Gilt just made an iPad app that re-imagines what it means to shop a digital store (electronic commerce). They’ve built easier ways to see many photos, photos zoomed in very closely and what sizes and colors are available of a particular product. They’ve also reduced the number of actions it takes to buy something, changed the way something is moved to a cart and placed the cart at the bottom of the screen. I find these changes all quite interesting.

I wonder if Guilt will see the impacts of these design and usability changes on things like number of products returned. I’d be interested in finding out. It’d lend some argument to the ROI value of design and usability.

John Winsor and Alex Bogusky have written a book titled Baked In that posits a way forward for products and marketing working together. I enjoyed the doodles throughout and fully agree with the principles of learning by doing and prototyping often. Check out the book’s blog at http://www.bakedin.com for an example of the principles of the book embodied. It’s interesting for many reasons not least of which is that they drank their own Kool-Aid.

The thesis goes something like, creativity is an ultimate business weapon and marketing should be part of the definition of products in such a way that they market themselves. The book and blog are baked together. They each market each other and themselves due to their connection to Twitter and their invitation for people to interact and participate.

I received an early version of the book. I was eager to read and happy to do so. I’ve wondered out loud with others and ruminated about it’s contents as well as the state of industry/culture.

To my mind… current convention holds that quick profit is a premium and primary goal. Therefore convention nearly always chooses the path of least resistance for design and manufacturing. As a result, the machines that make things have become nearly, if not the only, primary audience for the design of many products. Design in this system is focused on what the machines can make. Users are after thoughts. In the common case then, marketing enters the picture as something that happens ABOUT a product or ON BEHALF of it after it’s made and most often in order to get people to buy up stock of it.

Baked In provides a conceptual framework for flipping convention on it’s head. It’s about marketing being something that happens TO products and BY products on their own behalf. As an example, what if the designers played a significant role in deciding what gets made? What if marketing was a first thing considered in product development? Baked In argues that creativity and marketing should be intimately in the mix. Marketing then would become an essential characteristic of a product. Without marketing the product would cease to be the product by definition. In fact, products not designed with marketing in mind might in the future be doomed to a warehouse stock existence.

The middle chunk of the book gets practical and offers a series of “recipes” for baking marketing in. Clever. They’re insightful and articulate. Taken together they seem like firm ground to stand on when designing/marketing products. My favorite at the moment is “Get Out Of Whatever Business You Think You’re In.”

To my mind each of the recipes can fit in to one of three categories. Inside Culture includes recipes for teams and organizations to think and work together by. Outside Culture focuses on the macro culture for a time and product and how to make the most of it all. And finally recipes for Disposition which focus on thoughts/values/approaches to be considered when baking marketing into products.

The last section of the book argues that systems are a major way forward. I agree for a couple reasons. First, I am reminded here of the work of Daniel Pink and Roger Martin. Daniel argues in A Whole New Mind that where the left brain has dominated business the right brain’s ability to consider empathy and inventiveness as it relates to value creation is becoming and will become increasingly sought after. Roger, Dean at the Rotman School of Management and author of The Opposable Mind, argues that an integrative approach that includes both business (left brain) and design (right brain) are where value will come from going forward. I see both arguments lending well to systems thinking for designing/marketing products. Let’s integrate thinking and doing and sharing (marketing).

Second, systems seem to be a logical conclusion to the argument the book is making. By that I mean that if marketing and product design are to be integrated, which would its self be a sort of system, then it stands to reason that systematic approaches to the contexts in which those products exist are also in order. Moreover, systems seem appropriate ways to build for expanding and sustaining value.

So… Baked In. It claims creativity is an ultimate business weapon. To my mind it’s not a stretch to suggest that systems are it’s ammunition. It’s time to make them.

Maybe, a next step is to bake marketing into our thoughts. Maybe we’re all idea merchants. Maybe that’s the goal of this all. How do we think things should be? The question then is how good are we at that thinking and doing. Maybe it’s about spreading ideas. Maybe it’s about prototyping and building things. After all, everything that exists is an argument in a way about how things should be. Are we happy with how things will be on our current trajectory? Wither your answer is yes or no both suggest that we get to work and make things.

Buy the expensive toilet paper or look bad. Design and cheep buyers of supplies put many companies at odds with themselves. While companies spend huge money on branding and do a great job like Home Depot and Crate and Barrel they also skim where most customers could really use some help, the restroom.

If the paper towel and toilet paper dispensers in most restrooms were designed to minimize tear off and the supplies that were put in them were high in quality and resistant to tearing, then companies could minimize taking the branding hit it on the chin that they do on a regular basis.

Do customers actually want what you are building or do they settle for it?

What if dates were displayed in a circle instead of a line?

Does using Twitter and specifically live update services (like Twhirl, where the feeds trickle on and then off your screen) offer a tool for practicing and building your ability to focus on many data sources while still getting done what you intend to get done?

Think about instances like client meetings where you have to listen to other perspectives, take in information, and clarify what you hear people saying while integrating that new information into your understanding of a subject and simultaniously developing and communicating your point of view to the specific unique audience in order that you too can get done what you went to the meeting for.

I think Twitter via Twhirl is a great training tool for developing your abilities to succed in client meetings and other hectic attention diverse situations. Say you are working on your computer and interesting things keep flowing in right alongside of what you are thinking about and doing. You can pay attention to cool things while determining what to learn more about. I think it can train ones mind to stay alert and versatile to changing ideas and new information while also staying focused on accomplishing what it set out to accomplish.

What do you think? Have you tried it? Do you have a role where Twitter could help you practice being a better listener to many points of view while simultaneously being a better doer?

Build in the reuse of the package and make it social by including postage right on the package. Every package of each glass of wine could be a stamped envelope ready to be reused.

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