Over at the blog ‘ideasonideas‘ Eric Karjaluoto has posted an interview with the well known (Sir) Kevin Roberts from Saatchi.
I thought I’d want to post my very own comment on this here since the interview is touching some good arguments that summarise my recent efforts (both theoretically as well as practically) on building an argument why it is essential for the design management community to understand and embrace the impact of digital communication and ‘social networks services in particular.
In a current client project I’m involved in we (that means Erik & Edwin from designest) are challenged by identifying the various digital and social touch points of social media with the brand in relation to the consumer.
What makes this process challenging is the somehow unknown territory we’ve entered therefore I’ve read with some relief Robert’s response to the question:
Eric: What kind of experiments are you running in interactive? Are there areas that you are testing with greater success than others?
Kevin: Our whole approach is pretty much one big experiment at this stage. There’s no proven pathway (Thank God!!!).
Accordingly we are currently combining tools of design research (consumer journey’s, empathic observation or ethnographic research in its broadest meaning) in conjunction with considering the whole spectrum of social network platforms & tools currently available.
While we still have a long way to go I do think that we are coming closer to “expanding tools, technologies and teams to get closer to consumers on the terms they want.”
However this all wouldn’t be possible without our client to allow for some degree of freedom and exploration that Eric and Kevin are discussing here:
Eric: What’s the sense like amongst your clients? Are they racing to embrace these new tools, or are you finding them more cautious?
Kevin: They’re emotionally engaged and rationally careful. But … they’re becoming less cautious as they see the benefits of keeping up with consumers. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
My personal conclusion so far is that the design management community has not embraced this challenge pro-actively so far (maybe there have been some discussions at the recent DMI conference in Paris of which I’m not aware). However what I mostly hear from my peers in my network is more lip service than actually founded arguments & insights.
Simply talking about ‘customer co-creation’ and ‘user driven design’ sounds nice and might sell good, but I’d like to see applications beyond being able to customise the colour of your sneaker …
