Monthly Archives: October 2016

The value of unity

27 Thursday Oct 2016

Posted by in Election, Government, Politics

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After too many months of political posturing, divisive accusations and unabashed rancor, the citizens of this country will soon elect the 45th President of the United States. Whatever the result, we can expect about half of the country will be disappointed. What happens after that will define us as a nation.

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We can choose to let the rift grow, and render any kind of meaningful action impossible, or we can focus on the common good. We can continue to scream at each other, to keep the “other side” from being heard, or we can listen to the very real needs of the people who are coping with the crumbling infrastructures in our cities. We can obsess about our own needs, or consider the plight of the people left behind in the recent economic recovery – people unemployed or underemployed who held good jobs ten years ago. We can call each other names, question each other’s family values, and spout vitriol on Facebook, or we can urge congress to support those who are actually good at creating job growth.

A few weeks ago, I hosted a breakfast meeting with industry leaders and invited Dick Gephardt to provide some insight into how the election fall-out might impact the business climate. As you no doubt recall, he served as a United States Representative for 28 years and twice ran for President. He also served as both House Majority Leader and Minority Leader. If anyone gets politics, it’s Dick Gephardt. I sought his perspective on the current polarization that we are seeing in Washington, D.C., and in the country at large. His response was refreshingly non-political, rational and even inspirational. Here’s my attempt to summarize his three key points:

  • The United States of America has the best system of government in the world, because it relies on the insights and input of 535 individuals and not just one person. Our founders were careful to ensure a balance of power; they knew what they were doing.
  • Yes, politics sometimes get ugly. But consider the plight of countries without a functioning representative government—those countries whose political or social unrest spills into tragic global headline news. The alternative to a political solution is violence.
  • Neither Republican nor Democratic governments drive true growth. Individuals – and the large or small businesses they represent – who have a vision to make and sell products and services are the ones who drive growth and create jobs. A productive government is one that can set aside political divisions and work to support the true enablers of growth.

Whatever happens as a result of the national elections, we are charged as citizens to get on with rebuilding the economy and doing the things that America is so good at. We need to stand together on this. And by the way, the rest of the world needs us to pull it together, too. All eyes will be on our country, and the global economy will respond with confidence, or not, based on what it sees here. So please, be sure to vote—support the candidates and issues you feel are valid. Then, on November 9th, let’s agree to set aside the rhetoric, pick up our tools, and get back to work. That’s something we all know how to do. And it’s how we made America great in the first place.

~ bph

Introducing the Freeman Design Leadership Council

20 Thursday Oct 2016

Posted by in Bruce Mau, Cooper Hewitt, Design, Design Thinking

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{A Note to Readers: As promised, the amazing Bruce Mau, Freeman Chief Design Officer and tonight’s recipient of the prestigious Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum 2016 National Design Award for Design Mind, is back with me to talk about the big announcement he made last night.}

Bob:  Yesterday, speaking to members of the press, customers and other special guests, we announced that Bruce has reached out to a network of big-brain innovators, representing diverse areas of expertise, and is forming a Design Leadership Council.

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This is great news for everyone in the extended Freeman family–including all of our employees, customers, and valued partners-because it will accelerate our efforts to create a culture of design thinking and innovation. Beyond that, it lets us do our best work, through which we help drive economic growth and prosperity… and we elevate the human experience. In this way, we are re-defining the brand experience category.

Bruce:  Buckminster Fuller once described the new designer as being “part artist, mechanic inventor, objective economist and evolutionary strategist.” We’d all like to hire that guy, but the truth is, no one person can deliver it all. In this 21st Century digital renaissance, the opportunities and challenges are too complex and too diverse. Sustainable solutions require knowledge that is extremely rich and esoteric—requiring deep mastery of many subjects. So, we knew we had to assemble a renaissance team, replicating the sixteenth century genius at the scale of the group, drawing such diverse talents as engineering, invention, design, communication, systems thinking, and storytelling into a collaborative process that will inform thinking throughout the enterprise.

Bob: This approach is aptly summed up in Bruce’s design principle, “new wicked problems demand new wicked teams.” It’s what drives the collaborative process we’re learning to use every day at Freeman. And it inspired the creation of the Freeman Design Leadership Council that we announced last night. We are beyond excited about the caliber of people who have joined us. Council members represent diverse, essential aspects of design innovation. They are artists and scientists, military historians and philosophers, imagineers and data geeks, production designers and corporate culture experts, entrepreneurs and stewards of industry-defining brands. (Read about them in the press release here.)

Bruce: What I find personally encouraging is that each of these innovators–visionaries who are already busy working on their own passions–were all eager to join our design council. Why? Because they appreciate the opportunity to exchange ideas with other big thinkers, and because they, too, understand the value of diverse thinking. They will advise Freeman regarding interesting developments in their own areas of expertise, and in turn, benefit from the thinking of others.  On a larger scale, they really value the brand experience channel; they see the opportunities that Freeman has to support brand experience on a global scale and effect massive change. These people want to be part of that.

Bob: And here’s where this council can really make a difference. Each council member has naturally cultivated relationships with other innovators who have deeper, more esoteric areas of expertise. The Design Leadership Council will in effect network these connections, as needed, to inform specific client opportunities and challenges. Collaboration with council members is as spontaneous and intense as the circumstances require. This adds incredible value to customers while responsibly managing cost.

Bruce: These are people who are in the habit of redefining boundaries. Who knows what could happen when we bring them together…

Bob: One thing is certain. As Freeman steps into its 90th Anniversary year, everything will be focused on the future – on finding new ways to support our customers. Anything is possible.

~ Bruce and Bob

Diversity by design

19 Wednesday Oct 2016

Posted by in Bruce Mau, Cooper Hewitt, Design, diversity

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{A Note to Readers: Tomorrow evening our Chief Design Officer of Freeman – the amazing Bruce Mau – will be receiving the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum 2016 National Design Award: Design Mind. I asked him to collaborate with me on this blog… and on a special announcement we’ll blog about tomorrow.}

Bob:  We are always surprised when people talk about “diversity in the workplace” as if it’s an end in itself—something companies do to look good, or to meet quotas, or to seem user-friendly to various demographic groups. This may be a holdover from the ‘60s and affirmative action laws—but it loses sight of the whole point of diversity. The idea is to create an inclusive culture that knows how best to use the individual talents of all its employees—and in that way, elevates the output of the enterprise as a whole.

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Diversity of ideas is the payoff. Diversity is bigger than race, age, gender, size, physical ability or faith-based demographics. A dancer might understand things about gravity that aren’t expressed in Newton’s Laws of Motion. A photographer might see light in a different way than an optometrist. A musician might have insights into technology that would escape an experienced software developer.

Bruce:  Diversity helps us rise above the narrow assumptions that can quickly become institutional baggage. Because diversity brings fresh perspectives, new world views, and entirely different sets of filters, it helps us generate more innovative solutions. At the same time, it helps us fend off the gremlins that kill innovation: complacency, risk-adversity, ignorance and time constraints.

One of the ways Freeman and many other companies diversify is by hiring new people and acquiring new businesses. We’ve seen the benefits of this approach–it helps us keep pace with change. But it’s impractical to staff for every possible twist and turn in the market.

When we considered this challenge as a design problem, we arrived at a pretty brilliant conclusion…

Bob:  We’ll be making an announcement tonight at a press event and reception in NYC that honors Bruce’s achievement as the 2016 Design Mind. I can’t say just yet what that announcement is… but it’s really going to help Freeman raise our diverse-design-thinking quotient.

We’ll be back with more on this tomorrow… so stay tuned

~Bruce and bph

Fall Design Lessons

13 Thursday Oct 2016

Posted by in Design, solutions

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Change is hard but it’s a necessary part of the work we do. As we head into fall, take your cues from Mother Nature on how to pull it off.

One of the most challenging things about designing for change is that if often feels counter-intuitive. Unnatural, even. That’s because we have to let go of something that has always worked in order to grasp something new with both hands.

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This is especially true of process change. And in this case, the old adage, “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” can have dire consequences. Picture a modern news journalist trying to file a breaking story by using telegraph or snail-mail when everyone else is uploading their story to the cloud. Imagine a cardiac surgeon ignoring new techniques because the ones from five years ago seemed to work fine. Epic fail.

Although the term “built-in obsolescence” is often anathema to conscientious designers, Mother Nature offers many proofs that sometimes we must intentionally throw out the old so that something new and better can take its place.

Birds molt, by design. Some crabs can regenerate claws. And both male and female caribou annually drop their antlers. But get this, bulls shed after the rutting season and pregnant cows, only after they calve. Nature has designed it so that the periods of vulnerability that come with change happen when risk can be minimized.

Heading into fall, I anticipate the moment when the Sugar Maples start to change color. You don’t need to understand the science behind photosynthesis to appreciate the explosion of vibrant hues that autumn brings. As a bonus, the fall color change offers us a perfect lesson in design.

Deciduous trees use sunlight to make their food. As the days grow shorter in the fall, the tree knows it must make it through the winter on stored food.  So it closes up the veins that carry chlorophyll into the leaf (the green stuff) and we start to see the other brilliant colors that were stored in the leaf all along. When the seal is complete, the leaf drops to the ground, and provides nutrients to the soil that are essential to the ecosystem.  In the spring, healthy new leaves grow in place of the old ones.

The next time you are designing a solution, take a page from nature. Consider the evolution of your process, anticipate the inevitable drivers of change, and be willing to shed, as necessary, to make room for new growth.

Even better, design your solution so that when it’s no longer useful, it goes out with a burst of color.