A Hamster Wheel In The Forest
If you take a proven concept and place it in a new context, you may find out things about your audience that you didn’t know. What actually motivates them. What they are really thinking. Why they are responding the way they do.
Scientists recently did an experiment. What would happen if you put a hamster wheel out in the forest? No food. No red button to press to get a treat. Just the wheel, an open door and a motion activated cam.
Mice, rats, shrews, voles, lots of little guys who were obviously not getting enough exercise showed up. They ran. They came back again and again. It turns out hamster wheels aren’t just for the incarcerated. When the scientists took it away, they all kept showing up wondering why the gym had closed.
If you take a proven concept and place it in a new context, you may find out things about your audience that you didn’t know. What actually motivates them. What they are really thinking. Why they are responding the way they do.
Contextual awareness is the next major hurdle in marketing. The goal is being aware of your customers changes in location, behavior, interests and needs at any given moment, as those moments change. Do you truly understand what makes your customers tick?
photo credit: Philip Roberts @flickr.com
Under Your Skin
Branding is a lot like tattooing. It’s far better to think it through and make the investment than to cobble it together bit by bit.
My wife Beth has some tattoos, a few different styles, added at different times, and scattered about. One cluster she wasn't happy with anymore. She decided to join them together into a single design that was unified and had continuity.
In the tattoo world, they call this a “cover-up”. But obviously you can’t just start over with a clean slate. You have to incorporate the old designs into the new one in order to hide them.
It’s complicated, expensive and it takes far longer to do than the original. Meaning even more time under the needle. Ouch.
I’ve been working with a entrepreneur who realized the brand presence they have is a bit of a mess. They had developed it piecemeal, designing new elements as they were needed. But as it became larger, the brand became scattered.
As we worked to clarify his brand strategy and create an cohesive design system, it struck me that branding is a lot like tattooing. It’s far better to think it through and make the investment than to cobble it together bit by bit.
Because doing a brand cover-up hurts.
A Better Mousetrap
Peanut butter is the ticket with mice. The trick is to put the trap out without setting it and let them get used to eating from it. Then one day you set it. Brands do the same thing with us.
My next door neighbor has mice. It was a cold winter here in the Northeast and I guess their basement was a little more cozy than the woodpile outside. Their cat, historically a great mouser, has been slacking. It's not healthy to have mice around when you have kids, so they had to set some traps.
Peanut butter is the ticket with mice. The trick is to put the trap out without setting it and let them get used to eating from it. Then one day you set it.
Brands do the same thing with us. Nestle is doing it with their chocolate. We like Nestle's chocolate. We've gotten used to eating it.
So when Nestle announced that they’re going to cut the sugar in their chocolate, they set the trap.
We all know eating less sugar is a good idea. We’ve been packing away a little too much of it for the last few decades. So Nestle is betting that if we know there is less sugar in their chocolate, we will feel better about buying and eating more of it.
Some of us may be smarter, or have more willpower than that. But this mouse likes the cozy warmth of the idea of more chocolate. More chocolate is always better. Snap.
Let's Co-Everything
The cost and risk of opening a retail presence has always been a significant barrier for brands just getting started. You used to have to go it alone. But now you don’t have to.
From co-working to bike-sharing to millennials co-habitating with their parents, it looks like owning something yourself is just getting too hard.
Going it alone in retail is hard, too. Just ask American Apparel. One of the fastest growing US companies only a decade ago, they are now closing their doors. They hadn’t made a profit since 2009.
The cost and risk of opening a retail presence has always been a significant barrier for brands just getting started. You used to have to go it alone. But now you don’t have to.
There is a co-retailing startup called Bulletin. It helps smaller brands merchandise their products without having to have a brick and mortar store of their own. They divide up a single retail location into smaller sections, from a shelf to half a store, that you can rent month-to-month. It’s brilliant and is smashing the barrier to entry into physical retail.
The new co-economy is giving rise to this kind of innovation every day. Is there a barrier to entry that is standing in the way of you growing your business or creative practice? Take a step back and ask, “How can I co-it?”
photo credit: Sebastien Wiertz @flickr.com
"Design ROI"-Rob Wallace
Rob Wallace's guest-post article on "Design ROI" represents the culmination of five years of independent research on empirically calculating design’s value and provides ground-breaking thought leadership on quantifying design’s return on investment.
[The following article is a guest post from my good friend Rob Wallace of Best of Breed Branding. Posted with permission from the author.]
DESIGN ROI
Age of Accountability
While we live in the design age, we also live in the age of information and accountability. Today every business decision is supported by accurate and timely data. Every effort is scrutinized for its direct impact on the bottom line. The new corporate mantra is, ”if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” In the vernacular, management is asking, “show me the money”. If you are a design manager, my goal is to help you do just that.
The Proof
I wrote an article for the Design Management Journal that has been described as providing “ground breaking thought leadership” on quantifying design’s return on investment. Please email me for a copy at Rob@wallacechurch.com
This article represented the culmination of five years of independent research on empirically calculating design’s value. It was built on an ROI methodology created by statisticians and used data from Wallace Church’s brand identity/package design assignments plus a handful of additional case studies supplied by major cpg corporate package design departments. The methodology is outlined in Don E. Schulz and Jeffrey Walters’s book, “Measuring Brand Communications ROI” which is available on Amazon.
This article concluded that, on average, every dollar invested in advertising and package design resulted in over $7 in incremental value for the brand. Great news! But even more interesting is the data from case studies where there was no advertising and package design was the only element that changed. In these cases every dollar spent in brand identity/package design generated over $400 of incremental profit.
New Insights From the Forefront of Design ROI
It has been several years since this article’s first publication, and I’m happy to report that the additional data we have garnished further supports design’s paramount ROI. I’m also happy to report that, independent of this article, the greater business community has begun to recognize design’s paramount value in brand building. I am however, disappointed to report that we as an industry have yet to embrace a standardized method to measure design’s direct financial impact. And as a result, many design managers still have to fight hard to justify the resources required to fund and manage the design process.
ROI Roadblocks: Reluctance, Fear, and Disbelief
While most design managers believe that proving our value would greatly benefit the design process, many remain skeptical. To some, it’s wrong to extract design from all the other tools that drive purchase behavior. One individual articulately commented, “I have spent so much of my energy convincing marketing to consider design as an integral part of a synthesized branding effort, why would I want to separate it now? Even if we can, we shouldn’t measure design in a vacuum, but as part of an integrated whole”.
There are those who consider the $400+ ROI result shockingly high and therefore not believable. This result seems hyperbolic, and therefore, is an easy target for “too good to be true” skepticism.
To those concerned, I say, try it. Prove or disprove it to yourself before abandoning the notion. Until we can segment each marketing effort’s specific impact on the bottom line, we’ll never know how to best dedicate limited resources.
There are a number of prominent design practitioners who are simply reluctant to be quantified. I well remember a discussion with design evangelist Tom Peters, and how he emphatically emphasized that design must never be “relegated to the providence of the bean counter”. I understand his point. Still, I’m convinced that senior management will no longer allow design to fly below the accountability radar screen. To those who are reluctant to being quantified, I suggest that we designers initiate our own accountability process. We need to set our own standards and develop our own best practices. For if we don’t, surly a process will be thrust upon us.
There are those who are concerned about setting the bar and having to continually raise it. “Congrats! Our last design project resulted in a $400 ROI. Tomorrow I expect $500, then $750 and then $1,000.” To those who fear this upward spiral of expectations, I suggest that we first establish our own base standard and then embrace a process of constant improvement. We need to continually hone our best practices until we determine design’s ultimate profit potential.
Then there are those who are concerned that the methodology is not universally extendable to all design disciplines. Most, if not all, design disciplines result in a “before and after” that can be measured and compared against costs. Disciplines such as product design, merchandising and promotion all have measurable variables. Some design disciplines have success criteria built into them such as web design “click throughs”. Even “soft measure” design disciplines such as corporate identity or environment design, can be analyzed against perceived stock price or worker productivity. While there may be no one “magic bullet”, I am passionately convinced that all design initiatives can and should be quantified in financial terms.
Lastly, and perhaps the largest group of naysayers are those who flatly respond, “It simply can’t be done.” These folks ask, how can you pin point design’s specific impact? How can you control the competition or the market dynamics, or Wall Street, or the rainy Tuesday that discourages shoppers from leaving home? Until we can isolate design from all of these uncontrollable elements we simply can’t measure it.
The Moment of Truth
In the last several years, we have discovered that there is a moment in time where all of these ancillary influences can be metered out and package design can be isolated as the only variable. This golden opportunity occurs when launching a major brand redesign effort.
During a redesign initiative, there is always a transitional phase where the new design architecture is “phased-in” to the existing shelf set. New design gradually replaces the old as the product is sold through. This transition often takes a number of months and can be a critical time to measure design’s impact. Here’s how to take advantage of this moment of truth.
Select one retailer to sponsor the new design. Launch the new identity in its entirety into selected stores in a specific geographic market. Divert the old packaging to the same retailer’s stores in a near-by geographic area with the same consumer dynamics. Keep the pricing and merchandising efforts identical. And then simply measure sales between the test and control stores for a period of several weeks.
During this test period, the brand’s offerings are consistent, the ad campaign and its frequency are the same, and all of the intangible and uncontrollable social and economic aspects are all identical. The same Wall Street dynamics and the same rainy Tuesdays preside. Design is the only variable, and the incremental sales that it generates are irrefutable.
The Good and Bad News
These research results have been remarkably higher than expected. New data shows an average of more than $500 of incremental sales for each dollar invested in design. In one recent case study for a leading national cpg brand, design’s ROI was nearly twice that. So what’s the bad news? The results are almost too high to be believed. The results might be more acceptable if they were more like 10 or even 50 to one, but at literally twenty times this rate, they seem “too good to be true”.
Proving the Impossible
The numbers may seem overbalanced because the cost of a package design assignment is so small when compared to other marketing initiatives. The investment in a new identity for a multi-SKU major cpg brand might require a couple hundred thousand dollars in design fees while this same brand might commonly invest millions or tens of millions of dollars in advertising. If done well, package design architecture can out live two to three ad campaigns. Imagine the media cost if you were required to run an ad that would be seen by all of your possible consumers. In the cases studied, research indicated that only 7% of consumers see an ad before experiencing the product at shelf. Now consider how many possible consumers see your package design. Virtually 100% of your current and potential consumers see your brand’s identity at retail. With up to 70% of brands in high turn selling environments purchased on impulse, design is the last and most critical opportunity to influence the sale. Considering all these factors certainly design’s unsurpassed ROI can be justified.
A New Design Advocacy
If we as an industry are going to prove design’s ROI, then this message cannot come from design consultants, but from corporate design management and independent, impartial and credible associations. Organizations like the Design Management Institute and the American Marketing Association need to take up the cause. In the UK, the British Design Council has maintained a well-respected program called the Design Effectiveness Awards where design is awarded merit based not on arbitrary aesthetics but on marketplace performance. We need its compliment here in the US.
I am calling for a new breed of design advocates to join the fray. I’m looking for a number of passionate professionals to build upon the initial data. I am seeking new advocates to apply this or other methodologies across the entire spectrum of design disciplines. From these ROI results and the processes that drive them, I see best practices emerging, industry-wide adopted standards around the appropriate time and resources dedicated to design so as to generate its highest ROI. This will be the day that design’s golden age will truly be actualized.
Interested? Drop me an email and I’ll forward you the methodology and engage you in an ongoing dialogue with other industry thought leaders. Email me at rob@bestofbreedbranding.com and let's together speed the process to empirically proving design’s value.
photo credit: Anthony Albright@flickr.com
Open Doors
In branding and design you have to understand what people do in order to fulfill their desires. The challenge is getting the truth.
Just out of college I had a job painting the front doors of 400 apartments in a huge complex. You have to have the door open to paint it, so I got to peer inside 400 families lives. From the outside, all those apartments looked cookie-cutter-same. But when you looked inside they were…
In branding and design you have to understand what people do in order to fulfill their desires. The challenge is getting the truth. What people say they do and what they actually do is often very different. That’s why direct observation is the best way to uncover a consumer need. Seeing is always more accurate than hearing.
Today, people are photographing and posting every waking moment online, essentially opening their apartment doors for anyone to peer in. The Selfie Era. Some call it narcissistic folly. But those of us who leverage consumer insights for a living are having a field day.
photo credit: Hernán Piñera @ flickr.com
A Happy Ending
What are these, “Mom jeans” for men? How could it be that a giant in denim, one with 50 years of experience in making jeans be so off the mark?
I like the way these jeans fit. So I decided to order another pair online. Same brand, same fit, waist, length, copied right off of the label. So when the order came… whoa, I was in for a big loose baggy surprise! Does this story sound familiar?
What are these, “Mom jeans” for men? How could it be that a giant in denim, one with 50 years of experience in making jeans was so off the mark? I couldn’t help but see it as a concrete illustration of the market share shrinkage this brand has been experiencing in recent years.
By focusing on winning back it’s customers through advertising, social media, email promotional campaigns and a parade of celebrity spokespeople, they took their eye off the ball. They forgot about the product.
All truly iconic brands deliver one thing: a consistent product experience. Without that, any other investment you make in winning customers is wasted. Get the product right. Give the story a happy ending.
photo credit: Robert Sheie @ Flickr.com
Make Your Mark
So often we want to create something new. Something out of nothing. Like a business, or a brand, or a blog. But we are paralyzed.
Long before I entered the design and branding arena, I was a painter. I worked on a large scale, usually about 5' x 6'. I’d sit in my studio and contemplate the expanse of white canvas in front of me. What do I do first? What if I blow it? It could be paralyzing.
Over time I discovered the key to unlock this limbo. You just make a mark. Any mark. You just have to disrupt the white of the canvas. Because after you've made that first mark, you have something to react to. To build upon.
So often we want to create something new. Something out of nothing. Like a business, or a brand, or a blog. But we are paralyzed. The answer is the one I found painting. Make a mark. It doesn't matter if it sucks. Because you're going to keep making marks and over time those first marks will be replaced with something better. Something approaching your vision.
I can't tell you that starting isn't the hardest part. It is. But you just have to make one mark and then the journey of creation begins.
photo credit: Anders Lejczak @ Flickr
The Moment Brands Dream Of
A few weeks ago, I attended the Virtual Reality Summit in NYC. I was struck, not with how advanced the technology is - but rather with how no one really knows what to do with it.
A few weeks ago, I attended the Virtual Reality Summit in NYC. I was struck, not with how advanced the technology is - but rather with how no one really knows what to do with it.
There is a saying in Silicon Valley, “It’s a technology looking for a problem.” They don’t really know how to use it, or what to use it for. They just know that when someone puts on a VR headset, they don’t want to take it off. And when they do take it off, they all say the same thing, “Wow.”
I’m reminded of a day eons ago when I took a box-shaped Apple mouse in my hand and clicked around in Mac Paint for the first time. At that moment, I knew I was witnessing a watershed moment in art, design and communication. I knew everything was about to change. This is where we are with VR. It will be huge. For entertainment, education, medicine, design, science, communication, all of it.
This is the kind of moment brands dream of. The opportunity exists for brands to design immersive sensory worlds and architect experiences of unimaginable scope. But amazingly, brands are sitting on the sidelines. They need to get in there and start imagining, experimenting, and pushing pixels around. Because everything is about to change.
The Un-Sexy Solution
Sometimes the best solution isn't the sexiest. Sometimes sexy can distract you from actually getting the job done.
If you ever want evidence why our species has survived so long, Google Images for the phrase "There, I fixed it." You'll find thousands of pictures of hilarious solutions to some of life's challenges. And a lot of duct tape.
Those pictures always reminds me of my days at Gap. I was amazed when I realized that the $16B goliath ran entirely on Excel spreadsheets being emailed around the globe. Unsexy, but it got the job done.
The tech explosion has introduced myriad apps, sites and hardware that are really sexy - with more features than you could explore in a lifetime. You can get lost in the sea of functionality, interfaces and connectedness. Last week I saw a cutting board that has wifi. Really.
But, sometimes the best solution isn't the sexiest. Sometimes sexy can distract you from actually getting the job done. Sometimes a scuffed shoe doesn't need a rechargeable handheld oscillating brush with a touchscreen. Sometimes it just needs some spit and a rub on the back of your pant leg.
Curiosity Not Passion
Curiosity invites exploration and experimentation. Following fascinations can lead you into new worlds.
I was sitting in a lime green room with a drop ceiling. My guidance counselor said, “You should follow your passion”. I thought, OK, great! The only problem was I didn’t have one.
Passion is a word that carries the weight of certainty. Passion burns with a lot of heat. But passion can also run out of fuel before the destination is reached.
If she had asked me instead, “What are you curious about”? That was a question I knew the answer to. I had a bunch of answers to that one.
Curiosity is evergreen and self-perpetuating. Curiosity invites exploration and experimentation. Following fascinations can lead you into new worlds. One interest fuels another and they expand into the realm of possibility.
Even now, we are prodded from every angle to follow our passion. The media says it. The business book authors say it. They say it on Shark Tank. I am certain that there are thousands of brilliant businesses, products and careers that were never launched because someone hit the “passion” wall.
I'll bet curiosity has launched thousands more.
Idea Muscles
Get that idea muscle to the gym. Lift some. Inspiration isn’t magic, you have to put in the work.
It’s been a while since I worked out. Things are starting to get a little soft. I know when it's time to get back at it because it gets progressively harder to entertain the thought of actually doing anything physical. A body in motion…
I found that coming up with creative ideas works the same way. The more I don’t do it, the harder it becomes. Creative thinking is like a muscle. Just like lifting weights, there are exercises I do that make it stronger. When I don’t do them, my creativity sits on the couch and orders in pizza.
Inspiration doesn’t pop in your head like a lightbulb. You have to go out and hunt it down. I feed myself with graphic design on Pinterest, branding trend on Medium, hit my retail go-tos in Manhattan. Whenever I get a thought, any thought, I click to my Google Sheets tab and write that sucker down. I brain dump. I have to get 5 ideas down before I can take a breather.
If you’re stuck, if you are feeling a little vacant, get that idea muscle to the gym. Lift some. Inspiration isn’t magic, you have to put in the work.
It's All About You
Your brand narrative needs to capture your passions, but what's key is how you will fulfill your customers desires. Great brands weave the two seamlessly together in a motivating and emotionally evocative way.
I met with a prospective client recently. She’s a Harvard educated powerhouse, an accomplished musician and recording artist, has a wellness brand and is exploring starting a museum - from scratch.
In our meeting she shared the personal motivation and meaning behind her music, her wellness practice, her museum idea. She shared how they were all integral to one another, synaptically connected. Her musical/creative/wellness/education narrative was important to capture in branding them!
While capturing her philosophy does fit into the equation, I am encouraging her to shift her focus. The motivations of the customers for each of these businesses are quite different. One wants to buy a song. Another wants to de-stress with body work. Another wants to take the kids someplace that will fascinate them for an afternoon.
Your brand narrative needs to capture your passions, but what's key is how you will fulfill your customers desires. Great brands weave the two seamlessly together in a motivating and emotionally evocative way.
photo credit: flickr: rafa_luque
You Are A Package
These days, the physical and digital worlds are packed with brands to choose from. Your goal is getting picked. Becoming someones favorite. How will you make it from the shelf to the cart?
I’ve done a lot of work in consumer packaged goods. The biggest challenge is getting consumers to choose your product from all the others on the shelf. Recently, in working with entrepreneurs and mid-sized businesses I have noticed how many of the guiding principles of CPG translate directly to their branding challenges. Here are three:
Shelf Pop: When you are on display, as an individual or business, you have to know what your competition looks like. What shape are they? What colors do they use? Iconography or photography? Bottle or box? You need to differentiate yourself in a way that makes you jump off the shelf when a purchase decision is being made.
Communication Hierarchy: At most, you get 3 levels of communication. Brand, variant and flavor. You have to make hard choices about what you want your customer to know. What motivates them? A functional or an emotional benefit? Are you going to make them look sexier? Make them smarter? Define what your label says.
Shopper Journey: How do customers shop for you? Impulse buy at checkout? Always right next to the sunglasses? Are you with your competition or are you charting new territory in a different aisle to stand out? Create an intuitive path to help people find you.
These days, the physical and digital worlds are packed with brands to choose from. Your goal is getting picked. Becoming someones favorite. How will you make it from the shelf to the cart?
Reclaiming Americas Soul: Our Social/Industrial rEvolution
I was listening to a TEDx talk by a trend consultant friend recently and she mentioned how she thought that our consumption model is broken and that America is missing its soul. I think she’s right. But, how did that happen? Where are we headed now and what does it mean for the brand landscape?
America came into its own during the Industrial Revolution. Our factories, workers, products and standard of living was the envy of much of the world. Other countries wanted to be us once. Whether they really want to admit that now or not.
We lived the Industrial Model.
But, over time our desire to own more and more things in order to attain our ever-inflating image of prosperity, drove us to need products to be less expensive. Less expensive because Americans middle-class wages have stagnated for the last 30 years, as former Labor Secretary Robert Reich pointed out in his eye-opening video “The Truth About the Economy”. Sadly, our wages have not kept pace with our appetite to own more things.
So, we out-sourced our production overseas. But the price we paid was dear. Entire industries in the US crumbled. Furniture making, textiles, steel production, automobiles, electronics, the list goes on and on. Physically and culturally it decimated our heartland. Look no farther than Detroit, but we all know the list is much longer.
We began to discover that not making things hollows out your soul.
We’ve become a nation of middle-men and service providers. In fact, 86% of jobs in America are in services and 14% are in goods production and manufacturing. But there are huge numbers of our population who don’t have the skill sets or the desire to become white-collar workers. So the collective pride of the worker begins to die along with their cities.
The white collar workers find their work rooted in technology. Entire industries are living in the digital domain. Employees, initially enthralled by the computer and its magic have become surrounded, ruled and overwhelmed by the technology they once coveted.
At the same time, big box stores became the norm and Mom & Pop businesses disappeared from Main Street. Every town in America looking like every other town - the same collection of retailers, only with different weather.
But there is a renaissance happening.
People have begun to want to create something they can touch. Something you can’t send in an email. There is a new makers movement, a movement of people wanting to get back in touch with making actual things. Reviving dying trades, artisan skills, mills and factories. There are printers, wood workers, bicycle makers, textile designers and manufacturers, blacksmiths, craft brewers and jewelers.
People driven by a need to create. Their souls are fed by it. To produce and distribute goods bound by an ethos of sustainability, craftsmanship and local trade. Market places, pop-up stores and curated websites (digital, I know) are springing up with a decidedly anti-chain, pro-Mom & Pop, pro-local personality bent. Consumers want a human face and a name to go along with a product. For it to come from a place that they know how to find on a map. And most importantly, todays consumer wants these products. They value a true story.
Witness the Social/Industrial rEvolution being born.
Big brands are desperately trying to find a voice for themselves that is credible in this new model. Trying to use social media and acquisitions to make themselves appear much smaller, with a human face and a genuine narrative. Take Clorox’s purchase of Burt’s Bees for example. But for the most part the consumer public is seeing through the facade. The only way to sound local is to be local. The way to appear small is to be small. The way to be hand-crafted is to get your hands dirty.
This new model is built on quality over quantity, knowing where its materials came from, knowing where it was made, knowing a little about the person who made it. With all the digital connectivity we have at our disposal, what we have come to miss most of all, and want to get back is connection.
Physical and emotional connection is the heart of the Social/Industrial rEvolution.
This rEvolution is about being true. Brands that embrace this evolution and live by its ethos will win a place of honor in consumers lives. Because we want to feel we are once again makers, doers and creators. We want to truly own our success. We want to play a part in reclaiming Americas soul.
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ADDENDUM: On the flip side of this coin we have the "4th Industrial Revolution" which is the digital evolution of our society and economy. Thanks to John Hawthorne, for sharing this article that comes at our societal evolution from a different perspective.
Image Credit: Anna Zoromski/Miles @ flickr.com
In Praise of the Cube: Creatives Need Privacy
I'm a bit of an introvert. Maybe more than a bit. I find group activities somewhat draining. I find solitude rejuvenating and I do my best creative work when I'm alone.
Given that, it's kind of funny that I've spent my career leading large groups of designers and artists in creative settings, Fortune 500 companies, global brand consultancies and learning institutions.
I began weaving the web of my career as a painter, a fine artist. A solitary pursuit for the most part. When I needed to find a path to make a better living I got my MFA so I could teach. I loved teaching because I love learning. I love sharing how to travel a path of learning with others.
Later, I found that being a creative director was a lot like teaching except you made more money. Also, your work and the work of your teams are enjoyed by people all over the world. No artist wants to work in a total vacuum.
But with this transition came a need to be more outgoing. To be more often involved in group pursuits than individual ones. I built up that muscle. And it took a lot of trips to the gym.
Susan Cain, in her book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" writes about how in the 20th century as our society moved from agrarian communities in the country to the cities, we changed. We went from working with a small group of people who we knew well to living and working in large groups of people we didn't know. Being "outgoing" became the goal. Our hero's became the great salesman of the world. Our bible, Dale Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence people".
This evolution brought with it physical changes to where and how we are working. In the corporate world and particularly design studios, the move to create open floor plan work spaces has reached a critical mass. In a knee-jerk reaction to breaking down the walls of de-personalization that the Dilbert-esque office cubicle seas wrought, we have lost something that was worth protecting. Solitude. Designers need solitude. They need quiet and privacy to ruminate and ideate and play with ideas. Without distraction.
The casualties of this evolution are everywhere. You can see them in any design studio in the world hiding under their noise-cancelling headphones. They aren't just getting into their own jams. They are trying to escape the constant noise and distraction the crumbling of the cubicle walls has brought down on them.
One designer on Whirlpool articulates what I have heard over and over in my years as a creative leader:
"I work in an open-plan office, and hate talking to the people near me. I just don't want to annoy everyone else. So instead, I hole up at my desk, earphones on all day. I email people who sit five feet from me. Whoever designed my office has absolutely failed: Instead of making people more collaborative, it separated them. This trend needs to stop."
The results of this trend are also quantifiable it turns out. Finland's Institute of Occupational Health reports a decline of 5-10% of the performance of cognitive tasks like reading, writing and other creative work when in an open office setting. Management might be too drunk on the work-pod Kool-Aide and the cost savings in office furniture. Or the shoulder-surfing tabs-keeping on "what the hell are these people doing?".
Or that open office plans just look cool. And I have to say they do look cool. Because if we look cool and modern, we are cool and modern, right? I mean, can you imagine a design firm with cubes? I didn't think so. This, it turns out, is a big part of the problem.
The facts increasingly point to this: Companies see open, collaborative spaces as an extension of their brand image. They are more interested in how it looks, than how well it actually works. Solitude is just out of fashion. Simple as that. And for creatives and designers that's a problem.
It should be a problem for their companies, too.
All this is outweighing optimal creative productivity. And since when has business turned it's back on improved productivity? Especially when in today's business world, creativity and innovation are what separates the winners from the also-rans.
The fact is people whose work is distracted make 50% more mistakes and take twice as long to finish. Maybe that has something to do with the complaint that we are working longer hours than ever.
Plus, most designers don't like it. You've heard "A happy wife is a happy life"? Well it goes triple for designers.
The real question is: What does work? The answer is choice. Balance. Companies and agencies need to give designers access to both kinds of work spaces. If I were to place a bet, I would bet that the spaces that afford designers quiet, uninterrupted concentration and a reasonable amount of visual privacy will be the ones being fought over. Tooth and nail, if I know my designers.
The pendulum of open floor plan offices needs to swing back to center.
In re-watching Susan Cain's amazing TED talk about the power of introversion, one statement jumped out at me. "There are no revelations without solitude."
What design revelations and innovations have we already missed by removing our creatives space to think?
photo credit: Ben Mautner, @flickr
Sensory Packaging: Beyond the Box
I was interviewed by Packaging World Magazine about "sensory packaging" last year. I think that the topic is more important that ever. Everywhere you turn brands are engaging a broader range of senses to elevate the customer experience, improve engagement, driving trial and purchase.
I had a conversation with Microsoft a few months ago about how they might be able to "consider" with much more intent and attention the experience people have when they open one of their products. They have come a long way from the days of "What if Microsoft designed the iPod packaging" but they still have a way to go. Their Surface box is really quite sexy with a really nice use of clean lacquer on black matte.
I discussed Apple with them, of course, how could you not? That's who they are watching and chasing of course. Who isn't? Apart from the admirable visual cleanliness of the pack design, the tactile experience, the tightness of the box seams, the nesting of the product, the feeling in your fingers when the box top pulls off is all completely "considered". Even the smell of the interior.
Have you ever smelled the interior of a new computer box? You probably wouldn't even mentally register it, but I would bet that you have a olfactory memory of it. There is even a company that makes a USB device that exudes smells. Imagine if they offered a "new Mac smell". I'd buy one. Just like the car "scent pine trees" that smelled like "new car".
Olfactory memories are the most indelible that humans have. Every time I smell Chanel #5 I think of my grandmother. Every time. She passed 20 years ago. Every time I smell root beer I think of Deerhorn Camp in Wisconsin (long story…)
Here's my extended interview "The Sentient Side of Packaging" from Packaging World Magazine Anne Marie Mohan was a fantastic interviewer and I thank her for making sense of my ramblings where I discussed everything from scratch and sniff to velvet flocking.