A few times a year most companies tend to start or re-look at their Innovation and product development cycles for the following year. Often involved in such matters, I’ve experienced that most of the time elements of the answer involves innovation and some of the time it also includes design. Ultimately though it often boils down to the one perennial question: “So fellows, what are we going to make?”

Before we continue lets take a look at a few wonderful quotes on innovation:

“At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top – I’m afraid that’s not quite right.” ~ Bill Gates

“Learning to leverage the creative thinking skills of every individual, regardless of their level, creates the sustainable competitive advantage every corporation is striving for.” ~ Jim O’Neal

“Most people think of innovation only in terms of R&D or new product development -– but taking an idea and turning it into cash is an effort that involves almost every part of a company. The challenge is thinking about and managing this extremely broad set of inter-related activity as a unified process.” ~ Hal Sirkin, Boston Consulting Group

I’m sure by now most of us are well aware of the power and importance of innovation as a strategy to come out ahead in today’s market. Anyways back to the story, this year for me the discussion is no different. However, instead of just letting a few managers and R&D people decide, I thought why not make innovation everybody’s responsibility?

Subsequently I suggested to top management to open it to the entire organization and leverage it as a huge resource.

Advantages
And why not? Here are some of the advantages.

1) It involves everyone from the tea lady to the CFO in the life blood of an organization, the creation of its products.

2) If 2 heads are better than 1, can you imagine if you got everyone involved in problem solving? You are tapping on the collective mind power of a large resource.

3) The best ideas come from different perspectives or view points of the problem at hand. You’ll be surprised what ideas my former manager of Logistics could come up with. That guys was brilliant.

Disadvantages
What discussion would not be complete with out a list of disadvantages?

1) No one would participate. Depending on the corporate culture, people may not love their organization enough to help out. Most people go home at 5pm anyway and may not want additional responsibility.

2) You might get tons of unworkable ideas. No idea is bad, just some might be hard to make it work or not meet corporate strategy.

3) People could use it as a means to complain. Angry or unhappy people are often “navel gazing”.

Suggestions
So with this in mind here are some suggestions.

1) Create a control document and circulate it as a template for ideas submission. Ensure it encourages submissions to have some kind of estimated Bill of Materials (BOM) and some idea of costings. This forces the employee to really think the idea through before sending it in.

2) Point one might not be so easy for some, if for example they are from non-technical departments. So get employees to form product or idea teams. B&O has been very successful in this as a means to get varied perspectives and yet maintain some kind of control in the greater scheme of things.

3) Create a committee, run by the main product stake holders (for example Sales, R&D, Design, and Management etc.) as a final arbitrator of the idea and to see if formal product research and development can start on it.

Have a go and see what you come up with? I’m still learning and am always pleasantly surprised.

Our resident contributor, Brian Ling offers his thoughts on entrepreneurship as a mindset. In his article, he discusses why even as an employee, you can still be resourceful and entrepreneurial. He breaks it down into three simple lessons here for you.

Contributed by Design Translator

I’ve always considered myself resourceful and entrepreneurial even though I have always been an employee. I’ve always wondered about that? Why is that I don’t see the need to leave my day job to be an Entrepreneur? In reality this post is not about justifying my place in life, but the fact that what people consider as the traditional characteristics of an Entrepreneur is no longer relevant in today’s economy that has the Internet as a medium of information transfer.

Thinking carefully on this issue, I’ve realized that Entrepreneurship is really about a mindset more than anything else, and a successful entrepreneur is more about the definition of what success is. Honestly there is no difference between selling your company to Google for 100 Million and selling 100 pieces of your beautifully hand crafted mobile phone pouches.

Let us now consider my usual slightly deviant, “off the beaten path” viewpoints on this matter.

1) Biggest Myth about Entrepreneurship
Along the same lines of this article, one of the biggest myths on entrepreneurship is that you have to give everything up (including your day job), work yourself to the ground, live on instant noodles, and almost by the seat of your tattered pants secure 5 Million in funding. After that you company makes a killing by it being sold for 50 or 500 Million.

Blame the media for blowing up such success stories. However just like investing, such high-risk, high hope strategies happens only once in a million. But at the rate the media is playing it up, it only seems that in order to be a successful entrepreneur you need to do it this way.

Utter nonsense.

On the other side of the bench, I have observed that many entrepreneurs make it big because of calculated risks, and more importantly creating multiple sources of income. Don’ t forget a day job or a part-time one IS a source of income. Most people consider this on too shallow a level, and forget that the individual is the success, NOT the business that individual is working on.

I’m a firm believer on this concept. Having 10 sources of income that generates 5K a month regularly, is a much better deal than hoping your one source can generate 50K a month. Think about it? Which option has more risk?

2) Entrepreneurship is all about time allocation.
I hope you did not get the impression that I scoffed about the time and effort required to make a venture successful. In fact on the contrary there is a lot of work that still needs to be put in. The question is to ask yourself how much time you can realistically put in.

Consider this, if you consider your day job as a source of income, and the joys of a family as another source of “income”, you need to be realistic on the amount of free time you can allocate on a venture.

In fact many entrepreneurship ventures fail simply because the time put into it was not enough. One of the down sides of this “multiple sources of income” strategy is the fact you might wear too many hats and don’t have enough time doing anything or everything well.

On the upside multiple-sources means multiple projects, and for me this keeps my interests going as I jump about. Again that’s me, I get bored doing only one thing all the time. You on the other hand need to ask yourself if this strategy is right for you. So as they say “know thy self”.

3) Be entrepreneurial in everything you do
Practice. Being a successful entrepreneur requires practice. Put it this way, that 22 year old college drop out becoming a millionaire at first go is one in a million. Many successful entrepreneurs, go at it many times before that big success.

You can start right away, and if you are employed even better. Intrapreneurship or internal entrepreneurship is fast becoming a way to get rich. Many companies such as IBM and 3M have been successful because of this.

Furthermore there is nothing stopping you investing some of your hard-earned cash in your education, or small ventures like selling memory chips online. Today the Internet is the great equalizer with many great opportunities if you want to start small. Just do your research.

What about starting an entrepreneurial initiative to raise money for your child’s soccer uniforms? As you can see you can even be entrepreneurial in almost any aspect in your life, and it does not always have to be all about the money.
4) Entrepreneurial is about a mindset of opportunities
Continuing from my last point, being entrepreneurial is really about having a mindset that sees the world as a sea of opportunities. I can’t emphasize this enough and this is the big difference between a successful and failed business venture or entrepreneur. You need to be able to see the opportunities, and train your mind to do so.

———-

Lets now look at how this is applied in my context. About 3 years ago, I realized that the Internet (after the dot com boom) is fast becoming, yet again, to be a huge business opportunity for those who know how. I therefore decided to “dive in head first” to learn as much as I can about the technology behind it. Furthermore it was also a perfect medium as I could work any where and any time (as long as there is Wi-Fi) as my personal circumstances requires such flexibility.

As an example, from that time I dived in, I have been an avid collector of domain names, I even manage to secure my own name as a dot com and to date I currently own about 30+ domain names. Not a lot, until I recently I read a CNN article on Kevin Ham, the man who owns the Internet. This article has spurred me on to buy even more domain names. However as Kevin probably owns almost every generic mass market name, my marketing training has taught me to look at niche markets instead. True enough many domain names in my industry as well as upcoming trends are still available as a dot coms. This is really all about seeing that there are opportunities abound, and such niche domains can be bought for as cheap as $USD 9 a year and can be resold for much much more.

edit: As a concerned reader aptly put Domain Squatting or Cyber Squatting is bad. For the record I’m not encouraging domain squatting here in this example and to clarify please take a look at our discussion here. What I’m really taking about is investing in domains, there is a subtle contextual difference.

Another example, of having an entrepreneurial mindset, is how I enjoy exploring and doing new things, except sky diving and bungee jumping! One of the things I love to do is starting up websites and blogs and making them successful. Don’t forget, again it is you that needs to define what it means to be successful. My definition is a damn good looking blog that people love to come visit. Not a lot of people know but I manage and run 5 different blogs, of which 3 are public and 2 are private. My recent 5th blog, which I set up in about 3 days, (about 20 times faster, not kidding, than Design Sojourn!) is called WiiGolf.net and it is all about my experiment about the idea that “small is the new big”. Do check it out and please leave me some of your comments?

As you can see entrepreneurship is all about a mindset, being well read, loving what you do, and enjoying new things. So I hope you are inspired as I was writing this post. So please keep in touch and do let me know of your own successes?

US has Google, EBay and 2nd Life and China has Baidu, AliBaba and HiPiHi. In each of the example, for every US company which makes it work, China will have a carbon copy. This is reminiscent of Japan in the early 1970s, where they copied and innovated upon the electronic gadgets and cars. Our resident contributor, Brian Ling provides some thoughts about why China copy designs and where this is all leading to.

Contributed by Design Translator

This post started as an interesting discussion in another post, when a Design Sojourn reader wondered why China suffers from this syndrome of copying product designs from the West. I’m no expert on this but having worked with Designers and Vendors from China, as well as frequent trips there, I would like to give my take on this issue.

Firstly I need to say I am not trying to defend China nor give any excuse on this issue. This is because the reasons are rather largely due to cultural factors. In the end I would like to see this post as bridging the cultural gap between the East and West, by hopefully allowing both sides to understand each other better.

Now let’s jump right in.

When I deal with China on the design front, this copying issue becomes a whole other ball game. For one, the reality of enforcement is not easy – possible to do, but not easy. In particular for the medium to smaller Chinese companies where funding is limited, I have to work out design strategies that actually deal with and possibly counter this issue. In reality many companies don’t even worry about protecting their designs as it’s a zero sum game in their mind. I’ll explain a little more about this later.

With the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, things are starting to change but in reality the mindset is so ingrained in the culture it will be difficult to change.

1) Top down living

Don’t forget despite all the changes in China, it’s still a Communist country with a Capitalistic business system. Special Economic Regions I think they are called. However in reality it’s still a very top down managed country, a big brother approach to the culture, and a huge disparity in the rich and poor. Everyone is answerable to the person above him and thinking out of the box is not encouraged.

As a result many take a safe approach towards things, and this has far reaching implications.

2) Business decisions are about justified returns

In China almost everything is a business decision. When you grow up in a country where life is cheap, things do get brutal and money talks. There is no area for the softer aspects of the business, like branding, experience and emotive products etc. These things are intangible and hard to justify as many decisions are made using an ROI (Return of Investment) as a base. Money put out equals more money back. It’s the best way to make money, but things start to get very crazy when it goes too far.

Put it this way, it’s commonly known that Chinese rather spend USD$100/Hr on English lessons than hiring design consultants. At this time the softer aspects of a business are just not a priority. Want to make money in China? Teach English.

Another example is patents are only taken out for a product if it can be later sold, or licensed for royalties. In other words patents are seen as offensive in the East as compared to defensive in the West. The viewpoints are actually similar, but there is a subtle difference on how patents are viewed.

This business mindset is also applies to their interesting view that the world is “made from an equal specification”. OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacture) and most Chinese consumer electronics companies belief that all products are the same, and its all about taking that product, change its color, tweak a few corners and perhaps its shape and resell it. Why spend money to make it a little different when 90% of it is all the same anyway. Sounds like the West a few decades ago, does it not?

3) Money is not the issue, its the risk factor

This lack of risk taking, wanting justified returns, and ROI focused decisions, often leads Chinese consumer electronics companies down the path of copying a successful designs (such as the iPod). It’s logical if you think about it, though it’s not really the right thing to do.

Also if you look back in history, it’s no different from the post-war Industrial Age of Japan’s move of taking Western designs and improving on it. China borders have just open up and the softer aspects of design and branding, they have yet to grasps, but not for long.

Oh don’t get me wrong. This is not always an issue about money. The larger companies especially have the money and are willing to buy design. However there is neither risk management nor contingency plans for introducing a product to the Market that bucks the consumer trend.

I once consulted and worked with a Chinese company that spent a boat load of money engaging Luigi Colani to do some design work for them. They related to me it was firstly hell working with famous designers, and secondly the final design they received was nice but so radical that they could not risk the tooling investment to launch it. They also felt that the market could not stomach a product of such a visual nature. Perhaps they made a wrong choice by using Colani for their brand, but I think you see my point.

4) Master Apprentice and student, and the learning system at large

There are some Joint Ventures with western companies in China, but in general copies you see are really just copies. Personally I think, this whole activity stems from their cultural background and the way Art and Design has been taught throughout the ages in China.

Chinese Apprentice artists seek and hope to be taken in (ie. looked after) for many years of study under a “Master”. Under tutorledge of the Master Artist, the student then follows or emulates the Master’s style and process. Therefore the master imparts his style to that student, leaving very little for external thought or exploration. Kinda like that 132 moves of the crane, crouching tiger hidden dragon jazz. This is also very much like in Europe during the Renaissance era, where students seek masters as they truly believe are that best at what they want to do.

Fast forward to today, this is also similar to (I dare say) most design schools in China where students come from a rote learning high school background and are thought to follow instead of think. At school they look to famous designers and architects as examples, and their work naturally becomes very thematic or contain the safest forms of expression. Furthermore it is expected that Schools focus on technical skills instead to thinking skills, as learning about creativity is about following a set way of doing things.

Take a look at this quotation from Core 77, it follows along the same line of thinking.

INQUISITIVE ADVANTAGE. However, even as schools pop up, few have evolved from a classical focus on aesthetics and products to embrace design thinking and research of the nature that HK Polytechnic promotes. The best Asian schools provide students with first-rate technical skills, but their graduates leave without the ability to work across disciplines or to use design strategically. They’re not about to do much business model innovation, for example. Much of this may be attributed to Asian education systems from primary school on, which still tend to stress repetition over independent thinking. Says Justice: “The U.S. has a quick advantage. We grow up asking questions. This carries over into our advanced education. They don’t have that in China, and it will take them years to develop that mindset.”

5) Consumers not brand conscious

Many companies also copy because the vast majority of many Chinese consumers are not brand conscious but form conscious. If they like a look or form, it’s not too difficult to guess that the next decision is not brand but price. That’s why many companies were falling all over themselves to get into China. A fertile ground of untapped minds that have no preconceived notion of a brand except that “foreign is good”. Fortunately of late, Branding (LV, Alessi and Apple etc.) in China has become very successful with people shunning copies, however it’s still a difficult process and there are many mindsets to change.

The Chinese consumer’s values and what is important to them are so different to us, we cannot even begin to imagine.

6) Willing to learn and improve and are copying to learn

Now comes to the most frightening part of my discussion. China has realized that they are actually very far behind the rest of the world under the rule of the Communist styled government. However with their borders now open, their have a ZEAL and hunger to learn bordering on fanatical. All this is so that they can catch up with the West whom they look towards as a place of a better life. What took the West to develop through their industrial/information age, is taking China 1/5 of the time, and perhaps even quicker.

Similar to Japan, copying is only the first step. Once they learn about the inner workings of how things are done the sky’s the limit. One of my ex-colleagues recounted a story about a Chinese Manufacturer proudly showing him a 100% perfect copy of a German MRI machine at 1/10 of the price and a large contract with all the local hospitals. AN MRI MACHINE! Think about this for a moment.
———-

Unfortunately many western companies fall off their rockers when their products are copied and react accordingly. I don’t blame them.

However, in Chinese culture, it’s really about the fact that “copying is the greatest form of flattery”. Trust me, they do not waste their time copying the market failures. They copy who they think the market leaders are and only to learn how they got where they are. There are also many equally horrible stories of Joint Ventures going sour when the Chinese partner runs off after learning all he needs to know.

Therefore getting them to change is more about changing something so ingrained in the culture, and is almost impossible to do quickly. However the West’s tendency of focusing on this copying issue is really looking at the trees instead of the forest, as China will quickly move past this stage and start to create their own innovations very quickly. As it is companies such as Lenovo and Haier are already in the forefront of this new design movement. So I do suggest that companies get over the copying issue quickly, and look ahead and focus on their market positioning, branding, and strategic thinking.

Edit: I’m always an optimist at heart and tend to see the good in people more often than not. In this discussion, though slightly positive, there are always exceptions to the rule. I do know that there are manufacturers in China who knowingly copy just to ride the wave for the sole purpose of making a quick buck. These are also same many factories in China that close down daily. Fortunately for me, as a design consultant then, I never had to deal with them and probably never will.

Related Links:
Brian wrote a follow up in his own blog: Is China the only copier on the block? as a follow up to this post.

I wrote a while back that I yet again took the steps in becoming an entrepreneur after failing twice before. What I was actually talking about was my setting up of a not-for-profit website that focuses on incubating, promoting and networking the best Singaporean and Asian multi-disciplinary industrial design talents.

My effort in creating and developing IDAsia.org (Industrial Design Asia) was a route fraught with ups and many downs. The site had evolved its plans 5 times, with each time coming closer to me throwing in the towel. My apparently noble effort about doing something for the misunderstood design industry had fallen on deaf ears. Almost at breaking point frustrated with the lack of response and lack of head way in getting sponsors I wondered why I was doing it in the first place.

However the learning process in particular about creating successful businesses on the web was worth more than its weight in gold. What I have found is that many traditional successful business practices still apply while many new ones have evolved due to the web’s influences.

Before we go on I do like to state that neither has IDAsia.org become a huge success, nor do I profess to be an expert in Web businesses in anyway, but here is what I have learnt so far over the last year, and hopefully something we can talk and bounce about.

1) Don’t always trust technology
Web technology is evolving faster than the hair growth rate on your head. Well at least to a web technology illiterate like me. Things that worked before now don’t. So keep up to date and be aware of the engine that drives your business. For example using mass mailing programs to send info to your customers will likely get your efforts into their spam mail box.

2) Get yourself organized before get go
The web is so pervasive and quick, that it is pretty easy to dream up and idea and jump right into it! That’s want I did, IDAsia.org was dreamt up and running in a week! However this was in part the reason for its early failures and teething problems. For one I had not organized enough help to run the site taking most of the responsibilities on myself. And as I was learning the web technologies as I went along, this caused me to change websites, servers and even a domain name, creating a great disconnect with my customers.

3) Don’t take too long to start or you never get going
While I did mention, you should get organized before you start, waiting too long to get in there could leave you behind the pack. The speed of the web allows many ideas, often similar, to bubble very quickly to the surface, often much quicker than traditional businesses. Take a look at it this way, there is no point in waiting too long to start because you want to make your product perfect, as you will likely still have market test the success of your system anyway. It’s a delicate balance, and do consider applying the 80/20 rule while you think carefully through the pros and cons of launching your project.

4) Constantly Evolve.
Heard of the term used in websites about being in Beta? With things moving at light speed on the net, the business environment changes at a blink of an eye. As such your online business should and you should be nimble enough to evolve as well. Otherwise an upstart with a better design, better technology, better name etc will run out of business. Being online, with little overheads or bricks and mortar, makes constant evolution easy and a good reflection of the organic nature of the internet. Be mindful though, that it’s easy to be distracted and run the risks of not seeing projects or business efforts through to the end.

5) Time Commitment.
Every business requires some kind of time commitment. In the web all the more so, as things happen 24hrs a day 7 days a week. It used to be large business required such customer support, but these days small internet businesses with the web as a face, could need such efforts as well. This is especially if you sell products directly to your customers or run your online business during your free time. I once spent an entire afternoon sending 60 odd T-shirts to my customers, and that did not include packing the 60 pieces into individual bags. Plan your time, and only offer what your time allows you to do.

6) Talk to People.
The web is very organic, and the word spreads hard and fast. Never before have businesses large or small have been so equalized, as the web allows direct access to customers. Therefore talk to your customers and find out what makes them tick. As it does not take very long for people to spread the word on what you did wrong. This is a good way to beta test your product and get feedback and make running changes. However do note that often people on the internet are the ones that shout the loudest, and may not be representative of your customer base as a whole.

7) Content is still King.
Your product/service is still the key. It is still absolutely all about the product and nothing has changed. All these things you hear about, Blogging, The Long Tail, or Crowd Sourcing etc are only a means to an end, really just business tactics. You can’t create a business idea around these if you don’t have a good product in the first place. These days with the transparency the web brings, people know instantly if your product (tangible and intangible) is good or not, so focus on getting your product/service right.

8) Unique is King.
If you look at Point 7 above you can get an idea that businesses online now really need a unique product to stay alive. In my recent post on The Museum of Modern Betas, you can see a running list of anticipated web technologies, that interestingly very similar to each other. Twists of existing Ideas or superficially localized content will get you no where. All you need is the market leader (who is always evolving) to introduce a similar feature to what you have and your product is finish. Why? See the next point.

9) Community is King.
Because the person who controls the community, rules. Basically the first movers into a particular market or a unique and novel product rule the web. However it’s not all doom and gloom. The web is so ubiquitous and pervasive that people often will sign up for very similar services, programs or websites (ie Friendster, MySpace, Zik etc). But it’s the community and the product that keeps people coming back. I recently signed up on a site that supposed to be better than the business networking site LinkedIn, but there was hardly a community to interact with and get contacts. As a result I never went back.

10) Build your Team.
Just like in any business, running one online requires you to build a team to ensure your success. The good thing about the web is your team does not need to be all permanent. Just make sure your stake holders, such as the guy designing your code, are.

11) Make sure you have a Vision.
I’ve enjoyed writing this so much that I’ve included a bonus tip! As you can see the organic nature of the web and its fluidity makes running a business very different to that of traditional ones. It’s pretty easy to get side track or lost as you get bombarded with many stimuli like I did. What keeps you from clutching your head and whimpering under your desk (like I did) is your vision and plan for your business. Ultimately the quality and strength of your vision is the key. Keep it simple and use it to keep you on the right track, because believe me, an online business sometimes feels like trying to steer a roller coaster cart, which you basically can’t!

How are our best local companies doing in the area of branding and design? What are the best practices and strategies that they can adopt to take them to the next level? Our resident contributor, Brian Ling, aka Design Translator together with his colleague, PY from IDasia.org, offer a design and branding case study on two of the more prominent Singaporean consumer brands Creative and OSIM. In this article, they track their successes, as well as comment on what they can do to overcome their current struggles in this very fast pace and fickle consumer market.

Contributed by Brian Ling

Success is not always sweet
Success lies in the sum of its parts. Two Singapore’s brightest “sons”, Creative and Osim, have been successful in their time as the first local Singapore brands that succeeded in stamping their marks globally as leaders in computer sound technology (Creative) and health and wellness (Osim) markets.

However recently there has been a spade of articles on the fading success of the former darlings of the Singapore Stock Exchange, as well as challenges ahead for Creative and Osim.

Really these two brands are finding out that maintaining a successful consumer products business is a whole different ball game. With the media slamming their recent poor performance as well as their products, the harsh reality of the success of their competition is starting to set in.

Facing the Storm in Different Ways
The lawsuit between Apple and Creative, over Apple’s usage of Creative’s patented technology last year, brought about a settlement payout of $100-million in favor to Creative and a collaboration agreement for designing Apple accessories. Although the payout helped overshadow poor performance, other reports have argued this collaboration may not generate much positive fallout unless a strong innovative product arises from the venture. Furthermore in light of their recent poor performance, Creative has indicated that they are taking the most common route of a failing business and that is restructuring their resources and cutting down costs, in order to break even.

Actually it’s really about “Survival of the Smartest” in this market in particular.

As for Osim it is currently facing the consequences of, what many say was a poor acquisition, the buy-out of American health retail chain Brookstone, and nutrition retailers GNC. Also the recalling of 3000 “Uzap mini belts” which caught fire, resulted in a loss of product sales and customer good will. Moreover together with claims of Osim’s designs getting pirated by other competitors, these factors have contributed to company’s share price hitting an 18-month low in Feb 2007. Despite the deterioration of sales and branding goodwill, Mr Ron Sim is still optimistic and aims to grow sales targets by breaking into new markets currently not covered by OSIM.

However if we take a step back, focus on the big picture, and consider what Osim and Creative plan to do, the question that many ask is, “is this enough” Or perhaps in our point of view “is this the right thing to do”? Cutting cost or taking a gamble by looking for new markets is perhaps only a short term solution at best. This is especially when, in our opinion, the problem might lie with their product delivery. Let us explain.

The Importance of Design in Product Branding

“Design is the silent ambassador of a brand” ~Paul Rand.

Nothing shouts more about your brand than your product sitting in front of your consumer. In order for a brand to be successful, a total holistic application of the company’s brand values and vision needs to be adopted in a 360-degree manner within the organization.

Naturally this should cover all aspects of the product that company sells, from marketing collaterals, to packaging, to customer service and most importantly the product’s design and function. However it is surprising how many companies actually don’t do this. We think this fact, as well as the failure to adopt a holistic branding directive is one of the key causes of the problems faced by Creative and OSIM today.

1) Adopting Design’s role as a strategic function in the organization or business .

You can call it a strategic function, or a strategic competitive advantage, or you can call it what you like, but in reality it’s a lot easier said than done.

For one thing in most successful design focused companies, a designer is found in a senior management level with major decision making responsibilities, or at a level where he/she reports directly to the CEO. This basically means there is a person in a position, with multi-disciplinary design capabilities, and power to make decisions that steer the company in the correct direction. However with most companies, especially in Asia, design is seen as just a styling exercise and a function of engineering or marketing.

Another thing with adopting design as a strategic function, implies a certain level of well manage risk taking as well as change management. Something a lot of Asian companies are not comfortable doing as they prefer dealing in absolutes such as Returns of Investments (ROI) and a very cost-centered approach to product development.

OSIM’s marketing ads.

Thus the preferred approach towards product development is via the route of the outsourced OEM/ODM method where the development cost or risk has been absorbed by someone else. The disadvantages to this approached is, as alluded to earlier, is a range of products with little distinction and innovation, and making it easy of getting the products copied by the nearest competitor.

On an interesting note, Creative’s engineering heritage as reflected in its brand and the reason of its success in the past could be another reason why it is struggling in the Personal Digital Entertainment (PDE) market. Interestingly Creative’s engineering “form follows function” approach to product development does conflict with the lifestyle PDE market where people do not put as much of a value on specification as much as they do on usability and experience.

This means Creative needs to reposition its brand and align it with the target market they are after, resulting in a massive re-branding exercise. Whether right or wrong, a person with a design background in a position of management could recommend to Creative’s top managers a strategy that could covers all aspects and requirements of a business as well as get them out of this current rut.

2) The Product is not representative of the brand values or brand promise of that company

Interesting choice of font for the tag line, almost too casual for the “structured” Creative logo, clean ad layout and refined product design.

For example when a product performs badly or does not do what the consumer expects it to do; invariably the blame goes to the company that sold you the product. Furthermore if your brand stands for something like say being “creative” and your product is perceived as far from that, you damage your brand’s good will.

What other than the vertical scroll bar is “Creative” about this product?

3) A lack of a distinct brand language or identifier product
Traditional business practices have a tendency to carry as many product permutations as possible in the bid to sell as much as possible to every possible market. This results in often an extreme varied and diversified range of products in inventory.

Nice looking products, but confusing.

Without an overall cohesive product strategy, it can get confusing for the consumer to identify which product belongs to you. A distinct brand language not only represents your brand values, but allows your product to have an instant recognition and brand recall that is very powerful in decision making when a consumer is engaged in a buying process.

Case in point, according to brand strategists the success of the top well-known brands, like Coca-Cola, Apple and Intel, are due to their strong brand concentration on a small product category such as computer chips and carbonated water. That’s how they have succeeded so far.

Again a nice looking fashion inspired product, but (other than the color) I have trouble relating it to the MP3 player, grungy graphics and the ugly earphone jacks.

If we look back at our case studies, we can see that Creative’s strategic thrust is towards a global leader for product innovation in the audio and PDE segments, and Osim’s company philosophy is all about intelligent innovation. Sadly both company’s products are at this time are not truly reflective of the values of both the company’s philosophy. Furthermore they struggle with a situation where they have too many products to have a strong and cohesive product delivery or design language.

4) Locating design as a function of R&D or Marketing.
We touched briefly on this in point 1. If we look at it from an overall big picture view, if design is a function of any department other than management, it will become a victim of agendas.

For example if design reports to engineering, many costs that fall outside normal acceptable engineering requirements may be discarded. If let’s say a designer came up with a cool new way of placing a button on a circuit board, or specified a volume dial that looked a lot better and thus more expensive, that designer would likely get turned down by the engineering department.

It’s not any better if Design reported to marketing. What would likely happen is product lead times would be shortened, specifications become a shopping list, and there will be a new product launched every quarter. This further encourages the OEM/ODM outsourced mentality that we already know kills innovation.

So what of the future of our 2 home grown brands, Osim and Creative?

With the recent launch of IT show in Singapore, it was interesting to see how Creative’s and Osim’s booths were designed. It was interesting and obvious that Creative has diverted greater attention towards the design of sound accessories like head phones and speakers rather than focusing on mp3 players. As for Osim, their creative marketing has produced yet again with the idea of providing rest and relaxation for the tired visitors at the IT show, and has once again created another unique brand awareness campaign. But is it enough to sell their product’s health and wellness capabilities? Only time will tell.

We wish both companies all the best in 2007 and would be more than happy to discuss possible strategies with anyone for both.

This Article is the first that was written as a joint effort between DT and PY. I hope you enjoyed the fruits of this collaboration, and do stay tuned for more riveting and unbiased look at the design industry today.

For all the talk about web 2.0 mindset, how do we actually translate the mindset into proper entrepreneurial ventures, particularly in designing products that can employ the power of communities, the wisdom of crowds and the long tail framework? Our resident contributor, Brian Ling, aka Design Translator discusses how these principles are translated into product design.

Contributed by Brian Ling

I often like to explore the extent of the Web 2.0 and its impact on industrial design, and product development. (Note: I often use products here in a true marketing sense by using it to represent both tangible products and intangible products like services.) These days we are starting to see many products positioned as windows to such Web 2.0 environments. For example Nokia N-Series multimedia phones allowing you to share your photos on the Internet via Flickr are only just scraping the tip of the iceberg.

However as Industrial designers we need to understand how this Web 2.0 thing works so that we can have a better understanding on how we can take advantage of Web 2.0 strategies to actually enhance our product’s experience instead. I believe sometimes the best way to derive the right answers is by looking at what not to do.

Web 2.0 is big business, venture capitalist are jumping in, and even the Singapore Government through their Media Development Agency (MDA) is putting money into the whole Web 2.0 thing.

One of the main issues here is no one can really define what Web 2.0 is all about. The good news we do have a rough idea, if we look at Wikipedia they define it as:

Web 2.0…refers to a perceived or proposed second generation of Web-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies—that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users.

So really Web 2.0 is about creating, sharing, leveraging and even supporting these communities and a whole lot more! So if we consider this, tangible products can make the perfect “windows” for people to access such communities and experiences. Potentially I see a whole host of internet-enabled products, starting with 3G phones, that will take the market by storm in the next few years. Otherwise what else can you design that is not already done? A better chair or mobile phone perhaps?

However before you run off to create or share your next big Web 2.0 product design or idea perhaps do consider the following points on what I think are Web 2.0 product experiences that don’t really work.

1) Creating a different version of (enter your fav web 2.0 name here) but localized to my market, or has a different technology, or different marketing twist etc.
Localization was a big word a few years ago when marketers and designers figured out that the world was a big place and no one product fits all. In the pursuit of mass manufacturing where volume rules, the need to sell as many products as possible was important to the bottom line and profits. However this meant products that don’t quite fit certain individuals, such as numeric keypads for a Chinese language speaking population, or forms that don’t appeal to that market. As a result with clever marketing, branding and modular platform design, products started to get “tuned” to meet the requirements of certain individuals.

However in my opinion this has changed to a certain extent. With web 2.0 communities localization a product would probably only go so far. Simply, with fast and ubiquitous internet access making the world a smaller place, it’s too easy to go to the market leader and leave the “niche” players behind if they do not have a unique selling proposition. The marketing rules have changed if you want to go niche, you really have to identify areas the leaders do not do well, and all marketing strategies of poaching market share still applies. For example, LinkedIn vs Friendster is a much better proposal that Friendster vs MySpace

2) Big to small to big. Web Communities vs. blogs networks

With the advent of blogging and Web 2.0 communities, communities are fast becoming fragmented and smaller. Communities within a community, or a community of networks made up of individual nodes. I expect a decline of sites such as discussion forums, as a blogging, and sites such as Flickr or deviantArt allow users to create their own space while still networking with others of similar interests. Forums would still be around, but it would likely become more informational and FAQ while the larger networking work will be done physically through the blog or individual website.

There would likely be less communal sharing like swap meets (forums) but more garage sales (blog web portal), where with the ease of the internet, people from all over the world can come and visit.

3) Adsense and other web monetizing models may eventually eat itself
On of the big reasons people blog today, besides personal entertainment, is to earn a few extra dollars through online-advertising. Similarly just like the first dot-com boom, there are many sites that are just middlemen or online shops, or just an aggregator of information. Such companies don’t really provide much in the way of a products offering with value, but are optimized to generate revenue through Adsense. Thus, advertisers are starting to find that online advertising is not what people think it’s all cut out to be. As it is, the cracks are starting to show here and here.

Furthermore, the most popular internet browser Firefox has a simple javascript blocking mechanism, or pop-up blocking, that will filter more than 90% of online advertising anyway. Once ad blocking becomes a significant movement, advertisers will start to leave and as quickly as it started, the whole Adsense industry will die.

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So how do we apply all this to product development? We don’t, not right this moment, but we need to understand what is happening in the internet industry and apply this thinking accordingly. My feeling is that product design at this stage will likely be in a big wait-and-see mode, often test marketing to see how it goes or have very generalist applications.

Furthermore I advocate caution, as I am of the view that everything in this world moves in cycles. The weather, the moon, fashion and design trends and I would even hazard a guess, the internet. So this Web 2.0 could be a bubble that will implode. Once advertisers realize the money spent online is not reflective on their earnings, they will pull out. Suddenly then there will be a consolidation of websites. Link sites, site aggregators, and facilitators will all suddenly die. The curse of intangibility makes the destruction of such things too easy.

The product’s ability access to Web 2.0 communities, either their own (Xbox Live) or a partner (Nokia + Flickr), will be a vital selling point in time to come. That’s why I think companies and products like Nokia, Chumby Industries and Nintendo Wii are way ahead of its time.

Editor’s Note: The article was originally published by the author in Design Sojourn blog

Intrapreneurship refers to the creation of an innovative enterprise within an organization. Is it really possible in Asia, given the cultural factors such as hierarchy and adhering to the viewpoint of the collective community? Our resident contributor, Brian Ling aka Design Translator examines what the Asian viewpoint of intrapreneurship and offers some tips on how to become one in our fast paced changing Asian economy.

Intrapreneurship or Internal Entrepreneurship is fast becoming a big buzz word as companies start to embrace design, innovation and creativity as a strategic competitive advantage. Using the viewpoint that “innovation begins with everybody” as a credo to beat the competition, companies like IBM, 3M and P&G all have their fair share of Internal Entrepreneurs or Mavericks creating value for their companies.

What about Intrapreneurship in Asia? Where Asian companies are notoriously very regimental and hierarchical and where decisions are often made by one person? I like to share my strategies and the path I took as a somewhat successful Intrapreneurer in a very Asian company.

This article was really a result of a spirited discussion at the SGEntrepreneurs Blog on Intrapreneurship when many visitors commented and believe it is not possible especially in an Asian context. I disagree. Actually many of the strategies our fellow western Mavericks use, do apply here in Asia. However there are a few strategies that are unique to Asia as well.

The way Asian companies are run
This is one of the main differences between Asian (not all mind you) and our western counterparts. As most Asian companies are family owned, decisions are made top down, and often by the Chairman/CEO a.k.a. as the Patriarch. As a result it is quite common that no decisions are made or no actions taken until the top man or woman says so. Furthermore such “decision making paralysis” makes getting anything done in an Asian company very frustrating.

Understanding this is the first path to success in Intrapreneurship in an Asian company. As discussed in my article “Tips of being creative military style” this sets up your environment and frame work for which you can start to make things happen.

Reporting structures in Asian companies
This is one of the big reasons why Intrapreneurship in an Asian company is so difficult. Simply because nothing is done unless you have the explicit approval or agreement of the person above you.

Furthermore, Asian managers have a tendency of not letting go of responsibility or empowering subordinates. Simply, the sense of responsibility and the fear failure and losing face, make many Asian managers “control freaks”, or “lone rangers” working on projects alone.

First you need to determine how much leaway you have in your organization structure to initiate programs or advice, and if it is welcomed in the first place. If you can maneuver yourself into a position where your recommendations are heeded then Intrapreneurship initiatives can be easier.

Trust
So how do you get into a position where your advice is sought after or recommendations heeded?

You do it by establishing trust.

Asian companies, in particular, take a long time to establish trust in an employee. In fact the more highly qualified or ranked you are the harder it takes to establish trust. The main reason is new employees have a tendency to rock the boat to justify their employment, further fueling distrust. Or the sheer enthusiasm of a new employee has the bad habit to rub existing employees the wrong way.

The best way is to be patient and take things slow. Work hard, do good work, ensure your responsibilities are taken care of, and finally deliver work on time and as you have promised. Missing the scheduled deadline or milestone is often seen in Asian companies as unreliable or untrustworthy.

It took me the greater part of 2 years to establish the trust needed by the management to allow me to do what I do. During those 2 years I worked 12 to 15 hour days. I was the first one in at work and the last to leave; so much so the HR department thought I never went home! But most important of all I focused on getting my job done well above my management’s expectations, and finally I never ever missed a deadline.

Find an Internal Advocate
However even then all the trust in the world will come to naught if you do not have an internal advocate.

An internal advocate is someone in the higher management that supports your work as well as can be someone that can help facilitate getting the decisions made on your projects. Remember the hierarchy? Having a well-placed, very high up, Internal Advocate with in the management structure can help you get things done at an amazing speed!

In my previous post I talk about working with internal advocates to speed up negotiation. This post can give you more information getting help from these wonderful “Angels”. Think “Angel Investor” and you have your equivalent in the corporate world.

Befriend Lateral Advocates
An interesting difference between entrepreneurs in an organization versus entrepreneurs on their own is the former cannot work alone. Many Intrapreneurship projects fail because of the resistance of the other departments involved. For example, Finance, Sales and Logistics managers all have the power to kill a project.

Thus you need Lateral Advocates as well. These managers of different departments can make or break an Intrapreneurship project. The more of them you have supporting you, the easier it is for you to get your Intrapreneurship project up and running.

Know your product or business well
Now we start to get into the nitty gritty of things. To really make an Intrapreneurship project successful, it is almost imperative that you know your business or product well. Your initiative has to make sense, your solution obvious, and you need to know how to go about doing it. Otherwise you risk your effort becoming just a whining complaint to your manager!

Therefore you need to know how it is conceptualized, how it is made, how it is distributed, how it is sold, or how it is used etc.

Be in a position for budget and vendor management
After that you need to move into a position where you can dictate and manage your budgets and the use of vendors. This will be the bread and butter of your Intrapreneurship project as you are not going to get anything going if you don’t have access to any of this.

Companies run on budgets. If you are able to move into a position to control how your budgets are allocated or obtained, you can help ensure the success of your project, as money is the project’s life blood.

Furthermore the ability to manage the vendor helps you ensure the success of your project. The worst would be to start something and not have the ability to finish it.

Know the internal system
Some of the biggest complaints I have heard from fellow employees are “this company has a lousy system” or worst still “this company has no system”. Every company has a system, or a set of rules that people play with. If you don’t know it, then you better not play!

As an Intrapreneur you will need to know the system, and know it well. That’s the only way you can make it happen, especially in an Asian context.

Do you have qualities of a Maverick?
Basically all rules of an entrepreneur’s mindset will apply; the willpower required, stubbornness and patience to succeed are all minimum ingredients. Frustration of the lack of control can be very high. Thus the mental preparation is almost equal to that of an Entrepreneur going out on his/her own. In fact it could be tougher as you would likely still have your day to day job responsibilities to take care of during this time.

For more information on the qualities and characters of Mavericks do take a look at this great write-up here.

Conclusion
A lot of strategies and ideas mentioned here means you would need to be in at least middle to upper level management position. If feel you are not quite there yet, you will need to get there at least by working and acquiring the skills required to be in that position.

Also I would not suggest joining a company to be an Intrapreneur – it’s just not logical. This is because the level of conforming to the system you need to do is very high, and might be too much for a purist entrepreneur. However being an Intrapreneur is a good strategy to further or improve your career once you have been in an organization for a few years.

Oh, and finally, I almost forgot if you are interested to take a look at the prototype of the fruits of my labor it can be found as a Product Honoree at CES 2007 in Viva Las Vegas during Jan 08-11!
Note: Slow loading times after the two jump.

For a limited time only, Change This is giving away Seth Godin‘s classic of starting a business with little or no start up capital. Get it while you can! Enjoy!

Via: Kuzzuk.net

Being creative in the military? Is that not an oxymoron? Not really especially if you, like me, believes that the “the most creative freedom comes from a tight brief”. After my last rant on creativity in a structured environment, where I insisted that creativity cannot occur in a vacuum or in an environment of total freedom, I continue to be surprised to see pockets of extreme creativity in what I would say in the most structured and stifling environment: the top-down regimental military command structure.

I continue to be surprised at how good soldiers are able to think of combat solutions in the heat of battle, how resourceful soldiers are in being able to solve problems in shortage of supplies, or at how the infamous shirking soldiers are able to hide from their duties.

So what does a good Military Officer have in common with a shirking Grunt?

Or in other words how does one navigate within a very tight and structured organization or brief and yet still be creative?

1) Stop!
We often take instructions at face value, and quickly go ahead and do it. Especially in the Military, instructions tend to be orders which are obeyed without questions. Many a time, however, information through the grapevine often get skewed when tempered with biases or human agendas.

This only really becomes an issue when people don’t stop but blindly follow instead.

2) Assess the situation
I’m not asking you to be insubordinate here and question authority, but what I’m asking you to do is to stop to identify the instruction’s objective or end results desired.

Assess the situation and list the facts and influences that have a direct impact on your desired objective.

Marketing objective, manufacturing requirements, corporate budgets and casualty rates are such factors that could affect your desired outcome.

3) Know your limits
Identify what you can and cannot or are not willing to do. At this time you would also need to know and consider the corporate system or the way things work in the environment around you.

This way you will be able to know where your boundaries are and how far you can push it to get or NOT get the job done.

I have found the best Shirkers all somehow knew intimately how the system worked!

4) Think creatively to solve the problem
Once you established the first three points, you will find that this fourth point comes naturally. At this time you will find that instead of feeling oppressed or stifled, a whole realm of opportunities opens up before you.

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So dear readers, the next time you find you are in a situation where your boss is twisting your arm to do something you are not happy to do, or an instruction that negatively impacts your project, or you can’t seem to come up with a design solution for that tight brief, do try these four points and let me know what you think? Now it’s time for me to get some sleep and do keep in touch?

Here we go, welcome to the second installment of 10 tips on getting the “buy in”.

6) Join the “water cooler” talk
I like this strategy the best. Simply because it saves you time. It was a traditional way in organizations to probe for information or bounce around ideas, and start informal discussions, all this around the water cooler.

These days instead of the water cooler, I via email, whisper ideas, send a few sketches, probe strategies, ask about budgets allocations, and even take people for lunch. Going this route saves me a lot of time as it often lets me know if I should continue to pursuit this course of action or not.

7) Patience is a virtue. How long does it actually take to get that buy in?
What a lot of people don’t also realize, what it takes to close a deal in one industry is different in other industries. The main reason for failure is often not managing the expectation of how much time and effort is required for a success.

For example, selling insurance probably requires a few meetings, a one-to-one chat, and then signing up for a package that is the most suitable. Currency trading between banks is a 20 min haggle over the phone. In manufacturing, vendors often smooze up clients for up to 2 years before they even get their foot in the door!

At the end of the day it’s really the relationship building as well as the level of monitory investments involved.

My advice is to ask around, and have a chat with people in the same industry and find out what it takes to get that deal. After that you will need to access if you are willing, monitory and mentally to take the challenge.

8) Soft sell
This is also requires a lot of patience and effort. This is basically the subtle spread of your product information. It’s the information delivery part via the water cooler talk, informal chats over lunch, email correspondences, free samples sent, and newsletters on your accomplishment. It’s the indirect marketing and branding stuff.

There are many theories and strategies on soft selling, and there are tons of Sales persons far better than me on this, but at the end of the day the objective is about you staying at the top of your client’s mind.

9) Hard sell
I for one hate doing this, but I personally find that it is very useful in the right situation. The reason I don’t really go for this is that to be done right you need to be very well prepared.

The main problem is to know when to hard sell your idea. Most people get turned off, if your start the hard sell right away. It’s the walking sales man that shoves his product in front of your face. Essentially, when you hard sell you are basically doing the “why you should buy or accept my product or idea”.

So really the best time is when you’ve done all the ground work, the informal chats, and the soft sell. Furthermore the right time is also when you know your client is positive about your product. It is at this time you “hard sell”, as it is this time your client is ready to listen.

How do you know if your client is ready? Just ask what the general sentiment towards your product or idea is.

10) Negotiate
This point 10 is really to tie it all in. Basically all the previous points do work individually; but they work best if you combine it all together.

However the main advantage of working through the different points above is that you gather a lot of information that can be important when you negotiate price, specification, or budget. There are often things companies find important to them, that you can let go as a “straw issue”, and vice versa.

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As usual these are only pointers, please feel free to leave comments or ask more questions! I wish you all the best in your selling or buy-in endeavors!