Some great quotes here – take a look!

http://www.economicsofinnovation.org/2011/11/what-is-strategist.html

What is a Strategist?

Over the years I’ve periodically ended up with a job title that included the word ‘Strategist’. It’s almost always applied as an adjective as in Brand Strategist, Design Strategist, Social Media Strategist or Plumbing Strategist.

Great strategic thinking is a team sport. You need a mix of disciplines and backgrounds, but eventually someone has to go away after the brainstorm and turn the ideas into something that can be communicated and executed. That person is a strategist.

Recently I’ve been thinking about what makes a Strategist different to an Account Manager, a Copywriter or a Planner. I wanted to focus in on the role of a person who is referred to as a Strategist, rather than the larger question of “What is strategy?”

What is a strategist?
My mum still occasionally asks me “So, what is it that you actually do?” In search of a better answer, I thought I’d ask a few friends what it means to be a “Strategist”, their answers included:

A strategist develops opinions on the future direction of a company and its brand, based on existing and predicted conditions, other known variables, intuition and research.
- David Lyall, Creative Strategist

A strategist uses big-picture thinking, storytelling, insights, criteria development tools and synthesis in the development of agreed-upon end-goals.
- Randy Deutsch, Design Strategist

A strategist takes a range of new media techniques and tools and combines them into an integrated approach best suited to the client’s needs.
- Wil Benton, Digital & Social Strategist

A strategist analyses complex environments or problems and designs practical pathways and business solutions to achieve organisational objectives.
- Kaye Glamuzina, Head of Strategy

A strategist is someone who has the ability to see beyond the near term.
- Richard Mander, Product Management Leader

A strategist is concerned with establishing the long-term direction of a business.
- Anas, Strategy Consultant

A strategist is responsible for conceptually and holistically thinking of a future direction based on incomplete information.
- Rui Martins, Director

A strategist looks at all inputs that will be important to a business and distills them into the right solution for future success.
- Stephen Gibbs, Director

A strategist identifies choices, evaluates them and recommends the best course of action to realise the client’s objective.
- Jake Pearce, Consultant

A strategist makes decisions based on a future goal, and connects the present to that future-state so that the path is perceived to be achievable by others.
- Greg Ellis, Coach and Mentor

A strategist is the thinker that informs the course of a project.
- Josh Levine, Culture Consultant

A strategist figures out how the various cogs and wheels fit together so that the whole machine hums.
- Meena Kadri, Communications Strategist

What makes a good strategist?
Being people who think about improving things for a living, my friends also pitched in with what they think makes a good strategist. Their comments included:

A good strategist is marked out by their ability to use two words: “No” and “Why”.
- David Lyall

A good strategist sees problems through other’s perspectives.
- Randy Deutsch

A good strategist can take control and fix something that someone else has f_cked up.
- Kaye Glamuzina

A good strategist requires a higher level view, that often comes with experience.
- Richard Mander

A good strategist can see the wood for the trees.
- Stephen Gibbs

A good strategist provides a “winning game plan which proves to be a winner”.
- Jake Pearce

A good strategist creates a path that is perceived to be achievable by others. If others can’t follow the path, then it is not a strategy, but only a dream.
- Greg Ellis

A good strategist has two core skills; critical thinking and writing; and if they are really good, pattern seeking.
- Josh Levine

Last words:
Overall, the themes seem to be all about future thinking and problem solving. Something else that I’ve noticed when I work with other strategists is that they love to have the last word. So some of my friends offered a parting shot:

Strategists are prepared to defend their strategy; frequently stridently – until contradictory or better information arises; or conditions change. Similarly to the military sense, a strategist is expected to come up with a recommendation within a certain timeframe, regardless of the quality and amount of information at hand. Just like design, there is no such thing as “no strategy”, only “bad strategy”.
- David Lyall

A client may ask for strategies that will assure a more profitable or a more sustainable future. A strategist may point out that these are not mutually exclusive goals and can co-exist. Strategy provides a lens through which to see projects in a certain light, one that (because it provides a wide-angle view or rationale) engages and motivates.
- Randy Deutsch

Strategy is about a bigger view point. It’s about having a roadmap of products rather than working on a single product. I.e. where are we going over time? It’s often about making an investment in developing a technology platform rather than just cobbling a product together. - Seeing a product as part of a solution. It’s also about thinking about what order to do things in. From a business or marketing point of view, where do we focus and when.
- Richard Mander

Strategist is an overworked word like ‘nice’.
- Jake Pearce

When i first flew with Singapore Airlines in September 1998 I asked one of the flight attendants why they flew a 747 from Singapore to Johannesburg and then onto Durban to pick up about 60 passengers when that seemed to be a huge expense for little return? “Ah” he said, “Old Chinese proverb: He who does not cast his net, cannot catch fish.” Look how Singapore Airlines has gone on to grow and create hubs on an international scale. Likewise, President JFK had no clue how to get to the moon and back, and nor did anyone else, but he set in motion the brain power of thousands to achieve a milestone for mankind.
- Greg Ellis

I once heard that if a client is looking for a strategist, they really just mean someone who can think. In my experience, Planners tend to roost in the advertising world, while Strategists are generally in design businesses. Of course, that distinction doesn’t mean much anymore now that agencies are mixing and matching their capabilities. In any case, they’re essentially the same thing (with perhaps different experience sets).
- Josh Levine

Conclusion
There is a common complaint that if your bathtub is leaking you don’t call a Plumbing Strategist, you call a Plumber. Even so, there is a great anecdote about a Plumber who is called to fix a leaky hot water cylinder. He quickly spots the problem, tightens a small valve and hands the homeowner a bill for $100. The homeowner demands a breakdown of the invoice, protesting “But, you’ve only been here for 5 minutes.” The Plumber re-issues the invoice stating:
- Fee for tightening valve: $5
- Fee for knowing which valve to tighten: $95

So, whatever you call it, the ability to think before you act is still valuable in almost any context.

Additional Information

Posted:                     August 11, 2011

 

Type:

                      Full-time             

Experience:

                      Mid-Senior level             

Functions:

                      Strategy/Planning              

Industries:

                      Design, Research              

Job ID:

                      1857681

To apply: http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=1857681

Each of us has to ask him- or her-self: Is it time to put our Design Thinking books in storage?

In answering this question, a great deal depends on where you are coming from and what you hope to gain from the read.

Irrespective of where your allegiances align, in terms of design strategy, much can still be gained by reading any of these books.

Recognizing that some books that make the cut may be excellent sources for design thinking without mentioning the term itself, they may also serve as helpful guides for careers in design strategy.

For me, personally, I have benefitted from so many of the books listed below.

Vicariously experience client and team meetings by reading the cases, stories and anecdotes.

Books allow us to gain knowledge and, when digested and put to use, wisdom without all of the sweat.

Coupled with learning the terms and concepts, you attain higher level thinking required of all strategists.

These books are great to have in your arsenal, especially when responding to those who demand from your design interventions proof of future performance and success.

The Opposable Mind by Roger Martin

Design Thinking by Nigel Cross

The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley

The Ten Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley

Glimmer: How Design can transform your life and maybe even the world by Warren Berger

A Fine Line: How Design Strategies Are Shaping the Future of Business by Hartmut Esslinger

The Design of Business – Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage by Roger Martin

The Universal Principles of Design by Lidwell, Holder & Buttler

Change by Design by Tim Brown

The Designful Company by Marty Neumeier

The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier

ZAG by Marty Neumeier

Design Thinking: Integrating Innovation, Customer Experience
and Brand Value by Thomas Lockwood

Thoery U by C. Otto Scharmer

Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change by Victor Papanek

…

Can you name a design thinking book that has earned its permanent place on your bookshelf?

What are your favorite design blogs and sites?

That’s pretty easy to answer.

Now, what are your favorite design strategy blogs and sites?

That is harder to answer.

For three reasons:

1. In part because there just aren’t that many.

2. In part because different users – branding, advertizing, graphic design, UI, web and product design – visit different sites for different reasons.

3. And lastly, because everybody has a slightly different understanding about what design strategy is.

There are those who come from the design camp.

Those who approach design strategy from business strategy standpoint.

And the standalone design strategy purists.

My question for you: What are your favorite design strategy blogs and sites?

Help me out by listing your favorite design strategy sites

And I will include them in my ever-growing list

Thanks!

…

The admittedly incomplete design blog and website link list that follows will eventually make their way to the sidebar.

Listed by design genre in no particular order or, for that matter, spacing:

…

Design Strategy

http://www.ResilientByDesign.com

http://37signals.com/svn

…

Design Thinking

Tim Brown – http://designthinking.ideo.com/

http://www.thinkingforaliving.org/

… 

General Design

http://www.idsgn.org

http://www.fastcodesign.com

http://www.swiss-miss.com

http://www.subtraction.com

http://ffffound.com

http://grainedit.com

http://www.cpluv.com/

http://www.designobserver.com

http://thinkvitamin.com

http://line25.com

http://onepagelove.com

http://creattica.com

http://gotopublicschool.com/

http://www.underconsideration.co…

http://thefoxisblack.com/

http://methodandcraft.com/

http://www.tutsplus.com

http://www.webcreme.com

http://www.cssbased.com

http://www.justcreativedesign.com

http://www.mymodernmet.com/

http://sixrevisions.com

http://designm.ag

http://css-tricks.com

http://www.deviantart.com

…

Product/Industrial

http://www.core77.com

http://lovelypackage.com

http://www.mocoloco.com

http://www.stilsucht.de/

http://design-milk.com/

http://johnnyholland.org/

http://www.designboom.com/eng/

…

Branding

http://www.underconsideration.co…

http://www.identityworks.com

…

UI/UX/Web

http://www.creativeapplications.net

http://www.miiinimal.com

http://www.smashingmagazine.com

http://www.alistapart.com/topics…

http://www.siteinspire.net

http://www.boxesandarrows.com

http://52weeksofux.com/

http://www.boxesandarrows.com

http://www.janchipchase.com

http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com

…

Print

http://swisslegacy.com/

http://www.septemberindustry.co.uk/

http://www.underconsideration.co…

http://www.aisleone.net/

…

Book Cover Design

http://www.casualoptimist.com

http://bookcoverarchive.com

…

Design Portals (design currents)

http://www.styleboost.com/

http://www.thefwa.com/

http://www.dribbble.com/

http://www.siteinspire.net

… 

Design Ephemera

http://www.monoscope.com/

http://blog.iso50.com/

…

Typography

http://ministryoftype.co.uk/

http://www.typography.com/ask/in…

…

Data Visualization

http://www.good.is/infographics

http://infosthetics.com/

http://datavisualization.ch/

http://www.informationisbeautifu…

http://flowingdata.com

http://well-formed-data.net/

http://visualization.geblogs.com/

http://visualcomplexity.com/vc/

http://visualoop.tumblr.com/post…

http://www.visual-journal.net/

…

HighBrow

http://formfiftyfive.com

http://itsnicethat.com

http://www.vvork.com

http://butdoesitfloat.com

…

Web Personalities

http://www.shauninman.com/blog/

http://www.subtraction.com/

http://stopdesign.com/

http://hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/

Benjamin Gadbaw – http://benjamingadbaw.com/blog/

Liz Danzico - http://bobulate.com/

Sacha Greif - http://www.attackofdesign.com/

Frank Chimero - http://work.frankchimero.com/

Jason Santa Maria – http://jasonsantamaria.com

Nicholas Felton – http://feltron.com/

… 

Review of Books

http://www.designersreviewofbook…

…

Inactive

http://wdcf.com/
(No longer active but archives are still available)

You’re asked to serve as a design strategist in an innovation initiative at a large corporation.

They’ve asked you to come in on Monday for a get-to-know-you session and an ideation over lunch.

Are you ready?

Here are some questions to ask yourself as you prepare for this new opportunity to let your design strategy talents shine.

Here, as well, are some suggestions to help keep your saw sharp and your thinking sharper.

Not in any order – skim the list and look for one that catches your attention.

If you don’t see one of your favorites here, or if one of these hits home for you, let us know by leaving a comment.

1. Creativity and design are tough to defend. Seek out stories of how design strategists have defended creativity in their lives as well as in corporate board rooms. Hone these stories down into a half dozen or so easy to recall arguments and techniques for easy access when you need them.

2. At the end of each day, ask yourself two questions: How can business leaders and designers join forces to build creative strategies that will ensure a more profitable future? How can business leaders and designers join forces to build creative strategies that will ensure a more sustainable future? Aim to come up with one new idea each day.

3. Design strategists strive to see problems through other’s perspectives. To stay up-to-date concerning ways strategies are being used to help shape business, consider reading about addressing business problems from the perspective of Hartmut Esslinger, founder of Frog Design, in his book A Fine Line.

4. Aim for profitability and sustainability as being co-existent, mutually beneficial and non-exclusive. For inspiration, start here.

5. Read “the four frog principles”written down 40 years ago (and still in use) by Hartmut Esslinger, founder of Frog Design.

6. Highly successful design strategists take a definition – and stance – on design thinking? What is yours?

7. Do you believe, like Bruce Nussbaum, that design thinking is dead? If yes, what – if anything – do you believe will take its place?

8. Design strategists know the outer limits of their roles. Do you have branding experts, graphic artists, presentation gurus, at your disposal? Have you kept their contact information up to date? Do you stay in touch even when you don’t have an assignment for them (in fact, it is always a good idea to keep in touch: as some serve as referrals for design strategy assignments.)

9. Come up with a metaphor for how you see design and business relating: as a marriage? as mentor and mentee? as strange bedfellows? In what ways does your experience support this view?

10. Reframe past projects – especially those that were not specifically or entirely design strategy-related assignments – in terms of design strategy. Be prepared to discuss them in these terms.

11. In The Design of Business, Roger Martin states that knowledge moves through three stages – a mystery, a heuristic and an algorithm. Mysteries are the discovery of new opportunities or research into solving intractable problems. Heuristics are rules of thumb that narrow the size and scope of mysteries and make them more manageable. Algorithms reduce the heuristics into repeatable processes. What are 10 rules of thumb that you regularly refer to or use in your practice? Keep a list for future reference.

12. Design strategists have one foot in design and the other business. Or, instead, both feet in design peering through into the inner workings of a business? Which best describes your circumstance? Do you approach business from a design perspective? Or design from a business perspective? How can you use this approach as a differentiator? How does the way you see yourself impact how you go about taking-on assignments?

13. Highly successful design strategists have a favorite design strategy book that they can recommend to others. What is yours?

14. Read widely outside your area of focus. Stories on how companies utilize design to innovate and change appear in the most unlikely places.

15. Design strategists are right brained whereas strategic designers are left brained. Right? Even if this is not the case, design consultants and entrepreneurs require business plans like any other business. Consider The Right Brain Business Plan by Jennifer Lee.

16. Many companies attempt to be innovative by spending on R&D, bringing in creative designers, hiring innovation consultants. What in your experience are the results for these and other interventions? How, in comparison, will their working with a design strategist lead to more satisfying results? Be prepared to respond to this question.

17. What’s your definition of a wicked problem? What makes a problem wicked? Complexity? How about time constraints? Watch this 5 minute video on one approach to solving wicked problems.

18. What services do you offer? Here’s an example of a one page description (Roger Martin calls it an “information sheet” handout) designed in terms of the service – and not, like a resume, the
person giving it. How would you create a similar sheet to leave with those you meet with or are in contact with?

19. Look below for examples of other services offered, how they are defined, how they are distinguished and how they are offered.

20. What role does business analysis and analytics play in your work? How important is it to the success of your outcomes? How much do you rely on analytical thinking? What role does it play in incrementally improving your client’s business status quo? What role does it play in improving their results?

21. Can you come up with at least two cases – whether those you were involved in or from the industry – where, through your or other’s intervention, a company’s productivity grew and their costs decreased, creating value for the company? Are you prepared to retell these stories? Here’s a list to get you started.

22. Why retain a design strategist? Two reasons: to help produce breakthrough innovations and create a competitive advantage for a business. Can you list five others?

23. Design strategists – and their clients – make use of a special type of thinking process: integrative thinking. Do you have a definition for integrative thinking? Start here and here and here.

24. Not all design strategists realize that they are in the business of meaning-making. How would convince a company to adopt an innovation process that’s centered on meaning? How would you go about helping a company devise new meanings and create the designs to embody them? What processes would you use? For suggestions, see Nathan Shedroff’s Making Meaning.

25. What are you devoted to accomplishing? This is your devotion. Do you have one? Here’s Roger Martin’s, Dean of the Rotman School of Management.

26. What tactic do you have in place to stop researching and start synthesizing the information you have gathered? How do you keep from researching (or preparing or doing pre-design work) forever – and how do you communicate this to the client?

27. If the most important design tool is indeed asking good questions (do you agree?) what are five questions you have at hand to ask any prospective client?

28. Five questions you have at hand to ask a client you have recently completed work for?

29. Design strategy case studies on P&G, RIM and Cirque du Soleil are predictable. Can you come up with three case studies that used design strategy initiatives that few would have previously considered.

30. What’s your take on design research? Qualitative or quantitative? How do you distinguish between market research and design research? For a place to start, look here and here.

31. In recent years designers have moved from styling consumer products to more strategic roles: designing experiences, services and business models. Describe how you have made this transition – and what insights from serving as a designer carry over to your strategy work.

32. How would you go about designing for customer loyalty? In a market economy characterized by global competition and commoditized products, how would you strategize so that companies gain deep and lasting loyalty from their customers?

33. Quick: What’s your definition for Creativity? For Innovation? For Design? How do you differentiate between each?

34. Distinguish design strategy from design management. What are meant by the two terms? How does each provide value for the client? For the fundamentals, look here and here.

35. Your client asks you to take them through the steps of innovation – to help them understand and demystify the process for them. Do you explain that there are many methods or that you suggest one method no matter the client or assignment? How would you describe a typical step-by-step innovation process to your client? For one suggestion, look here.

36. Does design drive innovation or does innovation drive design? Or both? Prepare a short response for yourself should the need to discuss the topic come up (and it will.)

37. Describe your design strategy in terms of being a collaborative process. How do you work with others? How are they included and when in the process?

38. Design strategy has been used in business not only to address product design and branding but also to address medical shift changes and rethink supply chain management. What are some of the more unusual ways that you have used design strategy? Keep an ongoing list of examples for how it can be applied, in what settings and to what ends.

39. How well do you know your client’s business? Are you familiar enough with it to be able to comfortably speak using their terminology – not that of the design world? What method(s) do you have in place to go about becoming familiar with their language so that you can tap it when needed?

40. IDEO’s Tim Brown views the power of design “not as a link in a chain but as the hub of a wheel”…not as a stage in a process but as a centrifugal force with involvement at all levels and in all areas of
operation. “Design is now too important to be left to designers.” Do you agree? How do you view the role of design in business? What imagery or symbol would you use to describe it?

41. What would you do differently in approaching a small business and a large corporation? What impact, if any, does the size of organization have on how you operate as a design strategist?

42. You might find that you are doing things right – but are you doing the right things? Make a list of the things – in life – that you have let slip due to workload or other commitments. Frequently these are the very things that energize, fulfill and complete us. Come up with a plan to start addressing them. To see how one man faced his “let slip” list, read Unfinished Business.

43. Business leaders see innovation as the key to a competitive edge and yet businesses report a success rate of only four percent for innovation initiatives. How would you suggest your client increas their odds of succeeding at innovation?

Bonus: What is your definition of a design strategist? Share it by leaving a comment.

Here are some of my design-related Tweets that my followers on Twitter have shared with their followers (retweeted or RT in Twitter parlance.)

Take a look. Click on the links to find articles, websites and other resources.

If you are not a Tweeter, by browsing the list of micro-posts you will get a good idea of how I use it. And if you like what you see, follow me on Twitter @randydeutsch

Enjoy!

…

Stanford Executive Education Taps JetBlue for Design Thinking Boot Camp July 6-8 http://bit.ly/kaeU66 #designthinking #design

Ori Brafman: How to Build Instant Connections & other Stanford U Entrepreneur Thought Leader Lecture podcasts http://bit.ly/3mqFdP

Here goes the weekend: I mean hundreds & hundreds of Stanford U Entrepreneur Thought Leader Lecture podcasts http://bit.ly/3mqFdP

Designing for Failure in the Cloud http://onforb.es/ix0QKI

An hour well-spent with Michael Bierut: #Designing, #Writing, #Teaching: Not My Real Job http://bit.ly/iLEYv2 #design

AIA Keynote Speaker Jeb Brugmann: Use Strategic #Design to Optimize Your Market Advantage http://bit.ly/lSbSgN #AIA2011 #architects

The most important design tool? Asking good questions (this was my most retweeted Tweet)

Exploring #design thinking & organizational change: A Conversation at NU’s Innovator Event on Designing for Change http://bit.ly/hj5TJ7

The New Designer Defined: excerpt from the intro to The Strategic Designer. Four Principals of the New Designer http://bit.ly/jl3YYA

QR Code Generator http://qrcode.kaywa.com/Learn more here http://bit.ly/cm5ySQ

Kandinsky and vacuum cleaners: @Pentagram’s Daniel Weil on the Drawing: the Process http://bit.ly/iuLvIF #architects #architecture

@Opening_Design Have you seen this? via @fedenegro Basecamp for architects? http://ow.ly/52X0a #mergersandaquisitions #AEC

Fully Kindle-ized, these #design books are outrageously gorgeous in just about any format @louisrosenfeld http://rosenfeldmedia.com/

The Design Difference: Using #Design to Conduct a Problem-Solving Workshop http://bit.ly/fLSZCo

Integrating #sustainability into #design #education. The Toolkit http://bit.ly/buV7ev #green

Join the Designers Accord Town Hall meeting http://bit.ly/gGGvzV & videos http://www.designersaccord.org/ #sustainability #green

No worries @louisrosenfeld We found #Design is the Problem & reading it >”He’s still a little concerned that designers won’t find the book.”

“There’s nothing off-putting about sustainability. Find someone who is in favor of purposely ruining the future” http://bit.ly/lV2GcG

An exclusive excerpt from Nathan Shedroff’s new book on #sustainable #design practice, Design is the Problem http://bit.ly/PmMyJ

Interview with Nathan Shedroff, author of Design is the Problem & MBA in #Design Strategy chair at CCA in http://bit.ly/lV2GcG

We’re calling Design is the Problem “the definitive guidebook to the future of design practice” http://amzn.to/jD2QyD #sustainability

Someone asked me today what’s a “meme broker”? A Johnny Appleseed of ideas “but not necessarily of Honeycrisps.” http://bit.ly/iWdH12

As long as consumers & stockholders demand next advances that’s where #innovation will be. Not solving the big problems http://bit.ly/a2wPeb

US spends $1,270 per capita per year to boost R&D & #knowledge. The difference between #innovation and invention? http://zd.net/iH8Xfy

Polymath, Renaissance person, Multidisciplinarian (!) – Why we all must become one http://zd.net/kRoKem

Interview w Vinnie Mirchandani author of The New Polymath: Profiles in Compound-Technology #Innovations http://zd.net/91pytu

A designer’s struggle between research & intuition in the creative process: The Science of Good #Design http://bit.ly/lxT4y1

The World’s Best #Design Thinking Programs (before they were announced DOA) http://buswk.co/fLTGEs #designthinking

@businessweek‘s Bruce Nussbaum Gives an “F” to the FT List of Best Business Schools. Where’s the #innovation? http://bit.ly/fYZLDY

The Power of #Design http://buswk.co/PMhKQ and 200 other articles, books, films & websites to help you innovate http://bit.ly/jMjfB2

FYI my rss feeds http://bimandintegrateddesign.com//rss.xml http://architects2zebras.com/rss.xml

http://thedesignstrategist.com/rss.xml

Rotman School of Management’s Roger Martin: The Complete Articles and Videos http://bit.ly/739J1U

California College of the Arts #MBA in #Design #Strategy – Recommended Resources – The List http://bit.ly/jMjfB2

Hollywood exec producer Peter Guber: telling purposeful stories an essential skill. The Art of the Business Narrative http://bit.ly/dX7hzs

Thought leader interviews and articles http://bit.ly/hMUY7w #innovation

To compete in a knowledge-based economy business leaders need to reinvent themselves as innovators in services http://bit.ly/ixxU24

Connections, James Burke’s iconic BBC series on the history of innovation, free to watch online http://j.mp/fcppDy

The MBA in Design Strategy program at the California College of the Arts has compiled a list of recommended articles, books, films and websites - and their links – to help orient interested parties to their perspective on how new business techniques, design-led innovation and sustainability come together.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s quite a list – and I’d like to share some of it with you here.

You can find the complete list here.

Books

Although these resources are derived from faculty recommendations, none represents an official endorsement by the college.

Communication, Collaboration, and Leadership

• The Innovator’s Way by Peter J. Denning
  and, Robert P. Dunham
• Solving Tough Problems by Adam Kahane
• Moments of Truth by Jan Carlzon
• Cultural Intelligence by David Thomas
• Selling to the VP of No by David Gray
• Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon
  Chouinard
• Powers to Lead by Joseph S. Nye
• Difficult Conversations by Douglas
  Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen, and Roger Fisher
• A General Theory of Love by Dr. Thomas
  Lewis
• The Power of a Positive No by William
  Ury
• The Opposable Mind by Roger Martin
• Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis
  Bradberry, Jean Greaves, and Patrick M. Lencioni

Strategy and Business Design

• Making Innovation Work by Tony Davila,
  Marc J. Epstien, and Robert Shelton
• Business Model Generation by Alexander
  Osteralder and Yves Pigneur
• Designing Organizations by Jay R.
  Galbraith
• The Design of Business by Roger Martin
• Change by Design by Tim Brown
• Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry
  I. Porras
• Sustainable Business Development by
  David L. Rainey
• Designing Brand Identity by Alina
  Wheeler
• Making Meaning by Steve Diller, Nathan Shedroff, Darrel Rhea
• The Future of Management by Bill Breen
  and Gary Hamel

Economics and Metrics

• Prophet of Innovation by Thomas McCraw
• The Economists Guide the Numbers Guide
  by Richard Stutely
• Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
• Financial Intelligence by Karen Berman,
  Joe Knight, and John Case
• Understanding the Corporate Annual Report
  by Lyn M. Fraser and Aileen M. Ormiston
• Interest and Inflation Free Money by
  Margrit Kennedy

Organizational Culture

• A Whole New Mind by Dan Pink
• The Catalyst by Jeanne Liedtka, Robert
  Rosen, Robert Wiltbank
• Guide to Organizational Design by Naomi
  Stanford
• Free Lunch by David Kay Johnson
• Gangs of America by Ted Nace
• As The Future Catches You by Juan
  Enriquez
• No Logo by Naomi Klein

Sustainability and Social Innovation

• Beyond Growth by Herman Daly
• Beyond the Bottom Line by Joel Makower
• Beyond the Limits by Donella H. Meadows,
  Dennis L. Meadows, and Jorgen Randers
• Biomimicry by Janine Benyus
• Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
  by Jared Diamond
• Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough
  and Michael Braungart
• Design + Environment by Helen Lewis,
  John Gertakis, Tim Grant, Nicola Morelli, and Andrew Sweatman
• Design Is the Problem by Nathan Shedroff
• Ecological Literacy by David Orr, et al
• Ecology Of Commerce by Paul Hawken
• Emotionally Durable Design by Jonathan
  Chapman
• The End of Nature by Bill Mckibben
• The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid
  by C. K. Parhalad
• In the Bubble by John Thackara
• The Joyless Economy by Tibor Scitovsky
• Leading Change Toward Sustainability by
  Bob Doppelt
• The Meaning of Things by Mihaly
  Csikszentmihalyi
• Mid-Course Correction by Ray Anderson
• Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory
  Lovins, Hunter L. Lovins
• The Nature of Design by David Orr
• The Next Sustainability Wave by Bob
  Willard
• The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
• Organizational Change for Corporate Sustainability
  by Dunphy & Griffith
• Plan B 4.0 by Lester Brown
• The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
• Silent Spring by Rachel Carson et al
• Squeaky Green by Eric Ryan and Adam
  Lowry
• Strategy for Sustainability by Adam
  Werbach
• The Sustainability Advantage by Bob
  Willard and John Elkington
• Sustainable Strategic Management: Strategic Management
  by W. Edward Stead, Jean Garner Stead, and Mark Starik
• Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows
• The Truth About Green Business by Gil
  Friend
• The Unsettling of America by Wendell
  Berry
• Valuing the Earth by Herman E. Daly and
  Kenneth N. Townsend
• Worldchanging by Alex Steffan

Design and Customer Experience

• Design for the Real World by Victor
  Papanek
• Design Like You Give a Damn by Cameron
  Sinclair and Kate Stohr
• Experience Design 1.1 by Nathan Shedroff
• Universal Principles of Design by
  William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, and Jill Butler
• Experiences in Visual Thinking by Robert
  H. McKim
• Design Research edited by Brenda Laurel
• No Logo by Naomi Klein
• Building Strong Brands by David Aaker
• Why We Buy by Paco Underhill
• The Creative Priority by Jerry Hirshberg
• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
  by Edward Tufte

Entrepreneurship

• New Venture Creation by Jeffry A.
  Timmons and Stephen Spinelli
• Utopian Entrepreneur by Brenda Laurel

Recommended Films

• 9 to 5 (directed by Colin Higgins, 1980) Amazon
• An Inconvenient Truth (directed by Davis Guggenheim, 2008) Amazon
• Deep Dive (ABC News Nightline, 1999)
• Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (directed by Alex Gibney,
  2005) Amazon
• Food, Inc. (directed by Robert Kenner, 2008) Amazon
• How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (directed by
  David Swift, 1967) Amazon
• The Powers of Ten (directed by Charles and Ray Eames, 1968) Amazon
• *Startup.com
  (directed by Jehane Noujaim and Chris Hegedus, 2001) Amazon
• Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (directed by Robert Greenwald,
  2005) Amazon
• Who Killed the Electric Car? (directed by Chris Paine, 2006) Amazon

Recommended Articles

• Driving Sustainable Design (BusinessWeek,
  Special report, July 2, 2007)
• 10 Worst Innovation Mistakes In A Recession
  (BusinessWeek, 2008)
• Creativity
  Comes to B-School](http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/mar2006/bs20060326_8436_bs0…)
  (BusinessWeek, 2006)
• Design Intervention (Fast Company, 2006)
• Driving Sustainable Design (BusinessWeek,
  2007)
• Innovating Through Recession (Kellog School
  of Management, 2008)
• CEOs Must Be Designers, Not Just Hire Them. Think Steve
  Jobs And iPhone. (BusinessWeek, 2008)
• P&G Changes Its Game (BusinessWeek,
  2008)
• Tough Love (Fast Company, 2006)
• [Tomorrow's
  B-School? It Might Be A D-School](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_31/b3945418.htm
  (BusinessWeek, 2005)
• The Power of Design (BusinessWeek, 2004)
• The MFA in the new MBA (Harvard Business
  Review, 2008)
• Streamlining HP (Fast Company, 2007)

Recommended Videos

• The Story
  of Stuff (with Annie Leonard, 2008)

Recommended Websites

• AIGA Center
  for Sustainable Design
• B+D Blog
• Business
  Model Alchemist
• Core 77
• Garage.com Startup Resource
• IDSA Business Ecodesign Tools
• Okala Ecodesign Design Guide
• Service
  Design
• Triple Pundit
• Worldchanging

Summary: You don’t need to be a graphic designer to benefit from the best practices espoused in this magnificent new book. A must-have for designers, those in design management and anyone who works with designers.

Based on over 100 interviews with designers, researchers and educators, The_Strategic_Designer by David Holston provides an overview of the design process and designer’s best practices.

The Strategic Designer: Tools and techniques for managing the design process, published by F+W Media and HOW Design, is billed as a Strategic Graphic Design Thinking book.

Despite this categorization, the subject matter transcends graphic design and can be universally applied to any of the design trades and professions including product and environmental design.

The book description will sound familiar to anyone working in architecture and related design professions:

As designers look for ways to stay competitive in the conceptual economy and address the increasing complexity of design problems, they are seeing that they must not only be experts in form, but must also have the ability to collaborate, to design in context and be accountable through measurement.

By adopting a process that considers collaboration, context and accountability, designers move from makers of things to strategists.

The book focuses on the designer’s workflow, ideation techniques, client relationships and methods for measuring the success of their projects.

An excellent foreward by Shawn M McKinney gets things off to a fast start – which, alone, is worth the investment in the book.

Each chapter covers a specific design phase emphasis, providing a practical step-by-step approach, complete with tools and techniques.

The Conceptual Economy – where those who have the ability to collaborate and manage the increasing complexity of design will have greater opportunities

Overview of the Design Process – a process rife with opportunities for misinformation, dead ends, and divergent tracks, as well as amazing outcomes

The Value of Process – the benefits of having a well-defined design process

The Collaborative Designer – emphasizing co-creation, communication, mutual benefit, respect and trust in a strong client-designer relationship. This is a particularly rich chapter, addressing and answering such questions as: What makes a Good designer? What Makes a Good Client? and Clients to Avoid. There’s a wonderful sidebar on: Seven Principles for Managing Creative Tension.

Empathic Design – explaining how research provides a path and imperative for moving forward

Understanding the Business – includes a breakdown of basic strategy techniques and an explanation of the purpose of business analysis as understanding and defining goals of the client

Designing with the End User in Mind – with an emphasis on facilitating and moderating participatory and collaborative work sessions. The Designing for People chapter focuses on research as a valuable tool for gaining insight into the organizational needs of clients and their prospective audiences.

Managing Ideas – especially when ideating with others in a participatory or collaborative setting, relying heavily on the experiences and knowledge of people involved.

Making Strategy Visible – how the designer takes an empathic approach to design that connects business goals with user needs.

Design Accountability – asking: Why is design hard to measure? And answering by sharing significant research findings and metrics. Salient quote: “The price for a seat at the decision-making table is accountability.”

Planning in a Turbulent Environment – the days of using a linear design process are over. Strategic designers face increasingly wicked problems. A helpful framework offered by project management.

Refining Your Process – so it can provide a common understanding for “how things get done” mitigating wasted efforts while creating value for the client and user alike.

Holston’s text anticipates your questions and concerns and places each topic in a larger context. He is clearly in control of his subject.

Holston places the book and subject squarely in Dan Pink’s Conceptual Economy, a term describing the contribution of creativity, innovation, and design skills to economic competitiveness, especially in the global context.

In his book A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink explains how the economy is now moving from the information age to the conceptual age.

Later in The Strategic Designer, Rotman School of Management dean Roger L Martin says that the world is moving from the Information Economy to a Design Economy. A small distinction, but one that unnecessarily complicates matters. I would look to a book such as this to clarify the playing field, at the very least to acknowledge that the labeling of epochs and phraseology are still a work-in-progress.

The book’s strength is not in creating new knowledge – but in repackaging what is largely already known, experientially by every designer – in an easy to carry tome.

Readers, for example, who have perused Wikipedia articles on various topics related to design strategy will recognize the source of several of the author’s summaries.

In this sense, the book is not a product of the Conceptual Age, but instead is a well-designed, convenient and accessible agglomeration, aggregating both explicit and, perhaps the greater achievement here, tacit knowledge on the subject. The book is no less of an achievement for being so.

The design world is a much better place for having this book at its disposal.

Conclusion: The Strategic Designer is a must-have book for designers, those who manage design projects and those who work with designers in a collaborative setting.

…

Addenda: How can this book not have a single review?

HOW books makes books on high quality paper, books that feel good in the hand, and themselves serve as exemplary reminders that ebooks should not be our only option. The Strategic Designer is no exception.

See this short video with author Dave Holston presenting the introduction to The Strategic Designer Brand and here on competitive strategy.

Here are some of my Tweets that have had the most impact from May 19-22 2011, all 140 characters or less.

Tweets that my followers on Twitter have shared with their followers (retweeted or RT in
Twitter parlance.)

Take a look.

If you are not a Tweeter, by browsing the list of micro-posts you will get a good idea of how I use it.

And if you like what you see, follow me on Twitter @randydeutsch

• Design Strategy: A Short Film http://t.co/4kLiFc2 via @mvellandi
• Hold the Date: August 19-20, 2011 Vancouver BC – Design Thinking unConference -
  Exploring the Craft of #DesignThinking
• Weekend reading! (OK maybe 2 weekends) AMAZING cache of articles at The Coxe Group site
  http://bit.ly/my6hW8 & http://bit.ly/k1AGNY
• Answers are easy. Finding problems are hard. Entrepreneur Thought Leader Lecture given at
  Stanford University http://bit.ly/ihJfib
• One last chance to see the IIT Institute of Design Strategy Conference Sketchnotes http://bit.ly/mpSheY & Day
  2 http://bit.ly/jieG7m
• Strategies that change with trends, aren’t strategies: Sage of Strategy Michael Porter,
  Harvard U http://bit.ly/iPya3I
• The Strategic Agenda: Securing the Future. 2 day exec ed seminar 8/01-8/02 Harvard U Graduate
  School of Design http://bit.ly/e8zljY
• Bruce Sterling calls this activity “scanning:” looking at all the sources one can and
  constantly asking what does this mean for my clients.
• Charlie Stross, in the sci-fi book Accelerando, describes the profession of design
  strategist a “meme broker” http://bit.ly/jZAEDb
• A great design strategist? A great design strategist may not see themselves as a design
  strategist http://bit.ly/jZAEDb
• A great design strategist? Someone who gets excited by spaces where disciplines,
  schools of thought, methods overlap http://bit.ly/jZAEDb
• What is it that makes a great design strategist? Someone who has had a few different
  professional identities http://bit.ly/jZAEDb
• Thinkers who are challenging designers? Bruce Sterling, John Thackara, Sir Ken Robinson,
  Roger Martin, John Maeda http://bit.ly/jZAEDb
• Looking Beyond the Structure: Critical Thinking for #Designers & #Architects http://amzn.to/iAkbEE
• Design Thinking for Interiors: Inquiry, Experience, Impact http://bit.ly/iUn5cr & http://amzn.to/kQ3uOT
• Computational Design Thinking: influential thinking on the formation of today’s computational
  #design discourse http://bit.ly/mLKtNq
• Rotman’s Roger Martin’s Fixing the Game: Bubbles Crashes & What Capitalism Can Learn
  from the NFL http://amzn.to/mgC9oL & www.rogerlmartin.com
• Ideas on Ideas: Put Down Your Crayons. Are there too many designers? by Eric Karjaluoto,
  Creative Director @smashLAB http://bit.ly/fMRIbd
• Least creative page layout for the | 100 Most Creative People in Business 2011 | Fast
  Company http://bit.ly/iKNi9w
• Download free 72 page PDF of Business Model Generation: the PDF http://bit.ly/CtKqK the visionary book http://amzn.to/kaVlQ8
• Reading on my Kindle – Disciplined Dreaming: Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity http://amzn.to/msnk5z
• Interview with author http://bit.ly/16kivDof Design Is the Problem: The Future of Design Must be Sustainable http://amzn.to/lUjgX8
• Free primer from Harvard Business School – Design Thinking for Creativity & Business
  Innovation http://bit.ly/lO6RnS

A theme running throughout these posts will no doubt be

How do we supplement our formal education as we continue to grow with – or in some cases,
out of – our chosen fields.

Self-education is something many of us have engaged in since the advent of the internet.

Nay, the book.

And it is also something our emerging talent continue to take part in due to the economy
and the ongoing devaluation of the diploma.

One such evidence of this is last year’s DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education, where Anya Kamenetz takes-on
the U.S. higher education system, explores fallacies concerning the value of a higher education and the flawed economic models that underpin higher education.

Along the way, she identifies alternatives available to students, from community colleges to online learning.

This movement is perhaps best personified in Josh Kaufman’s magnum opus, The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business

Where he argues that those interested in business would be better served by skipping the MBA and focusing instead on concepts that really make or break a
business.

Some graduates of top MBA programs have read the book and agree.

For me what is missing in The Personal MBA – despite being subtitled Master the Art of Business, and itself being a well-designed book –
is an emphasis on design.

Or on design strategy.

In its nearly 400 pages, there’s barely any mention of it. A missed opportunity, especially in the section on Value Creation.

Another excellent new book, one that I recommend to higher education programs that I work with to help
redesign, is Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads.

Rethinking the MBA asks whether business education is becoming more like the liberal arts, where – as Dan Pink
and others have noted –  the MFA is the New MBA.

Increasingly, managers and recruiters are questioning conventional business education.

Their concerns?

Among other things, MBA programs aren’t giving students the heightened cultural
awareness and global perspectives they need. Newly minted MBAs lack essential
leadership skills.

Creative and critical thinking demand far more attention.

Three Harvard Business School educators, Srikant M.Data, David A. Garvin and Patrick
G. Cullen, discuss in Rethinking the MBA the MBA programs of top twenty US MBA programs.

They describe how the top MBA programs are using innovative approaches to address eight social and
business concerns:

1. Gaining a global perspective

2. Developing leadership skills

3. Honing integrative skills

4. Recognizing organizational realities and implementing effectively

5. Acting creatively and innovatively

6. Thinking critically and communicating clearly

7. Understanding the role, responsibilities, and purpose of business

8. Understanding the limits of models and markets

Read a Q&A with the authors here.

The Personal MBA, while still valuable – without an emphasis on where MBA programs are
headed and the considerable adjustments they are making to their curricula – is
and incomplete business education.

Waiting for someone else to write Rethinking the Personal MBA might just be fruitless.

I may just have to do it myself. Call it DIM U.