Create Three Values from Great Monday on Vimeo.

Pre-profit Priority from Great Monday on Vimeo.

Forget value-added, today’s customer demands value first. Whether individual or corporation, they’re too smart to buy just because your Super Bowl ad said so. To get future customers you need to think about your pre-profit priority—building a community.

One Minute Mondays: Why work? from Great Monday on Vimeo.

Pretty much all Josh thinks about is how to help companies live their brand. Working with him, I get to hear a lot of gems and, I started thinking other people should really hear this, too. So (with my limited video skills) we decided to put this monthly video series together.

Enjoy this no-frills look at some of the thinking that goes on here at the office. First up, Josh wonders: Why work?

From its 1937 creation of a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired desk to its 1996 investment in product design juggernaut IDEO, Furniture-company-turned-workspace-consultant Steelcase has a long history of not only investing in new ideas but successfully bringing them to market.

The latest in this long tradition is a newly formed group called Growth Initiatives, anascent project that focuses on creating, testing, and bringing new innovations to market. The group’s objective is to capture and systematically fund potential revenue streams as they look 5 and 10 years into the future. To accomplish this Growth Initiatives uses a rigorous venture capital-style investing process that grants progressively larger amounts of resources as an idea proves its value. This method mitigates Steelcase’s investment risk and ensures that only the most viable ideas move forward.

We asked Growth Initiatives program lead John Malnor how his team pushes the boundaries of what’s possible to help Steelcase achieve long-term design andfinancial success. His first response focused on the definition of failure; before an organization is able to fully embrace the opportunities provided by new ideas, it’s mandatory to change the definition of “failure” from “not successful” to “not learning.” He explained that everyone inside the organization must understand that it is acceptable for an unproven idea to not make it to market; and the only true failure is not learning from the process.

“You might have 20 different ideas, and only a couple of those might be viable for the long term. Instead of saying, ‘That failed because it didn’t get second-tier investment,’ you archive that idea, because maybe its time hasn’t come. Or you capture what you learn from that first idea and then look for somewhere else to apply it.” Or perhaps the idea just needs some tweaking. Malnor makes the point that even the best concepts go through at least two or three iterations before they’re ready for market testing.

One idea alone has little chance of success, so Malnor and his team try to gather several. “You want to be able to pick through a portfolio of ideas. If you have just one…people get invested and can’t let it go because there are no alternatives.” They become blind to objective evaluation.

Where do all the ideas come from? Customers, investors, trends, the market, the competition—everyone. “We’re always working on building our skill capturing new ideas,” says Malnor. He adds that Steelcase also cultivates employee participation in the process: “We make it easy for them to contribute.” The company intranet features a form developed to encourage anyone to jot down an idea.

What to do with an inbox of ideas? Design a decision-making gauntlet to determine which ones make the cut, says Malnor: “We’ve developed a set of frameworks that we filter concepts through.” The frameworks he’s referring to are questions that weed out weak ideas and reinforce the strong. Examples include: Is the idea a viable business opportunity; and Does the new business concept align with the company’s overarching purpose? “Some ideas have great potential,” Malnor explains, “but if it doesn’t build the long-term value of the brand, we pass.”

Perhaps the most critical framework is whether the new idea aligns with Steelcase’s current focus, which is determined by macro trends like economic environments and technology developments. In the past opportunities have ranged from geographic and product category trends to competitors’ new developments.

If an idea successfully answers these questions it’s promoted to prototyping and receives an initial round of funding to explore its real potential.

The first rule of prototyping: How fast can you learn, how little can you put at risk? When a concept is ready for in-market prototyping, “you need to invest the smallest possible amount to prove the concept,” explains Malnor. If you can figure out how to do rapid in-market prototyping for low cost and quick learning, then you’ll already have those metrics in hand to help prove the business case when you start looking for additional resources.

Malnor offers a few key recommendations for companies that want to emulate this type of methodical innovation. “Trust the talent within your company,” he explains. “Understand what your purpose is, and then build the skills and thick skin it takes to rapidly prototype ideas. You have to be willing to stop investing in many of those ideas—most of them, in fact. The only failures come from not trying new things—or, even worse, not learning from each new concept or venture.”

One early success to come out of Growth Initiatives is Workspring Venture (www.workspring.com), a collaborative business space designed to “inspire and support creative process, productive workshops, and transformative exchange.” An inspiring alternative to hotel conference rooms, workspring is intended to better address a growing trend in business—creative off-sites. No longer within the Steelcase primary offering of furniture, Workspring may have seemed risky to some. But it satisfied all the frameworks Mr. Malnor and team subjected it to, and brought it to market.

Co-Authored By John Root Stone and Josh Levine. Author Posting. © 2009 The Design Management Institute. This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission of the Design Management Institute for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Design Management Review, 21:2, . http://dx.doi.org/.

Saffron Consultants is a brand consultancy founded in 2001, with 50-plus employees scattered across offices in London, New York, Madrid, and Mumbai. A client once said, “They’re the perfect combination of charm and brutality.”[1] It was this reputation for candor, and the firm’s design experience, that led us to believe it would be a robust test case for the Get Fired hypothesis.”

Wally Olins is the firm’s Chairman and Co-founder, and few names in branding are held in the same regard. He co-founded the venerable Wolff Olins [2] in 1965 and has overseen hundreds of brand creations and reinventions over five decades. Given his experience, he is uniquely positioned to advise how to realize new, expansive ideas.

For Saffron, the question is not as much about whether they might Get Fired for being too radical – after all, they are often hired to think in unconventional ways. Rather, it’s a question about whether a client has the ability to realize a radical idea and the organizational change that may follow it.

Why is it easier for some organizations to thrive on creativity and change, while others flounder at every attempt? “When you fail to innovate, it’s not because people don’t intellectually recognize the requirement to innovate, but it is because they cannot bring themselves to do the things that are required to make the changes.”

Mr. Olins offers GM as an example of a company that failed to make this leap for decades. “GM talked for 20 years at least about wanting to change. They did not do a thing really to change. Only when they were absolutely at rock bottom, when it was all over for them, did they change.”

To contrast, Olins cites Nokia and Stanford University as organizations that have sustained levels of creativity in their ranks: “They are among the 25 to 35 percent that really innovate very powerfully and very successfully, and once they have that in their bloodstream they don’t stop. But getting it into the bloodstream is difficult.” He cites strong competition, new management, and desperation as primary drivers that can goose new creativity in such organizations.

Mr. Olins offers Orange, the mobile phone concern, as one of the most radical new approaches of the 1990s. When Hutchison Whampoa – Orange’s parent company – decided to establish a mobile network, there was very little to differentiate it from the three substantial competitors already in the market. At a time when mobile phones were seen an elite accessory for the few, the Wolff Olins team suggested the name “Orange” as a way to democratize mobility and enable people from all walks of life to identify with the offer.[3]

The recommendation was very controversial. However, through diligent research and creative exploration the Wolff Olins team helped the client realize the new brand would humanize the offer. He explains that upon their ultimate acceptance of the name, “the company just seized it and drove it and pushed it and made it work remarkably successfully. And with great imagination and zeal and great courage.” The result: the company attracted 7 million people to its service in the first five years. It was a perfect example of how an extreme idea, that initially appeared out-of-bounds, was ultimately proven given the right energy and innovation process.

Saffron is hired to create big, bold brand and design changes for all sorts of companies and countries, and they have done this quite successfully. Olins offered the following ingredients for how the firm maintains a semi-permanent, sustained creativity in the organization:

Share ideas all of the time. “Nobody pays enough attention to communication. Nobody does. I try to, but I know I don’t. And most people don’t. It’s a very, very hard thing to do.” Effective communication is one of the most difficult, and most overlooked, challenges in many organizations. To foster good organizational communication, Olins recommends actively circulating new ideas, avoiding organizational silos, and being transparent about your beliefs.

Follow your instinct. “I’m quite often asked in this business, ‘How did you develop ideas around branding?’ I think you can post-rationalize some things, but a lot of it is instinct.” To make the best of your instincts, be honest with yourself about who you are and what you know. The greater your understanding of an idea, its opportunities and its risks, the more effectively you will be able to use your instinct.

Use the carrot as well as the stick. “You have to be very persuasive and offer carrots, but you also have to say, ‘If you don’t innovate, look what will happen to you.’ ” Everyone has fears and desires. Delivering your ideas with an eye to all the possibilities—negative as well as positive, moderate as well as severe—helps provide a balanced view of the possible impacts of your idea.

Make friends. “People who get the idea and run with it make it go further than you can make it go because not only do they understand what you’ve been saying, but they also understand the organization.” Relationships are central to success on an individual or an organizational level. The more friends you make, the greater your chances of having significant impact.

But how can organizations who haven’t hired a creative agency like Saffron push the boundaries of design and business? We went to Steelcase, a company that has a consistent record of bringing new ideas to market from the inside, to find out what makes it successful.

NEXT: Part 3 – From the Inside: Steelcase

Co-Authored By John Root Stone and Josh Levine. Author Posting. © 2009 The Design Management Institute. This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission of the Design Management Institute for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Design Management Review, 21:2, . http://dx.doi.org/.

“If staying on the cutting edge is critical to your business, here you’ll find insights for generating and implementing radical ideas that will make your company an industry leader.”

In the latest issue of Design Management Review, I co-authored an article with John Stone on building innovation into organizations. Now, in the first of a four part series I’m posting that article here.

Innovation, anyone? The Tipping Point. Inside the Tornado. The New, New Thing. You’ve probably read one of these books, or heard that you should. You’re not alone. Over the past 10 years, nearly everyone has boarded the innovation plane—at least in theory.

With all this talk about increasing value for customers and shareholders through innovation, why aren’t there more companies actually doing it, like Apple, or Google, or Virgin? The problem is not a lack of revolutionary ideas—it’s an inability to pick, package, and ship the revolution.

When a big idea strikes, people have serious difficulties making it happen. You can read all the curb-jumping, paradigm-shifting, out-of-the-box innovation books you can order, but it won’t make any difference until you take on the true challenge: bringing that new idea to market.

Why are big, valuable ideas so often hard to realize? In part, because they’re perceived as risky. That’s not surprising, considering that generations of business leaders have been taught to strive for predictability and reliability. Today, most businesses are built for stability, not innovation.

Let’s be clear: Reliability and predictability are good for business. They can generate value, profit, and professional success. But when they alone become the drumbeat for an organization, they can stifle the next big business idea. Would-be innovators who see opportunity for new, unproven ideas may not pursue them for fear of their corporate reputations, their advancement potential, and even the loss of their jobs.

We believe that ideas normally considered out of bounds are more likely to succeed if they are paired with a deliberative process that exposes their true risks and rewards. We call it the Get Fired hypothesis. This method adds credibility to an innovator’s idea while mitigating risk for those that decide what to pursue.

Why call it “Get Fired”? It’s the metaphoric benchmark for what it may take to convince an organization to support an unproven concept that could potentially fail. No one is advocating that anyone actually lose his or her employment—rather, it’s a way to prepare yourself to say and do those things you thought too outlandish before.

There are companies that time and again successfully explore and implement risky ideas—ideas that might otherwise put managers and executives at risk. How do those companies “de-risk” unproven concepts, mitigate the anxiety of failure, and ultimately create the biggest possible value?

Design is a core value for many companies that succeed in realizing radical ideas. Consequently, to test our Get Fired hypothesis we went to two organizations known for their design prowess—Saffron Consultants and Steelcase—to understand how they consistently generate valuable new ideas and successfully take them to market.

NEXT: Part 2 – Case study of Saffron Consultants.

Untangling brand and customer experience, in 10 minutes or less from Brandon Schauer on Vimeo.

Does the brand define the customer experience, or is the customer experience the brand? Your work may involve both, but you probably attack problems with a bias for one or the other.

Earlier this year I asked Josh Levine of Great Monday to simply describe the relationship between brand and experience, and I like what he said.

I went back and dug deeper with Josh to clear up the differences between how he described it and and the way I often see the relationships between brand and experience being practiced. What emerged was this illustrated question and answer, attempting to untangle brand and customer experience in just 9 minutes.

Of all the years of academic research spent understanding tribal affiliation, inclusion, identity and shared cohesion, it’s only recently that business has taken notice. That’s not to say commerce based tribes haven’t been around forever—they have—but until now they’ve formed organically, without the considered attempts of brand managers to leverage this platform.

THE HUNGRY TRIBE
Author and entrepreneur, Seth Godin has published extensively on the importance of leadership in forming strong tribal communities and brand guru, Marty Neumeier explains it this way: “Selling is pushing products at people, but brands pull people into tribes.”

Traditional marketing and brand managers have finally started to take note, but it appears to be no more than a latent response to a smarter, more educated consumer who is looking for more. Not more advertising…not more spam…not more widgets…and not more clutter. Consumers today are hungry for more meaning.

DON’T SHOOT THE CUSTOMER
Like firing a shotgun into a flock of geese, many marketers still assume that if they interrupt enough people enough times, at least some of them will pay attention. That may work but only until another product comes along that is better, sleeker or less expensive. When that happens (and it will), to regain the high ground you must launch another costly ad campaign. When companies compete on features, functions or price, they might as well just say it: “We don’t care enough to spend the time to understand what you find meaningful.” This near-term mindset is the status quo for organizations that believe indefensible products, inevitable commoditization and low levels of consumer engagement are the only market reality.

However, organizations that create value for the future customer first create a much more formidable barrier to competition. In this instance we’re talking about a considered effort to create platforms and artifacts that connect communities and facilitate the creation of a tribe. The marketing role needs to be fundamentally re-thought, to create a shift away from thinking like traditional brand managers, into a world where marketers become brand advocates and evangelists.
A BUSINESS IS BORN
What started as a small Summer ritual amongst a tight-knit community of artists on a Northern California beach has slowly grown into a full-fledged pop-up community and multi-million dollar festival. Burning Man now attracts nearly 50,000 people ranging from geeked-out yuppies to middle-aged hippies and every future primitive technophile in between. This diverse group of eclectic revelers share a desire to travel to Black Rock City, CA every August to contribute to the creation of a temporary city for radical self-expression and communal bonding.

This once informal bon-fire on the Beach in San Francisco not only built a social platform that brings people together over a common interest, but created a business platform that generates millions of dollars annually. Today Burning Man charges $200 a head and earned over $10 million in 2008 alone. Burning Man didn’t start as a business, but slow and steady cultivation of this Tribe has certainly made it one.

MORE THAN JUST A CAUSE
Yellow Livestrong bracelets can be seen on everybody from neighborhood kids to pro athletes. Even the President of the United States has worn one. What is it about this $1 dollar rubber band that generates brand awareness and unprecedented amounts of money for cancer research and Nike in such a short period of time?

Livestrong bracelets are more than just a receipt for your dollar. These bracelets have become a way for people to identify themselves as part of the club. They are a low stakes way to tell the world “I support Lance Armstrong in his fight against Cancer, because I too am an athlete who understands the importance of staying active.”

Lance, in partnership with NIKE, created a platform using these bracelets as a way of connecting people, with the ultimate goal of raising not only cancer awareness, but also money, and lots of it. Whether for profit or non-profit, to succeed in today’s marketplace, organizations need to create tribes—not for the money (though that’ll come), but for a purpose.

SELLING A LIFESTYLE
From the first Beetle, to the most recent GTI, Volkswagen has successfully built and sold great cars, but more impressive is it’s consistent ability to build tribal lifestyles through behavior. A recent viral video sponsored by VW received almost 4 million hits on YouTube in only one week. The video shows people will change their behavior if a truly fun option is available. (In this instance alost everyone choose not to take the escalator when a group of artists turns a steep flight of stairs into a larger-than-life piano.)

The ad has absolutely nothing to do with cars, yet contributes to their ability to sell more of them by accessing an emotional value held vehemently by the VW tribe: fun can make the world better. Volkswagen sells a lifestyle, and their tribe happily sees it’s value.

CONCLUSION
In a world where consumers own the brand, brand managers need to think more like brand advocates. They must take the initiative and become leaders by creating platforms and artifacts for communities to connect with one another, not just managing wordmarks. People are obsessed with connecting to others over shared interests, values and meaningful experiences— these people will find each other with or without your product or service, why not help?

I’d go further and say it’s a critical moment and that business must reconsider everyone in their brand ecosystem—employees included. The downturn has touched everyone, and no one will be left unchanged when we come out on the other end (whenever that may be). To create a sustainable business, isn’t it time we take into account our entire community, not just the people buying the products?

I think a lot about how I’ll see these new needs as they arise, and you should too. Now is when the next great success stories begin, not when the next boom finally arrives.