University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Do You Matter?
Book

Do You Matter?

How Great Design Will Make People Love Your Company

Robert Brunner, Stewart Emery and Russ Hall
FT Press, 2008
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

To create a company that really matters to other people, design a unique, positive customer experience into every aspect of your product or service. That requires becoming a “design-driven” firm, with leaders who understand that great design is the only thing that saves a product from becoming a commodity. Inspirational design turns your product into something bigger than the sum of its parts. To demonstrate this desirable design experience, authors Robert Brunner and Stewart Emery (writing with Russ Hall) point to iconic products, such as iPods and Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Their passion for corporate devotion to design permeates every page, becoming, alas, weaker with repetition, and then getting refortified in chapter eight, which offers a solid method for achieving successful design. getAbstract recommends this book to managers since most designers already agree that superior, comprehensive design is good for business.

Summary

Why Design Matters

Steve Jobs’s secret weapon at Apple Computers is “industrial design,” the cure for a product that becomes a commodity, like the personal computer. Design provides a unique customer experience. Apple’s “design-driven” corporate culture works to elicit positive emotional responses from customers. Apple insiders believe design encompasses far more than just the physical look of their products.

This broad view helped Apple sidestep the pitfall Motorola fell into with its sleek, thin Razr phone. At first, the Razr resonated with consumers. However, instead of letting the phone’s success influence the company’s vision, Motorola tried to milk it with imitators and empty promises. One successful product cannot ensure a company’s continued health, unless that company embraces the concept of design in every aspect of its organization. Motorola, inventor of the mobile phone, became insignificant in that market because it failed to develop a design culture.

Great products that engage consumers’ emotions are usually born of a design vision that shapes their appearance, feel and operation. This vision must extend to marketing and branding, and even timing...

About the Authors

Robert Brunner directed industrial design at Apple Computer, where he worked on the original Macintosh PowerBook. He founded Ammunition, a design consultancy. Business coach Stewart Emery, co-authored Success Built to Last, and wrote Actualizations and The Owners Manual for Your Life. He is an executive at Belvedere Consultants. Their “writing partner” was Russ Hall.

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