Steelcase CEO on Office Design

George Bradt has a good article at Forbes in which he describes his recent interview with Steelcase CEO Jim Hackett.  Steelcase, of course, designs excellent office furniture and workspaces.  Hackett explained that modern offices need a "range of settings to accommodate focused, collaborative and social work in both open and enclosed environments."    Hackett emphasizes the collaborative "we" spaces a great deal, because many offices lack those types of environments conducive to bringing people together to accomplish a group task.  Here is an excerpt:

Now, instead of designing traditional offices, Steelcase creates “we” spaces around the three-four most important meta issues. According to Hackett, executives don’t need homes, “command-level projects” do. So there might be a project room for a team working on a merger, product launch or a recall. Instead of people bringing information into meetings with executives, the information stays in the project rooms and executives travel to it. As Hackett explains, they made this shift because:

Innovation requires collective ‘we’ work. To this end, it’s critical to design spaces that not only support collaboration, but augment it (with) spaces that promote eye-to-eye contact, provide everyone with equal access to information, and allow people to move around and participate freely.

The idea of "war rooms" is very appealing to me.  I think they create a powerful sense of group identity,  as well as proving that all-important equal access to information.   I think executives do need personal "homes" too... there is some focused, solo work that still needs to be done.  People sometimes need time without distraction, as Susan Cain has argued.  However, collaborative work often can be done much more effectively if "war room" type space is available.  

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The Shops at Target

As we all know, mass merchandisers and department stores face stiff competition these days.  Online retailers continue to disrupt the brick-and-mortar retailers.  Moreover, many of these firms face intense price competition with their rivals, and they sell many items at steep discounts.  For years, Target has fought to differentiate itself, to do more than just sell the same goods others do.  They have tried to avoid direct price competition on some items, by selling exclusive designs and premium private label products not found at other retailers.  Now, they have launched Shops at Target - an interesting innovation in the mass merchandiser industry.  According to the company,

Through this ongoing program, Target will partner directly with the shop owners of specialty stores and boutiques to co-create affordable, limited-edition collections for its guests.  The first flight of The Shops at Target features five exclusive collections from five U.S. specialty stores: The Candy Store, Cos Bar, Polka Dog Bakery, Privet House and The Webster.

The innovation here is that Target is NOT partnering with well-known designers in these situations.  They are partnering with small, independent specialty shops.   In so doing, they avoid the competition to sign up those well-known designers, while also offering something even more unique and off-beat.   After all, other retailers have raced to sign up designers for exclusive collections, imitating Target's strategy.  As that has happened, the expense associated with this "arms race" has become quite high.  This strategy tries to find a way to move beyond that arms race.

 The limited-edition nature of the collections seems intended to drive traffic too - "Come now to see what's here, because it won't be here for long."   As we know, increasing frequency of trips is crucial for retailers.  When a shopper comes more often, they tend to buy other items perhaps not on their list.  In the end, the question will be:  Will shoppers pay premium prices for these products, and will Target be able to avoid deep discounting associated with slower-moving items in these collections? 

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Learning from Improv

Russ Meyer has a great article on the Fast Company website.  Meyer offers some solid recommendations for how companies should go about trying to design better customer experiences.  For instance, imagine that you are trying to provide a better after-sale service experience for your customer, or you are trying to redesign the check-out process in your retail store.  Meyer draws on the lessons of Improv comedy to offer his advice to you in these types of efforts.   For starters, he argues:

"In improv, this means don’t disregard premise, no matter how outrageous... In experience design, you can’t start by denying what could be: 'We can’t change the check-in process because...,' for instance. For a great new customer experience to come to life, it will have to break some of the conventions of the current experience. Make sure you’re open, especially at the beginning of a process, to accept what may be an outrageous premise or idea."

Meyer also argues that "thoughtful watching" should be the approach one takes toward discovering a better customer experience.  In Improv, people concentrate intensely on what others are saying, and they listen actively.  Meyer explains, "Sitting back, watching, listening and concentrating on how people are presently experiencing the brand (while leaving yourself open to the outrageous) can identify moments where the experience could be improved."   Similarly, I've argued that systematic observations of customers and front-line employees yield powerful insights regarding your firm's problems and deficiencies, as well as how to improve in the future. 

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Does Google need an auteur?

The New York Times published an interesting article this weekend about Google and Apple. The article describes a theory outlined by blogger John Gruber at MacWorld Expo two years ago. Gruber argued that innovative firms need an auteur, someone like a film director who calls the creative shots... Like Steve Jobs does at Apple. The article suggests that Apple's auteur approach (Jobs as ultimate design arbiter) excels relative to Google's collaborative design process (many people weighing in on key choices).

I have two problems with this argument. First, I think it downplays the level of true collaboration at Apple, and discounts the true contribution of people such as Jonathan Ive. More importantly, though, I think we have to consider whether we should be generalizing based on observations of Apple. Perhaps it is a very unique firm that cannot be easily emulated. Moreover, perhaps it would be problematic to bet on the "lone genius" approach in a wide variety of other firms based on this auteur argument.

Recently, Bob Lutz made a similar argument regarding car design. He argued essentially that a dictator approach beats design by committee. However, that assumes a really capable dictator. What if the dictator is less than spectacular?

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