Many personal growth development and leadership programs, personal and business coaches are today transforming the way we live our lives and the way we impact our communities. They are bringing back to our attention thousands-of-year-old knowledge, packaged in a contemporary format.
Napoleon Hill has been a precursor in the United States more than 50 years ago, and a series of successful programs have been developed since then. Some of those programs include the work of: Stephen Covey, Abraham Maslow, Jim Collins, Eckhart Tolle…

As individuals, we are also now experiencing some manifestations of the intense focus on the need to “have”. Some of the most publicized include: obesity, stress, and environmental issues. There is a growing awareness in the general public that a better and more powerful life is possible. Many new magazines (Real Simple…), TV shows (Oprah…), and organizations (Franklin Covey, Landmark Education, Academy of Influence, Tony Robbins…) are currently bringing the trend to the masses.

The fundamental principle is based on getting back in touch with who we are as human beings and redefining ourselves. We are poised to re-discover the mind-body-spirit system, our language and conversations, our support systems, our relation with ourselves, others, and the world, and our awareness of the present.

I challenge each of us to lead the path and take daily actions to make the world a better place

Note: thanks Lucilla for your contribution to this post.

For many years I have designed and developed products, developing new methodologies, pushing the envelop of the strategic role of design in the product development process. I have trained and mentor many designers. Why? To develop better products for the users. At least that’s what I believed. The fact is that I, and my teams, worked very hard to develop better products for the users BECAUSE it’s good business. Yes, because it’s good business.

Good business gives us a “license to kill” or maybe less dramatically put: a “license to steal” (the consumers). I’m exaggerating my statements here to help make my point. Most of companies, small and large, genuinely believe that their actions are aligned to do good business. You have to innovate because it’s good business, you have to understand the consumers because it’s good business, you have to optimize your product development cycles because it’s good business, and so on. We have today excellent financial, technology, product, marketing, and sales individuals, highly trained, and highly capable of creating new tools and processes.

The fact is that the context in which we develop our products and services quickly narrows down to the products and services themselves. The products become their context. The consumer is an element of the equation of the product development process. We give it our full focus because of our fear of failing the product, of failing the business, of not making the financial revenues, of losing the market to our competition. And since the products become their own contexts, the risks are even higher: you lose the product, and you lose the context. You are the product, and then you are no more.

Let’s explore the option that we are discussing on this blog. Let’s imagine for a minute that we create a stand for the organization (a product development team, a startup, a large company…). Discussing, creating, defining a stand defines the core raison d’etre for that business. It can take the form of a value, a contribution, or any form of meaningful statement. Its material form can be written, visual, or even physical. I’m not referring to an artifact created for the sake of checking off a mark on a corporate marketing to do list, but a core value that is the reason why one belongs and commits to that group of people. That stand should be the reason why we make products and services. And products and services should be the actions, the by-products of the stand, and that is good business.

How do we define the stand? The question is open and we will discuss it in future entries. But a stand could be created with the same tools used to create products. Understanding the communities in which we want to make a contribution and make a difference, brainstorming the possible contribution we can make, inventing, projecting and designing the way the community looks like after our contribution is what creates a powerful stand, a powerful and actionable mission.

I’m confident that in that context the beautiful and hyper-effective product development process that we know today is un-stoppable. I’m also confident that if a given product or service should fail its adoption criteria, that a few other alternative will immediately come to mind, and take the relay. I’m also confident that us, the consumers, the citizens of our communitie, will have more meaningful and respectful products and services.

What do you think? How does that relate to your business? Let’s share and see how we can make a difference now.

1. The products and services become the byproducts of the “being”. Suddenly the product vision doesn’t need to be a self contained element. The product vision, feature set, and implementation activities derive naturally from what you stand for.
2. The product is less at risk. When the product is only driven by its own set of requirements (market, technology, innovation, product vision…), it is the main and only investment focus. Any changes in the requirements can have a costly impact on the product development. When the product is surrounded by a clearly defined “being” context, then the change in requirement can be counter-balanced.
3. The product is more flexible. Product requirements are usually very specific by nature. Each feature that goes in the product is weighted and prioritized against the specific requirements. In the presence of a strong bein, the feature set becomes more flexible. It gives a higher level of requirement, a framework of decision supported by the all product development team.
4. The investment is less at risk. Most of the investment risk is usually on the product. Its development cost, its time to market, its market response are all factors that can affect your business. In addition to the financial burden, the affect on the product development team motivation can be the most dramatic impact. The “being” remains intact and provides the ultimate direction for the product. A particular implementation of the product can fail, who you are as a business and what you stand for remains. The team keeps its motivation, and the investors (who believe in what you stand for) will give you another chance.
5. The product carries the value of the stand. Even though the being you stand for is not the vision of the product, it has an impact on the product and its vision. The “raison d’etre” creates a decisive context to the product and service discussion.

I’ll come up later with an example that highlights the difference between the product vision and the being.

What do you think? How does this apply to your business?
Let me know what it means for you!

To reduce the risks, and try to avoid failure, we have invented over the years sophisticated product development techniques and methodologies like Engineering, Marketing, Design, Research, Quality Engineering, Project Management, and all the good innovation and excellence processes that we learn and apply every day. Schools are pretty good at setting us up for that task, and the general consensus is that the more you do it, the better you are, and eventually the more paid you get.

We are operating on a mode called [Have –> Do –> Be].

We, our teams, and our organizations believe that we need to “have” results in order to “be” successful. And in order to “have”, we “do” as much and as well as we can. I’m actually amazed by what I have seen over the years in the space of “doing”. We, as human are actually very capable of “doing”, just look at our industrial landscape (both virtual and physical).

But there is a problem (otherwise I won’t be here bringing that topic up). There are in fact several problems with the [Have –> Do –> Be] model.

I’ll be discussing them in more detail later. But here are some of the usual characteristics:

1/ The “Be” rarely happens.

2/ The products are not as meaningful as they could

3/ The consumers are treated as consumers in the economical ecosystem

4/ The product development teams (at large) are frustrated and asked to “do” more and more

And the trend based on the past 30 years is not showing much change. “Doing” more and better seems to be on most of our agendas.

I want to propose to explore a reversed model called [Be –> Do –> Have].

I have not invented it. Some say it’s the most cutting edge approach there is today. Other say it has been around for thousands of years, and we lost track of it. But all who have a good understanding of this model agree that it is a much more sustaining and effective model.

In this model, we engage in a conversation of what we stand for, of what we are, or better of “who we are”. It’s a creation process, for which most of us don’t have much training, and for which we don’t pay much considerations. Once this stand, or “being”, is defined, we can look into the creation of the products and services as one possible manifestation of that stand. It provides a decisive context to the product development process, a.k.a. “doing”. The promise is that the results are stronger and last longer because they are not motivated by the results, but by a value, a vision, a stand, a being.

So, what do you think?

And, how do we make this happen?

I’m committed to make a difference and I’m looking for partners and people motivated to take actions! I’ll be sharing more insights, examples, and information as I go along this journey!

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It was great meeting all of you at the Connecting07 Congress in San Francisco organized by ICSID/IDSA! I also had the privilege to participate in a panel (thank you Bill Mak for the opportunity) as well as attending great presentations!

The French Designer gathering on Wednesday night was also a great success with close to 75 designers meeting at the Voda Bar. Thanks Youenn to help with the organization, and Pierre-Yves for seeding the idea!

Many of you have been very supportive and suggested that I should start a blog covering the progress of my new business: Creative Venture. Let this be the first entry of that blog!

I’m introducing cutting edge Product Strategy and Design approaches, and the response is amazing! For those who missed the discussion, I’m engaged in the study of the human being and found many key parallel principles that can bring a tremendous new dimension to the way we have been strategizing the development of products and services in the past. So, I started Creative Venture to communicate and evangelize those findings to the product design community at large (design practitioners, educators, and the industry).

I’ll post here some of the key findings, examples, and actionable techniques that can have an immediate impact on your product strategy, definition, and design.

Feel free to subscribe to this blog (click the “RSS feed” link on the sidebar)

And let the adventure begin!