11/05/2009 02:36:56 PM 
(1) 
(1) He's a strong proponent of Design Thinking, predictably this is where IDEO is at as well. What Martin suggests is the need for a new consulting entity that combines creative firepower with analytical smarts, a kind of best-in-breed creative shop that also offers McKinseylike business strategy. Martin's killer app is cost, such a shop would charge a fraction of McKinsey's rates and achieve better results.
As the Fast Company interview points out, there are a number of challenges that lie in the way of making Martin's dream a reality, the biggest being the problem of getting corporate cultures to be happy with the idea of creativity as a strategic asset. There's a long way to go here and since most CEOs are trained to live by the rules of Wall Street and short-term balance sheets, this could be a hard habit to break.
Reading between the lines of this piece, there's clearly a space for the right communication shops to jump up and be heard. Back in the Mad Men era they had the seat at the table when their ads could make or break a company, now it's all about product and service design, that's aligned to a big strategic idea.
Clearly most communication agencies need to fill some of the creative gaps in this space, which is relatively easy to do, but perhaps the biggest challenge is hiring business strategists with MBAs. With agency margins on the wane and Wall Street salaries seemingly showing no signs of abating, this could be tough.
However, if it wants to get there the communication business needs to a better job of selling itself as a place for smart individuals to develop careers, but to make this transition and for their own survival, they need to explain how they can play a more vital and prominent role in corporate success.
Posted by Ed Cotton
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Hey Ed, Good find. In order to find some much needed planning inspiration lately I've turned to the books and thinking of IDEO and even more so Frog Design. Both brilliant creative thinking organizations that have grounded me back to what I believe planning can be. In this article I find this moment of the dialog a crucial point: "Fast Company: If you don't have A.G. Lafley or Steve Jobs at the helm, how can you sell your organization on the idea of an intuitive leap instead of a scientific leap? Martin: You don't have to convert the whole organization to design thinking. Propose a little experiment--say, three months in length--where you test out a bite-sized chunk of a problem using this method. If you have a little success, be sure to then attach metrics to it. In that way, you turn the future into the past in a way they understand." I've also been reading Predictably Irrational again and find myself facinated about using those more accademic types of experiments as research for planning. Don't have it figured out yet, but think there is something there. But experimenting means getting a few completed ideas on the hands of consumers on a small scale to see how they would naturally react. Problem here is the traditional view of consistent messaging in branding. Too many ideas and the brand is schizophrenic. I'm one that believes you can have a polyphonic brand and we can test and roll out large scale ideas that seem to really catch on. Where are you on this?