Morningstar headquarters image by Kahler Slater

A recent Fast Company article (for my part, a must-read for senior leaders) creates a compelling case on “Why Good Design Is Finally A Good Bottom Line Investment.” But how many businesses today, particularly service businesses, are leveraging design as a decisive advantage? Truth is, even with Apple’s rise and an increasing number of design disciples, not many.

One shining exception is Morningstar, a leading provider of independent investment research in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. To say that Morningstar wholly integrates design into their business model might be an understatement. As a design case study of the company puts it, design is “so tightly woven into how they operate, that it is difficult to imagine Morningstar without it.”

My introduction to Morningstar began with my ongoing studies of organizations named to the annual “100 Best Companies to Work For” and “Best Small & Medium Workplaces” lists, published by Fortune magazine and produced by the Great Place to Work Institute. (My company, design firm Kahler Slater, is proud to have appeared on the “Best Small Workplaces” list nine years running.) Subsequently, I met Bevin Desmond, Morningstar’s president of international operations and global human resources, at thebswift Summit, an annual HR and benefits symposium, where she and I were both presenters. In hearing about Morningstar’s best practices, I knew I had to learn more about the company—an organization who is clearly putting design at the fore of their business thinking.

From the very beginning, design was a key differentiator for Morningstar. And it started at the top. Morningstar Chairman and CEO Joe Mansueto, who founded the business in 1984 in his one-bedroom Chicago apartment, made graphic design a discernible driver in delivering on the company’s initial goal: to simultaneously demystify and enliven mutual fund analysis—with its massively complex, mind-numbing financial data—for individual investors.

The use of what we now know as “infographics” helped Morningstar soar. The business grew swiftly and substantially, and today, less than 30 years later, it is a $3.2 billion company operating in 27 countries and offering an extensive line of products and services for individuals, financial advisors, and institutions.

Early on at Morningstar, Mansueto also spent $50,000 (no small sum at the time) for a corporate logo created by the legendary designer Paul Rand, responsible for the logos of long-established corporations such as IBM, Westinghouse, and ABC. To commission a designer of Rand’s stature, the éminence grise of corporate identity design, was a defining moment for a small, relatively unknown company, and has become part of Morningstar’s mythology. (To this day, Mansueto says it was one of his best early business decisions.)

Morningstar brings a laser-like focus to all aspects of design, including its application to brand identity, products, communications, and the architecture and interiors of their workplaces. On a recent visit to their Chicago headquarters, I was awestruck at how every touchpoint, so simply and precisely, elevates the impression of the Morningstar brand. In my experience, such internal and external brand alignment is a rare and precious find.

David Williams, managing director of design at Morningstar, has been instrumental in establishing design as one of the company’s core capabilities. He and his team, a 65-person staff and cadre of consultants globally, create collaboratively across multiple disciplines to connect each and every facet of design to the user experience. Moreover, Williams has a seat at the strategic table, one reason why Morningstar received AIGA Chicago’s Corporate Design Leadership Award in 2010 for advancing design “by promoting it as a meaningful business policy.”

As for design being a bottom-line investment, Mansueto says, “I think the cost-benefit payoff is very, very high, but I can’t give you a specific number or way to measure it.” Don Phillips, president of Morningstar’s Investment Research division, also says any company placing major emphasis on what can be measured “will inevitably underestimate design since it is not easy to measure.” Still, no one can deny Morningstar’s business and financial prosperity or the excellence of their talent and workplace culture.

The belief that good design is good business was reinforced in a recent 60 Minutes interview with David Kelley, founder of the renowned design firm IDEO and head of the “d.school” at Stanford University, an innovative, non-degreed design program, which introduces non-designers—executives, educators, scientists, doctors, and lawyers, among others—to the problem-solving concept known as “design thinking.” In listening to Kelley’s conversation with 60 Minutes correspondent Charlie Rose, I got excited about the next generation of leaders who, like Mansueto, as well as the students at the d.school, will recognize design as a business imperative.

Is design a business imperative at your company? Are you leveraging design to differentiate your products or services? Do both your employee and customer touchpoints elevate your brand expression? If you’re nodding your head “yes,” congratulations: you’re ahead of the curve. And if you’re not, what can you do, starting now, to change that?

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on April 2, 2013.

To comment on this article, please follow the discussion on Forbes.com

This post is co-authored with my friend and colleague Michael O’Neill, Ph.D., senior director of workplace research at Knoll, Inc., a leading designer of workplace furnishings. In his work at Knoll, Mike investigates the link between workspace design and human behavior, health and performance, and the quality of the user experience. His discoveries inform product development and inspire companies worldwide in shaping their work environments.

In a sluggish economy, workplace design investments are suffering substantial scrutiny. Corporate execs predictably (and, yes, rightly) want to know, “How will this move the business forward?” and “How will you prove it?”

Instinctively, workplace designers can point to benefits of almost any project. Improved lighting, for instance, increases worker productivity (fewer headaches) and, similarly, better seating reduces absenteeism (less back pain). Still, even with easily quantifiable metrics such as these, convincing recession-weary execs of the value of a design investment is a tough sell. To say nothing of design metrics that are harder to quantify—measurable returns involving issues such as collaboration, creativity and innovation, recruitment and retention, or employee engagement.

But in spite of increasing scrutiny and a new, metrics-crazed environment, most companies lack a formal process by which to measure the value of their workplace design investments. As a result, they lose out on important opportunities to gauge ROI and gain lessons for future projects, including which ideas to keep (and how to improve on them) and which ones to abandon.

The good news is that every organization, no matter the size or type of their workplace design investments, can put a measurement process in place. To get started at your company, Mike recommends four steps:

1. Create a workplace balanced scorecard and metrics. Set up metrics relevant to the intentions of the design investment and the company’s business objectives. Consider measures that reflect financial and behavioral outcomes pertinent to performance. Then, with a less-is-more approach, select only a few high-impact metrics. Also, don’t collect any data unless you know in advance exactly how you plan to use it.

2. Establish baseline measures. Baseline measures are central to assessing the success of your efforts over time. Use employee surveys to learn people’s perceptions of issues tied to your design goals, such as the level of physical comfort, degree of collaboration, or quality of group decision-making. Collect measures from other sources, too, including HR databases on retention rates, health claims costs, and the like. By establishing baseline measures at a global consulting group, Mike was able to identify specific design features that predict higher employee engagement scores, thereby showing a direct relationship between the physical work environment and business performance.

3. Collect and report data regularly. Provide an ongoing stream of objective information that keeps your design investment aligned with business goals. Make your reports simple, enabling everyone to understand and appreciate the results. Time and again, data-minded companies identify opportunities and threats earlier and better manage employee expectations.

4. Remember the human component. Like any change effort, even the smartest design investment can fail if employees don’t buy in to the endeavor. Make sure people support and engage with your project by helping them understand it—the purpose, the process, and more. During a major renovation, execs at one West Coast company were facing intense frustration and negativity from workers. At Mike’s suggestion, leadership started a dialogue with employees with a short survey and, thereafter, held regular “listening meetings” where people could ask questions and voice their concerns. Within a short time, attitudes changed dramatically.

Workplace design investments can and do create measurable value. Follow these four steps on your next project and you’ll face questions from cautious execs with confidence and clarity.

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on February 18, 2013.

To comment on this article, please follow the discussion on Forbes.com

Elgin Community College features many small break out study spaces for students. Photo by Kate Joyce.

Recently, Universum, a global employer-branding group, released the findings from their annual Ideal Employer Student Survey. More than 65,000 students from some 320 universities participated in the survey, ultimately resulting in the U.S. Universum Top 100—the country’s most attractive employers according to collegiate Millennials.

In reading the Universum report and, in particular, an article on “the new workplace wish list,” I was struck by the extraordinary expectations that Millennials are bringing to our companies—employers competing for their young, tech-savvy talent. Moreover, I wondered how colleges and universities are responding to similar challenges.

I sat down with my Kahler Slater colleague Larry Schnuck, leader of our Higher Education team, to learn more. A senior principal and award-winning architect, Larry plans and designs learning environments on college and university campuses, specializing in medical and health sciences. He is an innovator and thought leader in his field, and his work creating interdisciplinary education environments garners global attention.

I asked Larry to share how universities are using design to help meet Millennials’ expectations and, likewise, how such solutions can—and should—influence employers. He pointed to three key themes: cross-discipline collaboration, teamwork, and flexibility and freedom. Here are highlights from our conversation:

Barbara: Cross-disciplinary collaboration? Really? I think of college campuses as the true originators of silos.

Larry: The trend today is to cluster similar learning environments in one facility rather than separate them according to a specific college. This not only responds to space and budget constraints but also a real desire to develop innovative thinkers.

For instance, in designing the new School of Nursing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, we created space for biomedical engineering courses. This provides engineering students with invaluable opportunities to interact with nursing students, often in simulated healthcare environments, prior to developing medical equipment.

Barbara: Tell me more about the growing focus on teamwork. What are you seeing there?

Larry: College and university educators have come to recognize that people learn differently – in different ways, at different times, in different places. This has led to a continuing transformation in how classrooms are being designed, particularly to support students working together in teams.

Most significant is a fundamental shift with respect to how learning happens. Teachers are no longer talking heads stationed at the front of the room. Now they are participants in an active learning experience where students work together in small groups. Thus, classroom environments are being designed to place the instructor at the center of the room and, more importantly, to promote teaming, typically in up to 10-person groups. This is a dramatic departure from the traditional tiered lecture hall. In designing the new Health and Life Sciences Building at Elgin Community College, for example, we created several small breakout spaces in what once would have been very large, static lecture halls.

We’re also seeing that students want learning environments to be more real, rather than theoretical, to better prepare them for the work world.

Additionally, in this age of technology and information, higher educators know that by providing more opportunities for teaming, they’re offering students greater access to larger amounts of information.

Barbara: And the call for flexibility and freedom? How are universities responding to students’ expectations there?

Larry: Today, students expect around-the-clock access to a number of casual, communal spaces, such as coffeehouses and cafes. They want tremendous flexibility and freedom to work how they want to, when they want to, whether that is interacting casually, functioning more formally in groups or teams, or operating on their own. This is having a huge impact in how campus environments are being designed.

Flexibility is also critical in another way. In higher education, we can hardly predict needs two years out let alone two decades out, which is often the amount of time colleges and universities endure before new environments are created.  As designers, then, we’re challenged with creating the most flexible environments possible, ones that can adapt over a period of 20 years or more.

Barbara: What parting thoughts or advice would you offer to leaders who want to appeal to the Millennials you’re designing for today?

Larry: Build bridges, not walls, between diverse departments. Develop policies, practices, and places that support continuing teamwork. And be prepared for highly self-directed talented individuals who expect freedom and flexibility wherever they choose to work.

So what are you doing to attract and retain Millennials at your company?

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on January 10, 2013.

To comment on this article, please follow the discussion on Forbes.com

New Jersey Shore Before Superstorm Sandy, Image by Barbara Armstrong

Long before Snooki made Seaside Heights a mecca for bad behavior, I made the Jersey Shore my own as a wide-eyed young girl. Now, in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, the largest Atlantic hurricane on record, what remains of my Jersey Shore are memories … and questions.

I grew up in West Orange, New Jersey, and spent my summers in Manasquan, one of the many Jersey Shore towns scoured by Sandy. As a girl, the Shore’s beaches were my solace. I was comforted by the sound of the surf, the rhythm of the tide, and the shoreline treasure hunts I frequently took with my mother. Often my mother would remind me that if a delicate seashell could survive the violent tumbles of the ocean, then I too could weather the turbulent times in life. Summer after summer, the ocean taught me countless more life lessons, from how to ride the waves in rough conditions to the importance of respecting what’s profoundly more powerful than me.

Now, living a thousand miles away in Milwaukee, I see in Sandy’s wrath that the ocean may be offering a brand-new set of lessons. Might the ocean be reclaiming its right to the land? Or can, and will, we protect the Shore from super storms to come?

As a principal at a century-old architecture and design enterprise, I know that lands can be fortified and structures can be strengthened in an effort to withstand nature’s fury. Yet, in watching how post-9/11 security concerns can make virtual fortresses out of landmark buildings, I also know that well-intended ideas can have unintended consequences. At the Jersey Shore, I shudder at the idea of seeing bunkers on beachfronts or seawalls in place of sunrises. Odds are millions of others do, too.

It’s too soon for fiery debates about the future. (Not that some haven’t already begun.) It’s not too soon, however, to ask big design and planning questions. After all, history tells us that with great devastation comes great opportunity.

Consider, for example, the birth of modern architecture—a remarkable result of the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. The conflagration burned for three days, killing hundreds and destroying an area covering nearly four square miles, including over 18,000 buildings. Just days later, in a passionate speech to the New York Chamber of Commerce, Chicago newspaperman William Bross said, “What she has been in the past she must become in the future, and a hundredfold more.” The subsequent “Great Rebuilding” led to a new and bigger and better Chicago. Today, the Jersey Shore deserves such leadership, innovation, and triumph.

My Jersey Shore will live on in my heart. In her honor, and in honor of the entire Eastern Seaboard, I ask these big design and planning questions:

How much of the landscape should belong to nature, and what limits to design and building must be considered?

How can private and commercial interests best co-exist to ensure both economic vitality and free public access?

How can design guidelines serve to recreate the rich character and textures of the diverse pre-Sandy architecture? And might such guidelines do more to help or hinder the rebuilding process?

To what extent should sustainable design principles be encouraged or required?

How can a spirit of community be cultivated throughout the design process? How can all voices be genuinely engaged and heard as options are being explored?

As I write this post, I’m just hours away from traveling back to the Jersey Shore. Surely my heart will break as I see the devastation up close. Yet, through my inevitable tears, I will also see opportunity. With strong leadership and sound design and planning, we can create a triumphant new Jersey Shore.

Does the Shore hold a special place in your heart? I hope you’ll leave a comment with your own big design and planning questions.

To support the American Red Cross in their Sandy relief efforts, you can learn more or make a financial donation here.

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on November 16, 2012.

To comment on this article, please follow the discussion on Forbes.com

Door County Fall Color Image by Barbara Armstrong

Earlier this month I escaped the office for a weeklong painting retreat in the woods of Door County, Wisconsin. While working amidst the awe-inspiring fall colors, it occurred to me that the dynamics of painting and problem solving have a lot in common. I returned home not only with newly polished painting skills but also a fresh perspective on managing problems at work, whether in my role as a designer, team leader, or firm principal.

As a leader at your company, you may need to adjust your own attitude on approaching problems. I learned four lessons while painting that might help:

1. How you see things depends on your line of sight. When painting a landscape, countless choices are yours. For starters, you can choose where to place the horizon and what you eliminate from the actual setting. If the existing landscape is cluttered, for instance, you can exclude elements that detract from your focal point. Likewise, in problem solving, getting caught up in the clutter diminishes your ability to reach your desired result. Choose instead to focus on the bigger picture.

2. People can see the same landscape and represent it in totally different ways. One day I sat with two other painters in a microclimate with magnificent sugar maples. Much to my surprise, our final paintings were totally different. A similar phenomenon occurs in problem solving: Any number of people can arrive at the same situation with different ideas, skills, or resources. They can also have different designs on the end result. In this way, respecting where others are coming from is critical to problem solving. One tool we use at our company is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a framework for understanding different personality types and preferences. I find MBTI to be especially helpful in considering how my colleagues seek to solve problems.

3. When light is shined on a subject, you can explore what lies in the shadows. It can be harder to paint landscapes on cloudy days. The various forms and contrasts are less clear, and it’s difficult to explore what lies in the shadows. When the sun is shining, however, the distinctions between objects are clearly visible and what lies in the shadows is revealed. The same goes for problem solving: When you shine a light on an issue, you see everything more clearly, including what opportunities or threats exist in the shadows.

4. Collaborating with people at different levels can foster appreciation for diverse ideas and perspectives. At the retreat there were painters at every level, from first-timers to fine artists. I learned something from each one, particularly when our group came in from the woods and worked together in the studio. I opened myself up to others’ unique observations and feedback, and ultimately felt more energized and creative. Additionally, I was struck by our instructor’s capacity to calibrate her critiques to our individual skill levels. Similarly, in problem solving, it’s important to meet others where they are, not where you might want them to be. Know where your colleagues or reports are starting from and adjust your responses accordingly. You will support rather than stifle people’s efforts.

Odds are there is a business or leadership problem on your desk today. How might even one of these four lessons help you brush up your problem-solving skills?

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on October 24, 2012.

To comment on this article, please follow the discussion on Forbes.com

Martha Jefferson Hospital Image by Dana Wheelock Photography

As an enterprise of architects and designers, we often hear that our work is beautiful. Still, just as a beautiful woman often proves that she’s “more than a pretty face,” we often prove—with hard-and-fast results—that our beautiful design work is pretty smart, too. One example is our recent collaboration with Martha Jefferson Hospital, a 176-bed community hospital founded more than a hundred years ago in historic Charlottesville, Virginia.

In August 2011, after a decade-long planning process, Martha Jefferson Hospital left their century-old location and moved across town to a new healthcare campus on Virginia’s Pantops Mountain. Thankfully, not even Hurricane Irene could prevent smooth sailing; the move went remarkably well.

Now, a year later, we, as Martha Jefferson’s longtime design partner, have learned the early, positive outcomes from our work with hospital leadership to re-imagine community healthcare and become the national benchmark community hospital. The highlights?

Martha Jefferson Hospital Image by Dana Wheelock Photography

First, in a field of 300 prominent national competitors, Martha Jefferson won the coveted number-one ranking in Soliant Health’s 2012 Top 20 Most Beautiful Hospitals in the U.S. And lest you think that such awards are frivolous, consider that Martha Jefferson was meticulously designed, utilizing cutting-edge research in 12 realms of therapeutic environments, which together serve to increase quality of care while decreasing costs. This includes enhancing a patient’s rate of healing, as well as reducing stress, the need for pain medication, and length of stay. Known as evidence-based design, this approach rests on using credible data to influence the design process—a real plus in the hearts and minds of today’s data-driven hospital executives, physicians, and staff.

Furthermore, Martha Jefferson won eight national patient satisfaction awards from Professional Research Consultants. Six of these honors are five-star awards, placing Martha Jefferson’s performance in the top 10 percent of hospitals nationwide. In addition, a focus on patient safety led to an extraordinary 80 percent reduction in patient falls. And the hospital’s inpatient care units, while designed to be 30 percent larger (to welcome family and friends while also accommodating patient privacy and increasing amounts of medical equipment), are 20 percent more efficient. And as a result of their efforts on sustainability, a LEED-certified Martha Jefferson (a rare accomplishment for any hospital) reduced their energy costs by an impressive 35 percent.

And, finally, according to the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS), Martha Jefferson’s overall patient satisfaction scores increased by more than 21 percent, placing the hospital well above the national average. Their scores for quietness and cleanliness, among other dimensions, also increased by up to 36 percent. And since HCAHPS success has become a business driver for hospitals, these results are especially good news.

In a current pay-for-performance trial by the federal government, the types of metrics we’ve discussed here are directly tied to Medicare reimbursement rates. The higher the quality and value of the care, the higher the reimbursement. Imagine that—at last, the healthcare industry might be learning what the business world has known for years.

Also, it’s important to note that smart, beautiful design need not be expensive. At Martha Jefferson, we worked with a mid-range budget and met the rigorous review process of the State of Virginia Certificate of Public Need. In other words, within the range of what’s being designed and built in healthcare today, America’s Most Beautiful Hospital was not the most expensive.

So, yes, Martha Jefferson Hospital is more than a pretty face. Their results, in just one year, tell the story—and say that smart design is a beautiful thing.

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on September 20, 2012.

To comment on this article, please follow the discussion on Forbes.com

Image by Todd Pearson/Digital Vision/Getty Images

Smart hospitality leaders know one thing for sure: a great guest experience begins with a great first impression. And according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, hotels everywhere are energizing their efforts to “dazzle guests during the first, crucial 15 minutes of their stay—or at least avoid annoying them.”

Yet great first impressions shouldn’t be confined to hotels. They should exist in every environment. This includes hospitals, schools, stadiums, retail outlets, and corporate offices. (And even this blog.)

What’s the big deal with first impressions? And why is it absolutely bloody critical to intentionally design a great one?

The first impression of a person, product, or place sets the bar for any relationship. When you raise the bar, and manage to keep it there, odds are you can build an enduring relationship with a customer. Plus, today, first impressions are even more critical because of social media. People can tweet and post Facebook updates about an experience in real time. Their first impression—good or bad—can be broadcast in an instant to hundreds or even thousands of people.

It’s been said that the first impression is the last impression. In the hotel world, one high-end executive puts it this way: “If you lose them at the beginning, it is very hard to recover. In their mind they’ve decided it is a bad hotel.”

Moreover, many customers these days are turning their backs, often literally, on human interactions and, part and parcel, having real relationships with companies. Instead, most are gravitating to self-service, whether on the Internet or at physical locations such as airport kiosks and ATM machines. Apost at the Harvard Business Review Blog Network reports that “corporate leaders dramatically overestimate the extent to which their customers actually want to talk to them.”

So the question is this: as a leader, how do you consider customers’ growing preference for self-service and, at the same time, make a great first impression on a human level? You can start by understanding the importance of the “arrival experience.”

Fine hotels, in particular, have known the magnitude of the arrival experience for decades. But it’s never too late for your business, and even small things can have a big impact. Consider these three tips, all practiced by fine hotels:

Follow the 10/4 Rule. Fine hotels know the value of a warm welcome. When greeting guests, many abide by the “10/4 Rule”: make eye contact and smile at 10 feet, and verbally greet at four feet. This rule applies around the clock, whether a guest arrives at 3 p.m. (a seemingly ideal time for a hotel arrival) or at 3 a.m. (“Oh, no—another flight delay”).

Make all your offerings visible. At fine hotels, a guest can generally see all the available offerings—valet, restaurant, bar, retail shops, etc.—on the journey to his or her room. If an offering isn’t visible, such as a fitness or business center, guests will almost certainly see photos in an elevator or some other prominent place. Resorts, specifically, expand on this approach. At the Arizona Biltmore, for instance, the main drive passes the clubhouse and porte-cochere, along with an exclusive residential development. And just past the registration area are the main restaurant, the fine-dining restaurant, and the lobby bar, which spills out to the terrace, next to the retail shops, all overlooking the picturesque lawn, fountain, and mountains. (You get the picture.)

Recognize that not all experiences are created equal. Fine hotels understand that an arrival experience can vary greatly from guest to guest. Some hotel experiences are short-term, such as a business lunch at the hotel restaurant. Other experiences are medium-term—a half- or full-day at the spa or conference center, for example. And other experiences still are relatively long-term, including overnight or weeklong stays. Each arrival experience, then, is designed accordingly.

Also, keep in mind that an arrival experience can begin well before a customer steps into a physical location. It can start, for instance, with a phone call, a visit to a website, a vehicular entry, or a pedestrian access point to a building.

Now, tell me: what could fine hotels learn about first impressions from your business? I’d love to hear about it.

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on August 23, 2012.

To comment on this article, please follow the discussion on Forbes.com

Earlier this month I was in Las Vegas to participate in a workshop presented byDelivering Happiness at Work, a part of the “Delivering Happiness” movement spawned by the book of the same name by Tony Hsieh, the 38-year-old CEO of online retailer Zappos. While there, I got an update on Zappos’ plans to relocate their headquarters from a business park in the suburban city of Henderson, Nev., to downtown Las Vegas, an area that Time magazine recently described as “a sketchy collection of crappy buildings, empty lots, dowdy old casinos, and one tourist draw, the Fremont Street Experience.” This downtown may be just two miles north of the glittering Strip, but to many it feels light years away.

As a guest of Delivering Happiness, I stayed at the Ogden, a new downtown high-rise, which Hsieh now calls home. Hsieh’s condo is on the 23rd floor, and while at a gathering there, I got a bird’s-eye view of the neighborhood where the future Zappos HQ, in a structure previously occupied by City Hall, will have a prominent influence.

Inspired by the work of pioneering urban economist Edward Glaeser, author of Triumph of the City (Penguin), Hsieh has become intensely interested and invested in downtown Las Vegas. By all accounts, he is investing $350 million of his own fortune to remake the area, a renaissance that gave way to his latest company, the Downtown Project. The project will nurture tech start-ups, small businesses, art and design, education, and more. Additionally, it will develop real estate to provide well over 2,000 Zappos employees a place to live, work, and play, all in one smart, sweeping urban setting.

Today, any CEO worth his or her salt knows that a company’s headquarters can be a powerful tool by which to attract and retain talent. Hsieh is clearly such a leader. His plans for Zappos’ new HQ, as an integral part of the Downtown Project, speak directly to the organization’s cultural ethos: it is a highly spirited, social culture that thrives on an intense, inclusive commitment to connectedness and community. (The company ranks No. 11 on the 2012 Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list.)

Hsieh initially thought about modeling the new Zappos campus after companies such as Nike or Google. But here’s what he articulated in aninterview for Time:

“We realized those campuses were actually really insular and didn’t contribute or interact with the community around them. We decided to turn it inside out, and rather than invest in the campus solely, let’s invest in the community ecosystem, which will then feed upon itself and become a win-win-win for employees, for Zappos, for local businesses, for the city.”

Another high-profile company is also generating buzz with the plans for their new headquarters: Apple.

In June 2011, Apple unveiled the details of a planned new HQ at a Cupertino City Council meeting. The project was, and still is, so important to the company that no less than then-CEO Steve Jobs made the presentation. It would be Jobs’ last public appearance before his death just two months later.

The sheer size and scale of the new Apple campus cannot be overstated. The headquarters will replace 26 office buildings (some previously occupied by HP) with one massive ring-shaped structure—a four-story, 2.8-million-square-feet circular building that will house up to 13,000 employees. According to plans released last month by the City of Cupertino, the campus, which will cover a 175-acre area, will also feature a separate corporate fitness center and a 1,000-seat auditorium, along with an additional 300,000 square feet of research facilities and a low-carbon central plant that will supply the majority of the power needed for the campus. The backdrop for all this will be a lush tree-filled landscape—an Apple oasis, if you will.

According to Jobs, the new HQ building is “a little like a spaceship landed.” (Others are already calling it “iSpaceship.”) Yet, in seeing the design for the first time, I was most struck by the structure’s seemingly impenetrable fortress-like form. I thought about how a circle, by its very nature, creates a feeling of exclusion to those on the outside.

Undoubtedly, the Apple HQ design, created by the venerable London-based firm Foster & Partners, will be superbly crafted. What sticks in my mind, however, is that the culture of Apple, frequently described as astonishingly secretive and insular, is appreciably represented by this design.

To be clear, neither design approach here—by Apple nor Zappos—is good or bad, right or wrong. Both reflect and reinforce the respective organization’s personality and culture. And the lesson, or aha, to leaders is profoundly evident: a company’s headquarters design can tell us a lot.

So, what does your headquarters design or location reveal about your company’s culture?

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on July 31, 2012.

Shhhh … Don’t tell anyone, but as I write this post, I’m “hiding” in a remote conference room in our design firm’s open workspace.

Seriously, it’s moments like this—when I pine for privacy to think and write—that make me question the value of open-plan workplace design. Now, don’t get me wrong; an extrovert by nature, I enjoy the engagement in an open work environment. When I really need to think, however, I have to retreat to a quiet, private space. Only then can I actually contemplate and create.

As a specialist in integrating workplace design and culture, I’m routinely asked by clients to create an environment that can both increase productivity and promote collaboration and innovation. This is a tall order.

Open-plan design may inspire collaboration but it can also impede productivity. According to a recent New York Times article, noise is a serious problem in the open-plan office, and speech, because it is directly understood in the brain’s working memory, is the most disturbing type of sound. Likewise, when a conversation carries to an “unwilling listener,” his or her performance measurably declines in cognitive tasks such as reading, writing, and other forms of creative work.

In spite of this, market demands have all the major office furniture manufacturers, including Knoll, feverishly rolling out solutions for creating a “collaborative workplace.” (And this is not to overlook how a weak economic recovery has every company also seeking to save space and money.) Among the countless different solutions are benching and smaller, panel-less cubicles.

So as workers forego their privacy, audibly and visibly, how can they get any work done, let alone increase their productivity? Moreover, how can introverts—those who by nature are energized by solitude—really produce in open workspaces?

At TED2012, author and self-identified introvert Susan Cain gave a passionate talk aiding the argument that today’s office design must still support contemplation and individual work. Cain acknowledged the value of serendipitous interactions that occur in workplace cafés and the like. Yet, since introverts comprise up to a half of society, she also contended that the workplace must consider their unique needs.

Even as an extrovert, I understand Cain’s point of view. Still, the privacy I require to write this post, for instance, runs counter to my clients’ cries for designing collaboration-driven workplaces. How can two opposing ideas—the need for collaboration and the need for privacy—be realized in a single design solution? One word: choice. Additionally, choice can be demonstrated in both the physical and cultural aspects of an organization’s work environment.

Having ample space for contemplation, collaboration, and casual collisions presents workers with critical choices. In other words, the physical workplace that offers many diverse settings for a variety of work needs is one answer.

At our company, an architecture and design enterprise, teamwork is tantamount to optimal performance. Accordingly, at our headquarters office in Milwaukee, we provide one private meeting space for every eight staff members. Additionally, we have several open spaces where more casual collaborations can occur, including a café, kitchen, and library, as well as wide corridors with alcoves. Many of the private spaces can be reserved, whether for group or individual work, while others are left open for immediate access. This combination of spaces provides plenty of opportunities for our numerous introverts (along with “situational introverts” such as myself) to retreat from noise and other distractions.

An organization’s cultural environment can also help meet workers’ individual needs for privacy. A culture that allows or even encourages employees to work off site when needed is one such example. Moreover, new technologies, such as video or Web conferencing, can support workers who want to work with more privacy off site yet still be accessible to others. A culture built on trust between leadership and employees is also important.

According to the 2012 State of the Industry Report by CoreNet Global, a corporate real estate association, the continuing demand for the workplace is to serve as a central place for collaboration. Similarly, The Smart Workplace in 2030, a report by global manufacturer Johnson Controls, predicts that the permanent physical location of work will be “The Hive,” a more agile workplace that responds to “a complex and competitive world focused on collaboration, innovation, and creativity.”

As long as leaders pay attention to workers’ diverse needs for collaboration and privacy, the future of workplace design looks bright. And now that my work here is done, I can relinquish the privacy of this conference room … and reconnect with my colleagues in our open workspace.

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on May 24, 2012.

The Great Place to Work Institute recently held its annual conference, and I participated as a presenter and a representative of Kahler Slater, where we’re proud to be among the Best Companies to Work For eight years running. I also deeply resonated with a theme that emerged over the course of the conference: the critical connection between a purpose-driven culture and business success.

John Mackey, co-founder and co-CEO of Whole Foods Market, opened the conference with a captivating keynote. Mackey contended that companies with a “conscious culture” and “higher purpose” inspire employees to reach their greatest potential, as well as help support the fight against the current “purpose crisis” in America.

“Businesses in the 21st century need to shift focus from profitmaximization to purpose maximization,” argued Mackay. In fully aligning your organization’s strategies, systems, and structures around a higher purpose, he said, you will almost certainly realize business results—“making more money than you thought possible.”

Mackey spoke about Whole Foods’ purpose-driven business model, with its focus on “whole foods, whole people, whole planet,” and how this model empowers the company’s 62,000 employees and plays a huge role in the organization’s success. In one specific example, he talked about Whole Foods’ Total Health Immersion Program, an internal initiative whereby at-risk employees receive intensive health and wellness education geared toward sustaining positive lifestyle changes.

With great passion, Mackey underscored the power of purpose and values and a conscious culture: it energizes and engages employees, promotes creativity and innovation, and helps businesses achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.

Dr. John Noseworthy, president and CEO of Mayo Clinic, was another keynoter at the conference. Dr. Noseworthy spoke on “The Power of One” and, specifically, how the culture at Mayo Clinic helps employees recognize their individual role in achieving the organization’s purpose in providing “an unparalleled experience as the most trusted partner in health care.” In one story, Dr. Noseworthy described how a staff member, when asked what her job was by a visiting media crew, responded, “I save lives.” This particular employee, however, was not a doctor or researcher but, instead, a custodian. Such clarity of purpose, explained Dr. Noseworthy, helps all 56,000 employees at Mayo Clinic find meaning in their work and understand their true value to the organization.

In my presentation, my colleague Kelly Gaglione joined me to address the significance of storytelling in the workplace—leveraging, as numerous Best Companies already do, the physical work environment to connect employees with their organization’s purpose, values, history, and accomplishments. This strategy, while underutilized in many companies, serves to cultivate company pride, celebrate and recognize employees’ contributions, and reinforce the cultural narrative.

In linking storytelling to organizational purpose and values, Kelly and I spoke about the Happiness Framework presented in Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose (Business Plus, 2010), a book by Tony Hsieh, the visionary CEO at online retailer Zappos. Hsieh, a keynoter at last year’s conference, shows how connecting employees with values and meaning serves as one path to happiness. Today, he’s also building a consultancy,Delivering Happiness at Work, around the importance of a values-based culture in achieving both happiness and business success. Zappos’ renowned culture, remarkable growth, and robust financial performance stand testament to this philosophy and approach.

Throughout many other keynotes and breakout sessions, presenters depicted a variety of companies where employees are authentically aligned with their organization’s purpose and values and, accordingly, the business is thriving even in these tough economic times.

So, as a leader, what are you doing in this regard? Are you focusing on profits or purpose? Are you supporting employees in finding real meaning in their work? And, across your workplace, are you connecting people to your company’s unique story? On the heels of the Great Place to Work Conference, I challenge you to think about these questions … and take action.

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on April 26, 2012.

In a provocative post at Forbes.com, contributor Steve Denning, a leadership and innovation expert, writes, “The Creative Economy is a huge opportunity that awaits us.”

Denning contends that the creative economy is “one in which the driving force is innovation.” His abundant ideas—a call to action to leaders in business and government—inspired me on many levels, similarly to Richard Florida’s classic book The Rise of the Creative Class (Basic Books, 2003).

My initial, gut response was to seek out a conversation locally, here in my home base of Milwaukee, with Christine Harris, former executive director ofCreative Alliance Milwaukee and, today, a key advisor to the organization, which covers the seven-county area that makes up the southeastern Wisconsin region.

The mission at Creative Alliance Milwaukee is “to drive economic prosperity as a catalytic hub, growing our creative industries by leveraging applied creativity in education, commerce, and culture.” To support this mission, the group, under Harris’s leadership, commissioned an independent, yearlong study called “Creativity Works!” The study, the first of its kind in the Midwest, was conducted by Mt. Auburn Associates, a widely respected Boston-based economic development consulting firm, and the findings were presented last year.

I sat down with Harris recently to discuss the economic significance of the region’s creative industries (presently defined as “those individuals and businesses whose products and services originate in aesthetic, artistic, or cultural content”) and what business leaders concerned about creativity and innovation could learn from the work of Creative Alliance Milwaukee. Here are highlights from that conversation:

Barbara Armstrong: Creative Alliance Milwaukee commissioned a comprehensive study on the economic impact of the region’s creative industries. What was your primary objective?

Christine Harris: In tough economic times, too many communities de-prioritize investments around creativity and culture, often perceiving them as “nice” but not “necessary.” We didn’t want that to happen in Milwaukee. So we set out to prove that our creative industries are an essential part of our region’s economic health. Additionally, we wanted to help secure the long-term attractiveness of the region and support business growth and competitiveness overall.

As part of our process, we measured the value of our creative industries according to customary economic assessments, including the number of workers across those industries and those workers’ respective wages. We were inspired by similar studies in states such as Colorado and Massachusetts, as well as in the European Union, where several successful strategies surrounding the creative economy are in place.

Barbara Armstrong: What were some of the key findings from the study, and what initial results have you seen from capitalizing on them?

Christine Harris: We learned that our region’s creative industries comprise a significant economic industry cluster, with strong penetration across all businesses and counties. Relative to total employment in the region, these industries represent 4.2 percent of the employee population, exceeding the national average of 3.7 percent. Additionally, our creative industries generate more than $2 billion in wages annually, a bona fide boon to the region’s economy.

On a grassroots level, we’ve been quite successful in establishing and facilitating a robust network of creative industry professionals, whereby we’re bridging the private and not-for-profit sectors, along with those working independently. These creative alliances are leading to unique new business opportunities and collaborations. A flooring manufacturer, for example, is now working with a local artist on a new, more artistically inspired product line. Their collaboration has led to a new business for the manufacturer and a new revenue stream for the artist.

Barbara Armstrong: What challenges have you experienced?

Christine Harris: There is currently no national definition for “creative industry” and, therein, has been our greatest challenge: to reach consensus on what really constitutes such an industry. Still, in terms of economic development, we have a seat at the table, and are working closely with the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC) and Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) to help generate a more competitive region.

Barbara Armstrong: What could all business leaders, regardless of the size or type of their organizations, learn from the work of Creative Alliance Milwaukee?

Christine Harris: A fundamental role of any leader is to create a business and work environment that attracts and retains innovative, creative talent. So whether your business is part of a traditional creative industry, such as a design firm or ad agency, or employs a small team of creative talent within another type of industry, you as a leader must be sensitive to the needs of your creative talent, including finding fresh new ways to build up their capacity for creativity and innovation on an ongoing basis.

In businesses where the primary products or services aren’t part of a so-called creative industry, holding on to the best and brightest creative talent may be even more challenging. For instance, a marketing manager or art director in a manufacturing company can easily feel more isolated and in real need of creative connectivity. By consistently providing creative connections, both inside and outside of the organization, the business stands a better chance of engaging and retaining their precious talent.

Conclusion

A recent global leadership study by IBM, a survey of more than 1,500 chief executive officers from 60 countries and 33 industries, points to the correlation between creative thinking and innovation. My personal belief is that the creative economy can, and will, grow and prosper, and regional organizations such as Creative Alliance Milwaukee will play a vital role. As leaders, we must work, individually and collectively, to foster creative connectivity within our companies and our communities to meet the challenges ahead.

“Innovation is what America has always been about,” proclaimed President Obama in his recent State of the Union address. To be sure, Creative Alliance Milwaukee and similar organizations nationwide support the creative spirit at the heart of innovation.

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on April 3, 2012.

This is a guest post written by my colleague Glenn Roby, AIA, an associate principal and head of the Business Environments team at Kahler Slater, a global architecture and design enterprise. An award-winning architect, Glenn works with a variety of entrepreneurial organizations and Fortune 500 companies.

You can’t turn on a television, pick up a magazine, read a blog, or shop without being bombarded by design. Design is now part of the mainstream vocabulary, no longer owned by an elite few. Whether it is a fashion-inspired design show like Project Runway or one of the dozens of home improvement shows, it seems that Americans are obsessed with design. In fact, TVacres.com reports an incredible number of design shows on television today – more than 200! As an architectural designer, I have to admit that my first reaction was to lament the bombardment of design messages for fear that good design was going to be lost in the noise. That is when I realized we have yet to tap the potential of the popularity of design outside traditional consumer markets.

Businesses today know the power of good design and I see it applied differently every day. Design discussions are no longer simply reserved for the end product. Great design is found while developing new services and used to strengthen the culture of companies. These companies stand out, and as a designer I feed off their passion for design. Apple is the obvious example, but there are many more. Kohler Co. has elevated the design of toilets, faucets and bathroom products to a fine art. Their ad campaign is a brilliant mix of haute couture and innovative product design.

Apple and Kohler have created a culture that allows them to truly command design. But do not be intimidated; all businesses can leverage the current “design noise” to produce better results.  Here are a few tips on how to get started.

Start a company dialogue. Use the current design mania as a springboard to creating continuing, company-wide conversations about the power of design within the business. Tom Peters’ book Design is one smart starting point. A quick and easy read, it can help your employees connect the dots between good design and business success.

Demystify design. Even with all of the visibility of design these days, many in business are intimidated by it. The next step in helping anyone command design is to demystify it. One successful strategy is to consider design in terms of experiences. Consider that all things are experienced, and success is measured on the quality of the experience – you will begin to see the benefits of this macro perspective. Experiences are common to all of us and are a powerful way to get people to engage in the design process, whether it is for a new product or improving how you onboard new employees.

Create a vocabulary and process. Having a common vocabulary and process related to design is helpful so your employees have a tool when charged with creating something new or re-imagining a process at your company. At Kahler Slater, we utilize what we call the 5D process, which includes five simple steps: Discover, Dream, Define, Design and Deliver. This process gives us a better foundation to understanding the problem we are trying to solve.  We have taught our staff to use this approach on everything from the design of a new corporate office building to the re-design of our corporate strategic planning process.

Have fun with it. When putting together your next staff event or brainstorming activity, have a little fun with design and creative thinking. Consider a design show inspired competition to generate creative ideas to resolve a business problem.  Limit time, budget and resources throughout the competition and see what happens. We have used the game Scattergories to inspire a client group to name their conference rooms and Pictionary to get non-designers to stretch their creative muscle without words.  A little fun and design competition goes a long way to  result in ideas that never would have been generated with less creative instigation.

While you may not become the next Apple or Kohler overnight, leveraging the design awareness that permeates our society today and applying creative thinking to your next business challenge, will surely get you one step closer.

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on March 1, 2012.

On Sunday, the New York Giants and New England Patriots will meet in Indianapolis for Super Bowl XLVI. By and large, the players’ talent and skills will drive the outcome of the game. Yet, by design, their “workplace” will also play an influential role.

Football stadiums and corporate workplaces have more in common than you might think. Today, both can reinforce culture, impact productivity, and foster feelings of connectedness. And if you know where to look, the similarities are easy to spot.

At design enterprise Kahler Slater, I specialize in integrating workplace design and culture as a competitive talent strategy. In contrast, my colleague and fellow principal, Jeffrey Piette, AIA, specializes in designing professional and college sports venues. We sat down together to compare notes.

Reinforcing culture

When leadership at Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers, embarked on a $295 million redevelopment project in 2001, they made a relatively minute yet meaningful decision: to save three slabs of concrete from the team’s old field tunnel for the new tunnel and later commemorate them with a special plaque. Today, this not only reinforces the Packers’ rich tradition and history but also reminds current players of the greats who came before them, crossing that very concrete as they came on to the field.

That same sense of culture also permeates the classic seating bowl at Lambeau Field. For instance, metal bleachers, as opposed to today’s ubiquitous chair seats, mean that fans can sit closer to the field and, in true Green Bay spirit, also closer to one another—a cultural message that genuinely aligns with the only non-profit, community-owned major league professional sports team in the United States.

Contrast Lambeau Field with Cowboys Stadium, the new $1.3 billion dollar home of the Dallas Cowboys. The largest NFL venue ever built, with the world’s second largest high-definition television screen, this is a sports venue that’s anything but modest. It also reinforces the Cowboys’ larger-than-life culture: “Don’t mess with Texas.”

In the workplace, the best companies also leverage their physical environments to reinforce their cultures. Our research, a study of the Best Companies to Work For in America, reveals how great workplaces utilize visual storytelling to express their values, evoke company pride, engage and recognize employees, and expand on the cultural narrative. Just like the field-tunnel concrete at Lambeau Field, your workplace can—and should—connect employees and visitors to your company’s history and culture.

Impacting productivity

Football fans can influence the outcome of a game with a simple tool: their voices. For instance, the volume at the Metrodome, home of the MinnesotaVikings, rises to uncomfortable levels—a strategy to distract the competition. However, this isn’t just about exuberant Viking fans; the dome at the Metrodome was intentionally designed to reverberate sound back down to the field.

Noise in the workplace also impacts productivity. Studies show that employees whose work is interrupted make 50 percent more mistakes and take twice as long as to finish it. Yet there are numerous design solutions for dealing with workplace noise. Counter to the strategy employed at the Metrodome, many designers concentrate on materials that absorb, not accentuate, sound. Another solution involves designing workplace circulation paths to create focus zones and collaboration zones.

Thermal conditions can also impact productivity. In football, freezing temperatures affect how players perform. They also serve as an advantage for teams accustomed to practicing and playing in the cold. (Ask any football history buff about the immortalized Ice Bowl.)

In the workplace, consider how thermal conditions help or hinder productivity. According to the International Facilities Management Association (IFMA), temperature is the number-one source of employee complaints. Many workers say they are too hot or too cold, sometimes on the same day in the same location. Although solutions exist, they’re costly to implement and, with few real metrics available, leaders can’t easily measure the ROI.

Fostering connectedness

Even in the largest sports venues, the individual fan experience is a crucial design consideration. Today’s fans, in particular, express a desire to feel connected to their friends, family, and fellow fans, not just to what’s happening on the field. This sense of camaraderie and connectedness is an important part of their total game-day experience.

Similarly, in workplaces today, designers must consider the 21st century work experience. Workplaces, like football stadiums, now leverage technology to create social hubs where both heads-down work and employee connections happen simultaneously. In your own work environment, the smartest solutions lie within understanding your culture, your workforce, and the way work really gets done.

So this Super Bowl Sunday, don’t just watch the game—look for the design lessons, too. And on a strictly personal note, go…!

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on February 2, 2012.

Image by ©iStockphoto.com/malerapaso

It’s only mid-January, but for most of us the holidays are already a distant memory.

Still, as I look back at my holiday gifts, both given and received, I can’t help but reflect on how design influenced my choices (on what to give others and what to keep from among my own gifts) and how those insights might be helpful to you, particularly as you design or redesign products or services in the New Year.

My criteria for great design are pretty straightforward and, in essence, center on three considerations: simplicity, purpose, and beauty.

When considering simplicity, I focus on the product, the process, and the package. Is the design of the product or service clean and user-friendly? Is the purchasing process easy? And can the package be opened without risking life or limb?

While holiday shopping at Amazon and Zappos, my answer to each one of those questions was a resounding “Yes.” The products were excellent and plenty diverse. The shopping process was easy (and even fun). And I didn’t need superhuman strength or a PhD to open a single package. From start to finish, my experience was simply wonderful—and wonderfully simple.

Could your customers say the same thing about their interactions with your business? Is your website inviting and accessible? Do your products, processes, and packaging make people smile—or scream? And how do you rate in simplicity overall? Take stock now and commit to continuous improvement.

As a designer, I’m nothing if not practical. Hence, purpose is very important to me. Who needs more stuff, let alone more useless stuff, anyway? At the holidays, for example, I want to give and receive things that enhance life, not take away from it.

Entire industries have been born in response to purposeful design. For instance, think about OXO, a company “dedicated to providing innovative solutions that ease everyday tasks.”

OXO began with a simple question: Why do ordinary kitchen tools hurt your hands? The man who asked that question was Sam Farber, an entrepreneur in the housewares industry. Noticing that his wife Betsey was having difficulty gripping ordinary kitchen tools due to arthritis in her hands, he saw an opportunity to create more comfortable cooking tools that would benefit all users.

Today, with more than 850 products covering many areas of the home, OXO is recognized globally by an array of prestigious institutions, including Harvard Business School and the Royal College of Art, as an example of how a purposeful, well-executed design philosophy not only creates products that are beneficial to end users but is also a sensible business model.

Ask yourself if your company’s products or services have meaning and purpose. Do they enhance customers’ lives? And do they make a difference, however big or small, in the world? These are worthy discussions to have in your business.

Arguably, beauty is fundamental to design. There are also many aspects to beauty; it can be a place, an object, or even an experience. And while Merriam-Webster defines beauty as “the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit,” beauty is also immensely personal and subjective.

Artists make a living creating beauty, and one of my personal favorites is award-winning artist and dollmaker Gretchen Lima. In Lima’s work, I see the inspired beauty of form, texture, and color, and experience joy and delight. Her artistry is a beautiful gift—one I personally love to give and receive.

As a business leader, you may not consider your work in the same terms as you consider the work of a fine artist such as Lima. Yet, there are numerous opportunities for you to think about, and act on, beauty in your role as leader.

So ask yourself: How artful are my choices to enhance my company’s workplace? In what ways can I “pleasurably exalt the mind or spirit” of my employees and customers? And how might I inspire and support beauty in the world around me?

As I begin 2012, I vow to remember my holiday gifts and, in doing so, recommit to promoting great design: simplicity, purpose, and beauty. How about you?

Source: thedealeyo.tumblr.com

I recently traveled to Ireland and the United Kingdom, where I experienced and thoroughly enjoyed an abundance of what author Daniel Pink refers to as “emotionally intelligent signage”—signs in public places designed to forge an empathetic connection with the viewer. Such signage doesn’t bark orders (“Keep off the grass”) or reprimand people (“Don’t be a jerk—pick up after your pet”). Instead, it appeals to people’s principles and emotions. While in the UK, I even saw a sign that said: “Please, try not to smoke.”

Pink collects and chronicles examples of emotionally intelligent signage on his website and blog. One area, however, that seems to get little attention is what I call “workplace graffiti,” or the informal signs that we post in the common areas of our workplaces.

As a specialist in integrating workplace design and culture as a competitive talent strategy, I spend a lot of time in many different workplaces. Everywhere I go I look for hidden clues to a company’s culture, and I often find them in signage.

Too often, however, I see signs that aren’t aligned with what a company espouses to be their values and work culture. Most of these signs aren’t emotionally intelligent; in fact, many are downright rude, e.g., “This room is off limits” or “Be quiet—some of us around here are actually working.” And you, as a leader, should care. Workplace graffiti can have unintended consequences that chip away at your culture, a key part of your business and brand.

So, today, take this challenge: Stroll your workplace and search for signs of workplace graffiti. Start in the copy room or, perhaps better yet, the kitchen. In both spots I’ve seen signs so disrespectful they’ve left me scratching my head. Why would people want to work there?

In contrast, on a recent visit to Martin’s Point Health Care, a not-for-profit health care organization based in Portland, Maine, I saw several signs that brought a smile to my face. One sign, posted outside an employee’s cubicle, said: “Regrettably, I am not interruptible at this time.” (Polite and effective.) Another one, sitting above a stack of forms at a copy machine, asked, “If this pile is disappearing, please throw a blank on the copier for 100 copies.” (No barking.) And another one, posted at a light switch, read, “We act as owners of the business—please turn off when finished.” (Smart!) In each instance, I could connect the signage with the authentic culture created by Martin’s Point and expressed in their vision statement: “People Caring for People.”

A few weeks ago, over my virtual weekly breakfast with Scott Simon, host of NPR’s “Weekend Edition Saturday,” I was delighted to hear about a unique new approach to emotionally intelligent signage: haiku traffic signs.

In November the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) launched “Curbside Haiku,” a safety education and public art campaign. The installation, which can be seen citywide on 144 signs, includes 12 brightly colored, eye-catching designs by artist John Morse, each one accompanied by a haiku poem.

Now, if New York City’s DOT can create emotionally intelligent signage, just think what you could do to transform the workplace graffiti at your own company. Post a comment here with an example, if you like. With enough people paying attention, we might not see another downright rude sign again!

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on December 20, 2011.

By now you’ve surely gotten the memo: Storytelling is “it” in business and communication today.

In a recent interview, Peter Guber, renowned entrepreneur and author of Tell to Win, said that in order to connect emotionally with others, you must: “Aim at the heart. And what you have to aim at their heart is the story.”

Emotional stories, authentic and artfully told, can be powerful, even transcendent. And, nowadays, they can be told in all sorts of settings, in ads, books, movies, music, plays, and much more.

But places can, and do, tell stories, too.

From the beginning of time, we’ve drawn on the places we inhabit to tell stories important to our culture. Think about the Paleolithic cave paintings of Lascaux, the illustrated tombs of ancient Egypt, and the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. Today, even our own homes tell stories, from the books and photographs on our shelves to the artwork on our walls.

Now, as a leader, think about your workplace. As employees and customers travel your physical environment, what stories are they being told? And are you the author of those stories? Or, perhaps, have they been left to chance?

For the past several years, our design firm, Kahler Slater, has been studying the physical environments of the Best Companies to Work For in America: 150 organizations, small, medium, and large, recognized by the Great Place to Work Institute. (Our own enterprise is proud to have been among them for eight years running.)

These best companies, from corporate giants such as Google to small businesses such as Snagajob, are unsurpassed in attracting and retaining talent and in financial performance. What’s more, our research found that they all leverage their work environments to engage employees and guests in the stories of their organization—their history, culture, celebrations, etc.

Recently our firm also worked with Mesirow Financial, a diversified financial services firm, to help the company tell their stories in their new Chicago headquarters. For the first time in its nearly 75-year history, Mesirow Financial had brought their many diverse business units together in one environment. It was momentous for the whole organization, an employee-owned, private company with 1,200 employees globally.

Through a series of in-depth, interactive sessions, we helped Mesirow executives uncover the company’s most meaningful stories. Then we aligned those stories with an environmental branding program, pinpointing several key locations throughout the new headquarters.

For each location, unique branding elements, with a mix of mediums and media, were designed to tell a specific story. And, all told, the stories would unfold as people navigate the space. Among the highlights:

The main reception area is a showcase to a striking accordion wall, displaying a panoramic view of the Chicago skyline in one direction (as people enter) and a dramatic map of the world in the other direction (as people exit). The story:Mesirow Financial is a Chicago-based organization with a global reach. 

The primary corridors lead to special tributes, composed by top executives and constructed in dimensional stainless-steel typography, to Mesirow employees and clients. The story: Mesirow Financial deeply values their employees and clients.

The conference rooms are homages to world-class thinkers with deep Chicago roots, including architect Mies van der Rohe, physicist Enrico Fermi, and social philosopher and activist Jane Addams. The story: Mesirow Financial prizes leadership and innovation and a significant Chicago heritage.

The central hallway features a large history mosaic, created from moveable, multicolored glass tiles, which marks the company’s many milestones over more than seven decades. The story: Mesirow Financial celebrates their rich history and accomplishments.

“The final result is spectacular and has received broad internal support while developing a strong sense of pride amongst our 1,200 employees,” shared David Rotholz, a senior vice president at Mesirow Financial. It has “helped us launch a new vision of corporate brand identity for our firm.”

From prehistoric caves to modern workplaces, places tell stories and bring cultures alive. So, in your own workplace, don’t let storytelling be overlooked. Then you just might have “it.”

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on December 08, 2011.

By kallerna (Own work) via Wikipedia

To be sure, silos, or departmental divides, are detrimental to organizational success.

In his Forbes.com post Breaking Down Silos, consultant John Kotter contends that silos destroy trust, cut off communication, foster complacency, and must be prevented or eliminated for any company, regardless of size, to act quickly and productively in today’s fast-paced business environment. I absolutely agree.

As a leader, what can you do to bust silos, or bridge such departmental divides? For starters, you must focus on, and foster, collaboration.

One smart yet overlooked opportunity to foster collaboration is a workplace design project. People from diverse departments can cross the divide and collaborate on a common goal—their physical work environment—with tangible, mutually beneficial results.

My recent work with a large, 90-year-old manufacturing company exemplifies the value of a workplace design project across multiple departments. The company needed to resolve some major problems within its physical workplace, including an outdated appearance—a real image buster with prospective employees and customers—and an old, unwelcoming cafeteria, which due to its location, put the line between business and manufacturing on display.

With top-down involvement, the company assembled a project team across four different departments: Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, and Facility Operations. The team had to deal with at least four distinct agendas, along with the added challenges of a tight timeline and budget. To realize results, everyone had to concede his or her own agenda and cross the departmental divide.

The team’s end result was first-rate, and the benefits were felt far and wide. For both Sales and Marketing, the brand, internally and externally, was finally aligned. HR was better able to attract and retain talent. And Facility Operations had a more functional environment, at once easy and affordable to maintain.

The benefits, however, didn’t stop there. According to senior executives, the design project went beyond creating a more modern, productive workplace; it helped bridge departmental divides, cultivating trust and respect and creating a collaborative workforce. Moreover, by integrating viewpoints from diverse departments, the results were better aligned with the organization’s culture and better received by the broader constituency. Bottom line, across the board, the project was a win for the business.

So, if you need to deal with divides in your own company, put a workplace design project to work. Three fast tips:

1. Choose a high-visibility project. Pick an “out there” project—perhaps your employee lounge or an environmental branding initiative—that promotes communal thinking and clear outcomes. It needn’t be a large capital project so size isn’t important.

2. Create a cross-functional team. Have as many diverse voices and viewpoints as possible, including areas such as HR, Marketing, and Facilities. Make sure that each person has skin in the game.

3. Accentuate accountability. Hold the project team accountable for the best-possible process and results. Celebrate progress during team meetings, at companywide gatherings, and on your organization’s intranet.

Bust silos—and build bridges. Workplace design offers a smart solution for crossing departmental divides and fostering collaboration.

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on November 17, 2011.

“Designer.”

It’s the ultimate one-word job description of every leader.

Why?

Because, now more than ever, it represents what smart, successful leaders do: They design.

At your organization, you might use words such as visioning, planning, innovating, marketing, managing, etc. Still, it all boils down to designing: As a leader, you’re charged with designing the best-possible experiences and outcomes for your stakeholders—employees, customers, investors, and others—and for the business itself.

Moreover, for your company to compete in the current business and economic climate, you must create a design-centered culture—a “designing” work environment that, in making design a part of everyone’s job, promotes the kind of creativity and innovation required to succeed. (Consider the late Steve Jobs and Apple.)

So, how do you go about creating a design-centered culture? Start with the 3Fs:

1. Formalize

Make the role of design official throughout your organization. Even small changes can make a big difference. For instance, rethink employees’ job titles, the names of meeting spaces, and the tags of key projects or initiatives.

Think about the administrative assistant who becomes an “Administrative Designer.” In all likelihood, his or her viewpoint and sense of purpose will evolve—and expand.

Or how much more creative might a work group feel if, instead of meeting in the main conference room, they meet in the “Design Center”?

And what about the people who serve, not on a facilities-relocation task force but, instead, on the “Design Our Future” team: How much more inspired might they feel?

2. Foster

Promote design within all your cultural touchpoints. Focus on areas such as your physical workplace, training and development curriculum, and employee recognition programs.

In the common areas of your workplace, for example, provide tackable or magnetized walls where employees can share their work in stages and seek feedback from others. This not only helps show the design process “in process” but also supports intra- and inter-departmental collaboration.

As part of your employee education efforts, include instruction and coaching on design-driven thinking and processes. At Kahler Slater, a global architecture and design enterprise where I serve as a principal, we train all employees—designers and non-designers—in our “5Ds” process (Discover, Dream, Define, Design, and Deliver) and teach them how to adapt and apply that process to a variety of projects.

Plus, as wise leaders know, you reinforce what you recognize. One idea: Add a section to your company intranet that asks, “What have you designed today?” Workers’ designs, big and small, can be celebrated, from the Marketing group designing a new social media campaign to an Accounting team member designing a cost-saving improvement to the company’s billing process.

3. Flub

In most companies, it’s no big deal when “real” designers make a mistake. They try this or that, and the end result doesn’t always work. No harm, no foul. In fact, such flubs are usually applauded as progress, or good mistakes.

Within your own company, then, why not adopt that same mindset on making mistakes with all employees? Odds are that people will respond by embracing new challenges, stretching their skills, and taking more creative risks.

“Failure, and how companies deal with failure, is a very big part of innovation,” says innovation expert Judy Estrin in a Wall Street Journal article.

“Failures caused by sloppiness or laziness are bad,” cautions Estrin, a technology entrepreneur and author of Closing the Innovation Gap. But “if employees try something that was worth trying and fail, and if they are open about it, and if they learn from that failure, that is a good thing.”

That same Wall Street Journal article spotlights Amanda Zolten, a senior vice president at Grey Advertising in New York. Zolten was awarded her agency’s “Heroic Failure” award for taking a “big, edgy risk” at a new-business pitch. Suffice it to say that, along with some help from her cat, she created a “memorable experience” with her prospective client’s product: kitty litter.

Formalize. Foster. Flub.

To build a design-centered culture, lay a strong foundation with the 3Fs.

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on October 27, 2011.

Today, design is more than good for business—it is business.

That’s why I’ll be dedicating my new Forbes blog “By Design” to covering design as a business imperative. My message: Design merits respect and attention from every leader in every business.

A principal at Kahler Slater, a global architecture and design enterprise, I often think about the day I met Tom Peters. It was 2005, and Peters was promoting his latest manifesto “Design.” In vintage Peters style, he was on fire—ranting and raving and ranting—about the value of good design to business. Imagine my delight: A major management thinker was reaffirming my long-held personal passions and beliefs.

The time is now to bring design down from on high—from otherworldly levels such as Apple. Let’s discuss, and keep on discussing, why design is a mandate for all business leaders. For starters, here are three reasons:

1. Design is a critical competitive advantage

Whether your company sells products or services, the lessons from the field are clear and convincing: Design is the “it” factor. Pure and simple, it differentiates the most successful businesses and brands.

Take Target, for instance. The upscale discount retailer arrived to the design-as-competitive-advantage party early. Now, from toilet brushes by architect Michael Graves to apparel by celebrity designer Jason Wu, Target is the standout for style-conscious bargain hunters. Last month, the company’s website crashed not once but multiple times during a sale of limited offerings of the Missoni for Target collection—bikes, luggage, clothing, and housewares by the Italian luxury brand known for its zig-zag designs. A Target spokesperson called the unprecedented incident “Missoni mayhem.”

At online retailer Zappos, the company’s remarkable growth is attributed to their “WOW philosophy,” a tremendous top-down design for inspired customer service. The company has “aligned the entire organization around one mission: to provide the best customer service possible,” states the Zappos website.

Design is business.

2. Design is a talent magnet

If you’re a leader today, odds are your mind is on talent and corporate culture. According to Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ 2011 Annual Global CEO Survey, attracting and retaining talent is “at the top of the agenda” for execs everywhere.

One critical component of corporate culture is a company’s workplace—its physical environment for its treasured talent. Yet too many leaders ignore, overlook, or just don’t get that. Still, if you want your company to be an employer of choice, design matters.

Google tops the list of desired employers, particularly for young professionals, according to a recent survey by consulting firm Universum. While our company was designing Google’s offices in Madison, Wis., I met Laszlo Bock, Senior Vice President of People Operations. I asked Bock what makes the design of a Google office stand out—to be such a distinctive expression of the Google brand. His answer was pretty simple: “Connect the design to the people who will live there. Engage them in the process. Make it about them, their community.”

Additionally, design has measurable impact on worker productivity and performance. A recent Wall Street Journal article reported new scientific findings on the role of architecture and design in influencing workers’ moods and thoughts, shaping how they think, and helping them become more creative and attentive.

Design is business.

3. Design is on everyone’s agenda

Your company’s stakeholders—customers, employees, and other business partners—are savvier about design now than at any other time in recent history. In broadcast media alone, programming such as HGTV’s “Design on a Dime” is expanding people’s knowledge, imaginations, and desires. And that’s not to overlook Apple: The company, perhaps arguably, has singlehandedly raised the bar on design, elevating everyone’s experiences—and expectations.

“Design’s strategic value is not just in improving product offerings but in rethinking the entire way businesses operate,” writes Linda Tischler in a recent Fast Company article.

I couldn’t agree more.

Design is business.

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on October 6, 2011.

If you’re a chief executive today, odds are your mind is on talent and corporate culture. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ 2011 Annual Global CEO Survey, attracting and retaining talent is “at the top of the agenda” for execs everywhere. The global war for talent was a hot topic this year at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos.

One critical component of corporate culture is a company’s workplace—its physical environment for its treasured talent. Yet most CEOs ignore, overlook, or just don’t get that.

We at Kahler Slater, a global design enterprise, set out to study the physical environments of the Best Companies to Work For in America: 150 organizations, small, medium, and large, recognized by the Great Place to Work Institute. (Our own enterprise is proud to have been among them for seven years running.) These best companies are unsurpassed in attracting and retaining talent and in financial performance—and our research found that they reinforce their cultures in their physical environments. The way they do so shows four common characteristics. Here are those characteristics, presented in the form of questions to ask yourself about your own workplace:

1. Is there external and internal brand alignment?

The most successful brands are more than sets of products or services. They are experiences born of an emotional engagement between a company and its customers. At the best companies that experience is also expressed internally. For employees, the dots connect. The brand is aligned internally and externally.

At Mattel, for example, where “play” is the toymaker’s brand, employees shuttle between buildings in a Hot Wheels van and showcase their favorite toys in their personal workspace. At Cascade Asset Management, an environmentally minded recycler of computer components, sustainability reigns supreme, from a wholly green headquarters to employee nameplates handmade from recycled computer pieces. And at JM Family Enterprises, a top owner of Toyota dealerships, the corporate campus bows to Japanese culture, with Japanese gardens, architecture, and artifacts.

2. Is the spirit of your culture visible?

Through countless choices, both big (office location) and small (interior signage), the spirit of a company’s culture lies in plain sight. At the best companies that spirit starts with first impressions—often from the outside in—and stays clear and consistent throughout the work environment.

For instance, Genentech, the biotech giant, has its South San Francisco headquarters on DNA Way, a nod to the company’s roots in genetic research, and outdoor banners there put human faces on lives changed by the work of Genentech employees. At Dixon Schwabl, a full-service ad agency, the playful company culture is displayed by a cool slide connecting two office floors. (For many years, the agency also had a padded Primal Scream Room, for conquering creative blocks.) And at the online retailer Zappos the open, non-hierarchical culture insists on cubicles for everyone—from Call Center reps to the CEO—and the “fun and a little weird” workspaces convey true individuality.

3. Are there gathering spaces for celebrating and building camaraderie?

There is no corporate culture without community, without people coming together to connect, celebrate, and create a spirit of camaraderie. At the best companies, gathering spaces are fundamental, just as is a town square in a village or a student union on a college campus. Some companies have large spaces, ideal for all hands meetings, while others have smaller spaces, adaptable and multifunctional.

At Ultimate Software a basketball court now occupies the H.R. software leader’s atrium lobby, the result of a wager won when employees met a mega sales goal set by their sports-minded CEO. (The “UltiCourt” also serves as a lobby and reception area and is a favorite spot for company-wide gatherings.) Sage Products, a health care manufacturer, built a large indoor and outdoor café to hold gatherings that bridge its business and manufacturing groups to bring all the employees together as one “family.” And at McWhinney, a real estate development company, an adjacent nature preserve has inspired the creation of a stunning outdoor gathering space, complete with grills for celebratory cookouts.

4. Is there visual storytelling that evokes pride and engages and recognizes people?

Visual storytelling is a powerful tool. At the best companies, environmental branding evokes company pride, engages and recognizes employees, and expands on the cultural narrative.

For instance, at Rackspace, a cloud computing company, employees created the world’s largest word-search puzzle—certified by Guinness World Records—to highlight the firm’s values on a grand scale. At Sherwin-Williams, the paints and coatings giant, a museum-style tour of the company’s history graces the headquarters lobby, recognizing employees through the decades for their innovations and accomplishments. And at SnagAJob.com, a leading job site for hourly workers, the organization’s clearly defined core values (such as “Collaborative means checking our egos at the door”) appear on brightly colored, carefully placed signs. They are vibrant visual cues for employees on what it really means to walk the talk.

So, does your workplace fully reflect and reinforce your company’s culture? As long as you’ve got talent on your mind, you should—and must—get physical.

This article was first posted at the Forbes Leadership Forum on Forbes.com on July 15, 2011.

A good magazine is an experience unto itself. Many of us can’t wait for the latest issue of Vanity Fair or People to arrive in the mail. And we ritualize the reading of it—in the bathtub, curled up in a chair with a cup of tea or at a coffee shop. My favorite indulgence is sitting down with The New Yorker and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

There is one magazine that has extended its experience beyond that one day when it’s subscriber’s receive it in the mail.

In fact, it doesn’t even call itself a magazine, it’s a “media platform.”

And it is called GOOD (yep, all caps).

It promotes, connects, and reports on the individuals, businesses, and non-profits “moving the world forward.”

I’m not a subscriber, but I get a little GOOD in my life every day.

There is a feature called The Daily Good. As you would guess, by signing up, I receive one nugget of good news every day.

There are two things I like about this.

1. It is not like those inspirational emails my mom sends me occasionally—the ones about angels and sick children. The Daily Good is inspiring in an unexpected way, offering items from the environment, education, urban planning, design, food, politics, culture, and health. It is interesting and it is GOOD.
2. It comes into my mail box at exactly 4:45 pm every day, right when the pressure of the day and the pressure to get home to my family converge and nearly send me over the edge.  Taking one minute to read something GOOD allows me to end the day with a healthy perspective. And most often, a smile on my face.

Need a little something GOOD in your life? Sign up here.

http://www.good.is/

I recently spent a weekend with two old friends in New York City. The best part of visiting (save for getting my Black & White cookie and people watching fixes), is exploring parts of the city I didn’t much visit during the near decade I lived there myself.

My home base this trip was just north of Greenwich Village and east of Chelsea.  Unbeknownst to me until one short week ago, this quiet little neighborhood, around 5^th and 6^th Avenues at  West 12^th and 13^th Streets, is the home of the fabulous Parsons School of Design, part of The New School.

Also unbeknownst to me, until I walked out of my temporary digs on Saturday morning looking for a coffee, it was graduation weekend.  Being Parsons, theirs was not the standard celebration.

Rather than encountering a lawn awash in a sea of be-robed 20-year olds posing for photos with proud parents, Parsons had closed three city blocks and was hosting one enormous celebratory art show.  What an experience!

Students had booths to display (and sell!) their artwork. There was music and dancing, both choreographed performances and impromptu merrymaking.  There were street performers, food for sale and some of the best installation art I have ever experienced.  My favorite, mostly for its simplicity, was the enormous coffee shipping bags, inflated with air, arranged as event seating in the shade along the building on 13^th street.  People were sitting on these big puff pillows, looking chic and comfortable (as New Yorkers always do). The next morning, the bags were gone.

I found out later that this morning-to-evening event was the culmination of two solid weeks of design-related exhibits and programming, most of which was free and open to public.

I found the whole scene so inspiring compared to my own awkward, stiff college graduation.  And also so completely authentic.  Or course a top-notch design school in the heart of New York City, known for design that reflects and shapes people’s experience of the world, would celebrate graduation by doing exactly that—reflecting and shaping the experience of everyone who, intentionally or not, happened to be walking down West 13^th Street last week.

Lucky me to have been there to experience it.

In my last post, I described the amazing experience my mom and I had—as visitors—at the Cleveland Clinic.  That was half of the story. The other half is how my dad—the patient—experienced his stay.

I should say first, that he had a successful clinical outcome (whew), so, by most people’s definition, his patient experience at the Cleveland Clinic was very good.  But there was more…

I recently read on another blog that it is really the little things that matter in the patient care experience.  We had several small, positive experiences that made my dad’s stay even more positive.

One nurse took extra time to make a personal connection with my dad by reminiscing with him about music, movies and pop culture from their younger days.

I brought artwork from my daughter and another nurse encouraged me to hang it up to decorate my dad’s room.  In fact, she even supplied us with the surgical tape.

I noticed a small vase with a single flower in the room. When I asked who sent it, I learned that all inpatients receive a flower from the Housekeeping department.  This small gesture ensures that patients who don’t have family members to send them something get a personal touch to aid their recovery. The nursing staff also went out of their way to make sure my dad received the food he wanted to eat.  They brought him popsicles and strawberry ice for treats.  When the surgeon came to see my dad on Saturday, he brought his three year old son along on his rounds.  Seeing that little boy reminded my parents of their granddaughter and brightened their morning.

My dad received a get well card signed by all of the staff who cared for him.  That really made him feel like a person they cared for, not just a medical case.

All of these experiences were simple, small things that didn’t add a single extra expense to my dad’s care.  And interestingly none of them were directly related to the clinical care that my dad received.  In fact, each of these gestures was directed to the human, not-sick side of my dad. What I would call my “real” dad, the guy who enjoys old movies, strawberry ice and his granddaughter.

No doubt my dad’s recovery is due in large part to the miracles of modern medicine that heal the sick in amazing ways.  But I wonder how much is due to the simple fact that small gestures helped him feel well, even before he was.

What are your thoughts?

After seeing “Inside Job,” the Academy Award winning documentary, I was steeled to dislike anyone I met at Goldman Sachs, or any other big Wall Street firm for that matter. And then I spent two days at the Goldman Sachs headquarters in New York City as part of the Great Place To Work® Institute’s Executive Strategy Network, and my steel started to melt. Why? Because I experienced the people of Goldman Sachs, I learned about the positive things they do to grow businesses; particularly women-owned businesses such as the 10,000 women program and I saw the dedication they have to creating a great culture in their workplace that supports their people.

I had anticipated arrogant and indifferent people and experienced genuine people who care about their communities, their environment and each other. I met hardworking people who admit they have a perception issue in the world and a CEO who was willing to be vulnerable enough for a Q&A session with our group of 25, each of us representing a company designated as Best Companies to Work For® in America by the Great Place To Work® Institute.

The interesting thing was that every person from Goldman Sachs who (generously) gave his or her time to share best practices represented the company in a consistent manner. From the women discussing talent assessment and employer value proposition to the internal communications guy, there was no arrogance. They all seemed to sincerely want to share their experience with improving and maintaining a consistent firm culture.

By stimulating discussions about best practices and how we are reinforcing our culture in the dynamic environment of the last three years, great conversation and learning occurred among all participants. That is what the Executive Strategy Network is all about—sharing experiences and learning from each other—no matter how large or small the company, how local or international the reach. Pretty cool. The experience was not at all what I expected from one of Wall Street’s big boys. But the experience did reaffirm for me the fact that great people—in this case, authentic, honest and generous people—are so important in creating great experiences and a great company culture. I had a great time in New York City. Thank you Great Place to Work® Institute and Goldman Sachs!

The importance of amenities in hospitals has been in the news recently.  An article in the New York Times entitled “How Does Your Hospital Room Make You Feel?” and an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine assert that amenities are a critical part of the patient experience and possibly even a valuable component of patient-centered care.  Both articles talk about the importance of the non-clinical experience and how it affects which hospital patients choose to receive care.

I recently had a lot of time to think about the importance of the non-clinical experience and providing amenities for family and visitors as well as patients.  I spent two days at the Cleveland Clinic with my parents while my father recovered from surgery.  I hadn’t been a visitor in a hospital for quite a while and forgot how much time is spent waiting.  While my dad was resting, my mom and I spent our time exploring the hospital.  We visited three different gift shops.  We ate at a sushi restaurant and had coffee from Starbucks.  We walked the corridors for exercise and diversion, marveling at the extensive and varied artwork collection.  We found a virtual concierge kiosk that showed a schedule of events like yoga classes or massages offered to visitors.  We could have gone to the bank if we needed to without leaving the facility.  Having access to these amenities made our time spent at the clinic much more enjoyable.  It felt like we were spending time at a high end hotel, not a hospital.

To top it off, my mom and I were able to view my dad’s medical record on his laptop since the hospital has electronic medical records and wireless internet access.  It was very helpful to us, and to my dad, to know the results of various tests in real time.

And in the end, being of help to the patient is why friends and loved ones come to the hospital in the first place.  What is difficult about that role is that there is very little a support person can DO but to wait for the times that your support is really needed. For this reason, the visitor experience at the Cleveland Clinic makes a lot of sense. Being able to leave the bedside and spend some time in a non-clinical environment reduced the wear and tear on my mom and me, making us that much better able to support my dad when he really needed it.  I’m happy to say all three of us left the hospital in better shape than when we went in!

In my next post, I’ll talk about the patient experience at the Cleveland Clinic.

It might be that because I have a daughter named Beatrix, I am particularly attuned to the letter X.

But something tells me it’s not just me. There really is something going on with the letter.

Has anyone else noticed the businesses with addresses on Times Square in New York City, have adopted a cutesy use of the x?  Conde Nast magazines for example, at 4 Times Square, writes its address 4x².

When did the music, film and technology fest South by Southwest evolve from its already in-the-know handle of “South by” to SXSW?

And close to our hearts, the word experience has now simply become…X.

Note these emerging abbreviations:

• UX- User Experience
• CX- Consumer Experience
• IxD- Interaction Design

And, are you ready?

XD—Experience Design

In the not so distant future, I’ll wager that my business card that currently says “Kahler Slater, Experience Design,” will say simply, “Kahler Slater, XD” and that the world will get exactly what we do.  You heard it here first.

Or they’ll think we’re laughing so hard, we’ve fallen off our chairs. If you need a clue as to what I’m talking about, click here.

No doubt all these x-abbreviations have something to do with our 140-character-or-less culture.

And there is the fact that the letter X is rare enough and flexible enough (couldn’t do multiplication without it) to be inherently cool and worthy of wide-scale application.  But IMHO, there is also increased attention on the experience of…well, everything.

Designers and product engineers don’t talk about user interface anymore. They talk about UX, the user experience.  Consumers too are buying in, talking about their “lip gloss experience” and the” toilet unclogging experience” and not about the functionality or even key features of a product.

And remember too, the experience of a product or service that consumers now evaluate can begin way before the first hello or tear into the package thanks to social media. And the experience, or relationship, has the potential to endure way beyond completion of the old purchasing cycle, for the same reasons.

It’s a whole new world.  And apparently it’s an x-ier world than ever before.

Now THAT is a new word which almost has me ROFL.

Each year, Kahler Slater closes the doors of our offices and hosts a one day retreat.  During this one day of fat markers, big sheets of blank paper and no cell phones, our entire firm comes together to learn, discuss and laugh until we cry.  That is the goal anyway.  While “expensive” in terms of time away from our clients, room rental and catering costs, the benefits of hosting an annual retreat far outweigh the once-a-year costs.

What are those benefits?

1. Familiarity breeds risk-taking, which increases innovation. The research is clear – the more comfortable people are with one another, the more they are willing to step out of their comfort zones to take risks. Risk is the definition of innovation.   Is there a company out there that doesn’t need new and innovative ideas?
2. Learning is not the same as training. Learning something new improves and increases a person’s capabilities, confidence and helps him to be a more well-rounded person.  Developing skills in areas of creativity, leadership, collaboration and communication can jumpstart effectiveness and productivity in a company—way more than  a three hour PowerPoint training can.
3. Retreats offer an opportunity and the time to share—and receive– vital information. Retreats are a great time to remind staff of a business’s vision and goals.  It is also a relaxed forum in which to listen to concerns and answer questions.
4. Working hard requires playing hard. During these tough economic times when most of us have had to ask our overworked employees to take on even more work, taking a breather is essential.  Studies show that productivity drops dramatically when employees consistently burn the midnight oil longer than a typical eight-hour workday. Take a break for Pete’s sake!

Are you curious about some of the things we’ve done?

• Last year we gathered at the Harley-Davidson Museum in downtown Milwaukee. Admiring the design genius of that company was one experience in the day.  Another was venturing out in small groups to ”redesign everyday experiences” in our city.  One team was charged with redesigning the experience of going to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get a driver’s license.  Another investigated how to improve a shopping experience at a local mall for someone in a wheelchair.  This was a low cost endeavor and helped us remember that experience design can apply to ANY experience.
• We’ve often had an educational component to our retreats. One year we had a speaker on Emotional Intelligence. Another, we all took the Myers-Briggs personality test and shared our results in an effort to understand ourselves and our team dynamics better.
• During one particularly rough financial patch, we gathered in a large, unfinished floor of our office building (no room rental charge) and asked people to bring a dish to pass (no catering fees).  That retreat hit home that we were “all in this together” in a really meaningful and positive way and had a big impact on improving office morale.

If your firm hems and haws every year about whether a retreat is “worth it,” consider looking at the day as an investment in your firm and your staff rather than an expense.  You might laugh so hard, you’ll do something more embarrassing than just crying.

Recently, I attended the Great Place to Work® Institute’s Annual International Conference. During the intense two days of seminars and networking, I learned that when it comes to creating and maintaining an exceptional company culture, it’s the little things that count.  Here are three examples from three firms who have been recognized by the Institute as Best Companies to Work For in the United States.

• Mitra Best, US Innovation Leader for PwC, spoke about the value of access and recognition.  She asked employees how they would like to be rewarded for offering ideas for innovation.   Surprisingly, the majority of employees preferred having lunch with a senior leader over receiving a monetary reward.
• Shawn Boyer, CEO of SnagAJob, in defining his leadership style revealed that he makes it a priority to learn something personal about each of his employees so that when he sees them he can make a thoughtful connection.  He believes that making this personal connection builds loyalty and is a key to retention at his firm.
• Beth Kavelaris, Sr. VP of Culture and Integration spoke about the importance of consistent understanding of company values and culture at Robert W. Baird.  She mentioned how one important recruit went missing during an interview.  When he returned he accepted the job without further conversation.  Rather than visit the restroom as he had indicated, he had intentionally ridden the elevator up and down and had random conversations with employees who told him what it was really like to work at Baird.  The consistency of the answer was all he needed to be convinced this was really a Best Company and would be a great fit for him.

What these very different examples all have in common is that they are authentic, personal and inexpensive.  Although grand or unusual perks often make headline news, perks don’t define an exceptional workplace culture.  Perks just represent another way of demonstrating commitment to employees. Exceptional cultures are the accumulation of lots of small positive acts between people who make up the organization.   It can be as small as a thank you, as genuine as an elevator conversation with a stranger or even better, with your CEO.

What is the most meaningful thing an employer has ever done for you?

I was privileged to be asked to write for  BNET, the CBS Interactive Business Network, an amazing resource for actionable intelligence for corporate managers and small business owners. The amount of well-written, thought-provoking content on the site is amazing.

My post is a riff on an idea I’ve been writing a lot about lately—passion. Our firm is based upon it. And I believe that it is essential to creativity and productivity, which adds up to business success.

I’ve come up with five tips to inspire, ignite or re-ignite employee passion.  Here is a sample. For more, visit my post on BNET and join the conversation that is taking place there.

1. Always ask potential new hires what they’re passionate about – and how they can apply that passion to the work they want to do for your organization.

2. Provide employees with opportunities to share what they’re passionate about. Let them show off their work at a lunch and learn or make a presentation at a staff meeting.

3. Provide time for passion to take root and grow—give employees dedicated time to become inspired and keep their creative juices flowing.

4. Support passions that aren’t related to work. Leaving work an hour early to attend a kid’s basketball game can lead to grateful, more committed employees who aren’t preoccupied with or stewing over what they’re missing while they’re at work.

5. Relax. It’s hard to be passionate about anything every waking hour. Taking time to recharge is critical.

How do you stay passionate?  Or keep your passionate employees inspired?

What are the chances that on a guest list of seven couples, there would be two with the names Jack and Mary?

I can’t calculate that probability exactly, but I felt pretty lucky to at least have a chance at getting the names of my dinner companions right.

When in doubt, try Jack. Or Mary.

The event was a dinner Kahler Slater hosted at the American Dental Education Association Annual Session last weekend in San Diego. At the last minute, I was asked to attend. Every year, we host a dinner for a few of the Deans of dental schools with whom we are friendly.  I should say with whom Kahler Slater is friendly. I didn’t know a soul.

Had it been in Buffalo, I might not have been so quick to accept…

I knew about our dental school projects with Indiana University, the Medical University of South Carolina, Marquette University and the University of the Pacific, but this doesn’t help when you are asking someone to pass the salt.

What did help (besides the bonus of the Jack and Mary factor) was something I read  in Dr. Atul Gawande’s new book, The Checklist Manifesto, which is the book we handed out to our guests in their gift bag.  Gawande makes the point that the humblest of quality-control tools, the checklist, is the key to reducing serious (i.e. life-threatening) errors of professionals in all sorts of disciplines — aviation, construction, and of course medicine.  But one nugget that I took away is something called the “activation phenomenon.”  Investigators at Johns Hopkins observed that when nurses have the chance to say their names and mention concerns at the beginning of a surgery, they were more likely to note problems and offer solutions.  Offering people an opportunity to say something at the start seemed to activate their sense of participation, responsibility and their willingness to speak up.  This seems like a very good thing. Especially if you are the patient.

So as I was sitting at my table, silently observing the slightly-hesitant conversation among my dinner companions, I thought I’d take a shot at “activating” us.

As dorky as I felt piping up and asking everyone at the table to introduce themselves along with where they were from, I’d have to confess the dynamic at the table was markedly different after we all did so.  People were able to call each other by name when offering more wine.  They were able to connect with small talk about geography, regional sports teams and friends in common. It was like a weight was lifted.

I thought back to times, playing pick-up games of soccer or ultimate Frisbee, where not knowing the names of my teammates was not only a logistical challenge (“uh, hey you, I’m open!), but also psychological barrier to joining the flow. Or how I have always been much more reticent to participate when I’ve joined a meeting after introductions.

The activation phenomenon in many ways is completely common sense. But now that I know it has a fancy name, I think I’ll be more inclined to make an effort to employ it.  My dinner companions won’t always all be named Jack and Mary, right?

Julius Shulman. It’s a name you may not know but you’ve probably seen his work before and you’ve certainly been influenced by it.

We all have.

Mr. Shulman is the subject of Visual Acoustics, a documentary focused on his career as a photographer of Modern architecture. Shulman was in the right place at the right time with the right ‘eye’. He captured the creations of Frank Lloyd Wright, Pierre Koenig, Charles Eames and Richard Neutra (just to name a few). The buildings and homes created by these master architects are experienced by few people, so much of our understanding of these men and their work is seen through Shulman’s eyes.

Dustin Hoffman narrates: “Architects live and die by the images that are taken of their work.”

While Visual Acoustics isn’t a great film, Director Eric Bricker does a nice job revealing the interconnections between the architects, publications and photographs of the time. He showcases Shulman as a charming, but quite opinionated, older gentleman content with his impact on the world. He humbly explains, “The architects do the hard work. I just take pictures.”

If you’re a fan of Modern architecture and great photography, further investigation into Shulman’s world will be worth your time. Here’s a few link to his exhibition at the Getty to get you started: http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/shulman/

Last week Sally Theiler, a fellow Kahler Slater blogger, and I were asked to speak in an Interior Design classroom at Waukesha West High School in Waukesha, Wisconsin.  I was very excited to hear that the school was offering such a class and gladly accepted the invite.  We brought a few of our past projects, two design boards and a set of Construction Documents to share.  I spoke about becoming an architect and Sally, an interior designer.

Right out of the gate, we were probably trying to cram way too much content into a 45 minute class. But we covered the projects and shared how we got to be where we are today and why we are passionate about what we do.  There were some really great questions asked by the students. Of course we were still talking when the bell rang.  It got me thinking, what will the future be like for these students?

A couple of weeks ago a great article was released by The Guardian about the future for architects. Despite Justin Bieber and Brad Pitt both professing that their ideal job would be an architect. And the fact that more young people than ever want to go into the field. And that there is even a new Architect Barbie (see my February 18th post) to inspire young girls, the article questions whether or not there will be such a thing as an “architect” by the year 2025.

This article was based on a report published by The Royal Institute of British Architects which predicts that today’s typical architecture firm will be replaced by either small scale local entities or business-minded international offices with multilingual staffs based around the world.  Because these practices will offer an array of  multidisciplinary services, they will likely no longer be called architecture firms, but rather, something completely different.

So what does this mean for the students of Waukesha West High School who are interested in design?  While I’m not exactly sure, I am pretty confident some things about architecture and interior design will remain the same. Designers will continue to commit to the intense schooling, apprenticing to get registered and the long hours.  And they’ll continue to enjoy the creativity and aesthetic satisfaction of the profession—regardless of what it is called in the future.

It seems that lately the business and design worlds are exhausting the buzz term “branding.” The meaning has even stretched far beyond products. Individuals now have to “brand” themselves to stand out or legitimize their personal identity. I personally see this emerging with design school graduates. Every one now has a personal business card with a personal logo, social media names, a website, and maybe a snippet about his or her personal passions. This before any of them are employed! Why is creating a personal “brand” so important?

A great Harvard Business Review blog from Dan Pallotta on the infamous “Mission Statement”—the overused phrase of the last decade—made me think, why are we trying to define ourselves, instead of putting time into just doing what invigorates us? Brands have become a façade—a Facebook page, in a nutshell. And in a way, mission statements have gone the same way. But a mission—a mission is a compelling quest, around which the rest of the story evolves.  I think having a mission, not a mission statement and not a brand identity, is where it is at. Take this from Dan Pallotta.

“A mission statement can’t create a commitment. And a commitment can’t be thwarted by lack of a mission statement. Nelson Mandela didn’t have a mission statement for creating a free South Africa. But man, was he on a mission.”

I would bet that most companies would still survive today, tomorrow and the coming years if their mission statement simply fell off their annual reports, their office walls, and their email signatures.  How about the chefs in New York who are on a mission to deliver culinary experiences in the purest, most unobstructed form?   They didn’t sit down and craft a three sentence mission statement. Instead, they just focus on what is important (serving food on their terms) and it becomes very clear what they are all about (their brand) and what their businesses exist to do (their mission).

This is one wheel that needs reinventing.  If your company is going to take time to polish, review, or create a mission statement, make sure it is worth everyone’s time (even if it is your own).  If it doesn’t inspire or capture the passion in your work, I think you can forget about defining your mission and go about accomplishing it.

There is no doubt that the dire state of our credit markets has had a devastating effect on hotel financing and development. But there is one funding mechanism that is helping to close the gap. The Fifth Preference Employment-Based Immigrant Investor Visa program, or EB-5, allows foreign individuals to invest at least $500,000 in job-creating projects in the United States. In return, if after two years the immigrant has maintained the investment and it has created at least 10 jobs, the conditional status is removed and the applicant and his or her family become “permanent” green card holders, eligible for United States citizenship.

The program basically draws desperately needed capital into our country and fast-tracks the immigration process for committed investors. A pretty clever trade, eh?

Kahler Slater is currently working on the design of a new 200-key full-service high-rise Marriott hotel in downtown Milwaukee that will be significantly funded through the EB-5 program.

Proposed Marriott Hotel Design

One key benefit of the program is that many EB-5 investors are willing to accept relatively modest returns because of the residency privileges—especially the opportunity for their children to attend school and college in the United States.  This means that projects that look to deliver only modest returns, many of which are in under-served areas, have a fighting chance to receive funding because of the EB-5 program.

The United States program also has advantages over similar programs in other countries. The Canadian EB-5-like program, for example, recently increased the minimum investment from $400,000 Canadian to $800,000. With this change, combined with recent streamlining of the government application process, the US EB-5 program has become much more desirable. In fact the number of EB-5s issued nationally jumped from 1,443 in fiscal 2008 to 4,218 in fiscal 2009. Several scholars say they expect the number to double again in 2011.

This is all very, very good news.

In sum, the EB-5 program is saving hotel development and financing in the United States, at least for now.  While receiving money through the federal government can be slow and often at odds with the pace of most business deals, for many of us in the industry, the alternative would be doing nothing. I’m not arguing that something is better than nothing. I’m saying that the EB-5 program is a clever and creative way to reward investors for their risk-taking and that all involved benefit.

Last week AIGA Wisconsin (American Institute of Graphic Arts) was treated to a presentation from Pentagram partner, Michael Gericke. Michael is a practicing graphic designer with over thirty years of experience in identity, poster, and environmental graphic design. His designs include the One Laptop Per Child identity, the Viewing Wall at Ground Zero, the World Trade Center Path Terminal,  the Arizona Cardinals NFL stadium, the 2018 US bid for the World Cup and the new (hotly debated) Big Ten identity.

As expected, Michael’s presentation was filled with beautiful photographs and graphics recounting over three decades of practice. However, what was unexpected was how damn nice he is!

Perhaps I should not have been surprised. He is, after all, a local boy. He has lived in communities throughout the state of Wisconsin and was educated at the University of Wisconsin Madison. He reflected on how being a ‘midwesterner’ in New York often played to his advantage: “They always think we’re so nice and hardworking.”

By the look of it, ‘they’ are right about Michael.

This all got me thinking about how the Midwest really has a recognizable brand and how fortunate we are to be perceived as “nice and hardworking.” It’s interesting how our perception of people is often so intertwined with our perception of the city or region they come from. Think New York, LA, Chicago, Seattle, Miami or New Orleans. You can instantly conjure up an image of its residents. Was ’nice and hardworking’ your first impression?

So midwesterners, when you travel throughout life be sure to respect our brand. It’s a part of our shared identity, and you never know when you might need it to play to YOUR advantage.

See Michael speak about the Arizona Cardinals Stadium at: http://vimeo.com/5375499 (Jump to the 3:20 mark to skip the intro)!

I wrote about Creativity Works! a few weeks ago after attending a very inspiring kick-off event for the group’s first initiative. Last week our local 88Nine Radio Milwaukee came to do a little story on how creativity attracts creativity. The point was to interview Jill Morin. But Kahler Slater being Kahler Slater—Jill called Tony LaPorte and asked him to join the conversation. Tony sallied in and found himself being the focus of the interview.  He did a fine job. Listen to it here:

It is the interviewer’s reaction to this that is telling. He makes a point to express his surprise that Jill would just call Tony in. And that he would come—not in a panic, not carrying binders of back-up data—but just waltz in, curious and ready to help.

I’ve worked at other firms where, if an executive officer called you into a conference room without a set meeting or agenda, you would assume you were being ambushed. You would start sweating and scramble to find every scrap of information that could possibly CYA for the tongue-lashing you were surely about to receive.

Not at Kahler Slater. Two of our core values are  collaboration and trust. We see them here with Jill and Tony and how this interview unfolded.

Make a note today of all the times you pick up an unexpected phone call from a co-worker. Do you feel dread? Panic? Or is it a non-event because of the trust and commitment to collaboration that exists?

Last summer I was invited to attend the American Society for Quality World Conference in St. Louis where I facilitated a workshop with senior quality executives.  I also had a chance to hear Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford, give the keynote address, and I have to tell you, I think this is the guy who may be bringing authenticity back to Ford.

Some of it has to do with Mulally himself.  Sure, he’s an articulate guy whose company stands alone among the top car companies as the only one that refused government loans in order to ride out the recession.  And under his leadership, they’ve cut costs while increasing market share in one of the toughest economies in decades.

But while he’s clearly driven, smart and well-spoken, he also comes across in person as pretty authentic – kind of like Richie Cunningham of Happy Days fame.  Mulally’s “aw-shucks,” hands-in-his-pockets, laid-back attitude as he strolled about the stage, taking question after question from an audience clearly smitten with this down-to-earth guy from the Midwest, sent the message that here’s someone you can trust.  And when several Ford employees in the audience stood up to thank him for “saving the company,” where many of them, as well as their sons and daughters, had worked their entire careers, it was pretty impressive.  I mean, it’s Ford, after all – a giant company that’s been around for a long time, and has seen its share of trouble through the years.  (One person in the audience recalled that Ford used to stand for Fix Or Repair Daily.  Mulally laughed.)

He seems to be leading Ford out of the automobile wilderness, and he seems to be a guy you’d want to have a beer with.  But he’s also a guy with a vision – or as he said in a recent Fortune magazine article, “One team, one plan, one goal.  This is me.  I wrote it.  It’s what I believe in.  You can’t make this s*** up.”

Click here to read more about some of Mulally’s bold leadership moves. My favorite?  Mulally selling five of Ford’s six corporate jets and driving himself, in a Hybrid, to the second round of bailout hearings.

The questions I’m pondering today – can an authentic leader lead an inauthentic organization?  Does an authentic organization require its leader/s to be authentic?  What do you think?

For as long as I can remember I have always wanted to be an architect.  Even before I really knew what being an architect meant, I was encouraged by my family to pursue my dream and the career.  Little did I know while I was playing with my Barbie’s that there would someday be an “architect” version of the doll.

This week, Barbie’s Architect doll, the latest addition to the I Can Be series, was announced.  In typical Barbie fashion, the doll is sporting a dress—this time with a skyline print—and high heels.  Not an ideal choice for the job site, but I can’t say I haven’t been there before.  Although I think that the doll’s portrayal of a female architect is nowhere near accurate, let alone authentic, I like the idea of getting little girls to pretend they are architects.

It didn’t take me long to realize that as a female my interest in the career was not very common.  I was almost always the only woman in the drafting classes; I was definitely the only one in my small engines class.

When I got to college, I was no longer the only female, but I was still in the minority.  The good news is that these days, the number of female architecture students has increased to nearly 50% at most schools.  Still, the number of women who go on to become licensed in the profession is a teeny 15%. There are several facts and hypotheses as to why, which I will not go into. However I do feel that women are an invaluable asset to any architecture firm.

Many of the skills that tend to be stereotypically categorized as female—being good listeners, communicators, collaborators and mentors—are critical to the profession.

So, I’m glad that Mattel® created Architect Barbie to encourage young girls to consider the profession. Only good things can come of it.  I have to say, though, that the image of a female architect I have in my mind doesn’t come close to the Barbie doll version.  My Architect Barbie would be wearing all black.

Most people have heard of Amy Chua, author of “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” where she rails against American parenting even as she mocks herself for her own extreme “Chinese” style. She says American parents lack authority and produce entitled children who aren’t forced to live up to their abilities.

Amy Chua didn’t let her own girls go out on play dates or sleepovers, watch TV, play video games or make crafts. Once, one of her daughters came in second to a Korean kid in a math competition, so Chua made the girl do 2,000 math problems a night until she regained her supremacy. Once, her daughters gave her birthday cards of insufficient quality. Chua rejected them and demanded new cards. Once, she threatened to burn all but one of her daughter’s stuffed animals unless she played a piece of music perfectly.

As a result, Chua’s daughters get straight As and have won a series of musical competitions.  And David Brooks, in an op-ed in the New York Times, has the nerve to call her a wimp.

What?

He believes, accurately, in my opinion, that the things kids learn from playing and engaging in sports–managing status rivalries, negotiating group dynamics, understanding social norms and other social tests –impose cognitive demands that blow away any intense tutoring session or musical drill.

If you’ve ever hosted a sleepover of 11 year-old girls you know what I mean.

At Kahler Slater, everything we do is done in teams, from design charrettes to strategy meetings to the shared leadership of our owners. Heck, even the role of CEO is handled by a group of three people!

Doing this well requires the ability to trust (one of our core values), read intonation and mood, be respectful and open to ideas among many other skills, none of which are formally taught. They are learned through years of practice, starting on the playground.  Many people joke about “plays well with others” (or not) as a comment on someone’s attitude or job performance.  But if you think about it, it is a core competency for most endeavors.  And for success.

The average I.Q. of a group or even the I.Q.’s of the smartest members does not correlate with a group’s performance. Well-functioning groups consistently perform better than expected.  Swimmers are often motivated to have their best times as part of relay teams, not in individual events. Even the best business schools acknowledge that future CEOs need the tools for working together just as much, if not more, than finance and statistics to be successful leaders. As such, students work in small groups in almost every class.

People like Chua who view child’s play as play, and not the investment in adulthood that it is, are, as Brooks says, wimps. I see it with my own daughter as she makes her first playground friends. The rigors of the classroom are a piece of cake compared to the truly arduous tests of childhood.

During my undergraduate years at UW-Madison, a favorite student tradition was reviewing the Wednesday Shout-Out section of the Badger Herald, to which students could openly contribute their [mostly] appropriate recognition of people or events.  Over this last week, there were a number of significant events for which I wish to give designers some serious recognition, Shout-Out (SO) style:

–SO to the I.C.E. (In Case of Emergency) designers , which includes all the urban planners, city engineers, and anyone else who has structured our cities to be prepared for snow storms “of the century,” as experienced last Wednesday across the central United States.  A special SO to the designers who craft the emergency snow-removal dispatch plans; because of you, I do not lose sleep over the next catastrophic world event.

–SO to the healthcare designers on the Kahler Slater team who took home two ASID Design Awards last Friday for creating healthcare environments that change peoples’ lives.  You live out the Interior Designer’s mission of designing environments that support the health, safety, and welfare of its inhabitants — while making it look fabulous.

–SO to the creative ad designers that made me laugh during the Superbowl.  Yes, everyone differs on their opinions of these commercials, but I am grateful for any designer who makes me LOL at any product or service.  Additional SO to the costume designer for the half-time show.  Talk about total experience design; I would never have imagined the effect that was achieved if I had met only one dancer covered in weird lightbulbs.

And my thought for the day…What SO-worthy efforts are you designing?

EVERYONE is talking about the Super Bowl today, at least everyone in the state of Wisconsin.   A great game, oh yeah! But the ads…I admit, last night was the first time in my adult life that I watched the Super Bowl because of the teams playing. For me, it is usually all about the advertising.  I am a big fan of a guy named Jim Joseph, author of The Experience Effect, and an astute and prolific blogger. I really enjoy his posts, and today, he said everything about the Super Bowl ads that I would have said, except better (but I don’t necessarily agree with him about the monkeys).  So, today, enjoy the fresh perspective of Jim Joseph. And let me know what YOU think.

“110 million viewers. 68 Super Bowl ads. 50 minutes of advertising time. $3 million a whack. This was by far the most hyped-up Super Bowl in history – at least for the advertising. The game didn’t necessarily disappoint, but quite honestly for this marketer you could have told me that I was watching lacrosse. It was all about the advertising.

How do we possibly sort through all those spots to pick out the best ones? Thanks to social media, I had my early favorites but I have to say that I still enjoyed watching them all in real time. The magic of advertising has not gone away.

Despite all the over the top creativity (CarMax “Metaphors”), cleverly written lines (cars.com “Reviews”), CGI (Kia’s “Poseidon), and celebrities (Kim Kardashian for Sketchers), the winners for me where the ones that either hit on a real consumer insight and/or built a brand experience. At the end of the day (game), that’s what marketing and advertising is all about.

Take a look at many people’s favorite, VW “The Force”. Over 14.5 million hits on YouTube (talk about extending the advertising spend!). Aside from making us all smile or LOL, I believe the reason this one hit home was the core insight. Who doesn’t want to give a kid a thrill? There’s Dad, behind the scenes, making his kid feel like he is supernatural. The nostalgia of Star Wars didn’t hurt either.

CareerBuilder. I know that some people are tired of the monkeys. For me it’s a branding device that hits on the insight of feeling like you work with a bunch of inconsiderate people that “don’t get it.” So getting stuck in a place where you are frustrated that you can’t get out hits the nail on the head.

And who can’t relate to the horror of hitting “reply all” by mistake. Bridgestone, coming out of nowhere in my opinion, caught one of the best insights of the night with their Super Bowl campaign. And while many did not see the tie to the brand, for me it is as simple as those tires giving you the ability to race around and get to everything you need to.

I still like the Snickers insight of not quite feeling like yourself when you’re hungry. And while it wasn’t a new campaign by any means, I liked seeing Roseann Barr pop out of nowhere.

Did these advertisements build the brand? Yes, certainly. But not to the degree that my two absolute favorites did: the NFL and Chrysler.

I was really impressed by the NFL advertising, although it perhaps didn’t deliver on the hype and glamour of many of the others. The NFL had a few spots thrown in the mix, and every one of them quite simply delivered on the NFL brand experience. I loved the one where the tv screen turned into a tablet turned into a hand held device turned into a tv. You can watch the NFL where ever you go. And then the retro montage of tv-inspired Super Bowl party moments was brilliant. Really going far in turning the NFL into more than just a football organization but into a brand and a brand experience. Best Fans Ever.

And finally there was Chrysler, Imported from Detroit. Best in show, at least for me. First of all it took me by surprise because I hadn’t seen it ahead of time. And while I am impressed by all the activity on social media leading up to the game, I do have to say that the experience of watching a great piece of film in the moment was priceless. The storytelling was the best of the lot for sure. The music, use of celebrity, and cinematography made for an attention-getting moment in advertising history. But the pride in America and what we all do for a living and what we can all do to improve our lot is what hit it out of the park for me (sorry that’s a baseball analogy I think). It was insightful, creative, emotional, engaging, entertaining, brand building, and memorable. It changed the way I think about the brand, about Detroit, and about our future together. What more can you ask for in a piece of advertising?

Thanks to everyone who participated with me in the live posts and tweets, particularly the #bzbowl bunch. Experiencing the “game” via Facebook and Twitter, while exhausting, was so much fun. This blog post also appears today on Mike Brown’s blog at brainzooming.com. Thanks, Mike!

What’s your experience? Jim”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

View article…

Our country recently noted the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), an act that has literally and figuratively opened doors for disabled guests in a variety of settings.  On the law’s anniversary, a federal court ruling expanded the law’s commitment to enhancing the lives of the disabled by ruling that the term “accessible” be expanded to include not only environments, but experiences.

The situation was this–part of the “Chipotle Experience” at Chipotle Mexican Grill is the customer’s enjoyment of watching his or her food being prepared. A wheelchair-bound plaintiff was unable to partake in this experience because he could not see over the 45 inch high counter. So he sued. The federal court of appeals ruled that hospitality facilities — hotels, restaurants, banquet halls, even casinos — provide not just access for the disabled but also experiences that are equivalent to those for able-bodied guests.

This is huge. It is not enough to comply with the many technical requirements of the ADA, including parking location, building access, path of travel, restroom facilities and others. Businesses must also take into account their differentiating brand attributes.  In Chipotle’s case it includes not just consuming the food, but watching the food preparation, and making sure that experience is accessible to everyone.

As Experience Designers, we design or affect, with great intentionality, the place, perception, products and services and people that comprise a given experience.

This ruling is a good reminder that just as our work must always take into account ALL aspects of an experience, the experiences we design must be accessible, literally, to everyone who wants to partake.

………

Want to know more?  http://www.hospitalityworldnetwork.com/legal/expanded-terms-for-the-americans-with-disabilities-act

Last week, we crossed a major milestone on our Best Place to Work research paper, which will be ready for prime time in early March.  It reminded me that I haven’t really blogged about Kahler Slater being named one of the top 25 Best Places to Work in the country for small businesses. For the seventh year in a row.  In true Kahler Slater fashion, we celebrated this achievement last fall under the theme of “Lucky Number Seven” during an office lunch that featured Seven Layer Salad, libations such as 7&7’s, and slot machines in each office. But in reality, luck had nothing to do with it.

Eight years ago, we set out to become a Best Place to Work as recognized by the Great Place to Work Institute®, an organization that knows more than a thing or two about what makes for outstanding workplaces.  We did so, not because we wanted another plaque to put up in our lobby.  We did it because we wanted a reliable and objective way to annually survey our staff about what works for them, and what doesn’t, around here.  The fact that we’ve won every year since the program was created is nice, don’t get me wrong.  It helps tremendously with recruiting new talent to say that we’ve won this prestigious award year after year.  But more than that, this program has given us baseline information about what our people really think about working here.  And it’s information that’s updated every year, so we can track our progress and spot any troubling trends, which we can then address ASAP.

Giving ourselves a good look-over once a year when the data comes in keeps us honest and authentic. It gives us something objective to rely upon when opening up sometimes difficult conversations. And often it confirms what we already know—the good and the not so good.

So, do you really know how your employees feel about working for your organization?  Are they waiting for the next opportunity to jump ship? Or do they feel lucky to work for you?

Stay tuned for our forthcoming white paper on culture based on best practices from our fellow Best Companies to Work For in America.

In my last post I mentioned the Creativity Fire Drill, affectionately known at Kahler Slater as a CFD.  Although we serve beer and snacks at a CFD, we don’t get quite as ridiculous or out of control as in a CHINESE Fire Drill, which, honestly, did serve the original inspiration.  But we do run around a little bit. We give ourselves the last hour of a scheduled day to stop what we are doing and quick, without any fussing over it, pin up what we are currently working on.  It is a great opportunity to get our butts up out of our chairs, grab a beer and share our stories.  What could be more fun at the end of the work day?

Last Thursday we had about 45 people participating and lots of great work to see.  I stopped by to chat with my colleagues about a new Marriott hotel project they are working on.  This project is highly challenging for the design team as the objective is to stitch a new building into some very tattered, urban fabric.  I can’t wait to see what happens next!

From there I wandered around the corner and heard about two great academic projects.  From studies of gorgeous materials to classroom layout diagrams—so many thoughtful ideas and beautiful sketches! It certainly pays to step away from the computer at times and express yourself by drawing on good, old-fashioned trace paper.  Oh and the new Dugoni School of Dentistry that we are working on, well that might require the team to travel to boring old San Francisco—what a bummer!  They are also looking to explore new teaching prototype methods such as “teaching in the round.”

And last but not least, I was blown away by the progress of a hospital project that we have been working on in Virginia for the last eight years.  It is currently under construction, which, for designers, is often the least interesting part of the story. But in this case, the building is coming together in the exact opposite sequence of what we would expect here in Wisconsin. The team travels weekly to be on site to supervise. They developed a tool involving layered drawings made from trace paper to describe the sequence and methods in which the details should be constructed and executed.  I was fascinated. And again the trace paper shines!

I also had the chance to learn that we just completed an integrated marketing communications plan for this same client. It lays out how to best communicate about the move to the new campus to both the public and their own staff.  We even came up with the tagline for their campaign.

This is just a snapshot of what we are working on at the moment. And there is so much more to share.  Not only do we believe that each project has a story, but we also highly value the stories that we tell each other.  What would you grab off your desk to share if the Creativity Fire Drill Bell rang right now?

PS – Notice the little fire alarm in the upper right of the picture I posted?

I attended a very cool event on behalf of Kahler Slater last week that has me feeling really optimistic about where I live. (Okay, maybe it has also something to do with the Packer win yesterday…)

The event was a cocktail party/presentation on an initiative entitled Creativity Works!, a joint project of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Milwaukee and the Greater Milwaukee Committee.  The abundance of cool glasses, funky hair and great boots in the crowd of 300 was staggering.

CreativityWorks! is working to inventory and grow the Milwaukee seven county region’s creative economy, meaning the people, enterprises, and communities that transform artistic and cultural content, skills, knowledge and ideas into economically productive goods and services.  This event unveiled a huge research study that defined and mapped the creative economy of the region. It is the first step in developing a strategic plan for the sector. Here are some cool facts.

• There are 66,707 “creative” jobs in the Milwaukee area in over 4,000 businesses and organizations
• Providing $2 billion in wages
• Comprising 4% of the region’s employment, which is almost as high as Atlanta’s percentage.

I participated in a little opening sequence highlighting members of the creative class and was honored to be in the company of Jim McDonald, the Associate Dean of the School of Media and Creative Arts at Milwaukee Area Technical College,  Dasha Kelly, a spoken word artist and administrator of youth creative writing programs, Jonathan Jackson, the Artistic and Executive Director of the Milwaukee Film Festival, Ray Drea, Director of Styling for the Harley-Davidson Motor Company (read this New York Times article about cool his job) and Ryan Ramos, lead designer of CT and PET scanners at GE Medical.

I felt humbled and really awed by the talent around me. Right here in Milwaukee.

Because this initiative is designed to recognize and grow creative industries in southeastern Wisconsin, one of the coolest areas of focus is in attracting talent with ties to this area back from New York and Los Angeles, the creative hot spots where many people cut their creative teeth.  People like me, actually.

I’m really looking forward to the power Creativity Works! can lend to Kahler Slater’s ability to attract top creative talent.  Having the Packers might help too…

Remember when paper coffee cups had those flimsy little handles, mimicking the handles on a real mug?  That was an obvious solution to what coffee drinkers everywhere used to experience—burning fingers from taking their morning joe on the go.  Those little handles worked for a long time. Until someone thought a little bit harder and realized that it wasn’t about building a to-go cup that acted like a regular, non-finger burning mug. It was about finding an elegant solution to heat protection. Thus, the coffee sleeve!

Every thing starts with an idea. But truly great ideas are built on a concept.  This is what Winston J. Perez, the guru of Concept Modeling, says on his website.  He and his company, offer a proprietary service to clients that helps them access the concept behind their product, service or idea.

Here is one cool example.

Winston developed concept models around a 20-year-old law firm. Through his work, he redefined the ideas at the center of the business and identified what is was they were really selling. It wasn’t legal services, believe it or not. It was “peace of mind” that was central to their customers’ interest in their services. Through this re-identification process, they were able to develop new marketing and networking strategies which resulted in a huge increase in revenue.

The coolest thing is that Winston is now working with Hollywood filmmakers taking scripts (anyone see Quantum of Solace?), which are basically ideas, and shaping them for success by identifying the concept behind them.  Read how the New York Times described his work.

This in many ways is just good strategy. In our design world, an idea is one thing; one grounded in a concept is an elegant solution. Which reminds me of that coffee sleeve.  Anyone else craving Starbucks?

When we published our book Better Make it Real: Creating Authenticity in an Increasingly Fake World last year, our publicist, the fabulous Patti Danos, worked hard to distill 163 pages into some key takeaways on which the media could nibble.  Lucky for us, the media bit and we got some great press attention. But as a bonus, one of her pitches, Testing Your True Readiness to Embrace Total Experience Design, has become a handy little nine point overview of what expressing organizational authenticity in your workplace requires.  I thought I’d write a little today about one of them.

First, Total Experience Design is the process of defining and expressing your organizational authenticity by coordinating every experience your stakeholders have with your organization.  Here is a small example:  if your organization was a mom-and-pop auto repair shop with loyal local customers, would it express authentic to have an automated voicemail prompt greet customers when they call?

Getting every single experience—for ALL of your stakeholders, staff and customers alike, to align and support one another often entails a total renovation of your business.  And if you’ve ever done a home renovation of any sort, you know it can be very, very messy.

Accept the mess.

Total Experience Design is not about incremental change. You can’t solve the functional issues with your kitchen by painting the cabinets. You can’t help your organization deliver authentic, one-of-a-kind offerings by making small tweaks either. Think of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Remember the episode when Ty Pennington and his crew used dynamite to blow up a family’s old house? I guess that is why the show is called “extreme.”

While many of us would love for a reality show like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition to come to our homes and just fix everything that needs it all at once, the reality of homeownership is that it is an ongoing endeavor.  So too, Total Experience Design is a slow, iterative process, not an overnight event. Many changes materialize gradually. Others happen quickly, but need to be modified.  As with any renovation, the demolition and construction phases produce a lot of debris. Accept the dust, dirt, and rubble. They’ll be with you for a while.

When Kahler Slater celebrated our 100^th year of business in 2008, we added a new tag line to our logo—Experience Design—to reflect who we are today. While our foundation was and still is in architecture, Kahler Slater has evolved over the years to deliver so much more.

So what is Experience Design?  As a discipline, it is so new that its very definition is in flux. One pioneer, Nathan Shedroff, says that it is a focus on the elements that contribute to superior experiences which are knowable and reproducible, thus making them designable. That is kind of lofty.

At Kahler Slater, we see it a bit differently.  It is both how we do our work and what clients encounter in working with us. It is a noun and a verb. This is not only cool and kind of clever, it is also important in understanding what Kahler Slater is all about.

Let’s see if I can explain this.  We design experiences, not just buildings or interiors, entire multi-sensory experiences. That is the noun.

And the verb—experience design—is what happens as we work. Because we partner with our clients, both they, and we experience the design process—together. A client doesn’t just get a design. They experience the designing with us. And that experiencing of design is what results in extraordinary innovations for everyone involved.

If that makes sense, then you understand what makes Kahler Slater so unique. And why, in the design and innovation world, we think we’ve got something pretty special going on.

Anyone following the news in Milwaukee knows that there is a new Marriott Hotel proposed for a historic block of our downtown. And most know that on the proposed site are five buildings that the Milwaukee Historic Preservation Commission wants saved and the developer initially wanted to raze.  Sounds messy, right?

Enter, Kahler Slater.

Our hospitality team has a special passion for historic preservation and restoration. These projects are inherently complicated, but that is part of the thrill.  Finding a way to save what is valuable about the old and appropriately incorporate something new is what our team lives for.  Add that this project is just two blocks from our main office and it doesn’t get any better than this.

At a press conference yesterday our design solution was unveiled to the whole city. Our client likes it. The mayor likes it. And you know what? We really like it!

In a nutshell, our plan found a compromise. It restores and reconstructs the facades of two buildings on one street corner to their late 19^th century appearance.  And around the corner on the other side of the site, we propose a new 10-story building that blends in with its historic neighbors but also injects a little energy to this long-neglected street.

Visit the development’s website to see more photos and renderings of our proposed design.  And thanks for indulging me. It’s fun to boast once in a while.

Happy New Year…Are you ready to dig in, get focused and accomplish something?

Well you might not want to try such a feat while AT work. The distractions and interruptions in the modern workplace has made “work” one of the least viable places to “do work.” Many now resort to sacrificing weekend time, hiding out in conference rooms or retreating to Starbucks to find time to focus on work.

Jason Fried and David Heinemeier, co-founders of 37signals (they created Basecamp) describe the trials and tribulations in their book Rework. The authors offer that the ‘work day’ is actually a series of brief ‘work moments’ which rarely contribute to a productive day. Sound familiar?

Last year our Graphic Design team tried to find focus another way.

We fashioned custom hats from aluminum foil intended to “block out” distractions, meaning clue in others that we were trying to focus, when worn. Despite the ridiculous nature of the designs (princess crown, top hat, helmet) they did serve as a reminder to our colleagues (and ourselves) that uninterrupted time to think is incredibly important in the creative process. Now we would be nowhere in our industry without collaboration, but sometimes the best and most productive work is done sitting alone. It seems that these days “work” could benefit from a little “rework.”

For more on Rework, read Entrepreneur.com contributor, Diane Danielson’s review or check out Jason’s recent talk at TEDX. It’s fun, interesting and 15 minutes long…I bet you can’t get through it uninterrupted.

At Kahler Slater we are paid to dream.  This doesn’t mean I can spend my days in a comatose state with visions of Louis Poulsen lamps dancing in my head.  It does mean that I am responsible for knowing when to hit the pause button on our fast-tracked projects to take time to explore.  Chances are, if you are leading a transformation of any scale within your company, you are being paid to dream too.

We find dreaming to be so important, we have actually identified it as a phase in our process.  All too often our clients are eager to jump right into design solutions after hiring us.  This is bad for two reasons. One, it usually results in a design that is based on what is known and comfortable rather than what could be. And two, it can lead to decision paralysis, as Chip and Dan Heath like to call it. Without doing some work imagining what the ideal end result looks like, all ideas start to look good and a client gets completely overwhelmed.

Hence, we must find ways to work with our clients in which we not only stimulate them to dream, but also to articulate their dreams.

With respect to the upcoming Martin Luther King Day, we must recognize one of the most powerful dreams expressed of the last century.  Would the outcome have been the same if one visionary leader had not summarized these emotions into the words of a dream?

Next time you are faced with a transformative project, challenge yourself to dream.  Maybe this means creating a “war zone” in your cubicle with post-its, or buying your first Moleskine® sketchbook.  If you are getting paid for your ideas, you owe it to your clients—and yourself.

In the new book, The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs, the author, Carmine Gallo, attributes Jobs’ success to eight pretty straightforward principles, the first one being “Do What You Love.”  Gallo writes about how Jobs believes it’s a pretty tough thing to consistently come up with innovative and creative ideas that break new ground if you’re not seriously passionate about what you’re doing.  I’d concur.  At Kahler Slater, one of the questions we ask every potential staff member is:  What are you passionate about?  And if there isn’t some corollary between that person’s stated passion and the work we’re doing, then odds are they won’t get a job offer from us.  Being creative and innovative day in and day out is tough enough if you don’t have the staying power that passion brings.

Last fall, my niece began what I think is one of the most challenging careers out there –teaching. The sophomores she teaches are mostly minority, mostly poor and, as teenagers are, always a challenge.  She called me after her first week to let me know how things were going.  “I know that I’m doing what I was meant to be doing,” she said.  “And, they’re paying me to do it – how great is that?”

How many of us can say that we’re doing what we were meant to do?  How many of us bring that kind of passion to our workplaces every single day?  In the end, whether you’re Steve Jobs, changing the world one technological breakthrough at a time, or whether you’re my niece teaching the lessons found in To Kill a Mockingbird, when we bring passion to the workplace, everyone benefits.

What’s your passion?

Check out all eight innovation secrets that can be learned from Steve Jobs.

As you can probably tell, I am standing up while I write this welcome.

I am obviously also smiling as I greet you.

Why am I greeting you standing up with a smile? Well, how welcome would you feel if you paid me a visit and I was sitting down with a frown as you walked in? Not very bloody welcome, right!

The essence of a fabulous hospitality experience starts with the first impression – a warm welcome – and terrific hospitality experiences should not be confined to fine hotels. In fact they should exist in every environment in which we interact – the office, hospital, school, store and stadium.  And even this blog.

What’s the big deal with first impressions?   Everyone has heard that a first impression can last a lifetime. We all know from personal experience what a great first impression is. I’m taking the time to remind you of it because of this Havard Business Review blog post, “Why Your Customers Don’t Want to Talk to You.” It discusses, very simply, the shifting consumer preference for self-service. If you have ever waited in line for an ATM machine even though there is nobody in line for the teller inside the bank, you know what I am talking about.

So, how do we consider the efficiency, convenience and preference for a self-service transaction and at the same time offer a personal, memorable, authentic experience that only a real person can offer?  Hmmmm….that is the question.

Thanks for visiting and I hope to see you again soon.  (Now I’m standing up and smiling as I bid farewell.)

My fellow executive officer, Jim Rasche and I, spoke at the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation: 2010 Transform Symposium in September.  The conference featured speakers discussing innovations in health care as well as a number of other industries.  It was an incredibly interesting and inspirational experience.

Perhaps the most inspirational presentation came Rebecca Onie who was a freshman in college student when she discovered the connection between health and poverty.  As a legal intern she met a client who was about to be evicted from his home.  When Rebecca asked him why he couldn’t pay his rent, he answered that he had to pay for his AIDS medicine instead.  This led Rebecca on a process of discovery where she learned that things like the lack of food, housing and jobs were the real contributing factors behind the medical problems of low income families.  Left unattended, these problems exacerbated or even caused serious health problems.  Worse, medical professionals were often at a loss as to how to” treat” these core problems.

So, Rebecca created Health Leads which allows health professionals to write actual prescriptions for these unmet needs.  Patients take the “prescription” to an Health Leads Family Help Desk, where well-trained college interns connect patients with existing resources to get the help they need, whether it’s finding a job or apartment, or getting food.

Did I mention Rebecca happened to win a MacArthur ”Genius Grant” for her work?

As she said in her presentation, most college intern experiences are “kind of crap, but look good when you apply to medical school.” This amazing young woman not only positively transformed the collegiate internship experience, but she did so by bringing together existing talent and resources to dramatically improve healthcare for low income families.  Check out her speech here and then ask yourself – how can I leverage existing talent and resources to improve an experience that could positively change or even save lives?

And check out our Mayo Innovation Conference presentation too while you’re at it.

If you’ve ever been desperate and had to plunk yourself down on floor of an airport to plug in a dying laptop or cellphone (once you’ve found the blessed outlet, of course), you’ll be happy to hear that Samsung Mobile is stepping where most domestic airports have failed.

Unveiled last summer, these mobile phone charging stations, in 10 domestic departure terminals, allow tech-addled travelers to charge all manner of personal electronic devices.  Whew. Thank you.

But here is what is really cool. Look at the picture I snapped in at the San Francisco International Airport last July. Because the kiosks have four outlets per station, a handy, bar-height table, and oh, places to sit, there is more going on here than the flow of electrically charged particles.   People are interacting. And if only two people are talking in this photo, let me tell you, by the time I boarded my flight for Los Angeles, all four of those folks, none of whom were travelling together, were pretty darn chummy.

Samsung’s mobile charging stations help put the mobile phone maker’s brand in front of 395 million pairs of eyes annually, which is valuable in terms of pure ROI of marketing dollars. But Samsung goes a step further. Not only do they solve a problem, they create an opportunity to connect with others. And isn’t that what technology is really all about anyway? Way to go, Samsung!

Once a month at Kahler Slater we get together over coffee and bagels to watch one of the many excellent TED (Technology Entertainment Design) video presentations available on www.ted.com/talks.  This week we got a taste of the brilliant insights of Steven Johnson. He is the guy who wrote Everything Bad Is Good for You in which he proposed that tv and video games are actually making us smarter. A radical thinker, for sure. His new book questions the notion that most people have that “Eureka” moment of creativity.  He believes that great ideas linger in your mind for long periods of time before you even realize they are there. And by a long time he means possibly years!

He calls this the “Slow Hunch Theory.”

What helps to bring these slowly gestating ideas to the fore are opportunities and environments that allow our minds connect and share in an unpredictable, open platform. He talked about “collision”–random, unexpected hunch exchanges with others.  Watch this short, really cool, illustrated narrative that describes his theory.

At Kahler Slater we “collide” at these TED Breakfasts and other events, like Creativity Fire Drills, where the call goes out and everyone grabs whatever he or she is working on at the moment, pins it up in a central place, and we grab beers and talk about each other’s work.   We designed our workplace specifically to support interactions like these. And we design the same way for our clients.

Where or how do you “collide” with others?

Hear that splash?  That was the sound of Kahler Slater jumping with two feet into the realm of social media.  Starting today, you’ll find you can follow the thoughts and musings of our Experience Designers here on this blog and on Twitter and Facebook.

Well, why?  And why now?

It all started about a year ago with the book I wrote on behalf of our firm, Better Make it Real:  Creating Authenticity in an Increasingly Fake World (Praeger, 2010). Marketing that book opened up a whole new way of engaging the world in thought leadership. It became clear that we didn’t have to wait for one of our staff to finish that white paper or deliver that presentation to begin having a conversation about it.  And we learned that having a two-way exchange is a whole lot more enjoyable and beneficial for everyone involved.

So what began as my Better Make it Real blog (www.bettermakeitreal.com) is now our enterprise blog where I hope to continue to have a place to have conversations about organizational authenticity and other subjects dear to my heart.

We have a bunch of Kahler Slater folks queued up who will also share their perspectives on Experience Design. You’ll be hearing from Jim Rasche, my fellow 3EO on leadership and health care; Doug Nysse on hotels and hospitality; Sally Theiler on some of the great things our clients are up to; Amber MacCracken covering Kahler Slater’s culture of collaboration and fun; and lastly Tony LaPorte and Marlisa Kopenski, who’ve been told to “surprise us.”

While we intend to initiate a ton of different ideas and topics, we are hoping for two-way conversations.  We’d like to hear your thoughts, ideas and challenges to anything we put out there.  I can’t promise that everything we write will inform, amuse or enlighten you, but we’ll give it our best shot.  Sound fair?  Looking forward to talking with you…