One Can't Leave Cupertino, Calif.-based Company Out of Picture
When Discussion on 'Masters of Design' and Innovation takes Place
| by Joe Leo, Columnist |
continued... from: previous page
In a sidebar feature, entitled "The Seven Axioms of Yves," at the top, Behar is quoted as saying that design is how companies treat their customers. His second quote seems to come from the book of Jobs.
"Design must be integrated throughout the organization. Design-driven businesses foster creativity and innovation at their core..." (Steve Jobs couldn't have said it better!).
Behar's fifth point only seals the deal, saying that design has to come from the top. To quote him directly, he says, "CEOs in most industries must have a true relationship with, and understanding of, the creative side of the business."
Article author, Tischler, in an interview with the president of a consulting firm who focuses on design as a key ingredient of a company or corporation, found via research that out of close to 400 board members industry wide, only one had a background in design. Who was it?
None other than Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, in his role as a Disney board member.
In the paragraph following that piece of information is a reference to Apple's design guru, Jonathan Ive, Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple Inc, stating how designers like Ive--and the others listed--always have support from the top, but their responsibility as designers is to understand the business side of things as well.
Everything needs to work just right. All the right ingredients, like, well, apple pie. It may smell good while it's baking in the oven, but if when it comes out of the oven it doesn't look appetizing, who's going to eat it? Or, if it looks good appearance-wise, but tastes bad...
Of course, with Apple? "It just works." (And their ever-growing piece of the pie shows it).
An interesting side note here is a direct reference to Apple which at the same time, seems out of place in this whole story-- at least our angle to it. Behar's small startup firm, consisting of two other partners based in the San Francisco Bay Area, was Tony Fadell.
What, you don't know who Tony Fadell is? Don't worry. Neither did we.
Tischler reports that Tony Fadell left Behar's firm to work for Apple... the guy responsible for designing and building the... iPod. And here we are, full click wheel, um, circle.
Makes you wonder why Apple hasn't stolen Yves away from Coke yet to build the next, oh who knows, say, ultra-portable laptop? Because Yves already has, being responsible for designing and creating the almost iBook-like (though not from Apple) laptop for the "One Laptop Per Child" project which has received praise for its innovations and design.
So, what does this all come down to, aside from the Apple aspect of design and innovation?
Going back to magazine editor Robert Safian's letter, he says that execs across the nation like the idea of putting design at the forefront, but they're not backing it up with the bottom line: money. Safian says, "Sure, Steve Jobs may make design an advantage at Apple... But what does that have to do with me?"
As Behar already pointed out in Tischler's piece, Safian comments, "Plenty. Studies have now shown that design-oriented firms in all kinds of industries outperform their more-traditional peers--that design and innovation go hand-in-hand with financial success..."
The apple pie with just the right ingredients. (Now if we used a pie chart to graph this data...).
To sum it all up, we quote Tischler who writes, "Executives often appear at Behar's door, saying, 'We want to be the Apple of our industry.' His response: 'Do you have the guts?'" Better yet, let's let Behar chime in here, who says, "If you want to be design-driven... the question is,..."
"Who's driving?" (We aficionados of all things Mac know the answer to that one!).
SOURCE: Fast Company-- Issue No. 119, October 2007
go back to: first page
"Letter from the Editor" p. 16, and "All About Yves" (by Linda Tischler) pp. 92-100
