The difference between visionaries and fortune tellers

Well, before any further, yes the iPad is a giant iPhone that does not make calls. But the question is: So what?

In 1913 Coco Chanel opened her first store in Paris. What a lot of people don't know is that long before Chanel embarrassed the French during her earlier couture years with her strange habits, dark clothes and short hair cuts. Her hats were just too strange and her style full of controversy and considered not appropriated. People in those days just couldn't visualize how that style could ever make it to high couture.
The truth is Chanel has prototyped during all her career, experiencing in herself her creations and learning the results. This has allowed her to propose radical changes to the current fashion standards, radically redefining the very word "fashion". All the rest is history: Chanel hair cuts, Chanel shoes, Chanel dresses and hats ... and mainly the Chanel's way of being that has inspired all modern women.

In October 2001 Steve Jobs announced the iPod. But the first MP3 player was launched in 1997 by a Korean company called Saehan. So it was fair at 2001 to say that the iPOD was "one more" MP3 player, only in color and giant (storage). So what came next to change this? Two things: The white phones and the iTunes store.

The first element (the jump). The headphones shoot the iPod to the level of "cool", creating a different positioning for the gadget as an object of desire. To listen music in an iPod is a personal experience. But to walk around with white headphones became a social experience. And social experiences are sticky and trend set.

The second element (the glue) - Itunes store. When Apple launched its well orchestrated services platform around the iPod, it consolidated the positioning of the gadget as a music platform. By creating this whole new profitable business model with music it took completely ownership of the MP3 player market. Until today this dominance remains with more than 240,000,000 units sold till jan/2010.

Did Steve Jobs foresaw all those elements? Probably not. But to have vision is not to anticipate all the next steps for the next 10 years, that is fortune telling. To have vision is to keep asking how to improve the product or service to catapult it into become a relevant part of peoples lives.This question, added to the learning curve that a new product brings, generates a reliable amount of key insights that can be transformed in innovative actions by companies with the right culture.

So, when criticizing the iPad remember: Innovation is not on the product itself, but it lies on the orchestration. What orchestration? Only time will show Jobs and us. The iPad is Job's newest prototype, and watch out because Apple learns and moves fast.

My point of view on Don Norman's artcile on D. Research

I love Don's work on human desire psychology, but i also do think that Design Research was taken too narrow on his polemic declaration.
If by one side you can set yourself some limits by analyzing too much insight data ,by the other hand to do not deep dive on desires in a commoditized world is a high risk of failure and irrelevance.
All the inventions that were shown in Don's article are great "time-changing" inventions, but they are all technology driven innovations, led by people considered "genius" by the society.
Let's take also in consideration not tangible innovations like in services that provide a great experience, where to do not deep dive on branding, competition and desires makes it impossible to get it right. And even those great services that we know didn't directly name it Design Research (Disney in it's beginning for example), have stories that tell us that a human-centered-discovery approach was taken, as that of Walt Disney's giving gum's on the entrance and shadowing people to count steps before they throwed the gum paper on the ground, this resulted on a trash can each 30 step.
Let's also not leave aside social innovations, where if you do not understand deeply the needs, desires, roots, culture, enviroment and other key elements you will design something worse than irrelevant, it will be something that those people in need can not embrace due to deep rooted limitations that can not be easly overcome.
That way i do agree that only user centered will not do everything, and that it needs to be holistic enough to give you a full perspective. And i also agree and believe, that Design Research is the future pre-req for innovation (meaning not only high tech high amounts of R&D money innovation) in a world where people has access to almost everything, and everything is 10 seconds away of becoming a commodity. And where money is not so disposable anymore as it was before.
Innovation in my opinion it is not a "genius" skill, it comes indeed by trully connect with the entire context you are designing for . In that way, with properly techniques and practice i believe everyone can innovate in a field, a service or a product.

Here is the post on Frog's website where this response is posted: http://designmind.frogdesign.com/blog/what-good-is-design-research.html#new

Extending the Brand Radar: Preparation Rituals.

We live in a service society. For consumers, a service is a cluster of experiences that take place during a period of time. And this period of time is often larger than the majority of companies can imagine and influence.

When a consumer chooses to travel to New York for example, his adventure starts long before the airport check-in or even before the travel package purchase. Lots of small stages previous to the official purchase moment are experimented, one good example is the frenetic searches on the internet related to the context of the trip: local information, temperature, equipment, local fun, restaurants and so on...

Many of those stages take place along with close people or family members, even if you are planning to travel alone. Those rituals of preparation are subject to a high word of a mouth impact and serve to build up the confidence and to provide the necessary support for the consumer to go on with his journey.

A good example of a ritualistic stage that shows up often on the beginning of the consumer journey in a large variety of service scenarios is what we call it "Preparation". Doesn't matter if you are planning to go on a business trip leisure trip, or to check yourself in a new Gym club this ritual is always there. It takes place sometimes long before the first interaction with the service provider, but it has such importance in the consumer choice as it helps to build up the interest on the journey that can end-up in your store.

Lot's of touch points connect to form the preparation rituals, but the Brand that is going to provide the service in the future is not physically included yet, at this point the consumer still does not exist in the Brand radar. This can make direct actions of usual channels as call centers or even the company website fall obsolete, as there is no "touch" yet.

Some brands already understood the importance of taking part in preparation rituals of its customers and established platforms to make that possible using mainly the social media. It is very important that those actions end-up being honest, relevant and not sales-directed.

In a recent intiative, Virgin Atlantic launched an iPhone App to help passengers that are afraid of flying. The App is a course that includes safety information and meditation classes. This allows the passenger to get in the mood of flying long before he steps into the airplane, this way he can be more relaxed and prepared to touch-and-feel Virgin amazing service offers.



How about your Brand? You company knows about and participate or can at least influence some of the preparation rituals involved in your business?

In a fast response spree you can say: Yes. Because in my Web Site I do provide information about how to "package for a leisure trip".

But think again. Remember: There is no connection at this point between you and your "future' customer. This implies that, unless your Web Site is on the first page of Google when i type :"How to package to New York City", or unless i am an old returning customer, your Brand influence will not touch me at this earlier stage.

It worth remembering that, despise Social Media is being of high importance to help extend the brand radar to the consumer earlier rituals, it do not represent the only way to create engagement in the Preparation stage. And that the consumer will note actions that are really RELEVANT to them at those earlier stages of engagement.


To really extend the brand radar until the preparation phase it is important to get deeply connected with the consumers and to be aware of the full journey that direct them to consume your services.

We will cover those topics in our next Service Design workshop that will take place at 23/11 in São Paulo.

Wrap-UP on 10a IHRSA Latin America

Thanks for all the people present at my speech in 10a IHRSA Latin America. I had so much fun speaking on service design and moderating the Branding Workshop with my dear friend and renowned architect Patricia Totaro.

At the event we had the opportunity do discuss some key themes that forms the basis of an innovation strategy. In between those themes: Understand the basis of the Pyramid, Digital Brands, Digital Communities, Service Design, Branding, Brasil economic perspectives (remarkable presentation by my friend, host of the television show Manhattan Connection and renown economist Ricardo Amorim) and other issues really relevant for the Wellness Entrepreneur.

I am twice satisfied. First for having the opportunity to coordinate the conference program along with IHRSA/ Fitness Brasil team. Second, because of the success that the Microsoft project "MyGym" had at it's launch on the same event. More info on this project you can find in a earlier post in this blog.

The Fitness sector occupies a bright spot in the wellness industry and definitely it needs to take-over this position, reinventing itself to move from being an attachment to being part of people's lives.

Service Design Case : "MyGym"

My Gym Service Design Case

View more documents from Design Loyalty.

From: us To: you

This week we are proud to announce the change from the old slogan "Experience Design" to our brand new one: "Service Innovation".
This change was inspired by our recent discussions in events in which we spoke and presented our ideas, sales pitches and the Engine (www.enginegroup.co.uk) seminar that took place in London-UK last week and from which i just came back.
It is kinda simple to chunk down what Design Loyalty does, and that is : Service Design.

Problem is that, not only in Brazil but in the whole world, people get confused with the term "Design", often accepting it as a "way to do nice cute things". And that causes a contextual gap that ends up draining lots of effort in the part of the sales pitch we do not think is the most valuable one.

The "What" part of the sales pitch is the one we are suppose to defend Service Design inside the "What do we do" context. That's the worst context to do it, in our view we're rather to pitch the "service design clever way" of doing things in the "How we do it" part. That's when we have time and can get more deeply inside cases and examples.
The "What" phase is a "elevator speech", and don't allows the right amount of info to be shouted out.

So, what we do?
Service Design. But that's our job, our way of doing things, and it is completely about us.

The question that really matters is:
What you Brand/Business wins by work with us?
And that is Service Innovation.

Now, that's about you.

iCoffee: A perfect case of Experience Design

Nespresso is the premium coffee Brand division of Nestle. Despite the parenthood with the mother Brand, Nespresso is a totally independent Brand. This strategy is seriously taken by Nestle, which prevents customers to easily associate both Brands, and allows Nespresso to position itself as a new luxury (Masstige) Brand.

Nespresso is a perfect case of Experience Design.

In every interaction with the consumer the Brand creates a remarkable experience. This experience is orchestrated in all touch points and takes in deep consideration the customers rituals when drinking espresso coffees.

The Nespresso Brand is strategically positioned as a New Luxury or Masstige Brand. This way it holds a premium price while it keeps itself inside the trade-up wallet of the average consumer. Only brands that delivers real meaning can be positioned in the up wallet, as this means that consumers will be pleased to trade down and save in other commodities to keep buying these premium goods (that's why you should not aim to be a commodity in recession times).

The Nespresso Brand has deeply impacted the espresso machine market when it introduced a completely orchestration of services instead of simply selling the espresso machines. Following a business model very similar to the iPpd model, Nespresso has created an Experience Value Chain that empowered the Brand to sell superior technology machines for a price bellow the average espresso machine market price, concentrating most of it's revenues in the capsules of coffee.

This experience design strategy became even more powerful with the creation of the Nespresso Stores. The stores are full of incantation moments and storytelling strategies. To be at a Nespresso store It is always a nice trip around design and the premium Coffee world, and unlike Starbucks, the store is not targeting to position itself as a third place for people, instead, it is there to tell stories that convey elements of luxury that have the power to make the Brand desirable. These elements are:

1) Identity and personalization
The Nespresso Club makes you fell like you belong to a very exclusive club of people.

2) The value of scarcity.
Special seasonal blends of Coffees and special limited editions in accessories and machines.

3) The constant search for the aesthetical and technical perfection.
High Impact aesthetical and usability Design permeates all products and service interactions. The only drawback is the Nespresso web site experience that , in my view, does not delivery the same experience level of the other channels.

But what makes Nespresso a great case of Experience Design it is not only the experiential signals, but the capacity that the Brand has of keep itself as a market leader over time, while still holds a premium price on the capsules in comparison with the common coffee sachets other machines uses and also the ability to keep the Brand evolving and maintaining a great customer loyalty base. To perform that through the delivery of consistent great experiences is what makes Nespresso a great case of Experience Design.

This is what an Experience Design project is really about: Consistently enchanted customer + Brand differentiation = Loyalty customer base and revenue growth.

For those who didn't associate why that is similar to the iPpd business model: In an iPod touch of 229 usd you can load 10.000 usd on music. Take also in consideration that iTunes store is now the biggest music store in sales volume in the world.
It is easy to see that the core success of the iPod is not in the 229 usd gadget but in the experience value chain it creates.