In an Apple Insider account of a Forbes interview, Microsoft’s Chief Research & Strategy Officer Craig Mundie said the following about Apple’s new voice recgonition software, Siri:

The Tellme facility’s been in the Windows 7 phone for more than a year.  So I mean I just think people are infatuated with Apple announcing [Siri].

And Mundie continued with this:

Maybe we need to pick a feature [like Siri] and hammer on it harder.

I’d assert that Mundie is a victim of (and perhaps a perpetrator of) a technical culture within Microsoft that doesn’t permit a savvy marketing culture.   Microsoft has a rich history of developing amazing technologies that they simply expect people to “get” or “discover” on their own without any help.   Mundie’s first statement above reminds me of the if a tree falls in the forest thought experiment — where, clearly, Microsoft feels the tree does make a sound, even if nobody is around to hear it.

Apple, on the other hand, appears to feel the opposite about that tree in the woods.  In other words, Apple doesn’t hope and pray people figure out what’s great about their iPhones.  No; Apple spends gobs of money educating people on what is great about their new devices.

Which brings me to Mundie’s second statment.  This notion of “hammering” sounds to me like Mundie is not comfortable with marketing as a legitimate business activity.  He feels the the process of educating and informing is actually “hammering,” which linguistically tells me that Microsoft’s culture is actually hostile to marketing.  Hammering is verb that indicates an aggressive, painful process.  Not a helpful, useful one.

Words speak volumes about peoples’ perspectives and philosophies.  And I think Mundie unintentionally gave us a window into why Microsoft has such a difficult time conveying their value proposition to consumers.

Let’s break this down into the components where communications, story and symbols were seemingly not designed to allay fears around the post-Steve Jobs, now-Tim Cook era at Apple:

1. Let’s start with the elephant in the room:  Apple didn’t meet expectations.  Expectations were certainly for an iPhone 5.   Apple’s brand is based around exceeding expectations, and they did not meet this test.  Unless there’s a “One More Thing…” event planned very soon, it’s difficult to argue that Apple underwhelmed on the new product front.   I just don’t see how else Apple can hit the holiday season with a bang with the “iPhone 4S.”  Which brings us to the next item:
2. 4s.  What does the S stand for, Tim?  The sport model?  Super-speedy?  If you’re Apple and you’re going to name something, name it with a purpose.   And convey the purpose through a story that people identify with.   Make that S matter.  Right now, it really doesn’t.   Or perhaps the S stands for….
3. Siri voice control.  A very cool technology, and done in a very Apple-esque way.  Perhaps this is the hidden gem that Apple is most proud of, and perhaps it is something that should be experienced first hand to really get the gist of.  But, Siri?  What does Siri mean?  Is that my digital butler’s given name?  Why all of a sudden is Apple rolling out oddly named technologies vs. descriptive ones?   For context, they didn’t name it the MacBook SSD… they named it the MacBook Air.
4. The introduction of an odd, somewhat folksy side project around making and mailing cards.   Neat and cool, and very attractive for a specific demographic or two, but is that what Apple wants to be known for as a brand?
5. Visually, nothing changed in the presentation style in the event.  This one is tricky, because new CEO Tim Cook certainly needed to give the impression that Apple is still Apple, and that Apple is more than Steve Jobs.  But the visual design language of the presentations is so strongly linked with Steve, that I (albeit daringly) believe that a small yet meaningful tweak to the design language would have shown us that Cook has his own “juice” that will be pumping through Apple, and that he’s not just a carry-on CEO like so many are concerned about.

While these five components might be interesting and compelling, they did not drive me to write this post.   What drove me to write this was one slide Phil Schiller presented at the event:

This single slide signaled to me that Apple is already missing Steve Jobs.   How?   Let’s count the ways:

1. The iPhone 4S sits alongside its Android rivals.  No special treatment, status nor elevation to visually indicate that the iPhone is nothing more than just another smartphone that you can choose.   Whereas Jobs clearly saw the iPhone as something unique and special… and without peer.
2. The latest and greatest iPhone is merely competitive with its rivals in terms of speed.  What an odd frame to advance… why visualize a message in an area where you’re not leading?  It kind of looks like Apple is just barely keeping up!
3. It re-enforces the point that the iPhone is one of the remaining super phones without 4G.  Whenever Apple’s technology wasn’t the vanguard, Jobs would expertly pivot by saying that they focus on the experience, not the technical specs.
4. I think the point of the slide was that the iPhone 4S is going neck-and-neck with 4G phones.  But what I see is LG, HTC, Motorola and Apple side-by-side, all about equal.

And I think that last point was the visual that really struck me.  Jobs’ vaguely-religious view that Apple’s products were without peer permeated his every message (and every visual).   Here and now, with this slide exemplifying the point, what is being shown is Apple seeing itself in the rough and tumble smartphone market, vs. rising above it, elegantly, magically and magnificently beautiful and awe-inspiring.

This Apple also didn’t bother to tell us the story behind the free and $99 iPhone models, and how that will extend world-class user experiences into new audiences that deserve a touch of elegance and magic in their lives.

This represents a seismic difference in brand communications (even if unintentional).   Brand managers and communicators, take note.   Time will tell if this is a blip or the beginning of a downward shift for the vaunted Apple brand.

[ed: One day after this event, Steve Jobs passed away.  Perhaps the folks at Apple deserve a pass if this event wasn't as stupendous as it could have been, now that the rest of us know Jobs' condition on the day of the event in retrospect.]

And this is not merely a “street smart” reality.  It’s a well researched, studied and acknowledged reality that innovation truly is the driving force for economic and/or social progress.  I know a bit about this research, because I studied innovation in-depth in my graduate studies at the Organizational Dynamics program at Penn.

What I also learned through these studies is that some of the most meaningful and valuable innovations come from people who think and work holistically — across disciplines.  Yes, we can certainly develop iterative improvements within a given discipline, but most of the game changing advances occur when people look across areas that are rarely connected.  Imagine, for instance, an oncology department that began thinking like a counter-terrorist task force.  If we started thinking of tumors like terrorists cells, would we enable new, innovative ways to approach the treatment — or even the root causes — of cancer?

While I’m certain there are plenty of environments where true innovation is occurring, it would seem to me as I poll my friends and family in the workforce that innovation is the exception, not the rule.  What I see on a macro level is a national work culture stuck on process improvements, cost reduction strategies, revenue targets and iterative improvements.

In America, we continue to look at the richest and the poorest to blame for our economic woes.  Funny thing about that: it’s the richest and the poorest who are the most innovative… for vastly different reasons.  And the culture rejects this innovation as “stealing” from the system.

Yet, what I see is a massive middle of people who are tragically under-utilizing their minds to develop, create and enable new value through real innovative approaches to solving problems and spotting opportunities.

This, in essence, is much of what Capital D Design aims to do – help clients create new value by providing a framework and methodologies to allow real innovation to breathe more freely.   What I see is a cultural suffocation of our creative minds, and Capital D Design aims to help people’s creativity breathe more freely when thinking about their business or organizational problems and opportunities.

Notice that I used the term “mobile information” and not “mobile computing” to describe the space.   How we describe things matters, because words set frames, frames set perspectives, and perspectives drive analysis and decision-making.  And it could be argued that how a company culture labels things internally directly affects the frame of reference, and helps guide what problems are prioritized, and how to go about solving those problems.  This is one reason why words and labels are so critical to effective brand definition.

Let’s take a moment to consider just this: “mobile information” vs. “mobile computing.”   For many, these two terms are interchangeable.  Many in fact say that the iPhone is a mini computer in your pocket.   Yet, millions of users I’m sure don’t ever think of the term “computer” when using their iPhone.  So, which is it?  Let’s investigate.

If you were told to design a mobile information device, what quickly pops into your head in terms of how the device looks?   And if you were told to imagine what an idea mobile computing device looked like, would it be any different?  I encourage you to share your answers to these questions in the comments.  Here are my answers:

Mobile information device:  device has a large screen that displays text very well (for easy readability), and enables me to quickly and easily navigate and find information that I desire to find with minimal interaction.   It needs to be connected to as many content sources as possible so that the information I desire can be provided to me.  I imagine this device would also be able to talk to me so that it can provide me information while I am unable to hold it or look at it.

Mobile computing device: device is compact, and is designed to take in all kinds of information effortlessly.  It should sense where it is, what I want it to figure out, and have a lot of computing power to crank out answers to the problems I give it.  It should also have access to huge databases and be able to do complex calculations.  It should be processing things for me while I do my regular activities.  It should be my agent.

Modern smartphones are a bit of each, obviously, which is about right.   But the product vision of a mobile device can become differentiated based on which design path it takes.   How would you categorize each smartphone in terms of a mobile device?   Here’s my take:

Apple’s iOS:  Mobile information & gaming device

Google’s Android:  Mobile computing & information device

Microsoft’s Windows Phone: Mobile information & gaming device

HP’s WebOS: Mobile information & computing device

In this estimation (which I invite you to challenge in the comments section), I’ve identified through a very basic description that each mobile OS has a distinct primary and secondary purpose — or design path.   And because all OS’s are still quite young, we may see an increasingly obvious divide amongst them as they evolve down their design paths.

Currently, smartphone is the descriptor we use to distinguish these devices.  This label won’t suffice for long.  We will need a new level of more descriptive labels to begin distinguishing the varying  purposes of these different mobile operating systems and the devices in which they live.

Purpose seems to be have been appropriated — or misappropriated — as “cause ” in modern business dialect.   If this semantic hat trick isn’t obvious on the face of it, allow me to break it down a bit: Purpose in the business context has been narrowed down to the context of doing social good or socially-minded work.  In American English parlance, “cause” appears to have a social/societal tint to it, which too often actually seems at odds with traditional business practices.   With a quick Google search, I found plenty of examples of this purpose/cause linkage in action (here and here, etc.).

Yet, what I have discovered is that what is strikingly missing from most conversations, debates and decisions in the business world is the notion of purpose.   And this can only really take place if we give purpose back its original meaning:

Purpose, n; an anticipated outcome that is intended or that guides your planned actions.  Synonyms: aim, design, intent, intention
(source: Vocabulary.com)

We as people have proven throughout history that we can do greater things than merely survive when driven by purpose.   This applies not just to religious adherents that Reverend Rick Warren has so effectively popularized, but just as readily applies to great political leaders like John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, and technology titans like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.  These political and technology titans may not use the term purpose in their messaging, but purpose is what enables these leaders to maintain a singular vision that comes to fruition in a successful fashion.

Now, back to the real world where most people live and work:  What I find is that introducing purpose into conversations in a business context appears to help focus people’s minds on a different aspect of the initiative — the intended result.  When every decision point is based on how an individual elements supports the intended result, we are actually doing deep and systemic design.

Introducing purpose into a business discussion also helps re-enforce to team members what the goals are, which can be important because goals can so easily be lost in deep, complex problem-solving exercises.    And purpose need not be limited to strategic conversations.  Just like in life, purpose can help guide in the planning or executing stages of any initiative.

In your next team meeting, think about the purpose of the initiative you’re involved in, and try to use purpose-driven language in your remarks, and watch how that focuses people almost magically.  This works no matter what role you’re playing — leader, contributor, challenger, facilitator or sponsor.

As people, we have many powerful tools at our disposal.  Sometimes, our work environments strip us of these tools because they don’t feel appropriate.  However, I’ve found that re-introducing purpose into a business dynamic pays high dividends, and in my work I will continue to use purpose as my primary frame when challenging, contributing to or leading business decisions.  It just works.

Yet, as is with any research or scientific endeavor, there is bias in what is being researched as well as what is being measured.

Science and research is always under the influence of experiment bias: what we choose to measure presumes the primary context and focus of work and thought.   And that can create blind spots.   And I spy a blind spot in Nielsen’s conclusions around his research.  This blind spot is actually illustrated in the Yale Management School screen shot on his report… where he shows how people’s eyes never looked at the stock image on the right.

This certainly could be seen as a waste of space, as this space could have been utilized by some type of meaningful content (perhaps, even, an information request form).    But, I would actually argue that this “wasted space” is not wasted at all.   It’s merely a design element – it’s not there to attract any eyeballs, but rather there to provide the right formatting for the content Yale wants the user to focus on (i.e., the content to the left of the image).   It’s quite possible that without that image, the content area would be too wide and would ultimately reduce the impact of the content.   In fact, adding a valuable element (like a request form) may also serve to distract from the primary purpose of the page.   In this regard, I think the design is quite effective, as eyeballs certainly went to where Yale wanted them to go.

Sometimes, elements that are not important by themselves can still provide value by simply lending importance to other elements.

Like, say, Ed McMahon.

But that does not mean we should just throw meaningless imagery into pages and useless elements into a design schema.  Rather, we should understand how people want to interact with our designs, and optimize appropriately.  In this particular example, we should also remain aware that “white space” can seemingly also be enabled by meaningless filler photos as Nielsen’s test seems to prove out.   As always, there’s a dynamic — and at times delicate balance — at play between different elements in within an experience.   Page designers will succeed when they identify the purpose of the page, and develop and design elements of varying importance to support this purpose.

Research can certainly help us understand what is happening, and it can give us new information to utilize and integrate into our design thinking.   But research results should not directly drive design decisions, as Nielsen’s editorial seems to suggest.

From a professional perspective, I tend to resist using the term “design thinking” in go-to-market messaging for Capital D Design, yet there is certainly a large element of design thinking in the mix in terms of what CapD aims to offer in terms of value.   And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, as long as the value is there.

I think that Normal is really describing his aversion and exhaustion around the hype and marketing of design-thinking in his circles.  His profession and proximity to this “design” space obviously exposes him to a higher-than-average occurrence of the hype and excess surrounding this newish trend.  I, too, squirm when I begin hearing people rattle off the latest strategy term in business — as if the mere knowledge of the term somehow indoctrinates one into a new level of value.

From my perspective, design thinking still has a long way to go in terms of its utilization in helping solve the most challenging problems we face as people, leaders and community members.   In fact, I’d argue that linear, market-tested problem-solving has been driving American business culture (and indeed, our society) for decades.   Powered by the popularity and almost religious belief in “MBA training,” this mega-trend re-enforces the value of measurement and management well above the ingenuitive, innovative and creative aspects of value creation.  With this backdrop, I would welcome an over-exposure to design thinking as an alternative to the MBA-style thinking that has so dominated business and organizational dynamics for the past generation.

Design thinking is not something novel in and of itself — it’s simply an approach to thinking that involves stepping back, asking the right questions at the right time, playing the devil’s advocate at the most basic level of assumption, and applying both creativity and analysis to almost every aspect of the problem-solving process.  This approach can transform “problem-solving” into innovation, client loyalty, better brand experiences, and can enable significantly improved alignment between communications and identity.

This article’s findings do not fully resonate with what I’ve experienced in Corporate America.  What I have observed is that the “nice guys” (and gals) are promoted to middle management, where the intermingling of leading and doing requires more collegiality and influencing skills.   The more driven, strong and empathy-lacking folks either self-select out or end up catching the eye of executives as “fast-track, high potentials” for their ability to “get things done,” “move mountains,” and put “company priorities first.”  In effect, the ones who put the organization’s goals ahead of individuals’ goals end up getting more done for the company.  As a result, these more aggressive types build a reputation on getting more done than the fair and balanced “nice guys” who work through the system, balancing the needs of people and organization.

In an administrative-driven, bottom-line corporate culture, the less empathetic (and some would say psychotic) get ahead quicker because their short-term results appear to be more impressive.  The longer term effects of this behavior are unhealthy in terms of the damage incurred via the bulldozing approach to management.   However, these negative effects are rarely considered as important as, say, a huge client win that brings in the revenue.   Sure, most are aware of the sacrifices of short-term gain versus long-term gain, but in the end, if a company is purely bottom-line driven, then these sacrifices are generally considered acceptable.

From a leadership and organizational design perspective, there is no perfect approach.  Design by its very nature is about optimizing for a certain set of goals at the expense of others.  In design, trade-offs are part of the intellectual process, and creativity helps mitigate these trade-offs — by minimizing the downside and maximizing the upside effects.  One cannot, for instance, design to optimize for longevity and quality and expect to be the least expensive option.   Staying competitive means designing the organization and culture to cultivate the appropriate attitudes required to survive and grow.  Design lives in context.

If your organization is designed to react quickly and effectively to a barrage of incoming challenges and threats, then designing for short-term outcomes may very well trump the need for long-term sustainability.  Especially if turn-over costs are not incredibly high.   But if your organization is tasked with developing or providing long-term value, consistency and quality, then promoting short-term leadership behaviors — similar to what I outlined above — will eventually lead to a culture that rewards putting the company’s immediate needs before employees’ individual needs, which will have a direct, downward effect on employee loyalty.  And as any experienced organizational leader already knows, loyalty has a multiplier effect on long-term productivity.

Contrary to the position the WSJ article takes, I have observed that those who abuse power do so in response to the cultural cues that exist in the organization’s reward design system.   Even the most power-tripping person knows to choose battles wisely — and if rewards are in place to drive empathetic (instead of “brain-damaged”) behaviors, driven leaders who see rewards as symbols of success will more likely spend their time chasing the rewards rather than fighting futile battles.

This animated info-graphic paints a petrifying picture, and he shared it with a group of friends to reinforce the dire situation.  It’s not too far-fetched to think that his kind of information may impact which candidates one votes for this upcoming election.

Being quite sensitive to political discourse in America, I couldn’t help but be struck that something in this info-graphic smelled a little funky.  So, I started investigating what was driving this experience, and what I found was revealing: a strategic use of design to give an imbalanced perception of the data being presented.

Let’s break it down, shall we?

In my analysis, there are three obvious attempts to paint a picture that appears worse than the data represents.  I’m going to order these from most strategic and sly to the most obvious:

1. Strategic use of color spectrum. The designer of this info-graphic strategically uses the a full continuum of color (from light-yellow to deep blue) to represent unemployment rates from 0-10%.   By using up the entire spectrum of color, it gives the impression that 10% is actually more like 100% unemployment.  This is a sly (and I’d argue misleading) use of color spectrum to artificially amplify the actual data its representing.
2. Strategic use of color scale. Look at the scale on the bottom-right of the info-graphic.  Notice how much more quickly and substantially dark the color shades get as we creep up past 5.9% unemployment?  The increments of shade darkness accelerate as the % unemployment rises .  Perhaps one could say that this is a way of demonstrating “unacceptable levels” of unemployment at a point that is above 5.9%.   This could be a valid way of conveying this message, however, once the designer does this, we’ve left the world of information and entered the world of editorial (or, worse, propaganda).   In any case, you can see for yourself that color shade increments are unevenly distributed to paint an unbalanced picture.
3. Strategic use of numeric scale. Let’s look at that scale in the bottom-right corner again.  It uses 1% increments until we get to purple, where purple represents a 3% range.   This is the clearest violation of info-graphic expectations, as it disproportionately amplifies the effect of the darker color shade on the map.  Yes, the inconsistent scale is there for all to see — and that’s good — but most people aren’t looking that closely.  Most viewers are likely left with a sense of horror over the economic conditions of the country — particularly from 2008-2010.

What we have here is a visual experience designed to take a bad situation (10% unemployment is very troubling, of course) and bend and stretch the presentation of information to fulfill the desired agenda of the designer.  The viewer is left with an inflated sense of desperation and dread that is not warranted based on the actual data the graphic claims to represent.

This is a quite effective (if not insidious) example of experience design:   The designers seemed to have defined the emotional experience first, followed by the rest of the pieces of the experience that were specifically designed to ensure the goal is effectively conveyed.

The most clever strategy here was to use an info-graphic as the display metaphor, because most people expect info-graphics to depict information… not editorial/propaganda.   By using an established, trusted metaphor, the other misleading mechanisms identified above are rarely inspected, and the viewer is left with an inaccurate depiction of the data.

While this info-graphic demonstrates the use of experience design to mislead, these same principles can be applied to convey meaning without misleading.  Perhaps after this example, though, we might all be just a bit more aware how experience design can be used to drive people to a desired set of emotions and conclusions.

The words he didn’t use are arguably just as important, including terms like technology, functionality, features, and value.   Many technology-oriented firms use terms like these, and it’s not impossible to think that part of Apple’s success is Jobs’ very ability to lead with clarity of vision and purpose.   It takes discipline (and/or natural talent) to communicate succinctly, and as can be seen at Apple, it can be highly effective.  It’d be very easy for a company like Apple to wade into technology innovations, value-based pricing, and roll out lots of new, cool features.  But they don’t, because that’s not their brand.

As Jobs put it plainly, Apple is a product company, which means that the end product is the center of their universe.  Technology, content, industrial design, user experience… they all play a part in any product.  And as most product people acknowledge, design is a critical differentiator in the product space.   With Apple, design doesn’t just happen at the industrial layer (the layer where you and I both see and touch it) — it happens at all layers.  For instance, in Apple’s latest iPhone and iPad products, they have designed a custom CPU to ensure that the speed/power consumption balance is just right for a mobile device.  And, they both run on a custom operating system — iOS — designed specifically for mobile products.

Many in the technology space accuse Apple of being too proprietary and closed, believing that technology should be “open” — and they’d be correct, if Apple saw their i-products as technologies or platforms.   Most would agree that technology platforms should be open to get the most utility from the platform.  However, I’d argue that this is the wrong frame: The iPhone and iPad are not designed to be technology platforms — they’re designed to be products, and products are by their very nature proprietary.   Think about it: Would you expect that the ink cartridge in your HP printer work in a printer made by Canon?   Are the shelves in your refrigerator interchangeable with shelves in another maker’s fridge?  Will the brakes in your car be exchangeable with the brakes of another make/model?   Of course, the answer is ‘no’ to all of these examples.

So why is there no outcry over these other products’ respective closed-ness?  Because when people buy products, they understand that the ecosystem supporting the product is by nature proprietary.  More successful products develop large supporting ecosystems, as is the case with Apple’s mobile products.   In the product frame, the app store is merely a huge library of accessories for the product.  Many consumer products only enable licensed accessories to be used — just like the App Store only accepts approved apps.

Apple’s focus on product over technology also helps explain why they are perceived to be so design-centric.  Compared to technology companies, Apple sure seems to put a lot of extra effort into design.  However, if you compare Apple to any other product company, I would suspect that they apply very similar budgets and discipline around the design (and marketing) process.  In fact, one could make the argument that the iPad has a lot in common with Gillette’s new ProGlide razor (another new product in 2010) in terms of how both are thought of, designed, developed and marketed.

In 2007, Apple Computer, Inc. changed its name to Apple, Inc.   In a Design-centric firm like Apple, I imagine this name change was both a result of — as well as a driver for — clarity, focus and more finely-tuned offerings to enhance the lives of their customers through “better products.”    This is a great example of strategic brand design in action.