A Case for Design in Business - Part 5

Designers Make Great Leaders & Should Play a Leadership Role in Businesses

In 2007, Bruce Nussbaum was a supporter of design thinking. He believed the CEO's and Managers had to learn to be designers and use design thinking methodologies to accomplish business goals (Nussbaum, 2007). It is important to note that some companies have had success with design thinking. The organizations that have shown success however, have had designers as leaders and integrated design thinking at all levels, not as a quick band-aid solution (Tydings, 2012).

Nussbaum argues that design must be fully integrated with business, marketing, and engineering. These faculties must learn from each other at an educational level and continue to integrate at a corporate / real-world level. The debate between commerce and art is of the past, and now is the time to find commonality. That is not to say design should give up it's specialties in visualization and form creation, only to say that it should expand those specialties to include empathy "formalized expression of how it translates empathy to creativity and then to form and experience" (Nussbaum, 2007). Design leaders recognize the value of combining different sources of knowledge. Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan of Method combined sustainable chemistry, business and industrial design to create a successful line of soaps and detergents (Tydings, 2012).

Lou Dorfsman (Former Graphic Designer at CBS) understood the need for a multidisciplinary approach to business and design to employ a successful brand change. He worked with meticulous detail to ensure that a cohesive brand experience from all aspects of the business (including customer experience, architecture and graphic design) (Tydings, 2012).

Presently, many industries are in a state of flux, and business people and designers alike are swept up in the change. Innovation now goes beyond technology, it includes systems and organizations. Design goes beyond form to include methods and ways of thinking, it is forward looking by nature (Nussbaum, 2007). The ability of designers to create intangible design (experience design) is not new; Charles and Ray Eames were specialists in creates processes and systems that were capable of changing and be continuously improved (Tydings, 2012).

Many CEO's and corporate leaders & managers are still believers that design is no more than aesthetics. They understand concepts about innovation, but not design. These attitudes will not survive. Business culture is being radically affected by the changes taking place, and design, technology & innovation are the drivers. Designers are the "sherpas of culture, the guides to community, the empathizers of the odd and foreign." They see these changes as opportunities. It is only with this attitude that companies will be able to survive in this new climate (Nussbaum, 2007).

Design is so popular today mostly because business sees design as connecting it to the consumer populace in a deep, fundamental and honest way. An honest way. If you are in the myth-making business, you don’t need design. You need a great ad agency. But if you are in the authenticity and integrity business then you have to think design. If you are in the co-creation business today—and you’d better be in this age of social networking—then you have to think of design. Indeed, your brand is increasingly shaped and defined by network communities, not your ad agency. Brand manager? Forget about it. Brand curator maybe (Nussbaum, 2007). 

Modern companies are beginning to understand this need. For example, Citrix, Dyson and Method are modern companies that have successfully integrated design into their business methods; they focus on customer satisfaction and use design to gain a competitive advantage. They are using a similar multidisciplinary, multifaceted approach that was laid out by designers like the Eameses and Dorfsmon (Tydings, 2012).

"Through experience design, multidisciplinary leadership, and design thinking, designers are looking at businesses holistically and using design processes and techniques to drive companies toward more successful innovation. Increasingly, design is affecting more than new products or brand strategy and used to better inform, create and/or shape company strategy and their business models" (Tydings, 2012).

Sources:

Miller, K., & Moultrie, J. (2013). Delineating Design Leaders: A Framework of Design Management Roles in Fashion Retail.Creativity & Innovation Management, 22(2), 161-176. doi:10.1111/caim.12024

Nussbaum, B. (2007) CEOs must be Designers, Not Just Hire Them. Bloomberg Business Week. Retrieved October 21, 2014. From: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2007/06/ceos_must_be_de.html

Tydings, L. (2012). Why designers will become the Next Generation of CEOs. Triple Pundit. Retrieved October 21, 2014. From: http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/01/designers-will-become-next-gen-ceos/

A Case for Design in Business - Part 4

Businesses need Designers, not just Design Thinking

Design is a flexible discipline, displaying radical differences among philosophies, practices and designers themselves. This flexibility can lead to misunderstandings about the field by non-designers. Often, other fields (the sciences, engineering, business, the arts) that interact with design will view it as an applied version of itself. One might hear that "design is simply applied fine arts" or "design is simply applied social science." These misunderstandings leads to poor communications and failed attempts at simplifying the nature of design (Buchanan, 1992, p.19).

Design thinking can be a powerful tool. But the process of design cannot be simplified into a linear set of steps (Buchanan, 1992, p.15). Design thinking theories have attempted to simplify the process to allow non-designers to become design thinkers with all the creative capacity of a trained designer. By packaging the design process into a linear set of steps, design has been adopted with open arms by businesses and corporations. This has been a great success, giving design the recognition as a valuable and key player in corporations (Nussbaum, 2011).

The simplification of design into a set of business-friendly steps has removed the chaos and adopted the problems inherent in business systems. For example, businesses began using the design process to optimize rather than innovate, to validate rather than predict. While it is true that design can lead to optimal products that meet all the needs of the users, this is not all design is capable of. One of the main values of design is imagination and the creation of strategies/products that will lead the future (Ling, 2010).

"From the beginning, the process of Design Thinking was a scaffolding for the real deliverable: creativity. But in order to appeal to the business culture of process, it was denuded of the mess, the conflict, failure, emotions, and looping circularity that is part and parcel of the creative process." (Nussbaum, 2011) 

A case for design in business - Part 3

Design Thinking is becoming increasingly popular in the business field. In recent years it has been integrated into management and courses on creative thinking have become popular in business schools.

In 2008 the Harvard business review publish an article called Design Thinking by Tim Brown.

According to Brown, design thinking is a methodology that attempts to make use of the full spectrum of innovation activities with a focus on human centered design. This methodology requires teamwork, and requires the team to observe and understand the needs and wants of the end users, customers, or clients. It makes use of the "designer's sensibility and method to match peoples needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity" (86).

A case for design in business - Part 2

Another article I'll be examining for this essay is The Designer as Pathfinder: Design Education in the 21st Century by Naomi Gornick. This article focuses mostly on the changes design education will need to make to produce competitive workers for the evolving global market. However, it also speaks to the need for design education to include business thinking and the need for design management within companies.

Despite the increasing endorsement of of design by both corporations and consumers, there are still dilemmas. Gornick suggests four main topics that should be addressed:

1. Design should be given an "optimum position" in organizations. What has yet to be determined is exactly what this position is and who is best fit to manage it. Designers must be given the skills to lead companies, and schools should teach "design management" (1).
2. Design is finally achieving recognition from both corporations and the public. However, what they are praised for and recognized for does not truly reflect design's benefits. Media highlights well designed luxury products, but rarely identifies the moral benefits design has to offer (1).
3. Design management is not prevalent enough within organizations. And the designers who have positions of power do not often enough use their positions to invoke change; instead taking an "anachronistic view of their range of responsibility" (1).
4. Design education institutions have been encouraging isolationism among designer student. It fails to teach them how to properly integrate into the ever changing global market.

A case for design in Business - Part 1

I've decided to start using this blog to document my research process.

I'm currently in the process of writing an essay on how design and business can benefit from each other, and the overlaps that already exist. I believe business needs design to be successful in the current economy and society; not design limited to products or graphics or even adds, but systems design, experience design, service design and organizational design. Likewise, design cannot accomplish it's goals without the tools of business; it a capitalist climate, businesses have power and design must harness those tools.

The first source I've begun to look at is an essay by Bryan smith in "The Fifth Discipline Field Book." The essay focuses on the importance of creating a vision within a company, and describes a strategy companies can use to create a shared vision. The developmental strategies allow the leaders to listen and the rest to lead, allowing a cohesive flow of information and movement in the organization (313-314).