Is your company designful?
by peterme
The best thing I’ve read recently on experience strategy and design is Marty Neumeier’s recent essay for DMI, “The Designful Company.” (PDF) It presages his forthcoming book of the same name. It treads ground familiar to those who have read Subject to Change, though has some new research and datapoints to help bolster the case for organizations to embrace design. The results of a survey of 1,500 executives asked about their most challenging problems revealed this list:
1. Balancing long-term goals with short-term demands
2. Predicting returns on innovative concepts
3. Innovating at the increasing speed of change
4. Winning the war for world-class talent
5. Combining profitability with social responsibility
6. Protecting margins in a commoditizing industry
7. Multiplying success by collaborating across silos
8. Finding unclaimed yet profitable market space
9. Addressing the challenge of eco-sustainability
10. Aligning strategy with customer experience
And I loved the insight that companies religiously following Six Sigma actually performed below the broad market average.
I’m also happy to announce that Marty will be speaking at MX 2009, where he’ll bring his insights from his work and research to our audience, helping them understand how they can make their whole company (not just their department) a designful one.