No-Engar Online

Is Design the New Management Consultancy? Not Exactly.

2006-12-03T17:27:00.000-08:00

Some folks are asking this question. I’ve spent the past two years making the transition from designer to business consultant, jumping a lot of hurdles along the way. Here’s a little of what I learned:
Highlight opportunities instead of bitching. As designers, we walk around in the world and feel overly sensitive to everything that isn’t designed well. We watch customers struggle when using poorly designed products. There’s an inclination to highlight these faults to executives whom we think should know about these faults. And maybe they should, but mostly they need help seeing the big opportunities. It might sound like product faults and market opportunities are simply the flip side of the same coin, but it’s the difference between being perceived as a whiny designer and a valued business advisor.
Know your limits. When I hear a designer say, “We were doing the same kind of work McKinsey would do” I think “You really have no fucking idea what McKinsey does.” I used to work at BCG (in the IT dept) and I have yet to meet a designer with thinking, methods, and tools nearly as sophisticated as those consultants. Just consider the career path at these firms: they take the top students from the top business schools who in turn have taken the top undergrads, and so on. Then the consultants work in a demanding up-or-out environment where excellence is necessary. This culture breeds great execution much more effectively than the best design studio cultures.
And I’ve beat the design thinking drum as much as anyone, but it’s naive to believe only designers think this way.
Invest in new hammers. Not every business problem is best solved by a product/service design or redesign. Sometimes an acquisition is the answer, or a divestiture, or hedging the financial markets. Business leaders have a lot of tools in their toolbox: marketing, sales, operations, finance, IT, HR, strategy, customer service, etc., and each of these in turn has a deep toolbox, with practitioners who all want more strategic influence. Understanding them — and knowing when product or service design is not the best approach — makes for a more well-rounded management consultant.
See the big picture. Sometimes design does have direct influence on business strategy. But describing that influence in terms of customer experience alone can lack the information that executives want to hear. Learning how to describe design’s benefits in financial and strategic language is key.
Be realistic about the influence of design. The current barrage of Fast Company and BusinessWeek stories on design can lull us into the impression that design is now king. In my experience, this isn’t anywhere near the case. Sure, there are great changes happening: I see more companies doing field research and more realization of the power of customer experience. But it’ll take years for the generations of business people to change their thinking and practices.
Know what you mean when you use the word strategy. Unfortunately, strategy has become a muddled word, the meaning even traditional management consultants don’t agree on (see Strategy Bites Back for an amusing look at the situation). But this is no excuse for us to practice muddled thinking. Here’s a simple way I’ve been clarifying it in conversation:
Product/service design: decide how to create something
Design strategy: decide what to create, with a perspective beyond the current cycle (e.g. 3-5 years)
Business strategy: decide what a business should do, with a perspective beyond the current cycle (e.g. 3-5 years)

Refrence

Trend gallery “Light & Luminaire Design 2006“

2006-08-30T16:16:00.000-07:00

Less – minimalist reduction

The requirement to harmonically integrate lamps with existing architecture can be achieved in two ways: On the one hand with a highly
original design, on the other hand with a minimalist design which is as unobtrusive as possible.

Many architects prefer lamps with a clear, simple design, since they easily adapt to the most diverse styles, no matter whether they are integrated in a modern glass building or used to form an interesting contrast to a historical building.

Very simple, geometrical forms emphasise the exclusiveness of the chosen materials and underline the high-quality craftsmanship. These extremely purist lamps are unobtrusive and offer visual calm while at the same time reducing design to its essence.

The colours correspond to the reduced forms and are also rather unobtrusive: Black, white and silver are the colours used most often, which are reminiscent of the use of colours in the 1980s.

More – sculptural staging

On the other hand light is - especially in living areas – staged in eye-catching light objects. Thanks to the latest technologies there are no limits to creativity. Extraordinary, partly futuristic forms, bright colours and extravagant materials are used. Interpreted as a piece of art and a sculpture, the lamp becomes the centre of the room.

In general there is a trend towards more emotionality. This includes borrowings of designs of past eras, such as re-interpretations of the baroque chandelier and form quotes from the 1980s as well as lamps which combine such contrasting elements as light and water in new ways.

Interactive – intelligent control systems for more well-being

Due to their constantly increasing light yield and the numerous available colours, LEDs are steadily gaining in significance. Advantages such as low energy consumption, long life-span, minimal measurements and sinking prices increase it further. The specific qualities of LEDs allow lighting solutions which cannot be realised with conventional lamps. They create light settings, colour changes and colour temperature changes characterising a completely new light quality.

The influence of light on human well-being and quality of living plays an ever-increasing role. Therefore, light manufacturers increasingly invest in the research and use of artificial light and its effect on human mood and health. Light as a medium has always played an important role for therapeutic purposes in the wellness sector. The insight that light influences feelings, has a direct impact on our mood, and positively supports biological functions such as healing processes, is now also used in innovative lighting concepts for a great range of applications. The right light, adjusted to the individual needs of the user, can increase the user’s performance and well-being considerably.

Systems with changing colours are based on the three primary colours red, green and blue (RGB) and allow a dynamic change of colours. RGB light sources can not only produce all mixed colours, but also several shades of different intensities and colour temperatures of white light. The current product ranges offered by manufacturers include lamps with sun-like temperatures which are thus similar to morning sunlight, and lamps which provide fresh, high-performance midday light, or imitate warm, red evening light – completely adjusted to the needs of the user.

Lighting solutions balancing human needs and energy efficiency

Light management has become an integral part of innovative lighting solutions. Particularly in the office sector, it has become a major focus. Dynamic light concepts adjust the lighting level as well as the light colour to the time of day and the physiological needs (such as eyesight, concentration level, level of fatigue). The lighting can thus be adjusted to the natural human biorhythm as well as to different tasks (for example conferences, video projection, computer work). Daylight dependent control systems can reduce the artificial light with increasing daylight. Energy can also be saved with a time and movement control system, which switches off the light in rooms that are not used. Such professional light management systems have high energy saving potential, thus meeting human and commercial as well as ecological requirements.

Light and luminaire design 2006

2006-03-17T13:23:00.000-08:00

The dependence of humans on light is immense. Light is an essential part of our visual environment and fulfils a variety of functions. It is important for orientation and safety; it is used to stage objects, rooms and architecture, and it has an immediate effect on the human psyche and our biorhythm.

The influence light has on us and our well-being is becoming increasingly significant. Even small and medium-sized businesses are becoming more and more aware of how important light design is for our well-being at work, thus increasingly investing in innovative lighting concepts. The significance of light as a marketing factor has also been recognised in the development of city centres, which has led to a growing number of high-quality lighting solutions. It is therefore hardly surprising that the lighting industry is one of the most dynamically growing industries. According to experts the turnover of the lighting industry will rise to US$ 18 billion by 2008 in China alone - it will thus more than double in comparison to 2004.

According to the international Energy Agency IEA, on average 19 percent of the worldwide requirement of electric energy is used for lighting. In the face of rising energy costs and drastically increasing environmental pollution resulting from high energy consumption, energy efficiency is playing an increasingly larger and more important role.

Today holistic lighting solutions which meet human and economic as well as ecological requirements are needed. This is a great challenge, which the lighting industry faces with intelligent and exciting lighting concepts. Here, the factor design has a particularly important role in several respects. Good design – particularly against the backdrop of globalisation and the increasing sensitivity to environmental issues – can bring consumers to make necessary changes in their consuming behaviour. Furthermore, high design quality is not only a decisive factor for the commercial success of a product – and thus the company that produces it – but it is also indispensable when it comes to conveying the technical innovation of a product in such a way that it is accepted in the market. It is only with a distinctive design and a clear positioning in the global market that companies can successfully manage to have their products perceived accurately today.

The spectrum of colours, forms and materials used in the production of lamps today is very diverse. Against this backdrop clear-cut trends are hard to define. However, there are two opposing main trends discernible with regards to design: On the one hand the tendency towards minimalist design, which focuses on the light itself; on the other hand the trend towards artfully, partly sculptural light objects, which almost stage the light.

New products in the field of “Lights and luminaires” are mostly the result of new technologies, therefore more and more manufacturers are investing in research and innovation. The “light emitting diode” (LED) has become an omnipresent topic. It has enormous innovative as well as growth potential because our mental well-being can be influenced much better with LED light than with conventional artificial light. The topic “Light and well-being” now plays an important role in the lighting industry. Systems which automatically adapt to the changing physical and mental human needs and which are highly energy-efficient at the same time are thus becoming increasingly important.

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