Comments on CEOs Are From Mars...

Brendan Hamley — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 23:35:00 GMT

THE TOILET TEST ~ Design and the bottom line.

Peter Phillips: [http://www.dmi.org/dmi/html/education/seminars/mcdd_bio.h…]
really puts this in perspective when he tells a story about meeting a CEO in the company toilet. The dreaded “Hi I’m the CEO what do you do for us…?” conversation ensued, and Peter had to very quickly come up with a tangible, business like and commercially astute description of what he did. The CEO remembered this slightly awkward conversation, remebering a creative/designer type who seemed to understand ‘the bottom line’ and began calling Peter regularly for advice on design issues…

It’s an odd technique, but think about it. What would you say if you met your CEO in an awkward place, and they asked you what you do?

Here’s what I’d say:
“I design new and better opportunities for our current and potential customers to interact with us online that influence them to continue doing business with us”

I am still waiting for my toilet moment though…

Paula Thornton — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:49 GMT

Sorry for being repetitive, but this is a larger issue and needs to be addressed at a higher level. We need executive understanding/responsibility. See related article at:
http://www.iknovate.com/archives/000004.html

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:49 GMT

It seems that CEOs are from Mars, quite literally. I was given a task to develop metrics to assess a creative group’s creativity, productivity, and quality. Anyone ever had to do this? Please e-mail me and let me know!

Eoin O'Connor — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:49 GMT

It’s great that the communication industry, whatever it’s discipline, still is unable to communicate to itself. Designers dress in black and suits know nothing – what agencies do you guys work in?

Mrs. Web Architect — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:49 GMT

It’s been my experience that not only do designers and busness personnel not work well together, but the architects and the visual designers don’t either.

Food for Thought, but you have forgotten the underlying issues that most artists(visual designers) have working with IA’s.

Bob Allen, IA — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:49 GMT

Most of the “business” types aren’t – really! If they were business-oriented they would immediately understand the old Arabic saying, “If the merchant doesn’t have what the customer wants – he has nothing!”

Sorry Carolyn, but if the business types focused on satisfying the Customer’s needs they would find the bottom line would overflow…maybe even enough for some more natty suede loafers. //EKJ//

nameless for now — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:49 GMT

In a recent interview at the studio where I work an IA candidate was told “I need someone at level 7 or 8 in Visio”. When said IA asked “Can you explain to me what that means?” there was dead silence.

I won’t even tell you about the “gorilla marketing” memo.

Uri Ar — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:49 GMT

In my experience, the rare occasion is the one when designers or IA do not understand the business objectives and the target audience.

The tension starts to build when designers/IA are asked to do the impossible:

Either to sell a product or service that does not accommodate human behavior or perception (i.e. web banners), or to accommodate unreasonable task in order to meet numbers (“I don’t care if it’s not possible, but the numbers say you have to be %125 utilized”).

Another point of friction is lack of respect and therefore understanding for the designers/IA skills and role (i.e. “my daughter is very talented, even her art teacher said so, I’m going to bring her in on the next design review” or “this is beautiful, can you just change the background color, I don’t like green. What do you mean it’s not that simple, just use that bucket thingy in photoshop, even I can do that”).

And then, of course, there’s the famous “I didn’t understand that signoff means that I can’t change everything anytime I wanted to”.

Bad design is bad business. There is enough research and facts that prove it. It should be part of businesspersons’ training.

Robin — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:49 GMT

I think the questions in bullets are excellent and plan to draw on them in my own project pitches and launches.

Carolyn Donovan — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 23:29:22 GMT

This was a poorly written and disrespectful article. It insulted business people and patronized design people.

While there were kernals of truth found in the article, phrases like ” ...the CEO’s natty suede loafers” and ”...managers simply don’t comprehend” caused me to doubt the authority and professionalism of the author.

If the jist of the article was about understanding the business side, my feeling is the author doesn’t. Don’t make fun of your customers or your opponents; they will sense this and dismiss you.

Andrew Robbins — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:48 GMT

Amen, sister. Great article.

Jim Tausch — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:49:48 GMT

As creative director of a meeting production company, I face this problem every day. You’ve articulated it perfectly. You are so correct in pointing out that we need to learn more about the business goals and objectives of the companies we work with—it’s the only way to sell them on a creative idea. At my company, we do extensive research and stakeholder analysis before we begin the creative—it takes discipline—but it works. The result is that we can pretty much sell a concept on the first time through without much trouble. Our research enables us to nail it—and the freedom of knowing that what we are doing is right for the company (or client) allows us to be even more creative.

Hey, it worked for Darren Stevens…