Many products are developed all of the times. That is the reason why we have all of the things that make our lives better and more convenient. When a product loses its function, some of them are still valued and consider classic by those societies or countries, so people will keep them in museums. What happens to an organism when it loses its purpose, especially if it is the biggest terrestrial animal?

In history, Asian Elephants were an important factor in battles. Army leaders fought enemies with halberds, or the long sword designed for elephant combat. Many successful victories were determined by the size and physical force of the elephants. In the present time, elephants are not the element that generals consider when they are strategizing for battle.

In the past, Asian Elephants were also one of the key elements of transportation systems. Because of their power and size, people throughout Southeast Asia rode them to haul timber in the jungle. Now, we have many machines that are much more convenient.

The problem arose that the mahouts, or elephant trainers, didn’t know how to give their elephants new purposes in the new era. New things are being used to substitute for their traditional purposes. Moreover, another crucial problem is that people have intruded in their habitats, which has impacted their food chains. Therefore, some of them have drifted from the jungle to the urban jungle for their survival. The new environment is not suitable for their needs or social behaviors. 

With all of these impacts, the elephant population has declined in Thailand. An important reason for the decline is that no one has taken the time to cultivate a new population of elephants. Female elephant can gestate a new baby in 19-22 months. The portion of elephants that die is larger than the portion that survives. Some are killed in accidents and some die because of illness. There are only around 5,000 left in Thailand, 2,400 in the jungle and 3,000 cared for by humans. Both the Thai government and rescue organizations have started to be concerned with this crucial situation, because elephants are important intangible elements. They are a source of pride and a culturally valued animal that has been a part of life throughout the long period of Thai history. Therefore, the Thai government and rescue organizations are trying to find the solution to the problem of maintaining this important species.    

The first solution involved the centralization of strategies and the establishment of March 13 as the annual celebration of National Elephant Day. Although it is not a sufficient solution to solve the problem, it has made people more aware of the situation in Thailand. Another successful strategy that offers a decentralizing solution is concerned with the survival of mahouts and the creation of new purposes for them, both social and economic.

The economy in Thailand is dependant on tourism industry. Elephants should live in jungles and tourists want to see their natural lives. Elephants can be an important element of the ecotourism systems. The prototype has been tried out. Some elephants are back in the jungle and the government districts have built camps and new facilities for tourists to see elephants’ lives and activities. 

Going to elephant camps near the mountains, tourists can experience and view the real natural environment and go elephant trekking in jungle. You may not believe it, but there are a lot of important elephant-based entertainment activities provided at the camp. Elephants show their personalities and abilities by painting pictures and playing musical instruments, which are their actual size. All of these strategies have worked, so the government and the organizations are expanding these strategies to other districts. 

The things that need to be developed are marketing and the elephants’ environment. Elephants can survive because of the mahouts, and tourists can help the mahouts to survive. We may need to make an effective marketing approach for them like Charity : water, the widely successful organization that raises money to make clean water sources for developing countries. Elephants need real and quality jungle habitat. The marketing strategies can be based on meaningful experiences and travel that can help this species survive. However, it will be necessary to balance the elephants’ survival and the sustainability of their environment at the same time. While the government and the organizations invite more tourism, they should be concerned with the improvement of the environment, too. 

When a previous function of an animal is lost, its existence depends on how we look at the big picture and how it may play a role as a new element that is suitable to its behavior. The elephant’s purpose has changed. It is better that we not put them into an organism museum, like the zoo. Elephants need to be in a place that suits their behaviors. If you have time, please take a look and see how they paint.

From Mass to Niche

The most recognized brands used effective marketing and, over time, these brands often become meaningful parts of our lives. Looking back, when I was studying in elementary school, my mom brought me to the local shop after I asked her to buy me new shoes. It didn’t take me a lot of time to make the decision to pick the Nike Air Pippen model. The word  “AIR” in white letters covered the black sides and tops of the shoes. These were to be my first sneakers selected among others on the basis of brand. So many nonsensical reasons created my desire and were the same for most kids at that time. Along with what may seem like nonsense now, there were the functional benefits: I would have an ability to jump high like Pippen. When I think about this experience, the question suddenly pops up in my head: why at that time did I prefer this brand rather than others? 

In the mid 1990’s, the majors driving forces behind the sneaker industry, especially athletic shoes, were spokespeople and advertising. Nike achieved great marketing accomplishment by using superstars, such as Jordan, and Tiger Woods. However, advertising is only one of the marketing tools necessary for keeping the relationship between brands and their targeted customers.

From Identity to Experience

Event Experiences

Adidas Thailand came up with successful marketing strategies in order gain more market share by arranging a large street basketball competition in Bangkok. I still remember all the experiences that my friends and I had playing basketball together. Therefore, I was one of their marketing results when I bought my new Adidas shoes within a year. As we have gotten older, our lifestyles have changed. Sneakers have become a new style of casual dressing, not only athletic shoes. Today, most sneaker brands have a new challenge that involves the creation of lifestyle marketing.

Lifestyle Experiences

People are subjective. My lifestyle has changed from needing athletic shoes to casual shoes. I am concerned more about my shoes’ appearance, such as the designs, materials, colors and graphic designs on the sneaker rather than who are the spokespersons. An effective experience-based marketing strategy can be seen when companies allow consumers to create their own shoes on websites. Along with the process of creating, this gives a lot of meaningful experience to the consumers. From this wonderful experience marketing approach, it brings a brand identity to life. With this turn, we are brought into the era of new marketing strategies. This kind of marketing emphasizes new experiences.

Online Experiences

Our daily lives have been changed by technologies; so many companies are using many different medias to market their products, such as blogs, online articles, and twitter. The interesting part is that sometimes we don’t notice that companies are trying to send us marketing messages. As we can see all over websites, companies are developing many creative ways to introduce their products. For example, when I saw Kobe jump over a car on Youtube, I wondered: what kind of shoes is he wearing? Yes!! That is one of the guerilla marketing strategies and it works.

Retail Experiences

This past Christmas, I brought my friends sightseeing in San Francisco. Of course, I would have been a bad guide if I had not shown them around Union Square, so we went. We went to the Nike retail store. The location is matched with target consumers’ demographics. I experienced the first touch point while using the escalator to go up to the second floor. I saw all of the pictures of famous athletic superstars trying to silently persuade me with their eyes to become one of them. I have to say that the pictures had the ability to build my accomplishment feelings. Moreover, the interior design felt like a modern fitness center, especially the wood floor. It made me feel like I was in a natural environment and a friendly atmosphere. However, they put some eye-catching technology inside as well, most noticeably the product transmission tube system. 

Brand Ambassador Experiences

In the Nike store, sale representatives are also important factors in the creation of successful marketing experiences. The salesmen for the basketball section look like they used to be on their college basketball team. In the street wear section, the guy had a funky hairstyle, earrings, and pants on the ground. I absolutely knew that he would give a good recommendation for street sneakers.

Personal Experiences

According to the marketing management textbook, we are in a time of new marketing realities. By using network information technology and industry convergence, Nike and Apple came up with a new marketing experience, the Nike+ iPod Sport Kit, that focused on a current target segment of elite runners who are fascinated with fashion and are technologically savvy. The Nike+ iPod Sport Kit integrates the ipod with the function of the running shoe by recording the distance the runner has gone while listening to the music. Moreover, the runner can save the details of his workout, such as time, distance, and calories burned in the application, as if he has his own personal trainer. The value itself totally shifts from appearances and functions to meaningful personal experience. 

After looking back at all of the revolutions in marketing experience, it is absolutely true that companies could not survive today using only flat traditional marketing, such as print advertising, TV commercials, and celebrity spokespeople. In order to create meaningful marketing strategies, most companies have to understand both market perspectives and consumer perspectives. In addition, it is very challenging to create new strategies while keeping the core brand identities.

References:

Steve and Shedroff, Making Meaning, Berkeley: New Riders, 2006

Philip and Keller, Marketing Management, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2006

Nike

http://www.nike.com/

Why do we have to include sustainability in our process?

A couple of weeks ago, I talked to my client, The Federation of Thai Industries, about their general situation. The main jobs of their department are to give advice and to organize seminars for manufacturers and companies on social development and topics related to environmental sustainability. They mentioned that their department is not in a good position because of the economic downturn.  Some companies cancelled their workshops and it resulted in lost revenue.

As this story show us, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has to be the second or third priority for companies surviving current economy. Even worse, some companies think about sustainability issues only because addressing global warming creates a good reputation for their businesses. They don’t notice that we are in a crisis of real problems. In the future, the relationships among our resources and human populations will be out of balance and we will run out of resources, such as water, oil, trees, and organisms. This is the reason why we really have to include sustainability into our design processes, business ideas, and organizational strategies for long term-growth.

It is hard to integrate sustainability into the design process, so it is easy to leave it out for the next products. I used to be one of the designers creating problems because my designs focused on only appearance, cost, and consumers’ perceptions. I didn’t think about the products’ entire lifecycle. From the manufacturers and organizations’ points of view, sustainability is a mixed bag. In order to be sustainable, they may have to invest a lot of money and make the process more difficult than before. ( Finance)  Maybe I need to challenge my self more because many designers and innovators have proven that it is possible to create innovative products, strategies, and business with sustainability in mind.

Yothaka, a famous furniture design and manufacturer in Thailand, proved this by making furniture out of unexpected materials, such as water hyacinth, lipao, and pineapple fiber paper. Most product materials are cyclic, which means they are made from organic and recycled materials. The products are non-toxic in use and disposal. In addition, this kind of material can create jobs and income for rural parts of the country. Yothaka has proved that we can create good design with concern for the cyclic, solar, safe, and social. Yothaka’s practice is in-line with Datschefski’s recommendations for sustainable product design. The important thing for other businesses to recognize is that Yothaka makes really good revenue and wins a lot of awards. Sustainability not only can be applied to products but also to innovative strategies.

As authors from natural capitalism have taught us about service and flow strategies, consumers can obtain improve service results by leasing or renting goods rather than purchasing them. The benefits of this strategy for manufacturers and organizations are based on the ability to control product life cycle. Another reason is

that customers have an incentive from the producers for continuous product usage and high productivity. Even if we are not manufacturing but developing effective technologies, financial strategies, or conscious urban lifestyle, it is possible to develop sustainable business with this model. A perfect example, Zipcars has proved that understanding natural capitalism can make $130 million in annual revenues and can grow a company by 30% a year. 

“Design is the key intervention point for making radical improvements in the environmental performance of products and all their products as well,” Datschefski explains. The designer is one of the most important members of the product development team to make suggestions and decisions about products. As designer, the challenging part is to use our knowledge in order to create a sustainable future for our societies. 

Good design (+ sustainability) is good business.

References:

Nathan Sherdroff, Design is The Problem, Rosenfeld Media, 2009

Hawken, B Lovins, and Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism, Eartscan, 1999

EDWIN DATSCHEFSKI, Sustainable Products, 1999

Paul Keegan, “Zipcar - The best new idea in business”, CNNMoney.com, august 27, 2009

http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/26/news/companies/zipcar_car_rentals.fortune/

Yothaka

http://www.yothaka.com/

The benefit of up-to-date technology changes the way that we interact with others, especially in business. One of the greatest challenges in this kind of transnational communication is cross-cultural collaboration. People are no longer living in the land of their birth and many are dealing in business with people from all around the world. We are in a cross-cultural workplace.

Coming from Thailand to America, my four months experience while studying for my MBA in Design Strategy has been a learning experience; the language barrier has been a challenge. Participating as a cohort member in DMBA I have experienced first hand how language is an important tool for efficient and cooperative collaboration among team members. Communication has also been a learning topic in my course Live Exchange.

To break through the language barrier, the old phrase, “Show don’t tell,” rings true as an effective tool in order to convey my ideas. My process and presentation experiences in TUS7M, the presentation about business, design, or communication topics in order to efficiently teach audience in 7 minutes, from Live Exchange class demonstrated that creating visuals to illustrate my ideas appeals more to my peers and audience members than dialogue does.

In the design phase process, my TUS7M partner and I showed and shared our thoughts by using pictures, videos and making prototypes in order to generate constructive ideas. Using a visual model is not only easier to convey ideas and streamline them, but it also makes it more likely that an idea will turn into actual work. In the working process, a prototype and visualizing model can be constructed quickly, and tryout for its output. The experiment of ideas can be efficiently indicated by prototype and feedback in order to develop an idea. We are learning and experiment by doing during our collaboration.

I noticed how people from Thailand and America share and critique ideas differently. Students from America are more comfortable expressing their ideas by asking questions and giving their own thoughts, even if they do not agree with the professor. However, most Thai students would have an internal dialogue and only express ideas in order to smooth interpersonal relationships. For example, when having disagreement with teachers or elder person, we would not directly augur at that time. We either beat around the bush or ask the question after class because of concerning how to express with seniority and respectful.

Looking back at my first meeting with my innovative team members, the cross-cultural differences created difficulties for me to effectively engage in the conversation. Although I understood their ideas and wanted to express my own, I did not know the appropriate time to share my ideas. Most of the time, I waited until finishing their stated or when they asked for my opinions. By concerning too much about appropriate time, it made me loss the moment to shared and expressed my ideas.

Because of cultural backgrounds, we have different attitudes about the expression of our thoughts and feelings. In USA people exchange their ideas freely, while other countries focuses on maintaining respect and authority in relationships in a harmonious way. Both sides have benefits and disadvantages depending on the situation being confronted. When feel free to express ideas, we draw our conversation into discussion, and receiving feedback from different point of view. Moreover, in the process of deliberateness, we learn how to work and collaborate with others. However, expressing our feeling by consideration only own purpose or discourteous comment to others is disadvantage expression.

When a problem shows up but we are not able to immediately tackle both team and project dilemmas at the same time, it can be a critical problem to the future success of the larger project. Therefore, quick response and effective feedback is necessary, but the way we handle and solve problems may be different because of culture, age, gender, attitudes, education and work experience. People are subjective. These different backgrounds make an individual unique with a different way to collaborate with others and solve problems.

Sharing ideas and keeping an open mind are important elements for the effective collaboration in order to overcome communication barriers and to generate constructive ideas.

Team members from diverse cultures and backgrounds have different ways of seeing the world as a result of different life experiences, so they solve problems in different ways, but this should not be seen as a detriment. Working in diverse group is beneficial. Using a cross-collaborative process, exploits each of our strengths in order to create a solution incorporating the salient aspects from these perspectives. These perspectives create an ability to expose and connect with a more varied culture in order to create innovative products and services.

(download)

Click here to download:

GM_Spot.zip (1.35 MB)

Award Winner IXDA 2010

Dealerships will become community centers, where customers will receive a wide array of supports for their transportation needs. The retail experience will be redesigned as an inviting and desirable architectural experience, translating the car-owning experience into a community experience, whereby customers may choose from a wide array of transportation options, including the GM car swap plans. The GM Spot will be a destination in and of itself, as well as a gateway for multiple resources.

Award Winner IXDA 2010

Dealerships are the way of the past. The GM Spot will be a destination and gateway for multiple resources.