Apple 'got' design for $2.5M in 1982 and by a Frog. Here's how Steve did it.

Ever wonder how Apple 'got' design? Like Gates bought DOS, Steve bought design for $2.5M/yr in 1982. Here's how Steve did it and not as Fast Company says: 

Even Fast Company scrubs the data & history but not as Christopher Mims @ Quartz magazine reports it and described here. Like any market advantage, a competitive advantage starts well before personal popular culture (read advertising and 'news') has us believe or is even aware of the advantage itself. Microsoft exists because Gates bought DOS for $50K and turned it into Windows for IBM. AC and DC were fought after by Thomas Edison who developed the opposing format to thwart competitors and performed hundreds of experiments on filaments with a whole team of researchers not inventing the lightbulb, Ive's didn't usher design into the entire culture of Apple: I've's entire group was the prodigy of a Frog - the son of Hartmut Esslinger.

It isn't often that we stop to may homage to the firms whose shoulders that we here at iGNITIATE stand on top of, but after years of knowing Hartmut and the folks at Frog, and the recent articles on design at Apple being always there from the beginning, we thought to jump in on the "correction" of the marketing machine that is Apple, Issacshons book, and Ashton's movie on the late, great Steve. However in the beginning, there was Hartmut and his firm Frog and fact that Apple bought design, brought it right into the boardroom and did it all for $1m/yr in 1982 or $2.5M 2013 dollars and the article How I Taught Steve Jobs To Put Design First tells all.

Hartmut goes on to describe how From Phones To Tablets: 26 Apple Designs That Never Came To Be and How to Innovate, Step by Step which Hartmut know exactly what he is talking about. To learn how to get true competitive advantage from design, the above is how it's done and how we do it here at iGNITIATE. 

                                

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Designers Gather & Organize. Founders Hunt & Retrieve. Want both? Use 3D Soup. Here's how:

Wired Magazine knows founders & now designers but why so few - design founders? Designers Gather & Organize. Founders Hunt & Retrieve. Want both? Use 3D Soup. Here's how:

First let's be clear: Technologists are designers who gather, organize & clarifying visions, confined to a specific domain and via tools turn it into product - vegetables to soups with knives and a stove. Classically designers are not engineers or technologists because software designers don't cook as sketching screens and interactions minus "back of the house" is still just a well written kitchen order - cooks prepare the dish.

Technologists as founders are bankable: months of soup trials before an amazing dish is ready to sell. Founders who hunt and retrieve, sketch back of the napkin and pre-sell possibilities of what they have uncovered hunting have also not made soup. What's the tipping point? Speed to soup and founders who cook quickly understand ROI interest. Now this is the norm for 21st century designers - ROI based mentalities focusing on generating not a supply of ideas but hot soup in the bowl. Why? 3D Soup.

Enter crowsourcing and crowdfunding and a visual demand for finalized product via prototyping. How? 3D Printing. Sketching comes out as fast as code once did. Paper to code to prototype is shifted and "designers" become engineers, technologists and founders or so says the recent article "Why aren't there more design founders" however what is more important is "How to make Hardware Startups More than just a Fad" so here's the concatenation:

1) Problem-solving: slick designs without manufacturing capabilities don't cut it. See the amazing example of the Element Tables Tokujin Yoshioka as it clearly looks like it does not work yet is on sale today.
2) Design is process: engineers iterate based on rules of engineering, definitive can and can't work models where as design is the act of trying many many routes to define 1st uniqueness and then build it as simply, there is no math to fashion but there are a million different cars that have been mass produced
3) Design is a Service Industry: there are only a few ways to make a nuclear reactor as the technology is highly specific, however there are a million ways to engineer earphones (engineering thinking) however if designed well, (design thinking) they will always be in high demand, eg., Beats headphones
4) Founders Lead: because they are always hunting & that means they can't cook at the same time. A designer and sketches and leads is not the same designer who does 3D and prototypes hence two words for Founders and Technologists vs. one word for designers.
5) Design only trumps engineering when the engineering is actually done: if you don't start with design, aesthetics, interaction, etc., you can't build it in later however if you start with it and can't complete it, it is useless - full chicken and the egg issue.
6) MVP just does not cut it with physical goods: Software allows you to start, and iterate versions as fast as you can code and bug test and physical goods don't work this way until the day 3D printers are as fast as injection molding machines so "With hardware, you can’t get away with a minimum viable product that sucks." as Marc Barros states

                                

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Want Full Eco(control) Design? Design Physical & Digital Products

Investors don't like physical products? Why? Physicality costs & yet, Digital is as fleeting as haute couture. Are there options? Yes. Think like Gillette for the 21st century - physical + digital design. Here's how:

Wired Labs has a good starting point: Bundling Digital and Physical but that is just the beginning as the investigation is where the juice comes out: 

1) Ask why do it at all and what is this new thing that people are going to carry around?

2) See who's done it, so many have: Jawbone, UP, Brawn Electric Shavers w/skin sensors, naturally MP3 players, but there are others: Swifter, Roomba, Canary, etc. - we've examined these before.

3) How's it going to expand over time as if it isn't a platform and it can't learn or adapt what's the point? 

4) Planned obsolescence for alternative purposes: you've still got your old laptop around somewhere using it for other purposes? There are whole companies dedicated to recycling - yet another part of the ecosystem that your firm should be owning

And these are just a few of the ways. 

Naturally through disruptive design, there are a host more. 

                                

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When Kliner Perkins hires designers it's official: 7 Tips From Leading Design Entrepreneurs

When Silicon Valley's most prestigious VC in Q4 2012 sets up the Kliner Perkins Design Fellowship, and a National Design Award is given due to a designer's design entrepreneurial work you know the US is finally catching on. But what are the secrets to design breakthroughs? Here's a starting point: 

                                           

1) Learn to code and understand web analytics: because in the beginning you can't afford a full web development effort and you will have to sell your goods online - there is no more door to door anymore and if you can't push the BUY button because there is no system to make that happen, your project is not going to make it.
2) Never underestimate how important design is: if your product looks bad, if your site does not work on tablet and smart phones it's all over. Customers know 1st impressions mean everything and now almost as much as the product itself.
3) Don’t allow design to damage your focus: if your not Steve himself, then you may have to work with someone that is and in that, be flexible as your design might not be your own
4) Keep a side project: Google allows 20% of time to employees own projects. Use this as your guiding principle as you can't "design" all day many times your building what has already been designed
5) Read everything. Listen To everything. Experience as much new as possible: design inspiration is the key to disruptive design and zigging when others are zagging - the point to "winning" new clients in a sea of also-rans
6) A prototype is worth 1000 words: this is an absolute must. Prototype fast and Prototype often. The faster you and clients can see what is going on the faster you get to the endpoint
7) Think like a student as that is what a designer is: if you can't think outside the box you just created you can't innovate. The tighter the rules the harder it is to be "different" and different can sometimes be disruptive or even fully "innovative" by Schumpeters definition.

And there are many more, but with these your products will be that much further ahead of the competition.

                                

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A new disruptive market: Canary (security) in a coal mine? No your home!

Start with the (light) light-bulb  the (clothes) washing machine, (entertainment)TV, (games)Atari, (temperature)Nest and now (security)Canary. What have each disrupted? Your home. Now comes Canary - and she's a beautiful bird who protects like a hawk. 

If you want to ignite an entire product ecosystem, there is always going to be some ashes. Could Canary a room based home security ecosystem that monitors: temperature, humidity and air quality via high level sensor such as an HD video camera with a wide-angle lens & night vision, backed up by a beefy microphone, &  3-axis accelerometer do this? Considering that Canary is the invitation of big brother right into the home and your smartphone, anything is possible. 

Now the question is what ELSE can be done with Canary? Naturally a full and beautifully designed interface is part of the product design as well as the physical look of Canary itself. The hack and 3rd part developer possibilities are also fully abundant, and so with a strong computing core capable of other functionalities Canary is also a platform. The sustainability of the business platform is the now the variable to watch however from 1st look, Canary has tremendous possible wingspan. 

McKinsey doesn't get it, but Google Does: Design Sprints

Design can be a trip to the Caribbean or a battle with Somali Pirates & that's been our last week here at iGNITIATE. How did we focus our clients? Ignoring McKinsey and embracing Google: Google Design Sprints in fact.

Google Ventures has been focusing on design, design thinking surrounding physical products like Google Glass and the Google Phone designed by Mike & Maaike as well as service design and UI design. Google has now started  publishing much of their design thinking models via the Google Design Labs. An overview of their process can be found here, and in typical sillicon valley fashion, design and even a disruptive design model - one we particularly are interested in. Want to know how they do it? Here's the summary:

1) PICK A BIG FIGHT - and when the problem is too simple expand it. Design thinking especially disruptive design thinking means looking at the whole picture?
2) GET THE RIGHT PEOPLE - and that means eyes and ears you don't normally bring around. Sing the same song all the time and you will never create Nirvana
3) SCHEDULE THE USER STUDY BEFORE YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO TEST - however this is where we disagree for in some situations and especially with expressive design, analysis paralysis is guaranteed the more exponential questions you ask
4)  FIND A FACILITATOR - necessary as an advocate in law situations yet sometimes limiting for true artistic or design art "breakthroughs"
5) PUT IT ON THE CALENDAR - keeping track is again against the design ethos of the design artists however for corporate "user centric" and "co-creation" better known as customer centric design this keeps things moving and people accountable
6) GATHER THE INGREDIENTS - paper, pencils, etc., and this is more for those managing as design artists can make it all happen with a crayon and newsprint if that's all there is

                                

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Want perfectly simple products and services? Ditch the Advertising

In "SIMPLE" by Siegel and Gale's Alan Siegel and Irene Etzkorn we see the complexity in advertising agency "luxuriousness" - large design fees. Want to debunk it? Simply, Leave out the advertisers. Here's how: 

1) "encountering focus group consumers who expressed a clear preference for food products with fewer ingredients" ----> no, consumers want amazingly well made products cheap. It's not possible - hence advertising. It's something to deal with. 

2) " use the term "breakthrough simplicity" to describe an approach to innovation that is rooted in finding new ways to make everything simpler." ---> no, it means accepting complexities cost. 

3) "the airlines example" no, it means working towards Google's dead simple interfaces (and not knowing anything about the back end)  not following yahoo's example of advertising everything. people want cheap tickets, a snack and no gimmicks. Do that you have a winner. Example: JetBlue & EasyJet

4) "THE MORE COMPLICATED A PARTICULAR PRODUCT OR SERVICE WITHIN THAT INDUSTRY MAY BE, THE MORE OPPORTUNITIES THERE ARE FOR SIMPLIFICATION." no, the more opportunities to advertise the deficiencies and waste money charging for it. Simple products require no advertising. 

5) "make the right high-quality choices for these customers--and then make sure they understand that what you’re providing is a simple solution " no, stop making things complicated from the start. if you can put it all on one chart (and any company can) then decisions are easy, else, else, it's advertising complicating it. Example, the simple VC rule. "explain it to me like I'm 5"
6) "Today, it’s clear that most people--more than 80 percent" no, it's always been this way. when has anyone ever asked for life to be more complicated? never. this is tautological and why? " 72 percent of U.S. consumers want companies to be more transparent" ergo, when has anyone ever wanted the wool pulled over their eyes? Never. 

7) "An Adweek/Harris Poll noted that three-quarters of Americans have found a commercial on TV confusing. On a more consistent basis, 21 percent often find that commercials lack clarity." no, it's even easier than that - customers don't like being confused or lied to

and finally, "And last and foremost--getting back to what matters most in business--simplicity sells.", yes, as when products put in front of the consumer what is, what can be, what will happen when they use X, and what it will cost it is values and professional services firms can charge for it, else, it's just advertising.

Simple. 

                                

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