The 2005 Ducati 999R
to my new friends at Ducati North America, all I can say is, "You guys rock!" Forza Ducati!
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The 2005 Ducati 999R
to my new friends at Ducati North America, all I can say is, "You guys rock!" Forza Ducati!
29 November 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (2)
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Swedish designer Sixten Sason was the man responsible for creating the aesthetics of of the Hasselblad camera in the late 1940's, a design so compelling that today it defines not just a product but an entire brand:
A remarkably prolific and flexible designer, Sason also drove the aesthetic design of Saab automobiles up through the 1960's. The unique design language he coined lived on into the early 90's before GM bought Saab and lost the trace. He started it all off with this iconic piece of work, the 1949 Saab 92001, which pretty much says all you need to know about what Saab-ness is:
Where do brands come from? What we call "brand" is the sum of all the decisions you make to shape a user's experience of your offerings. Brands are designed and built layer by layer over time. As I've written before, your brand does not define the character of your offerings. Instead, your offerings (and the layers of sales, service, support, and meaning creation surrounding them) define your brand.
Want a strong, vibrant brand? Make “brand building” the job of your product development group and your brand team. If you still need convincing, just think about the incredible amount of brand equity created by Sixten Sason over the course of his career at Hasselblad and Saab, and how quickly Saab lost it once his influence was gone.
28 November 2004 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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“In life… when you find something that you love so much, as much as I did love motor racing, and as I still love motor racing, you will find in yourself the determination to go out and really bring the best out of yourself.”
– Alessandro Zanardi
[In 2001 champion race driver Alex Zanardi’s legs were cut off above the knee in a horrific racing accident. Zanardi battled back from the brink of death to once again carry his baby son on his shoulders… and in 2004 to race a BMW in the Italian touring car series (that's him in the car above). Intrinsically motivated to race and win... stubborn, courageous, and passionate to the core of his being, Zanardi is proof positive that racers make great role models. Forza Zanardi!
24 November 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Forging an enduring bond with customers is at the core of what a brand is all about. What if you could add depth, vigor, and passion to that relationship by encouraging your customers to participate in the creation of the very offering they consume?
For example, Virgin Atlantic recently held an open competition to create the graphics for 20 different airsickness bags. Called Design for Chunks, the contest -- nicknamed "retch for the sky" -- attracted hundreds of submissions and resulted in some tasty (ahem) creations.
Over at Ducati, with an offering miles more complex than an air sickness bag, the potential for user involvement in the design process is lower. Simply put, you can't have laypeople mucking about with the design and engineering of a superbike. Even so, working within that constraint, Ducati tries hard to make the Ducatisti feel like they're part of the development process by encouraging them to vote on the details of future products, such as the fuel tank of the 2005 model year 999.
Examples of this kind of participative marketing are manifold, from Firefox soliciting its user base for help with product logos to Guy Kawasaki holding a design bakeoff for the cover of his new book. The point is, why not tap into the collective genius of your users? If in open source software development many brains make deep bugs shallow, then with participative marketing many brains can make shallow offerings deep.
Embrace and engage your users, get deep passion.
21 November 2004 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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Frequency
Color
Pattern
Gesture
Ranking
Form
History
10x10 is a good example of how innovations in interface design can take us beyond accepted communication norms such as the newspaper headline. And it demonstrates the potential of RSS feeds very well.
I can think of several examples where a 10x10-type interface would open up new possibilities for insight and understanding:
Can you think of others? Drop me a line or leave a comment below.
18 November 2004 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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A second (see prior discussion here) way to explore the future of the sports car is via the concept of simplicity of use.
Simplicity of use involves creating an offering experience accessible by non-expert users. As the Stanford historian Joe Corn notes, one hundred years ago the car was an ornery beast, and its “users” had to bring their own “IT department” along in the form of a riding mechanic or chauffeur. In the intervening years, automobile designers have added layers of technology between the driver and the base mechanicals so that the overall use experience became less complex; mechanical and electrical complexity went up, but experiential complexity dropped. For example, these days it’s possible to maneuver a bling-bling three-ton Cadillac Escalade with no more than your right foot, index finger and thumb – all due to the miracles of integrated circuits, advanced hydraulics, and servo motors. The trick in designing sports cars is to achieve simplicity of use without adding weight – the source of the wide experiential gulf between a 2005 Porsche 911 and its 40-year-old great-grandfather, the 356C.
Perhaps the best example of simplicity of use in the sports car realm was the first-generation Mazda Miata. The MG TC may have been fun to drive because of agricultural directness, but keeping it on the road required a high level of mechanical skill, or at least a good relationship with a mechanic named Nigel. In terms of reliability, the 356 was much better, but only so far as contemporary state of the art would allow: park one in your garage, and your living room will soon reek of Shell’s finest! The Miata raised the standard of simplicity for the sports car ownership experience by adding a layer of sophisticated Japanese engineering between motor and driver to make everything as reliable and bulletproof, yet lightweight, as possible. Want a motor that only really gets broken in around the 100,000-mile mark? Check. No more oil leaks? Check. A top that keeps the rain out? Check. All with delicious handling? Check. If that isn’t simplicity of use, I don’t know what is. The magic of the Miata is that the sophistication was engineered in without creating a lardy car.
Simplicity of use and simplicity of specification must inform the point of view for the sports car of the future. That car is many ways already here: the Lotus Elise, which employs an elegant aluminum chassis, simple plastic body panels, a reliable Toyota four-cylinder motor, and lots of lightness to create the delicious feel of a MG TC or 356, only better.
17 November 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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"If you are a marketer who doesn't know how to invent, design, influence, adapt, and ultimately discard products, then you're no longer a marketer. You're deadwood."
- Seth Godin
16 November 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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This week the New York Times talks about the intensely emotional reaction people are having to the new Mustang. While the 2005 Mustang doesn't deliver innovation at the Behavioral level of design (it still has a live rear axle -- so 1960's, eh?), it is a sublime mix of Visceral and Reflective design. Viscerally, the shape is compelling in and of itself (love those tailights); Reflectively, it says "I'm a Mustang and you can project all the good things you know and feel about Mustangs on to me." It's a great example of the product marketing itself -- meaning is embedded into every curve, rather than being forced on the design via a copywriter's slogan.
Retro design has its critics, but as evidenced by the overwhelmingly positive reaction to its new Mustang and GT designs, Ford is striking a decent balance between something new and something old. Better than Chrysler and its PT Cruiser, as good as VW and the New Beetle. Not quite as brilliant as the BMW Mini.
PS: If you're asking "Why so many cars on this blog?", here's my answer.
13 November 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Simplicity provides a good frame for yet another answer to the question “Will sports cars die?” As I stated earlier, a better question is “What form will the sports car take?”, and simplicity, expressed two ways, also provides answers.
The first answer comes from the idea of simplicity of specification. The MG TC, which introduced the sports car idea virus to the United States, was an incredibly simple machine, almost to the point of being crude and agricultural. Four cylinders, ladder frame, cycle fenders, and little to no weather protection, it was an elemental design. But its very simplicity created its value: next to the average American lead sled, the MG TC was light and nimble and immersed its pilot in an intensely visceral driving experience: wind, noise, oil everywhere, steering kickback, blatting exhaust.
Joining the MG TC in the ranks of all-time great sports cars is the Porsche 356, also a machine of simple specification, a far cry from lardy descendants such as the Porsche Cayenne. A sophisticated design for its epoch, the 356 was derived from one of the simplest of cars, the VW Beetle. The 356 provided a drive with more protection from the elements than did the MG TC, but still made him a full participant in the process of getting down the road. Even today, to drive a 356 is to experience a car as almost a living, breathing animal. To illustrate how compelling the 356 driving experience is, I have several friends who own both a modern Porsche 911 and a 40- to 50-year-old 356. These are cars separated by 1000+ pounds of curb weight, as well as by two extra cylinders and 200 horsepower. But to a person, they prefer the 356. Simply put, its Visceral-Behavioral-Reflective signature hits the enthusiast driver’s sweet spot.
Both the MG TC and 356 were simple machines, even for their time. Where they excelled was in the sense of lightness that comes with a simple (but elegantly executed) mechanical specification, resulting in a direct, stimulating driving experience. From a pure feel point of view, there’s no substitute for “adding lightness” to a car. Heavy designs can be made to handle well – and elephants can be taught to dance – but if you want to float like a butterfly, why not start with a butterfly? Significantly, neither car was about heaps of horsepower. Both, in fact, were rather slow relative to contemporary family sedans. There’s a lesson here for designers of future sports cars: as I’ve noted earlier on this blog, the automotive world is in a wild upward spiral of horsepower; it’s a place where a $32,000 Subaru can give a $70,000 Porsche a run for its money. Within a few years, any marque, be it Ford or Ferrari, will be able to deliver a reliable, 600 horsepower street car, and at that point, the only way to create a truly differentiated driving experience will be via feel. And the best way to create good feel is by designing around a simple, even spartan, point of view.
As such, the Porsche 356 is the template for future sports cars.
I’ll discuss the second expression of simplicity later this week.
12 November 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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The marketing people at Mini do so many things so very well, it's hard to know where to start. So let's begin with the lowly Mini bumper sticker:
I created this sticker in just two minutes at the Mini website. What's happening here is quite cool: rather than printing a jillion stickers, dropping them in the mail, and then hoping that someone slaps one on a car (or even worse, selling the stickers, which is what most automakers do), Mini lets you design your own, and provides you with instructions on how to turn it into a sticker. Odds are only a few Mini whackos will take the time to create a sticker, print it out, and place it ever so carefully on the boot of their Mini. But imagine the deep and passionate conversations these Mini ambassadors can have with civilians around the world!
As a marketer, you want evangelists talking about your offering because their voice rings true and pure in a way that yours can't. So why not enable them to create true and pure marketing collateral, too?
11 November 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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I just caught the premier episode of The Rebel Billionaire, Sir Richard Branson’s answer to Donald Trump. I had three takeaways from the show, two trivial, one deep.
First, the trivial:
Perhaps this is Branson’s way of poking fun at Trump – “Look mate, I can gather a load of people with hair at least as silly as yours.” However, as with the extreme sports activities which make up the bulk of the show, hair has very little to do with business acumen or success. As I said, these are trivial points.
Assholes, on the other hand, are not (for those of you not paying attention, this is the “deep” takeaway). Organizational behavior expert Robert Sutton has written extensively on the effect that assholes have on coworkers. We’ve all been there: you’re sitting in a staff meeting, trying to act like an adult, and then someone in the room has a hissy fit. Or think about the low-level teasing that inevitably accompanies someone wearing what they want to wear to work. And then there are the folks who, plainly put, treat people below them (such as janitors and exec assistants) like shit. All the work of assholes, and all bad news; as Sutton points out, “…there is substantial evidence that anger and hostility are contagious, so if I am nasty to someone, they will be nasty to me, and a destructive cycle will commence.” Sound familiar?
What if you could have an asshole-free workplace? I worked in one such place, and it was the best four years of my professional career. Sure, we had a few total jerk-offs here and there, but in general our hiring process was all about establishing a shock-proof, bullet-resistant asshole detector, and it worked. Here’s how:
I know this isn’t the norm out in industry. Not many HR professionals are ready to cede so much power over the hiring process to the rest of the organization. This is too bad. As Sutton writes:
For starters, I am surprised by how few senior managers act to avoid hiring jerks in the first place, or to stop abusive employees in their tracks once they reveal their true colors. The key is to make explicit to everyone involved in hiring decisions that candidates who have strong skills but who show signs they will belittle and disrespect others, cannot be hired under any circumstances.
Sir Branson took an innovative approach to the asshole problem by donning Scooby-Doo-ish makeup and mask before picking up would-be contestants from the airport in a London taxi cab. Disguised as an arthritic old cabbie, Branson was able to observe these would-be Trumps interacting with a “little” person, a situation which is to an asshole what buried truffles are to a pig – an invitation to root around and generally make a boor of one’s self. Not surprisingly, three contestants showed their true colors in short order, and Branson kicked two of them off. A strong cultural statement, eh?
On Branson’s show, the jerks – wait, by willingly going on a reality TV show they’re all grade-A assholes, right? – okay, the really, really big jerks get kicked off first. But that doesn’t happen in real life workplaces, at least not quickly enough to matter in most situations. What to do? Sutton advises that there “… are times when the answer is indifference, when the wisest course is to go through the motions, learn not to care, and just get through the day until something changes on your job, or something better comes along… I am starting to believe that, as a management professor, part of my job is to teach people when indifference is more useful than passion.” I tend to agree with him.
10 November 2004 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (1)
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The Ducati PaulSmart 1000
09 November 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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CNN is running a nice piece on Alec Issigonis, father of the (original) Mini. What's notable about this brief bio is its author, James Dyson, father of the eponymous vacuum that never loses suction.
Issigonis was a genius on many levels. As Dyson notes, the father of the Mini was nothing if not elegant in both his design solutions and his structured approach to problem solving:
Sir Alec Issigonis... came up with his ingenious idea while sipping on a gin in a hotel in Cannes -- a very civilized approach to engineering.
If this article is indeed written by Dyson and not some pathetic PR flak, it poses an interesting question: why not have real, working designers write the history of design? Why leave it up to non-pracitioners who don't know really understand the design process? I'd like to see more designers follow Dyson's lead. Gin or no gin.
08 November 2004 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)
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"We used to bring a piece of furniture we were working on home to look at it, because at the office everything was out of scale." - Ray Eames
[You've got to get out and see how your offerings work in context. Needs are verbs, and your end users probably don't speak the same language you do. Get out and see, hear, listen.]
06 November 2004 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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I'm stoked to be attending BloggerCon III tomorrow. If you'll be there and would like to meet in person, drop me a line.
05 November 2004 | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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Change This is passing the 100k mark for manifesto downloads from their site, and reckons that if you add in pass alongs enabled by the "smoothness" features built in to those manifestos, the total number is more like 250k. Since August.
Wow.
This is proof that, at least in the case of fostering word of mouth on the internet, if you're smart about building in smoothness and pass along functionality, people will spread your stuff. In addition to designing the tools correctly, Change This set up the human incentives right, too -- they enlisted blogging mavens and connectors (including yrs trly) to host manifestos, and rewarded those uber bloggers with increased traffic and prestige.
04 November 2004 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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What's that sound? Oh, it's just my hand patting myself on the back.
But seriously, folks, I just voted, and what I saw, heard and experienced scared the bejeezus out of me. I'm talking about the electronic, touchscreen voting booth which I just used to decide the fate of the planet. So many aspects of the design sucked, it's hard to know where to start. Here are the problems I had:
1) I was issued a magnetic card "key" to allow me to use the voting machine. It fit into a slot on the front of the voting machine. I expected the machine to grab the card upon insertion and pull it in, much like an ATM machine would (as a society, we've been trained to have cards sucked in). But it didn't. My card just sat there, limp and inert. Finally, my inner mechanical engineer spoke up and I rammed the card home. Bling bling! The touch screen awoke and I could now do my civic duty.
2) Each screen had two or more votable items displayed at a time, which a big yellow "next screen" arrow in the lower right. Thing is, I was able to press the yellow arrow and skip a votable item without the system giving me any feedback that I had skipped an item. Folks, the self-serve kiosks at United Airlines work better than this. Lucky for me I'm a software industry veteran and was able to go back a page. But what if I was an "analog", part of the population who has never used a computer, let alone a web browser-style interface? What if, for example, I was an 80+ year-old woman wearing those big wraparound sunglasses and trying to vote with this damned thing?
And there she was: next to me an elderly woman sat there trying to stick her card in for about 45 seconds. She muttered and cursed and finally called an attendant for help.
Then there was the elderly gentleman on the other side of me. He stood there motionless the entire time I was voting, and then asked the attendant for help. Seems he couldn't find his candidate on the touchscreen (video monitors are hard to read -- we read better on paper). It took a while for the local "IT department" to sort of his problem. The answer? The poor guy was trying to vote for "Laura Magenta", one of the sample candidates from the paper instructions he had in his hand. It wasn't his fault. Just a stupid, poorly-conceived and implemented voting process.
God help this country of mine. Or better yet, get Steve Jobs and crew to design a simple, effective voting process for us.
02 November 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)
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