Wall Street... I'm placing initial blame on you. In the 1950s we saw unprecedented innovation, largely fueled by our country's Post War efforts. But the companies that brought all of these new ideas to the market place were a different breed than today's. American business was focused on quality and innovation and not tethered to a rapid and wired stock market. Today, companies are bound to the Street's demand for squeezing profits out of every...

Show some real corporate responsibility. I'm working on other research (at Forrester) in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility, Green Marketing, and Green Design. My research associate, Evadne Cokeh, will be working on this with me and she's already contributed some great ideas so I'm excited to get this project moving. With all the talk of environmental issues and fair labor treatment, companies really need to think of a way to be a good corporate...

Bring on a designer at a senior level to change your perspective. Design thinking is where the real differentiation is going to be in a few years. If you don’t start taking steps now, you’re going to have a tough time catching up. You may even get scooped by your competitor, or even worse, a company from a completely different industry could come in and redefine your business—on it’s terms, not yours. Think I’m crazy?...

Reconsider your business models. Can the RIAA sue any more people? We all need to stop and reconsider how we define and earn value (see Henry Chesbrough’s Open Business Models for an excellent treatise on the subject). Think about turning your business on it’s side, or even on it’s head. How can you morph your business from a commodity to a value added service. Consider outsourcing that core competency and sell the service around it....

Be a little more fearless and experiment more with social media. Transparency is coming, I’ve already talked about it before and the consequences could be dire. Companies need to open their minds to negative feedback—they need to embrace it, not run away and ignore it. People increasingly expect firms to behave like people in social media settings. That means if you make a mistake, own up to it, say how you’re going to fix it, and...

Measure engagement—the real engagement. It’s funny, marketers dump 92% of their budget into traditional channels that are extremely difficult to measure, the other 8% go to interactive channels where they basically use the same metrics they’ve used for the past five decades. Then they complain that they can’t determine the value of social media. Yawn. My sympathy is wearing thin. Social media is trackable. Every time someone comments, rates a product, reviews a product, connects to...

Get to know your customer’s better. As an analyst at Forrester, I’m always talking to companies about opportunities with social media, marketing, new product development, and design. I’m constantly appalled by how little companies know about their customers. So few have any actionable knowledge beyond the standard demographics. I hope firms will put a little more time, effort and money into the research process – and yes, that means qualitative research.Having past experience with...

Yes, that’s a ‘V’ not an ‘S’ in the title. We’ve got a fresh new year ahead of us here are a few things I hope to see happen in 2008. I know they won’t all happen, but I hope to see a few progressive companies set the tone and make some headway.Get to know your customer’s better.Measure engagement—the real engagement.Be a little more fearless with social media.Reconsider your business model.Bring on a designer at...

In my previous post about brand transparency, I talked about brand’s dirty little secrets being exposed. In that same line of thinking, transparency has some big implications for companies down the line. Ultimately, transparency means that companies can’t hide the flaws of their products and services any more. And as a result, I think we’re heading toward a brand meritocracy. Products and services have to actually work, be relevant, and be needed — they need...

Companies are having a real tough time dealing with the uncontrollable exposure they receive at the hands of social media. At Forrester, I cover emerging channels and help companies figure out what’s going on and how they can use these technologies and channels. I constantly get calls from clients asking how to deal with feedback that is outside their control (positive or negative). But control is a big issue for firms, that’s largely what the...

I'll return Pete's serve one more time here. Today he talks about the 3 P's of personal social publishing. He offer's the following: 1. Personal 2. Professional 3. Public I'm going to take another stab at it. Here's what I suggest: 1. Personified -- To encompass what Pete included with both "Personal" and "Professional," I feel this is more inclusive and flexible. We present outward appearances to different people all the time (family, friends, close...

A few years ago I was working for a design firm that was bidding on a project for a Segway store design. It got me thinking about how unique Segway's problem is, in terms of targeting the average person. Leading up to the original unveiling of the Segway (I think they referred to it as "IT" at the time), there was a lot of talk about how it would revolutionize personal travel. Now don't get...

My colleague, Josh Bernoff, kicked off a great discussion yesterday about the use of the word "user" to describe people, customer, etc. I've been thinking about this as well for some time, and I completely agree with Josh and many of the people who commented. But there are other problems with the lingo. Two commonly used terms to describe people expose the problematic perspective of both business and design. First, and most offensive, is the...

I've noticed a breakdown between the image some brands project and what they actually deliver. Take Apple for example. When I see their ads on TV and in print, then I visit their stores or use their products, it all feels consistent. The look, feel, and layout of the store all resonate with that marketing campaign, and it all ties in to the products they make. The employees are knowledgeable and pleasant, and the creativity...

So, I arrived in Boston 3 weeks ago and started working at Catapult Thinking. I'm a senior design strategist of sorts on the design research team. It's a small company with really cool, smart, and talented people. I know I'll learn a lot, and hopefully teach a lot as well....

It is with great sorrow that I write these words. John Rheinfrank, a design visionary, passed away early Sunday morning in his Pittsburgh home after a valiant fight against cancer. I met John about a year ago through his wife, Shelley Evenson. Shelly had just started teaching at the School of Design at Carnegie Mellon University....

Well, effective this weekend, I am a Master of Design. I realize that may seem a bit arrogant, but in reality, I just completed the graduate degree program for the Master of Design in Interaction Design at Carnegie Mellon University. Now it's time for me to find a job again. I had a great interview with Catapult Thinking in Boston, I'm flying out to Redmond tomorrow to interview with Microsoft for a Product Designer position,...

I've been reading Peter M. Snege's The Fifth Discipline for my Design, Management, and Organizational Behavior class taught by Dick Buchanan. At the end of the book there is a citation of a poem written by a Lebanese poet named Kahlil Gibran that captures the idea of leaders feelings toward their vision through his story of parents and children. I just thought is was somewhat inspiring: Your children are not your children. They are the...

I've been super busy the past couple of weeks. Lot's of reading, writing, and project work building up for the last week before spring break. There are a number of things I want to talk about but it will have to wait a week. Some thing's I intend on talking about are some lectures that I've attended in the past couple of weeks including Natalie Jeremijenko, Wendy Kellogg of IMB Research, Bill Gates of Microsoft,...

My original plan was to get this redesigned and up and running at the beginning of the new year. As with most resolutions, that simply didn't happen. But I forced my self to get it done by today--an appropriate birth day for my new site--my actual birthday. I hope to comment here often and share my thoughts, especially as today marks another year in my life and I'm not getting any younger. It is a...