Customer Reviews

Do You Matter? How Great Design Will Make People Love Your Company

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

The two major premises of the book are that design is important and that design should be approached as a process instead of an event. It is not just about the features of the item under design, be it a product or a building. Instead, it is about the whole user experience, physically and emotionally; the latter of which is what defines a great design. (There is a third premise, which is that good design is not easy. I don't think this needs to be argued for.)

The book uses a lot of tech products as examples, many of which I have personal experience with. While the "whole user experience" point is valid, I am not so sure about the authors' judgement on some of the "successes" to the point that I wonder if they have actually experienced those items themselves. (Or maybe I just happen to have bad luck with many tech products, some of which are touted as "it just works"?) In any case, point well taken.

As for the non-tech examples, I find that most of them strike a chord with my experience. The FiveBucks story on p87 leaves me chuckling as an ex-customer. The Washington-Dulles airport experience on p21 and the W hotel story on p150 are both very real. Becoming aware of many things about my daily life is the most rewarding part of reading this book.

Overall, I would say that the book has successfully put together a collection of short stories that argues for its premises. However, I must note one thing that I really don't like about the physical aspect of the book itself: the text is printed too close to the hardcover binding that at times it makes for an awkward reading experience. You would think that a book about design has been designed as well. I am sure the authors won't mind I take one star off because of this less-than-stellar reading experience of their book. :P

As an executive in a large corporation with the responsibility to display to my clients things that differentiate us from other companies with which we compete, I am always reading about ways to achieve this.

Like self-help books, there is a well developed genre of books about how to make your company stand out from the others. I suppose theres a great temptation to read the ideas, run off and implement them chapter and verse, and then wait/hope/pray for great transformation to take place.

But there's no magic pill. And all the great advice in all the greatest books won't make a bit of difference if your company really is different from all the rest.

But there really are ways to stand out. This book is full of ideas. But each idea by itself is not enough to achieve the end goal of making people love your company. And the authors know this well.

From the start they make it clear that having a successful company requires a wholistic approach. Everyone from the very top to the very bottom must be fully committed to a shared vision, with a consistent level of performance to achieve the goals. And the old saw about the customer always being right is constantly reinforced here but in ways that seem obvious when you read them, but may never have occured to you before.

Numerous examples of familiar companies are cited. Their successes and failures are examined in great detail in very engaging ways. These are not boring case studies. These are compelling stories about how companies rise and fall. Ever wonder what happened to Polaroid? Remember them - king of the instant photo? Who would have thought that they'd be left behind by digital photography - the electronic version of the instant photo. But because they didn't have a connection with their customers and the world as it changed, they practically ceased to exist. And certainly in digital photography terms, they don't exist as a major player.

What about Apple? Lots of stories about Apple. Samsung. When I was a young adult Samsung was the ultimate junk electronics company. Crappy products. Dumb designs. Cheap unreliable rubbish. Take another look today. They're near the top of the heap. They found a way to completely transform their company by the way they approached design, and by the way they connected with their market and especially their customers.

The thing that resonates with my experience is the emphasis that is placed on the customer experience. In many ways, the field I am in has very little opportunity to achieve meaningful differentiation. We all sell the same services. We all use the same product vendors. We all describe similar solutions and delivery strategies. But what we all have the potential to do different hinges on what kind of experience our customers have.

At the end of the day, it's all about the people we serve and the way they feel about our products and services. Deliver a wonderful product to a customer who has been made to suffer the whole while and you will not likely get another chance.

For some fields, the reader may at first have trouble connecting with the message. At first I was wondering if anything I was reading would be relevant to my world. But slowly as I read the book, it all started to connect together and make sense. Even before I had finished reading the book I was using the ideas in my daily work. And I am seeing some very rewarding personal benefits.

The biggest challenge is to apply these concepts across a large company that is bottom-line driven. The authors themselves acknowedge how difficult it can be to transform the way a company does business. But notwithstanding my own ability to have such profound influence, I still found this book to be very worthwhile. Don't miss a chance to read what it has to offer. Maybe you work with me and together we can make a difference!

"Do You Matter" took me a while to warm up to. It starts out mostly as an ode to the iPhone, and I have been bombarded by magazine articles, product reviews, blogs, emailed news summaries, radio stories and advertisements all waxing poetic about how the iPhone is so revolutionary. Not that these forums are lying or even exaggerating about the iPhone - it's the only Mac product that I own and it really is amazing. It's just that "Do You Matter" spends a lot of time in the first few chapters repeating what I have heard a 100 times before.

I will say that the list of products and innovators discussed expands after the first few chapters to include some familiar and perhaps some unlikely candidates. Unfortunately the products discussed are mass-market consumer oriented, and the companies are all mega-corporations. This can be a bit off-putting to me, as I work in a relatively small, business-to-business oriented company.

That being said, the overall point of the book is not any one product. Rather, the authors spend a lot of time discussing the principles of wholeness of design. To summarize, most companies tend to focus on mental silos. The accountants worry about cash coming in and out. Engineers have written function lists that cannot be strayed from. Marketing and Sales have their own views, as does the Customer Service department. Individually these groups all focus on what they need to do, and you cannot blame them for that. Unfortunately, sometimes it seems to the outside world that these groups are all working off of a different playbook. For example, you spend a lot of cash on a high-end stereo system. The sales man knows what he is talking about, and you leave the store looking forward to getting it delivered and installed. Unfortunately the guy who shows up is an imbecile who shows up late, doesn't have all the wires he needs and has no idea how to hook up the stereo to your high def television. Then the accounting people pester you about a past due charge that was not disclosed to you before hand. You end up with a terrible feeling about the company that sold you the system, and maybe you even end up not enjoying your stereo system as a result of the experience.

It's a perspective that I sometimes forget about in the midst of hectic days and tangible challenges. What it is like for a customer to do business with THE COMPANY as a whole. What it is like at every interaction point? Where can we improve these interactions and who is responsible for managing such a high-level review?

That's where a book like this comes in handy. Even if you don't care about the individual products, even if your company is not a Fortune 500 monolith, even if you're not designing new products for consumer use, it's always useful to force yourself to adapt a different perspective on your company AND your customers. This book made me do this and we have had a couple of successes as a result of small tweaks I made to our systems.

On one hand, this book's overall goal is one that I appreciate and believe is important. On the other hand, as a person working in a relatively small company, I wish that there were more examples that I could personally relate to. As ratings are deeply personal, I need to go with my own biases and give it 3 stars. That means that it met expectations - I am a believer in tough grading, and to get a 4 you need to exceed expectations. It's times like these that I wish that I could give half-star ratings. It would give it 3.5 stars if I could.

Books on business success go through cycles. When Marketing was king, tons of books came out about business being "all about marketing." When sales was king, it was "business is all about sales." Accounting types write books about how business is all about accounting, and so on.

There is a heavy aroma of fad to these approaches, mixed with the usual "when your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" way of seeing things.

There is a certain amount of that kind of marketing gimmick to the approach the authors take in this book. In this case, it is "design" that is the secret key to unlocking the treasures of the ages. The premise is corny and trite.

Well, okay, it is not quite THAT bad, but those kind of marketing ploys wear on me after a while. Marketing types are always trying to find ways to "stand out" from the other products/services, and too often forget the importance of content and value.

Fortunately in this case, the authors rise above the silliness of their marketing concept and deliver solid, valuable business advice backed by strong examples. They get past the premise and take the reader through chapter after chapter of examples from the real world of global business, and their conclusions are (literally) right on the money.

Samsung, Apple, Starbucks, Target, W Hotels, and many other businesses are explored. They examine the successes and the failures with balance, and point out the things that one would think would be obvious, but often are not, which leads to business problems.

The example of Polaroid, which was the leader for decades in instant photography but completely dropped the ball when digital photography (the obvious evolution of instant) came along, is as instructive as it gets. The example of Home Depot, which lost its focus to the myopia of spreadsheet jockeys, and nearly expired because of that, is also clearly instructive.

The thing which I find continually amazing is how there is no shortage of such stories about high-paid business leadership just not "getting it" and sinking an otherwise healthy business. (Aside, of course, from deliberate "poison pills" who are there to trash the place on purpose.) Stories of really dumb moves abound. (The sad part here is how many of the clowns responsible for those stories end up with Golden Parachutes and a chance to ruin another business.)

While the authors push their concept of design being the filter through which modern business must be viewed, they thoroughly cover all the real issues in business, such as high quality products/service, stellar customer service, and a long term view that doesn't treat the immediate sale as the be-all-and-end-all of a good business. The example of W Hotels with their "almost psychic" customer service is one clear example of what really matters in making a business a success. I suppose it is okay to call such over-the-top dedication to your customers "design," but as long as the book delivers the goods, I don't really care what they call it.

The book is dense with examples and solid wisdom in business success. And, while I have poked fun at the authors' design premise, I do consider design to be one of the top factors in business success. (Bucky Fuller and Victor Papanek having had strong influence in my life.) Well designed products and services are so rare that they usually do create a real "Oh, Wow!" experience, that simply cannot be manufactured with phony marketing campaigns.

The importance of design and of listening to customer's needs can be illustrated by the recent success of Asus and the "nettop" computer. (Not from the book) All the usual pundits ridiculed the idea and Sony (a one-time innovator in electronics, long since deposed), even called it bad for the computer business. Customers, on the other hand, responded enthusiastically to the idea, which, despite Asus' odd marketing plan, sometimes poor implementation, and horrific customer support, made the concept an overwhelming success, pulling scores of copycats into the market. (As a writer, I can attest to the fact that the need for such a device is real, as I had been looking for just such a thing for a decade. I've tried PDAs and laptops, but they just didn't meet the cost/performance profile I wanted.)

The clear lesson from this example, which apparently needs to be relearned on a regular basis, is LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS. Is it really all that difficult a concept to understand? For some, it is apparently impossible.

Read this book. It will remind you of what is important and the penalty for failing to pay attention. Review it often, there is good stuff in here. The concept is fresh and the examples alone are well worth it.

This book is a great read about what good design is and the difference it can make on a company's success. It's full of real life examples about how some companies do it right and others fail miserably. No longer is design confined to the appearance of a product, but now it involves a whole myriad of things. One example the author uses is the iPod. The iPod is more than just an attractive object. It's the iTunes store, the 99 cent songs, and even the Apple store. If you have any interest in learning about the impact of design this is the definitive book. It's co-written by the the first head of ID for Apple. The book is full of illustrations and practical examples. Read this and you'll never look at a product in quite the same way.

The book by Robert Brunner and Stewart Emery is a compelling book defining what design is, why design is important to products/services/business, how to make design part of your process/culture and how lifestyles get connected to products. Apple is the prime example of a design driven organization used in the book. Steve Jobs is given as an architypal Chief Creative Officer (CEO).

The writing style of the book is very clean, crisp and well structured use of examples with the logic behind the particular example to clarify and drive home the point. The approach is much better than the style used by Marty Neumeier in "The Designful Company". The big question is "Do You Matter?" which is really a great question that all company management and product managers should be asking themselves everyday especially in the real-time nature of the internet.

The book does a great job of explaining why design is so important in creating products / services that are meaningful, affective and given sometimes cultish support by customers. The need to refocus the entire company to design products from the customer point of view (surface) and the backward engineer as need to make the customer experience happen makes a lot of sense. This is a difficult thing to do for a company as the book points out with many clear examples. The way to get a company to do it is not a magical set of 12 steps but rather getting management, middle-management and low level employees to be aligned using whatever methods are necessary.

"Product as a portal" to the customer is a critical concept -- lifestyle products. If a company can make products portals, they will be exceptionally successful as the lifetime value of the relationship with the customer will be much larger than a given transaction with the customer.

"Customer experience supply chain management" is a bit clunky but does summarize what a company needs to focus on. The book discusses this very well. The approaches to make this happen are useful but you need to know what will work in your organization.

Summary, this is a very useful book for all companies but especially start-ups developing new products with limited resources. The rapid prototyping method of quickly getting at what a customer wants is very important. However, you must remember that once you know what a customer wants you must be extremely detail oriented and not stop iterating until it is correct (product, box, service, purchasing, support, etc). Management of start-up companies must read this book!

i read the book in just few days. its a type of a book that captivates you, that you can't let go and that you want more of. It is about all things that i so strongly believe matter when you make a product that changes people's lives, products that provoke smiles, warm fuzzy feelings, products to remember generations after. a nice gallery of good and bad examples to learn from. Its a lot about Apple and their geniality in all they do. Apple approach to 'total design' is a motivation to so many designers, marketers, to people who care and my personal driving spirit.
This book is highly inspirational for those who want 'to matter'. I am eternally grateful to the authors for this fantastic book with great, unselfishly shared references. I hope my professional path will cross theirs one day. This book is a door opening towards new, better worlds.
I strongly recommend owning the book.

"Do You Matter" is a is an important entry in the growing list of titles that address the business of building a brand. In a lot of ways, it is connected to recent titles like "Made to Stick," and "Buying In," in that it focuses on the secondary (and often subliminal) elements of achieving excellence and outselling the competition.

Like those titles, the book focuses on cutting through a cluttered market and making a connection with your customer -- here, the magic connector is design.

100 years ago, in order to buy a pair of shoes, a person found the local shoemaker, told the artisan what he wanted and agreed on a price. The question of whether that shoemaker would get their return business depended on a lot of factors that played out over the relationship: how close did the shoemkaer come to producing what the customer wanted? did the product hold up? how did the product perform for the intended purpose? In other words, there was a personal relationship between the customer and the producer, with the product as fulcrum. Machined, mass-manufacture changed that equation, and the new efficiencies that resulted added a new dimension to the consumer exchange: the customer might sacrifice some control but he would get a better price. Outsourcing and overseas production changed that equation further, nw even the producer lost some control, but price was paramount.

That era has played itself out and all of the efficiencies available have been maximized across nearly all competitors. The result: today, shoes are available from dozens of different and competing companies at about the same level of quality and at the same price with the same convenience of acquisition.

"Do You Matter" attempts to answer the question: how do you seperate your product? Their answer, if Customer A has the choice of five identically priced and similarly useful shoes to choose from, design superiority is where you can grab market share.

The book's premise is particularly resonant given the economic times. There is some question out there as to whether -- in a cost-cutting time -- companies will still make the investments that they have recently expanded in things like sustainability practice, or design. The answer is that succesful businesses will figure out that they must. In a consumer culture where buyers are faced with a bevy of sellers peddling wares of largely similar quality, utility and price, it will be the identification issues that win the day: brand, sustainable id, design preeminence.

The book is set-up very much as a "how-to," and there is where I find one of its weaknesses (or at least a narrowing effect). Who is the reader? Many of the examples they employ in their anecdotes and lessons come from very well-known Fortune 500 companies, or much-heralded maverick small businesses and entrepeneurs. In theory, one could conceive of people in all of these spheres having some utility for the book. But, given that it is very much a "call to action" type of a book, for it to have the desired effect, the reader would have to be a Marketing VP, or someone similarly well-situated to employ the tactics discussed. At the same time, unless they were also the person who was doing the design, the book doesn't give an overall "marching order" that could easily form a philosophy for organization-wide adherence.

For those reasons, I don't see the book serving much purpose beyond the small entrepeneur or Inc. Magazine kind of company where the leadership, management, and ownershiop are tightly enough connected to the sales and marketing (not to mention the other groups employed in industrial design elements) functions to effectuate the change.

This is a worthy title, wrapped up in a snappy orange and black hardcover package (no dust jacket), but offers limited utility.

My own review is more like 3 1/2 stars, but I'm trying to think about it from the perspective of the target reader. Someone who was not familiar with the psychology of design would probably get more out of this book that I did. I've been looking at that area a long time, going back to Donald Norman's classic Psychology of Everyday Things (which was changed to The Design of Everyday Things in the second edition). So I didn't find the idea of stepping outside routine thinking during design to be anything I had not heard before.

However, this book does a better job of relating design to business products and processes. I'd say it's aimed at the typical manager or executive that sells a product with any kind of consumer focus. It can help such a person see products more from a customer perspective, and gain a better appreciation of the entire customer experience.

The book works harder on getting the reader pumped up than giving prescriptive recommendations. I suppose that's understandable; it's hard to be prescriptive about good design. It's often an interactive, collaborative, iterative, unpredictable process.

But this book gets a couple of key elements right, such as keeping an open mind and not being content with routine or prosaic answers.

If you're in the business world, and unfamiliar with the importance and psychology of design, this is a pretty good book to start. Design professionals should look elsewhere.

Do You Matter? How great design will make people love your company...is a innovative guide to more powerful marketing. This book wonderfully illuminates how great design makes people love a company. References throughout the book of actual case studies where companies used an excellent design process to design a compelling customer experience of their products and services - vividly brought each point home. Likewise, case studies of companies that didn't use a total customer experience design process and how that led to their products and services to fail their customers provided further amplification of the authors points. It was indeed revealing.

Hopefully, more companies will use this as a guide for designing products and services that their customers will rave about. What a relief it would be to not need to deal with all those run-of-the-mill products where the design process obviously were not focused on the customer experience. I want to love more companies.