On Jan 5, 2009, at 1:52 PM, Barbara Ballard wrote:

Really, I think of design as tactics employed in product strategy. It
seems like execution to me, though that's certainly arguable.


This is exactly the mind set that I have spent the last 10 - 15 years trying to correct, or at least mitigate. In the nineties, running my design firm, I saw project after project that were doomed before we even got a hold of them. When you're working as a consultant and a 'go to' design firm, one of the fastest way to reduce your livelihood is to call this out in initial client meetings. And, as Barbara states, it is the rare designer that has a hand or say in strategy.

We (my tiny midwest design firm) started pulling qualitative research in as a core capability in the mid nineties. It accomplished a number of things... better insight, better design, and measurably better performance... but the most important result was that we, designers, were involved in the conversations that formed the product or project strategy. It made a huge difference.

Years later, it is often hard to blame business folks for not understanding the importance of bringing design into the conversation early. But they are not taught that in business school. Well, unless you are lucky enough to got Rottman, IIT, Harvard, Berkley, Kansas and a handful of other schools where the design and business professors have continued dialog.

So... to a couple of other points Barbara makes, it is critical that designers understand marketing, consumer behavior, business strategy, revenue models... and a bunch of other things designers often find distasteful. Is it fair? Not at all. In many of the environments I have worked designers have gone out of their way to become not only aware and conversant, but competent in these skill sets. But I can count on one hand the number of business execs that bother to study and learn how beneficial embracing design can be in their success. Those who do... tend to accomplish great things. Those who don't tend to reside in the b list of followers hoping for innovation to fall upon them.

Mark
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