a introduce our speaker this afternoon enjoy Fortune graduated from
college. He already had a working agency with more
climate. Since the times you must see produced work
for companies in the U. S. And abroad
. You see us national and international honours twice the
name. Industry publications South east southeast. For uh
popular record to talk about. Your name is Holiday
, a guest speaker at national conferences. A national
practices on design marketing as well as certain board of
advisors, colleges and schools. 2010 soldiers interest in
the communications business. Recurrent school masters in adult education
today. Teachers concept development, Consult on topics such
as Education Development, Design January 2014 director. I
think I created a consultant group that helps clients or
see understanding capitalized emergency opportunity. And this work is
included projects the government and educational organizations. So I
imagine. But this afternoon I think we work on
aspirational endings and uh brand. And the question,
what is a library today? Do you give us
some insight that and some approaches and ways of thinking
about what a what? Hey Patrick, can you
hear me really? All right. We're gonna if
anyone as I get going here, if you can't
hear me let me know. Okay, just just
put a hand up and I'll grab the mic.
It's just a whole lot more comfortable to say,
hey guys and be out here with you and work
with you. Uh I was doing some work one
time for a major uh music hall, amazing music
hall and the sound system and the sound acoustics.
The designers had built it so beautifully. The very
stage itself was like a bass instrument and we had
linda Ronstadt coming in to sing and they placed a
mic near her And I don't if you ever heard
linda Ronstadt in person, she can tear the walls
down if she cranks her voice up, she about
knocked the place over with the mic and we heard
the engineers and the back go, oh so linda
Ronstadt actually did a whole concert there without a mic
. So I'm gonna try the same thing if at
any point just raise a hand first of all,
thank you brian and thank you scott Good to see
us mine and Violet. Um for having me here
. I'm gonna be going back and forth and around
the room a little bit. But in this brief
time together, what I really want to do is
to cover a fair amount of ground and hope to
offer you guys some thoughts to help you on this
most important journey that you're on right now, an
amazing, exciting journey to. But first, let
me tell you what this is all about. Mm
I is a brand new creative lab that actually started
as an idea about 12 months ago between a team
of people. We really opened it up about six
months ago and I'm really happy to say it's very
, very busy and very exciting. And we have
felt like we've jumped off of a roof and are
creating wings on the way down, which is a
kind of cool place to be kind of like what
you're doing. I think with this thing called the
Library, we have a team of people who have
worked with Nike johnson and johnson have worked with companies
like Mitsubishi, Absolut vodka, you always got a
good a good drinking now and then Absolut vodka and
a host of other corporations around the world. Cargill
Dow Chemical. The purpose of i is really quite
simple. It's to help people and businesses get to
the space they're meant for and to help them identify
that space. What's going on in. I is
we have leaders and companies who are coming to us
and institutions. We then got a school coming in
who are asking questions about purposes and meaning and new
ways of exploring what they are up to. For
some people were actually not going forward, we're going
backwards and they're loving it. In the words of
T. S Eliot, we are to some people
a silent point an attorney world. I had one
ceo say, I forgot why I love this stuff
and awakening passions that have become quiet in time.
We've been surprised by the number of people who have
come in and the walks of life they've come from
. We have the largest retail bank in North America
. Re envisioning the types of relationships and things they
want to build. We have a major law firm
, huge law firm who's in there now saying we
want to re imagine the very definition of the legal
practice. We have a power company in there now
, looking to new ways to actually redefine and unleash
the word energy and I am not talking about electricity
and more. So what's going on? Here's what
we think is going on. People are pausing in
this rush to ask is in all of this change
that's occurring and in the middle of it, is
this meaningful what we're doing? And is it going
to be meaningful going down the road? And is
it meaningful to me? Do I believe in it
? Do I believe in what I'm doing and my
passionate about it not just to some definitive end,
but two brand new beginnings. The world is resting
forward and in the lab there are many days that
we are stopping and asking different questions and at times
, as I said, we are actually walking backwards
in all of this flux and all of this opportunity
. I ask you one question. Do you not
feel like a child? Do you not feel like
a child? Sometimes I'm an adult, a child
. Childlike wonder, This is all new, it's
all brand new. You know what I love about
Children? Mhm. She just had a baby,
I'm so happy. You know what I love about
Children. The child like wonder. A child walks
into a backyard or an adult walks into a backyard
. Adult walks into a backyard and sees this on
the ground stick, it's attached to a tree,
is a limb, yep, you're right, child
walks into a backyard and goes magic wand met in
the house, the house is a castle, the
car is the dragon and I am the prince or
the princess. A child like imagination can look at
what is and turn it into what is possible that
quickly and do it without fear, do it without
fear. Childlike imagination. I gotta tell you guys
, one of the most exciting things that happens in
the lab is when you get these ceos in this
corporate types in there who I'm an expert, I
built the business and you watch over a few minutes
if we can get them to loosen up, This
12 year old comes running out of them and goes
, hey I haven't played in so long, this
is cool, this is gonna be good, what
am I doing? Childlike imagination? They also embrace
ignorance, everyone's an expert, it's something but the
embracing of ignorance and not fearing being like a child
again can actually unleash a lot. Do you guys
know a professor by the name of dr Stuart Firestein
at Columbia University? You ever heard of him?
He teaches a course at Columbia that's really taken off
, it's called ignorance. You're only allowed used to
be you're only allowed to take it after you had
33 years at the university because they want you to
think you're like, well I know that stuff and
you're only allowed to take it after three years when
you come to his class, the first thing he
does in ignorance is he reminds you that this will
be on your transcript, ignorance. You need to
make a decision. Ladies and gentlemen, you want
an A or an F on ignorance. Mhm.
When we can come to those places with a childlike
imagination, without fear in embracing what we don't know
, not what we do know, some interesting things
can start to happen, but we know that we're
doing something in the lab when we hear these words
I never imagined, we know then something's happening.
The child is coming out and so businesses, enterprises
institutions are asking and reconsidering their reframing and they're resetting
their compasses. So as I walk through for some
, uh, some of the tools and some of
the questions that we play with in the lab,
I'm gonna carry you through that in the time we
have together. Just some of the tools, some
of the stuff we do. I wish I had
time to take you some of the games, but
um, happy hour starts at 4 30. Okay
, never mind. We're asking all kinds of questions
. I'm gonna walk you through some of these,
Be patient with me. I come from the world
of communications, I come from the world of branding
. It's not a bad word, it's not a
bad word, it's not a bad word. You
know, branding means essence the very essence of something
. You can give me all the technical information and
all the information of the list of features. But
unless I love and appreciate your very essence, I
can't hold you as close as I'd like to.
Mhm. So I'm gonna walk you through some questions
. These are questions. These are just examples of
some of the things we start our process within our
thinking within the context of the lab. Oh,
don't hit that one. There we go. Who
are you? Your mission is to reinvent the library
. This is critical and it's important and it's exciting
. But who will you become in the minds and
experiences of the audiences who count on you, who
needs you, who use you? How will they
feel about you? What do you do? What
do you do in my universe of branding and brand
development purposes that are at the very intersection at the
very intersection of the passion of individual enterprises and a
deep customer need. Are those that have the highest
potentials to success at the intersection of your passions and
a deep customer need. Right? There is a
dot. Do you know that steven jobs said I
only resided at one intersection all his career and that's
the intersection of technology and humanity. That was it
, how he interpreted. That was part of his
magic. What is your vision? Invent the future
of the libraries at Virginia Tech? But what is
yours, not anyone else's? And this is going
to become extremely important. As you go forward.
We have a habit in industry, We have a
habit in business to always look to the other libraries
to I mean that metaphorically, to always look to
those in our businesses or practices that are doing the
best. Well, guess what? That's not how
people exist in the world out there. They learn
and listen and feel and experience things from all different
types of sources every day, not just other libraries
. It's very, very important. As you go
forward to be, who you want to be,
not who others are making something to be. What
is that vision? What wave are you writing?
The Virginia Tech Library is going to make significant changes
to its offering and into its vision for the future
. That means you're catching some wave out there that
is doing just like this. Something's coming up,
something's trending up. What is it? What is
your brand scape? What is your brand skate?
There are people who compete against you even though it's
not direct competition, it's indirect. I can get
information. I think all these things from 100 sources
, What is the brand scape out there that you
not only want to play in, but as you'll
see shortly when we get there, that you want
to own and you can't own it, you can
own it. What makes you the only, what
only do you want to be? We're going to
come to more than just a minute. What should
you add or what should you subtract? We sometimes
forget that when we build things, we also need
to take things away or else we're carrying twice the
load. What needs to be some what subtracted from
your offering? Growing is not just adding. Growing
is subtracting who loves you? There are people out
there and they're not even in this room today who
believe in you, who believe in what you do
and who are apostles waiting to be called forth?
Who are they? How can they help you?
How can you help them? How can they become
part of your hub new partners, new audiences,
new networks. Who is the enemy? Kind of
a hard word. Jimmy, mccloskey CMO. Wells
Fargo. In a talk recently in California said at
Wells Fargo, it's not the other banks we're worried
about, it's not the other institutions who we compete
with. Do you know who scares the dickens out
of us? Google? Yeah, I think she's
right, amazon Apple. That's what keeps me awake
at night. Mhm. What do people call you
? I'm not saying change your name please. I
don't have scott and the gang all through it.
No, no, no, I'm not saying do
that, but I am saying, what do people
call you? How do they refer to you?
How do you want them to refer to you?
How do you explain yourself when I walk up to
Patrick? Hi Patrick. Just I just wanna make
sure you can hear me, That was all from
the back because I hear my voice dropping a little
bit when I woke up to Patrick gonna say Patrick
In five words. Can you please tell me what
your library is? I'm going to show you a
little bit of that here in just a moment.
How do you explain yourself so that people go?
I got it. I remember. Okay, that's
correct. I got it connected with me, I
can remember that, I can remember that. How
do you how do you help people engage with you
? Using you Is not just engagement, There's engagement
before, there's engagement during there's engagement after. Why
as much as you may hate the word, I
love the word, it's about relationships today. It's
not about transactions, it's about relationships. And the
most beautiful thing about one of the most powerful democratic
forces on this earth, which is a library is
that it is a it is a place for the
entire life of human to grow in and to be
a part of. What do people experience? Can
you articulate an ecosystem of involvement? Touchpoints relationships,
feelings. That's how people are measuring you through every
essence of what you do or don't do. One
of the toughest things we have with some of the
companies we work with is they were all things to
all people for everything. We do everything. And
you look across at this deer, deer ceo and
you go, oh uh sometimes the most defining things
are the things you don't do, not just the
things you do. Yeah. How do you earn
people's loyalty and how do you keep it? How
do you earn people's loyalty? And how do you
keep it even outside the basic practices of what you
do and how do you extend the success of what
you do? Do you capture those successes? Do
you build upon them? Do you hold them dear
? Put them on a wall and go, how
do we, how do we, how do we
take this out in three other directions? How do
we build on this within our ecosystem? How do
you protect your portfolio? I'm looking at this room
of people who have ideas and thoughts and imaginations and
here in this wonderful entity, ideas come to life
that are yours and yours only. That's your portfolio
, that's part of your portfolio. How do you
protect it? And then finally, what is exceptional
? What is useful and what is beautiful? I'm
going to come to that in a moment. Many
of these questions, Many of these questions come from
a wonderful, wonderful brand guru. His name is
MArty Newmar, he's out on the West coast but
some of these are also from the lab. So
here's what we're talking about. We're talking about the
design for library. We're really talking about the design
for library. So as of this moment, I'm
gonna need you to do something with me. Mhm
. Everyone in this room right now is no longer
what you were two seconds ago. Okay. On
your I don't know what your title says. Richard
. Hi there. Yeah. Digital Digital research.
Is that what it is? Can I say that
? Yeah, you got it. You got it
not anymore. Don't you haven't read it today,
do you? Are you you okay? No,
I just want to double check that's a little spooky
. Are you you um as of this moment,
everyone in this room is not a title. That's
it. It's gone. Okay wipe it off.
Forget it. As of this moment you are designers
. Everyone in this room is a designer right now
. Okay you're a designer by the way. If
you don't believe you're a designer I look over at
brian and I go brian because you pick up these
four cups of coffee and those two pencils and help
me carry this stuff over. And brian looks down
there and see let me see um um Oh for
couple with no pencil pencil for cops. He just
designed a solution. You're a designer. Everyone in
here is a designer but I'm gonna show you in
a few minutes how much of a designer you really
are. So here's what we're going to do.
What is design? What is design? The dictionary
defines design is to conceive and plan out in the
mind to create the fashion to execute or construct according
to a plan. As a noun. It says
delivered perp deliberate and purposeful planning. But Debbie Millman
, an outstanding designer, says that its meaning is
the design is one of the few disciplines that is
a science as well as an art. It is
effective, meaningful. Design requires intellectual rational rigor along
with the ability to elicit emotions and beliefs. But
the late Herbert Simon professor at Carnegie Mellon, knock
it off the fence, man. He said everyone
designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing
situations into preferred ones. I would say everyone in
this room is a designer or at least aspires to
be a designer. But there's one more person.
His name is paul, rand, paul was m
bracingly large and paul said design is everything. And
then flip it on his dear later his life and
he said everything is designed. Everything. What I
would like to like for you to consider with me
is this. I want to walk you through four
basic steps of design. I want you to look
at something because as you approach your projects, as
you approach your challenges as you approach your work,
I want you to remember something about the fact that
now that you are designed, you can't go back
. Once we show this it's over, it's over
. You're all designers. I want you to look
at design from four perspectives. Style, empathy,
meaning and self. I want you to approach it
from four perspectives. First style, there is a
popular perception that when I say design it means style
. People think fundamentally it's about enhancing or improving the
appearance of something. You know, fluff the pillows
kind of re arrange the flowers particularly with aspects of
aesthetics and beauty, in essence, the veneer of
an artifact or of anything shape, color, form
, composition and other basic elements of aesthetics are critical
. But folks, too often they become the alpha
and the omega of the definition of design and you're
a different kind of designer deeper purposes. And questions
must be asked if we are going to discover more
purposeful, more childlike and more meaningful ways in doing
anything because anything relates to the changing of current or
existing situations into preferred ones. The inherent danger of
any designer who focuses all of their creative energies on
style is that they will only see the veneer of
life, objects actions self and render habit as their
practice style is important. But there's another, oh
, sorry, I skipped, this is about style
. I gotta, I gotta hand it to coca
cola. That's pretty good style. That's a you
can see through cup there, you stick the straw
in and drink looks like it's disappearing. That's a
good use of style. That's fine use of style
. But it's really just a veneer of things,
logos, looks and things like that. It's just
the veneer. What purpose did this come from?
We're gonna get there. This is about empathy is
the second form of design. While style, the
manner of expression is what we design of. What
we design may be seen as the outward appearance.
Empathy is user centred empathy. I don't approach anything
from the basis of what style should this be?
I approach it from the basis of how can I
help, what could I do? And by the
way, that basis is not based on my biases
and preconceptions. Sorry about that Theresa, I banged
the Michael. Yeah. Okay. All right.
My my preconceptions is based on the need, the
human need outside of us. That has to be
addressed user centered design, tim Brown of idea which
if you're ever interested in really understanding some of the
great aspects were talking earlier. Go to ideas website
, go to ideas website. It's fantastic. And
ideas website talks about user centered design and how serious
this is is They have turned a small graphic design
firm into a billion dollar industry around the world,
solving problems in healthcare, government issues and so forth
. Just based on the studies of user centered design
, not unlike some of the things that you're going
to be doing as well and are doing by taking
the people first approached tim Brown said design thinkers imagine
solutions that are inherently desirable and meat explicit or latent
needs. This is not about designing what we want
. This is about design that is needed outside of
us. That takes a special kind of ear in
a very special kind of heart and a very special
kind of talent to be That empathetic designers begin to
adopt the problems of others. Then use style to
help solve it based upon the need. Empathetic design
. You give you one quick example here. You're
looking at the coke machine inside of a mose.
I think you have a moe's here in town.
Right, yep, you guys. The battle between
coke and Pepsi right on this front is a massive
battle and it has to do with user centered design
and what that has to do with is what's your
name again? I'm picking on you today. Hi
Kimberly. Um designer. What that has to do
with is I don't want your coke and I don't
want your sprite and I don't want your Pepsi Light
. I'll make my own drink if you please so
much. So the new systems that are being tested
are customizable drinks. I can mix and match and
make anything I want. Well that means that choice
rules my choice when I want how I want it
the way I wanted. That's user centered design.
That is one aspect of user centered design, customizable
, customizable. There's another form of design too.
It's called meanie meaning as it pertains to design is
more dynamic and more radical in all of its approaches
. It does not approach anything with style. And
to put this bluntly, it could care less what
the user wants. I want to know how great
company who designs that way. Apple, Apple,
they don't you're with you're with me on that.
You know, Apple doesn't care what you want.
They're at the very vanguard of thought. They care
what they think can put a dent in the world
as it so goes to initiate design thinking from the
perspective of meaning is to lay aside style and user
centred approach and imagine that which is or does excuse
me, that which does not exist childlike wonder and
just insane imagination. Why have a library? That's
that's how that's how one approaches. That doesn't mean
you destroy the library. It just means what do
we completely change its purpose? What do we completely
change its meaning? Oh my God, that's heresy
. No, no, no, no. That's
called changing the meaning of design, which causes ideas
to be unleashed unleashed in a childlike wonder. That's
the magic wand. That's a bit, that's the
magic juan, that is the magic wand. And
fundamentally what we are seeing is more firms are setting
aside time to even ask about the very nature of
their existence and how that can be changed and how
that can be questioned. To go to new places
that they never imagined, that they never imagined.
Because competition no longer comes from where we think it
comes a bank, worried about google. Maybe we
all should be worried about google. That's all another
story. But to give you one quick example,
when I've always working on itunes, they were looking
at equipment in ways that they could fundamentally bring music
to you wherever you are and how you want it
. They worked with the design group called Frog.
You get a chance to look frog up frogs,
insane. Frog is insane. You invite these guys
over to your house, lay this queen down.
Be careful now these people ask questions starting with why
? And working with Apple. They said, why
not own the whole music business? Why why not
Empathetic design Finally self in this last and most basic
part of this self, I've had the great pleasure
of working all over the world from outstanding designers and
we have these wonderful conversations and I've always been obsessed
with their process and how they work. And I
started taking notes and collecting and sharing emails and and
going back and forth with different people and something I
noticed after about four or five years of this is
there was a pattern that was beginning to form.
And one day one of them said look close jim
style, empathy meaning self. Do you realize we
spend so much of our time designing for others that
the same powers that help reshaped, recreate, redirect
re compass and reframe. We have to learn how
to use on ourselves to stay fresh, to stay
challenged and to stay passionate and childlike. It loops
around like a great circle. One of them said
to me four Basic Principles to Design. four Basic
Principles. I want to shift gears just real quickly
. I don't want to talk to you another another
part about the design for library, it's called platform
and hub, platform and hub. Just very briefly
, his name is robert Greenberg, he's out uh
varga, the real visionary guy. So visionary people
like Nike and Apple and Virgin and other corporations,
the world turned to him around platform thinking I know
that as a platform for what you're going to do
and as a hub for what people need, these
things will become important. But I just want to
show you three things. Mr Greenberg talked about not
long ago, He said I want to show you
three business models. Here's what he did. This
is called a vertical business model, it's called Exxon
. They take it out of the ground, they
refine it and then they go stick it in the
stations. That is only in a vertical market.
He said a lot of businesses are this way.
Then he said, let me show you a horizontal
market. It's called coca cola. Hey guys,
how many, how many drinks do you think coke
arms? 37. 37. That's a no,
no, it's a good guess at two zeros on
the back of that 3500 drinks around the world.
They are a horizontal business. I'm going to show
you in a few minutes. It's not about drinks
. You'll see what they're calling their soul is.
That's just how they fulfill it. That's how they
fulfill it. 3500. Do you know if you
dissolve coca cola tomorrow? And the numbers are close
here. The numbers are very close. It's been
about five years since this was done. If you
dissolve coca cola tomorrow, they're hard assets, you
know, the trucks and whatever would be worth somewhere
around maybe$40 billion. But their brand asset Makes
them worth over some believe 160 billion. That means
the brand is multiple times more valuable. The feeling
, the essence of what people get from coke is
so much more powerful and more important. But let
me show you this other aspect and this is really
interesting is where it gets in the hub. Mr
Greenberg talked about what's really coming and it's called platform
and hub thinking it's not vertical, it's not horizontal
. Look who's at the center of it? It's
not oil and it's not drinks, it's you,
it's you Nike is fundamentally reinventing their entire business in
a circle around you and what you do and how
you do it. An example, just one example
is the fuel band. This isn't a product by
the way, is not about selling T shirts and
tennis shoes. It's not that at all. It's
about a relationship whereby you go, they got that
taken care of, they got that, taken care
of, they got that, taken care of and
they got this taken care of. Let's see what
tennis shoe will I get today. Yeah. Nike
is wrapping you and anticipating the products you need,
when you need it, how you need it,
where you need it. They're the, one of
the hottest things are working on right now is out
of London and Berlin. It's called, it's not
Nike City, I just forgot it. Nike something
, but it's where the runners are actually connected with
each other And I can follow the run. I
mean, it's people you know, and you trust
, but I can follow your run and you can
actually stop and go, Hey, a new eateries
opened up right here on 16th. Check it out
. I get to check out what your run is
learning around this city. That's new. That's surprising
. Nike is fundamentally creating platforms and hubs, But
they're not the only one. Several other businesses now
are adopting platform and of thinking that encircles the customer
that encircles the user. So the fuel band open
forum from american Express has just boomed. It's a
platform, it's a hub where small business people can
gain new knowledge, I can, I can sit
here and I can talk with, what's your name
? Hi Jennifer, I can talk with jennifer because
jennifer owns a small business in pennsylvania that she's also
in the florist business, some of the florist business
. And we're trying, we're talking and it all
comes from this platform, in this hub, we're
sharing things and we're helping each other platform and hubs
, not just the business you're in, but the
business with the customer at the center becomes how they're
defining themselves, and finally, I had to throw
this one in Just Heineken for this is out of
europe. Heineken's created this wonderful platform in preparation for
all the games and so forth, that people can
exchange things with each other about the games, but
also with the players, they're going to be players
into the platform, pretty crazy. Oh and maybe
you'll have a Heineken beer later on, But no
, no, no, no, it's about the
platform and fun, so platform and hub, you're
not at the center, they're at the center and
they're picking out what drink they want to drink when
they want to drink it and how they want to
drink it. Your platform. You're a hub.
One of the most important aspects in the lab is
about emergent thinking and doing emergent thinking and doing this
is not just about incremental or slight enhancements, it's
about bigger leaps, it's about owning and moving to
a space where either others are not or new things
are possible. And it's about seeking that space.
It's about seeking that space in margin thinking creates new
market spaces while heightening human experiences. We place great
value on that. Why is this critical because your
audiences have more choices than ever. If you think
they got a lot of choices now, give it
five years, but that's not the only reason to
do this. You do it because you want to
and you're passionate about your customer, your user,
your audience. What is your universe? What is
your category? Where do you live and dwell?
Who are those other bubbles around you? What is
that big old grey circle all about? What that
is? Is I as a customer, as a
user or as a person, lump you into something
because you see my brains got a lot of stuff
in it and I need to have slots and categories
. So I'm gonna put you somewhere unless you put
yourself somewhere. That's my that's my responsibility with my
own brain. I will put you somewhere unless you
put yourself somewhere. An emergent thinking and doing is
about moving to that space that you wish to be
at. That resides at that intersection again of what
you are passionate about and what people need and what
people need. The cycle, by the way,
for those who don't take this seriously. I'm talking
about in business institutions and so forth. Maybe there's
a little leeway, but I'm not so sure,
but particularly in business is actually very harrowing, very
harrowing. If I took the word VT library out
of here and I put in one of the clients
that are currently in the lab, they know exactly
what I'm talking about because these are their competitors and
this big circle is this category consumers keep shoving them
into and customers and the only way that they're going
to expand or change is to think emergent lee and
get the heck out of it right now, scott
and brian said the mission is to reinvent the library
at Virginia Tech. Cool. You can, I
think you need to. The lab has been approached
by another school asking the same questions not just about
their library but among other things to their relevance.
In the face of change and in the face of
competition, emergent thinking is about claiming the space that
you were meant for. And there are three things
that we do. Three words, three words that
are critical. Three exercises we go through when we
work on this. Number one is we ask this
and we seek this. What is exceptional about you
? That which you can dominate and own and you're
number one, What is it that you can own
and dominate and be your number one? If you
cannot and you can you can you can some drives
me nuts. Some businesses people are just too lazy
to work for it and it's out there. You
can there is something about what is here today and
there's something about what is developing that is important.
What is it what is going to make you exceptional
two, you'll see the word useful. We use
it a lot because here's the deal. Just because
you do it, say it or express, it
doesn't mean anyone cares. Let's go back to empathy
and user centered design. You have got to be
creating the products, the services and the relationships.
Yeah, that make you useful. Otherwise I'll go
to a different vending machine. Why? Because I'm
talking about those at the most, those are cool
. I'm telling 400 friends you gotta go play with
women because man make your own drink and finally beautiful
. You have to be able to present your story
in ways that are innovative and inspiring, innovative and
inspiring, exceptional, useful. Beautiful. We're also
asking better questions but I would say you're eating more
relevant questions. These questions actually come out of BBH
labs. There are also an excellent team building platforms
and hubs in business. One of the things they're
also asking is what is the real problem we're trying
to solve here? What is the real problem we're
trying to solve here? What is the real opportunity
we're trying to seize here? Who is this among
? Okay, let's forget words like customer and audience
. Who is this among? Because among is a
system of people that are connected to each other that
you have no power over, but who are a
network ready to pass the word on? Let others
know, help each other out. You can't do
it with just your horsepower. You have to do
it with their horsepower and that's part of the platform
thinking, who is this? Among what is a
smarter approach to the problem than what we think we
have here. We get somewhere down the road and
we actually pause and stop and go, whoa,
is this the smartest approach to this? Have you
leveraged an insight inside development? The lab is critical
? We converge lots of thinking and try to get
to one insight and then off of that we create
ideas. A super, super quick example of an
insight found, okay, it's on the advertising side
, I gotta use one, I just got to
use one right, could be Silverstein in California was
hired to help the milk industry which had falling,
falling, falling sales come up a little bit.
Yeah, so the whole creative team, all the
designers got together, they thought about it and this
young group of designers said, hey let's try something
for the fun of it. They went and they
bought chocolate cake, lots of fudge brownies, tons
of chocolate chip cookies, Just peanut butter cookies and
they piled them up in the kitchen and we all
know that wherever at work we put in a kitchen
food, it disappears like that, right? But
what they did they did is at 3:00 and they
made an announcement over the intercom. They said,
are there there are cookies and stuff in the break
room? Okay. They're free. And people ran
in there and they gobbled this stuff up, then
they open the refrigerators up and there was like 10
jugs of milk with this much milk and every jug
. And they had video cameras up in the corner
of the kitchen. People got tipped off. Yeah
. And the creative team looked at it for a
minute, but by the way, this is all
user centred research. They looked up, they looked
at each other and they said that's it, it's
deprivation out of that day, in that kitchen was
born. Got milk. Are you paying attention to
your users? Are you paying attention to what they
care about where their life is at and what's going
on? Other things? We do a lot of
questions very quick are their unmet needs or gaps?
We can fill in this, by the way,
the unmet needs and the gaps. It's critical.
We're seeing businesses born of this and is that idea
of terrible and how and what is the local ecosystem
that that idea will exist and work within? And
finally, the biggest question of all, how do
you measure success? How will you know, when
will you know, how do you measure success?
How you define it to, what does success look
like? So that we can all know something?
You'd be shocked at the number of corporations, businesses
and entities who put large amounts of money up and
go, cool, let's do it and then get
all upset Because No one asked these questions. One
of the things we do, I'm gonna skip over
this kind of quickly. But one of the things
we also do, this is just a rough of
a white board is I want you to look,
I don't want you to see that. I don't
care about the words. I just want you to
look at the way the whiteboard broken down. Notice
the thinking actually starts with the person, the audience
, the customer. We begin there and address their
needs. Next we move into the offerings that we
have. And then finally, we also want to
talk about the world that exists, thoughts and perceptions
that are out there. And we begin to build
these things together to get new insights in two ways
that we can help people in two ways that we
can benefit others. It is 1700 and we're all
on a ship together, we're flying the Union Jack
and we're headed to the New World. And we
noticed the captain is on the back of the ship
with the Xo looking out towards the horizon. We
can't see a thing. And they seem to be
concerned something's going on. And then we see a
dot on the horizon and the dot is getting closer
. And then the captain turns to the Xo.
The Xo goes downstairs, we hear commotion, we
hear noise, we hear things happening and we see
tension on the deck and wonder I know what's going
on here. And that ship is closer. That
ship is faster than we are and getting closer.
We know something is not right until that ship gets
close enough to us and then it runs its flag
up. Yeah, this is one of the most
powerful brands in the world. It's just a symbol
. Let me tell you what it means when that
flag went up on that ship. Every sailor on
that pirate ship. New without the captain even saying
a word. We are no longer sailors. We're
pirates. We're fighters. And on our ship other
than shaking in our boots, we are captain didn't
have to say a word either because that brand was
so strong. Another ship. All he had to
say was, oh, and we knew one of
two things are gonna occur here. Either we are
going to surrender this ship or we're all dead.
Yeah, powerful brands are like that, Not like
this. Like that powerful brands are the essence of
something and they stand for something. Okay. Oh
, don't touch that one. Jim. Let me
tell you what A brand is not. A brand
is not a logo. A brand is not an
ad. A brand is not a slogan. A
brand is not a web page, a poster and
a brand is not a video or a package.
Yeah. A brand is with people who experience it
. Experience it ultimately will say it is. That's
what a brand is. It's what people will experience
in their encounter with you because they're gonna be left
with the feeling of something. But you can design
that brand from common aspiration dream or purpose. You
can create and manage that brand, you can own
it. You can, as a matter of fact
, let me flip it all around for you.
Let's do it the opposite way. You design your
brand from a common aspiration dream or purpose. You
create and manage the story, the daily practice of
that brand that's called exceptional. Your brand is what
people who experience it and say it is that's called
useful, which is then reflected in a logo,
in a video, in an action, in a
relationship, in an architecture and anything else you're going
to do, and most especially it has to be
your brand. Thank you. Mr walt Disney,
The more you like yourself, the less you're like
everybody else. He said It has to be yours
. No one else's, No one else is and
that is very, very critical. Yes, I
used a lot on this campus. You know,
Red Bull has a brand and by the way it's
not a drink. You know what their belief is
with the customer at the center. Give wings to
people in their dreams. That's it. That's the
core of the company. I work with one of
the marketing folks from a Red Bull, that's all
they talk about day in day out, How to
make dreams happen for people Even if they're jumping what
, 80,000 ft out of whatever, what is your
brand? What is your core? What is your
soul? See the arrows around it, that's how
, distribution, sales, marketing, logo. All
those things come off of that brand. Excuse me
. Let's change the word from brand of Soul and
Core. Come off of that core. That core
meaning 3500 products, but only has one purpose,
refresh the world, Refresh the world. That's it
. That's why they come to work every day and
their ideas and their thoughts build upon that. Just
something to think about. What is your core?
What is your core with them? At the center
, With them at the center and your passion residing
there with it. Each of you, your passion
residing there with it. One more thing if you're
going to invent the future of libraries at Virginia Tech
, an innovative and unique library needs an innovative and
unique position in the hearts and minds of all and
you're also going to need a wonderful story. I
want to be a part of your story, not
just a part of your brand. I want to
be in the story with you. I want to
be in your story. What is your story?
What is that core? And what is that soul
? Therefore the design for library understands the meaning of
design, not just the style, but his empathy
, meaning and self. It focuses on a user
centred attitude for the customer and where they're headed and
what they're doing. It is also a platform and
a hub for all of those experiences that comes together
from that core. It is emergent on a consistent
basis, seeking always that which is exceptional, that
which is useful and that which is beautiful with the
story, with a story that your people and your
friends, your employees, whoever is part of it
, can be a part of you're doing this,
you're headed there. Why? Because as of this
day, as of this moment, every one in
this room, our designers thank you very much.