo dolls rise up against their master. Beautifully executed.

Sebastian’s Voodoo from Joaquin Baldwin on Vimeo.

Found on fubiz.net.

Our list of useful “Social Media” resources.

THEM! — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:44:11 +0000

With all of the “information” about Social Media running rampant out there we’ve decided to start an ongoing list of Social Media references and links that we’ve found useful. Feel free to send yours over!

General Social Media:

Twitter Resources:

Blog Resources:

Facebook Resources:

5 Tips for Optimizing Your Brand’s Facebook Presence

Tools we like and use:

We will continue updating and adding so check back often. If you find any dead or inactive links please let us know.

“Small is the new big. Sustainable is the new growth. Trust is the new competitive advantage.”

THEM! — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:58:45 +0000

Fear seems to be the big ruler of large organizations right now. And understandably so. But fear is paralyzing and inhibitive. Exactly what we DON’T need right now. It’s a time of change and transition, but it’s also a time of growth and creativity.

Impersonal and disconnected just doesn’t work in this environment. People want to trust, want personal contact and definitely want a reason to believe. “Because I said so” isn’t acceptable any more.

Consider the strong trend of “social media”. People are looking for personal contact and a feeling of being personally connected. Granted, a lot of the “connections” are strictly virtual, but it’s still a direct connection with the outside world and information. Companies are slowly beginning to understand and several are doing new and innovative things with communications outlets like Twitter. Check out people like @zappos, @SouthwestAir, @JetBlue, @GMblogs and others. They are working to connect directly with their consumers. Some better than others.

One of my personal biggest frustrations when I was working as a creative director at the “big agencies” in New York City was the lack of connection and understanding of the business needs that were driving our assignments. We have so many tactics and medias available today I cringe at the number of dollars wasted simply because major decisions were made almost blindly simply based on gross tactical generalizations.

Now as a smaller agency, our goal is to truly get to know and understand our clients. Not just on the corporate laugh level, but to truly understand their challenges and their consumers and marketplace. That is the best way that we can effectively create a plan and execution that will work as effectively as possible with todays smaller budgets.

We strongly encourage our clients to give us a business challenge or a desired outcome rather than a request for a print ad or a “viral campaign”. This allows us to dig into the myriad of opportunities and medias to create a message that is as targeted and effective as possible. And last but not least, we strongly encourage our clients to be part of the process. The more we know and understand about you, your organization and your product or service, the better we can communicate that to your customers.

It doesn’t matter how big or small your company is, your consumers want to feel like you are vested in them and that you care about them and their business. We have been told time and time again that “it’s not personal, it’s business”. But business now is personal. What we do in business affects people in personal ways. And we should never lose sight of that.

This post was inspired by a post at harvardbusiness.org entitled “Why Small Companies Will Win In This Economy”.

Social media is not rocket science

THEM! — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:25:33 +0000

“Social media” can be defined a lot of different ways. Does it have to be on-line? Nope. It’s simply a way of socializing with people. The “media” in this case is a simple 8.5″x11″ piece of paper. But it’s effective. So that’s the lesson in this short to us business folk. It doesn’t have to be fancy or elaborate to work. It simply has to have the right message at the right time and place.

This is a great little short film Directed by @RadicalMedia’s Patrick Hughes for the Schweppes Short Film Festival. It may bring a smile to your face. And that’s a good thing…

Where the Wild Things are!

THEM! — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:45:22 +0000

“There’s one in all of us.” Directed by Spike Jones.
An adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s story, where Max, a disobedient little boy sent to bed without his supper, creates his own world–a forest inhabited by ferocious wild creatures that crown Max as their ruler.

Play to pay

THEM! — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:55:32 +0000

If you ask my wife she’ll tell you that I vary between the ages of 12-15 on any given day. And I’m proud of that.

As a person in the “creative industry” it’s important that I never forget to play. It’s vital that we all never lose that child-like hope and optimism for fun things. It’s super easy as a “grown-up” to come up with all of the reasons that something just won’t work.

Have you ever watched a child with their mind set toward accomplishing something? They will try anything and everything in the pursuit of this goal. Sometimes it won’t work. Sometimes it will.

One of the biggest challenges that we face as grown-up, professional, business people today is that the things we used to do and the ways we did them simply aren’t relevant any more. What are we to do?

Before we go any further I’m going to tell you a big secret.

“Creative” is not a person and it certainly is not a department. True creative is a mindset. It’s a way of letting go of adult constraints and reverting back to the way we were when we were children, always looking for new possibilities and ways of doing things. It’s taking what you have available to you and making the absolute most out of it. Don’t let what you don’t have be the excuse for doing nothing.

It’s time to PLAY.

There are two benefits to just playing. The first is that we get to escape from the pressures weighing down on us every day. And often times when we take a step back and escape from what we have to figure out the answer is sitting there, in plain sight and we couldn’t see it because we were too focused on the end result.

The second benefit is that the mindset of play broadens our thinking with opportunities that our “grown-up” mindset wouldn’t allow. Playing and problem solving becomes habit, and a valuable one at that.

Baby steps.

The next time you have to solve a seemingly unsolvable issue, try these simple steps.

1. Start with no limitations. Take the word “no” out of your vocabulary. Open the child in you. Think “why not?” and “what if?”. Be completely open to new ideas.

2. Create a complete list of ALL of these thoughts and walk away. Don’t edit any of these ideas yet.

3. Play! Do something now that that had absolutely nothing to do with what your challenge is. Something that lets your mind escape and wander. For some people this is driving, for others it’s crafts, for some it’s tinkering in the garage, for others it’s cleaning (I’ll never understand that one). Whatever it is for you, step out and play.

4. Now go back to your list of ideas. This is your toolbox. Examine the tools you have and create the best possible plan to solving your problem.

5. Now try it. If you don’t try something you’ll never know if it’ll work.

6. Don’t be afraid to be wrong. Thomas A. Edison said “Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.” Take that new knowledge you’ve gained and use it as part of your new toolbox.

7. Repeat.

Now wasn’t that fun?

The Beauty of Simplicity.

THEM! — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:42:15 +0000

We just launched a new web site for Affect Strategies (www.affectstrategies.com), and we’re pretty darn proud of it.

Now to be clear here, let’s talk about what we didn’t do. When we first started discussing this assignment, the original wireframe, basic structure and starting look had already been established, so there wasn’t much here for us as a “creative” company, right? We honestly believe that’s where a lot of companies miss the boat. Instead, we looked at this as a great way to get to know a new partner/client AND to demonstrate that creativity and professionalism is not only based on how hot your designs are.

Our role in this project was to take the clients’ vision and execute it in a way that was functional and effective, both consumer facing and on the back end. If the back end is too complicated or difficult to use, it won’t be utilized properly and the content will get stale quickly. As Affect Strategies is a driven and growing company, they are extremely active both on the primary web site and on their blog (www.techaffect.com), we had to make sure that it was functional, accessible and intuitive.

From the consumer perspective the site is very content heavy. So, how did we execute the volume of information that is contained in a way that doesn’t appear daunting to viewers when exploring the site? We utilized very subtle ways. With careful choice of typeface and colours, to the way that the content is divided between the pages, to the tiny details of line spacing and distance between content, we were able to keep it simple looking while communicating a lot of content.

Working with a great client who has a clear vision and expectations is a wonderful thing. The President and founder, Sandra Fathi, and VP, Partner, Leslie Campisi, made themselves available for discussions and were always open to ideas and suggestions. This definitely allowed a great two-way conversation and helped make this project a success.

Take a few minutes and explore affectstrategies.com and meet a great group of people who are passionate about what they do. Explore the site and enjoy it for what it is, a communications portal that represents a professional company that offers their clients a myriad of services to help their business grow.

We at THEM! always strive to add that extra effort and creative thinking that help our clients be more successful. Regardless of how simple or complex your project might be we’ll help you take it to a great place. Visit us at www.themdidit.com.