Recently my family decided to start a garden in our backyard with some friends of ours. Last fall we sat down and collectively decided what and how much we wanted to grow. Then, each family went on-line and researched the best places to buy the vegetables that we were interested in growing. We both decided that we would order most of our seeds and starter plants from a large national company, figuring that they would be the most reputable. So, when the time came, both of our families called and separately placed our orders. One nice selling feature that drew us to this company is that they would ship us our starter plants at the time when it is appropriate [...]

Wrong is in vogue. A song by Depeche Mode is named “Wrong.” Seth Godin blogged about failure:http://bit.ly/fGNB1kKathryn Schultz presented at a TED Conference about the importance of being wrong. http://bit.ly/gD0kPm Kathryn said being wrong is the source of our creativity. In the Optimize Phase of LEO, we try to be wrong. We test variations of our best design concept from the Enrich Phase. We test the variants we expect to be good.  We test other variants we expect to be bad. If the expected good are really bad or if the expected bad are really good – we learn. We even learn if the good are good or the bad are bad in a manner different than what we expected. We [...]

A few weeks ago Obama began his bid for re-election in 2012. Don’t worry; this won’t turn into a political blog… But when I heard this, it got me thinking. I was reminded of the last elections in 2010. I remember telling my wife during campaign/election season that it was tough to figure out how I wanted to vote in most cases because I didn’t hear much from any candidate on why they should get my vote. Instead I heard a lot about why ‘the other guy’ should not get my vote. The reasons why I should not vote for ‘the other guy’ ranged from some that were very reasonable to some that could make you think ‘how-could-this-person-even-be-running-for-office?’ In fact, [...]

Seth Godin hits the nail on the head. http://bit.ly/fD47JR But great service designs require more than designers signing their work. Great service designs require a process. Listen – Observe and understand the customer. Take the time to really understand what the customer wants. Understand the why behind the what. Stop talking. Start listening. Designers must experience their customers first-hand. (No, reading tweets is not first-hand experience!) Empathize with the customer who gets a blast of cold water from the hotel’s shower head. Enrich – Explore and discover the best alternative. Once you have a rock solid, visceral understanding of customer needs, don’t rush to the first concept that comes to mind. Take the time to explore all the concepts. Invent [...]

I am often amazed at how easily designers can brush off the fact that their designs are not truly optimized. Dr. Genichi Taguchi’s definition of optimization is: “the state of performance where the technology, product, or process is minimally sensitive to factors causing variability (either in the manufacturing environment or user’s environment) at the lowest possible cost”. His definition can be restated as making products that work the same way, every time, no matter what the condition. They must work for a very long time and still be affordable. A good working definition I once heard for optimize was: “to make as effective, perfect, or useful as possible”. I often have the opportunity to ask designers if their designs are [...]