A Business901 podcast excerpt (next week) with Alan Moore, author of Do Design: Why beauty is key to everything (Do Books). Actually, it is not an excerpt…it was a conversation we had before we started the podcast.
Alan Moore: What seems really obvious to you and it makes utter sense, because in a sense you just kind of look to all of these sorts of things that are happening and actually what you’re then saying to companies is if you go down that road but you kind of speed up a bit, you could really create something that would be useful, valuable, distinctive, it can make you lots of money, and they’d kind of look at you going, what’s he talking about?
In a sense, the frustrating thing for me is that because I spent a lot of my life working very operationally, I was only interested in if we’re going to be operational, we might as well just operate at the most effective plain we possibly can. Why would we want to be operating in a space which is ten years behind the times? I didn’t quite realize that that wasn’t the way that the vast majority thinks.
Joe Dager: I think you need a little bit of each section. I mean what I’ve come to realize, you have to have a certain percentage of standard work because that’s what puts groceries on the table. You have to have a certain portion of continuous improvement going on so that you can drive and create more standard work and keep your standard work up to date, so you have that side of it. But then you also have to have that component of exploration, of design in there too, and those percentages of the three differ with every company. Because it’s how much risk, how much comfortability and the culture you have to withstand it all.
Alan: That’s right. No, I completely agree with that. I mean I’ve been in that place and space, and I have a great empathy now with a little bit of age for organizations which are designed and built and at one point were innovative. If you become a repeat company, it normally means that you are producing something at a scale that people want. Whether you do that in a kind way or an unkind way is a different point, but at some point, you’ve delivered a product or service at a value, at a price point that universally people go to that works for me.
Of course, what you’re then really doing is, unless you have the exception to the norm is maintaining that status quo for as long as you possibly can. That’s where the culture comes in which is, are you creating a culture which really just wants to things to kind of be in the status quo. Which is why actually in the book, I am actually really interested in Pixar as a company because I think they have a very interesting culture in terms of how they approach the way that they produce, and design, and develop their films. It’s very interesting.
This little book really touches people in terms of this whole idea around craftsmanship and design, living or creating a restorative life. We go back to creating things that have value and meaning. I sat down and wrote this book in a very short space of time. It’s a little bit unfair because you could say it’s taken me 25 years to write this book. The approach was very different in ‘No Straight Lines.’ You can see that the response is incredible in terms of how it touches people. So you’d never know.
South by Southwest. That was a packed audience. We sold out our books. I’m off to speak at the Hay on Wye Festival, which is like the biggest literature festival in England. It’s like a Boy Scout badge. That’s a serious Boy Scout badge for a writer in this country, although it’s internationally recognized. There are other things that are springing up, so I’m thankful and grateful for the fact that you came to me and said can we have a chat and can we do a talk because you’re right, you just don’t know what works. But what I can see is there are winds in the sail of this in a very interesting way.
About: Alan Moore is an entrepreneur, author and speaker. Working at the intersection between design, technology and business, he possesses a unique grasp on the changes that are reshaping our world and an insight and passion on how to transform organizations and businesses to thrive in a world where it’s not business as usual.