The Butterfly Effect

Just a week back, India has become the proud owner of the cheapest car in the world, the Nano, considered as the grand vision of Ratan Tata. It has given the Auto industry the biggest shock in recent times-with rivals announcing, producing, coming out with their own versions of the Poor man’s car to get a slice of the vast yet untapped market in India. The Nano has taken India’s Jugaad(manage) mentality to previously untouched heights and resulted in a spate of innovations in building materials to engines to space utilization.

Nano has been greeted with great joy and anticipation from the huge lower-middle class of India, with taxi drivers to milkmen to laundrymen, each already dreaming up innovative ways of customizing the car to suit their needs: the taxi driver thinking of fitting a CNG cylinder in the boot and making space for luggage on the roof, and the local Chat joint thinking of turning mobile with the Nano.

However, it is not difficult to see the impact this Poor man’s car will have on the already precarious conditions of the roads and fuel prices. Being a resident of Bangalore, which already sees hours of productivity wasted in Traffic jams on a daily basis, the anticipated flood of Nanos on the roads already gives one nightmares. Further, the escalated demand for fuel will send the prices of oil soaring in the domestic market and prove to be a severe strain on a government already struggling to control the petrol prices even as Oil hits 100$ per barrel. What happens when the milkman buys the Nano but cannot afford the fuel to put in it? Don’t we come back to square 1 with only the more affluent being able to afford ‘transportation’? Or to a more drastic scenario of fuel rationing by the government and a step in the reverse direction of not liberalizing the economy but restricting it.

If providing affordable efficient transportation to the masses in price sensitive India was Tata’s aim, he has taken a bold step to achieve it, albeit in a very Businessman-ish fashion of price-volume dynamics. However, the term ‘transportation’ is not only the vehicle itself: it comprises of the Triad of the vehicle, the fuel and the roads. One pillar of this triad cannot stand without the cooperation of the other two. Therefore I have my doubts whether his vision can become a reality in its complete sense.

Although Ratan Tata may be seen as the liberator of the masses, the messiah of the common man for the moment, he definitely did not have socialism as his aim, else he would have thought of providing a more efficient privatized public transportation system, or undertaken some grand roadways projects. But traffic choked roads, spiraling fuel prices or pedestrian safety are not his concerns.

Transportation for the masses is a Systems Design problem, and needs to have Systems thinking applied to it, else as we may soon find out, the cure may be worse than the disease. The Butterfly has just flapped its wings, lets see when the cyclone comes up….

Six things I learnt from my first job

Patience- Great products are made over a long and painful period of time, over months of thinking and iterating, bit by painful bit. You need to have loads of patience and conviction.

Details- The Devil does lie in the details. No amount of great concepts and ideas would be any good if you don’t sweat the small stuff. Do not think only of the most common Use Cases. Exceptions and Margin cases are important too!

Implementation- This is not the most glamorous phase of Product Development for a Designer, however, this is the Foundry phase which tests the strength and robustness of your design and gives it a form which can be used. It is crucial that you remain as focused and dedicated in this phase as in the Design phase.

Communication- Talking with different people associated with the product, from Product Managers to Developers to Marketing guys gives you different perspectives on the product and helps you in forming a well-rounded vision and a clearer view on the strategy and Product placement in the market

Research- Don’t go about re-inventing the wheel. Inspiration is not such a bad thing. See what has been done before, what is being done now, do competitor analysis. Can save you a lot of time and effort.

Vision- You need to have an internal radar guiding you to what the product should be, not merely what it can be under present constraints. Always keep the vision in mind, and lead the developers slowly towards it.

Emerging World of Free

Recently saw a video of a talk by Chris Andersen (of The Long Tail and Wired fame) on Emerging World of Free. He talks about how in today’s world the resources of Bandwidth, Storage and Processing power are approaching zero, that is, becoming free, and how it impacts businesses. He says that previously the limited shelf space in a traditional store was a limiting factor in the variety of goods available in that store. There was only space for the most popular brands, and a “One size fits all’ approach ruled. There was no space for satisfying the long tail, the custom made, the marginal tastes. With the emergence of the internet as a virtual market place, with infinite shelf space at zero cost(cost or the underlying technology approaching zero), you have the possibility to cater to the Long Tail, satisfy unlimited choices, tastes and provide infinite options to the consumer.

For me this was particularly insightful since it opens up a previously untouched, unlimited market. We always think that newer emerging markets are those people who have never used our product. While this is certainly true for developing countries, what about the ‘saturated’ markets of the developed world? The internet as a market place offers vast possibilities in these tech savvy nations to tackle the yet untapped Long Tail of the curve: the niche, customized market, where each consumer is spoilt for choice, AND is willing to pay more for it. And going by the numbers which Chris showed, the Long Tail contributes to anywhere between 25 to 50% of the total market depending on the product!!

I would think the virtual marketplace would fit in very cosily in the the gaps left by the traditional stores. For any business, both can share a symbiotic relationship and leverage each others strengths and eliminate their weaknesses. There is already a lot of activity happening in this space, and as Google said: we are moving from a dozen markets of millions to a million markets of dozens...

The video can be seen here.

Productization of Services

A slow revolution which has been brewing up for quite a while now is the Services Revolution. As more and more companies across the world are formally recognizing services as products, we as designers need to think what it means for us. Before I go into details, we need to clearly define what a Service is. Definitions vary, but broadly we can say that a Service is an amalgamation of Products and Processes, which jointly fulfill a user’s need. A Service comprises of both Tangible and Intangible components as opposed to a product, whose physicality is its defining feature. Also, a product is typically manufactured before it is used, whereas a Service comes into existence at the same time as it is being used.

In retrospect, probably the shift towards a Services mindset was inevitable as the need for integration between various product lines to provide end to end solutions to the customer became crucial. There is a distinct shift in the way a company looks at its offerings today, not as Products (which is a decidedly corporatish view), but rather as End to End Solutions, which is looking at it from a User’s point of view. In keeping with this, Enterprise software companies like SAP, are moving towards E-SOA (Enterprise Services Oriented Architecture) which is end user scenario oriented, not product oriented. We can no longer afford to look at Products as silos, and expect users to switch between half a dozen softwares, to complete a single task. There needs to be much stronger seamless integration between these products, so much so that they appear as one to the end user.

Now, what it means for us as designers is:

• The focus on user Experience in a Services approach is much more than before, since that is the whole idea of a service: to look at your offering from an end user’s point of view.
• We need to stretch our focus from traditional Product Design into areas which previously may have been covered by other teams like Service Definition, Business Model etc. Our approach needs to be much more holistic.
• Service Design is much more inclusive than Product Design, because more often than not, the users of a service are heavily involved in designing it as well.
  
• The Triad of Designers, End Users and Service Providers need to work closely together to define and manage the services.
  
• Customization and the flexibility to customize becomes much more crucial because One size doesn’t fit all. We may increasingly have various flavors or schemes of the same offering to suite different user groups.
• Service Design is a much more evolutionary process.It involves many iterations based on user feedback and satisfaction assessment.
  

However, Service Design is still an evolving field, and there are many Open Issues which need to be answered. For example, Who 'owns' the Service: the user, the designer or the service provider? Can we even look at ownership in the same way as we look at for Tangible products? How do we measure the User Friendliness of a service? Is there a standard process to design a Service, like the UCD Process to design products? Probably these questions have already been answered by someone somewhere on the repository of collective intelligence called the internet, but they are certainly open in my mind anyways...

An Elephant with a Rabbit’s heart

This might appear as a queer Title, but then a well designed post should have a catchy title to attract interest :)

But this title really summarizes the Business and Growth strategy of any successful organization today. I think classically it has been believed that the Business and Growth strategy of an organization would largely depend upon its size, domain and duration of its presence in the market… But increasingly, it is becoming evident that this differentiation is fast disappearing. Successful organizations all over the world behave more and more like start-ups, irrespective of their size, or time in the market. That appears to be the only way to achieve the speed of growth necessary to survive in the market. The agility of an organization in changing itself according to the changing markets is imperative for survival today. Shifting focus quickly and efficiently from one area to another, organization restructuring, scope for innovation are as crucial for behemoths like Google, Microsoft, SAP today, as they are for little known start-ups. Probably that’s why companies like Google try very hard to maintain a culture of a start-up with the simple rule ‘There are no rules’. I remember reading that the employee of tomorrow would be like a Construction worker in his agility: a group of employees would come together as a team to complete a project, disintegrate, and then reorganize in some different team to complete a different project. There would be no fixed teams, working on the same product for ages, and to apply your core skills in different areas with ease would become crucial. Businesses even today are increaingly focussing on their core competecies, and virtually all other Administrative, Maintenance and Support activities are outsourced.

Today, it is as crucial to build a healthy eco-system around your company, as the growth of the company iself. We will have to be increasingly collaborative and flexible in times to come,and the adage 'If you cant beat them, join them' would become the mantra. Probably thats why more and more forward-looking companies are actively nurturing and contributing to the Open Source movement, with a view to nurture their eco-systems. The only monopoly that can survive in today's world is the one formed by the people, for the people, the one resting on the collective shoulders of thousands of unknown, yet powerful shoulders. Hmm….we live in interesting times.

Designer Religion?

Have been recently reading a book called ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins.

Must say it is one of the most insanely rational and gripping books I have read in a long time… As the title suggests, the basic premise of the book is that the existence of God is highly improbable, and Religion is a just a convenient by-product of our psychological needs. Also, religion has evolved over the centuries (with healthy amounts of designing by some powerful people across different eras) to become what it is today.. Of course, the backbone of this entire theory is that there is no scientific proof of God’s existence, and most scriptures have been distorted over the centuries by the Chinese Whispers phenomenon, into what they are today…

The author mainly looks at Christianity, Judaism (& Islam) as the main monotheistic religions of our times, and how they foster in group kinship and out-group hostility. The ideology that My God is the only God, or my faith is the true faith gives these religions a coating of violent intolerance towards anyone not belonging to their creed. Makes me wonder as a Hindu, whether a polytheistic religion like Hinduism makes one more tolerant? With its selection of thousands of Deities to choose from, you can decide whom to worship. It offers you much more flexibility to choose, and fosters tolerance for coexistence of many other deities in the name of faith…. probably it is a gentler religion…

But even if we do consider the radical idea that Religion is ‘designed’, the fact that the Design has evolved over centuries has given it its robustness and power…something similar to the way the Indian Lota was designed, and its resulting ubiquitous popularity in India. In any case, it has a huge fan-following, because it carries all the hallmarks of a good design:

• It satisfies the needs and desires of the ‘User’
• It arouses powerful emotions within the ‘User’
• It is intuitive, user-friendly and an effective tool to use in day to day living
  

No wonder it has such huge Brand Equity, and irrespective of whether Dawkins is right or not (there is a strong probability he might be), it isn’t going to go out of vogue anytime soon!

Beautifully Designed Spaces…

I have been working for about 1.5 years in SAP, and one thing that never ceases to give me pleasure is my Workspace in office.

The main Development Block at SAP has 3 wings, and each wing has an Open Courtyard at the center. Now this courtyard, I suspect has been designed according to Feng Shui Principles(the literal translation of Feng Shui is ‘wind-water’) . it is very green, and has an artificial waterfall in the center. Flowing water increases the positive energy in a space known as ‘chi’. Huge caldrons filled with water are kept at strategic locations, and there are always flowers or rose petals floating in them.

The sound of flowing water from the waterfall gives a very soothing feel; and the open courtyard keeps you connected to the outside world in a way that such artificially designed enclosed spaces seldom do.

This is in sharp contrast to the other office spaces I have worked in; where the raindrops falling on your face always surprise you as you step out, because you were not aware it was raining outside as you worked under artificial lighting within.

Another way in which this open courtyard makes a difference is the lighting…the changing lighting from noon to evening, or as the sky gets covered with clouds, makes one aware of the changing weather and the passage of time in a very subtle and natural way.

I remember a friend of mine at NID made a set of Desktop widgets representing nature, and tried to connect them to the outside weather, so that one can be aware of the weather outside in the enclosed office space. I think technology is not the answer to every problem around us, sometimes it may just complicate a problem even more.

Probably what we need are better designed spaces…spaces which make the transition from the outdoors to the indoors more seamless, less drastic. That is why I am a great fan of Skylights. Skylights are one way which can lessen the disconnect between the outside and the inside world, and do not even require extra space, as for example, a courtyard might.

My favorite time of the day is late evenings, when most of the people in the office have left, and all I can hear is the sound of flowing water; uninterrupted by the sounds of keyboards, printers and people as it is during the day….aaah…what bliss!