The 2009 FIRST LEGO League competition is behind us. As a coach, it has been an amazing experience of the good and the not so good. We learned tons, especially about how to deal with frustrations spawned from having to use a very poor development environment, i.e. LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT software. Following my mother’s advice, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, so I’ll focus my energies on how your users’ emotions dictate their perception of the quality of your software.

• Don’t make me feel and look stupid
• I need a dependable buddy
• Grow with me
• When you piss me off, say you’re ‘sorry‘
• When it’s time to part ways, don’t get angry

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Here are a few design and design thinking related articles that caught my attention recently. Enjoy.

From Fast Company’s Think.Design blog by Ken Musgrave:

• The Enduring Power of Brand: Leica vs. Panasonic — Power of emotional connection
• Beyond Design, 10 Skills Designers Need to Succeed Now — This list is not just limited to designers

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“Technology has made our lives more full, yet at the same time we’ve become uncomfortably “full”.”
–John Maeda

I just added The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life) by John Maeda to my Bookshelf. John argues that technology and life only become complex if you let it be so. Even then, as he highlights in law #5, we can’t have simplicity without complexity. With that, here are his ten laws and three keys:

• Law 1 Reduce: seek thoughtful reduction to achieve simplicity
• Law 2 Organize: achieve illusion of few through organizing many
• Law 3 Time: give a sense of simplicity by reducing time
• Law 4 Learn: drive simplicity through wisdom

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Apple has an announcement scheduled for this Tuesday. There is much speculation of innovations within the MacBook line, including potentially a low cost product line. As a Mac user, I am eagerly awaiting what is next. Whatever their announcement is, one can be sure it will continue to build on Apple’s core competencies.

Core competency originates from C. K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel in their 1990 paper “The Core Competence of the Corporation.” Prahalad and Hamel highlight core competency as a source of uniqueness that a company can do uniquely well, offering a competitive advantage as competitors can’t quickly copy. A core competency can take various forms: know how, process, manufacturing, relationship, development methodology, culture, talent management, branding, marketing, distribution, research & development, …
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“In most people’s vocabularies, design means veneer. It’s interior decorating. It’s the fabric of the curtains and sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers of the product or service.”
Steve Jobs

We all know a bad design when we see it. We not only remember them, but also share our experiences with others. But, it is the good designs that we admire and hopefully remember the most. Maybe it is the gorgeous look and simplicity of use of the iPod, or the one-hand-slide action of Motorola’s PEBL, or new and ingenious packaging like HP laptops, or some new online experience. The unforgettable designs are multi-dimensional. The best designs influence and enhance many aspects of our lives through interaction with those products/services — from our buying experience, to the delivery and packaging, to installation and use, to other products/services that complement it, to customer support and maintenance, all the way through end-of-life and disposal.

Design is the trendsetter. It is the translation of an idea to the final product. It has incorporated itself into every aspect of our lives, and became the ubiquitous element in our lives. “You can have any color you want as long as its black.” was Henry Ford’s manufacturing design revolution that triggered mass production. Today, design is yet again at center stage with the green revolution: good design is sustainable design. Good design delivers maximum impact to the customer with minimum impact on the resources of our planet. Good design contributes to the triple bottom line: economic, social and environmental.
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