(Ruta Writes...) ... to tread a new path

... to tread a new path

They say that “Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.” It’s something that many of us believe! I feel that this is a saying those fatalist people who believe that all events in life are governed by fate and they are led by their destinies. Few are those gems who stride the path that no one has, seek the light in darkness that no one has ever dared to. I feel... it is not about the destination but more about the journey and the way you live it. Sometimes, it is as simple as - decide to walk and the paths start following. Imagine… one lost in an expanse of grassland of thousands of acres where no one has ever been. There is nothing but the vast spread grassland and somewhere at the horizon, the grassland meets the sky. One decides to walk to seek a human settlement. After walking for a substantial amount of time, if one turns back and sees, for once will he realize that he has marked a way of his own that people might follow. The challenge to seek new roads will be more fun than reaching the destination. One may be known only by what one has achieved and people will look just at the

outcomes. But, only one as a person will know the best parts of his journey. As a designer, I have seen that people and clients get awed by the final and finished products… but at times, I feel that the final product is not as beautiful as the inchoate idea. When designing spaces, the part of the design process where a designer can really reward himself is the creation of an incredible idea… the creation of a path, creation of the set of solutions to an issue, to a space that no one has thought of. The evolving of such an idea sets adrenaline running in a designer’s bloodstream and gives him the spirit to create more… But when such people are constrained and made to abide by some parameters, it is then that the level of the invention starts degrading.

It is very hard to find such a person who doesn’t succumb to any such impediment and prospers. As a student of design, I have listened to many people talk about hows, whats, whens and wheres of design. Most of them talk about design as a subject and a profession to which, I believe no listeners pay any heed. It is always inspiring to hear from people/ designers who not only design as a profession or as a hobby but imbibe it in themselves and make good design, a habit. 

As designers, we have to face practical constraints and come out of them. A classic and a convenient approach to address an issue would be to give out an optimum solution that well fits into the requirements and follows the constraints. But, how will it be to gaze at the solution which would be a mere factitious beauty that we have created? Thinking from a different point of view, and the changing perception of design from mere decoration to a strategic step, where a designer becomes a path director, a manager, a strategist, a economist and other endless positions, could we say that we could just not give out solutions to people but, advise them what to do and then surprise ourselves with the varied outcomes? Could this kind of a vision be translated into reality? Can we just raise people’s aspirations and leave them on their own to make them realize what they really want? Can we as designers believe in ourselves so much that we boost people’s understanding about what they really want and be sure that people accomplish their solutions? Can we just go one step ahead of optimists and be leaders who direct the masses? Can we be content just to point the way and not actually walk the path but still be able look back only to find that we have actually come a long way over the lonely grassland?

(book review) Wired to Care

Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper when they create widespreadempathy by Dev Patnaik with Peter Mortensen

FT Press, NewJersey-USA, 2009

This “business” book is about what all of us already posses and use in our daily lives but are trained to leave it back as we enter the workplace – Its about empathy and caring about people. It takes various examples from Dev Patnaik's experience at Jump Associates – a hybrid strategy firm. The book kicks-off with a basic idea that companies should care about their customers and revolves around the idea that a business will succeed as much with their hearts as much as their heads.

The book arguably demonstrates that more a business appreciates what their consumers or employees want or empathizes with their needs, more are the chances that the business will succeed. The book makes even more sense if you have read – 'A Whole New Mind' by Daniel Pink. Its like a flow from one book to another like a sequel movie to a previous one.

What makes the book most interesting is the way Patnaik goes through real life examples about a number of companies such as Nike, Disney, Mercedes, Clorox, etc. and about empathy and the ways companies could integrate empathy into their daily businesses and narrates them like stories – Stories that you can't resist, stories that hang on to you even after you have finished the book. Dev Patnaik really connects to the readers.

I particularly like the example of Harley Davidson Motors where Patnaik shows that the simplest way to have empathy for your customers is to be like them. The easiest way to gain empathy is to hire your own customers as employees. Harley's employees are themselves riders and the company has their front parking lot reserved only for motorcycles. The parking for automobiles or “cages” as they say, is at the back. And this is just the beginning! I won't go into any more details of the story as it will take all the fun out from reading it yourself. Other stories for X-Box and Zune, Nike, Pattie Moore – the story of the designer are as much enthralling.

As Dev writes - “...if you want people to be interested in you, you should be genuinely interested in them. That's a pretty straight-forward lesson with relatively major implications.” The same thing applies to the relationship between businesses and consumers. 

Its a must read for all business leaders, CEOs, CFOs (all the people with a 'C' in their titles) and people in the design field. 

Their website is worth a look.

This book is all set to become a classic! 

(Ruta Writes...) sustainable business: being human

...sustainable business: being human

These days, form the books I have read, the work I have done, the businesses I have seen, it seems that emotional branding, giving experiences, is what works today and that consumers appreciate it more when they are treated as people instead of mere subjects of targeted advertisements. This idea led me to think that even in a world where everything is mechanized and where the value of being human is rapidly diminishing, thanks to the fast moving, labor saving technologies, people still want to feel cared about. In a place where affluence is respected and having a lot of 'stuff' is considered as a symbol of success, where we have come far from being cave-men, we still crave more for being human.

At times, I really wonder what it means to have all the “luxuries” as we call them – a big car, a hefty salary, an air-conditioned house – where in all the drapes and windows are always closed, where one has everything he wants but does not relate to the nature cycles – when it rained, when it snowed, when was the last time I really looked at the moon, when was the last time I felt the breeze on my cheeks, when does it dawn and how long is the day? It has been scientifically proven that being affluent does not make one content. It just gives a surge of excitement for a while which is temporary, by nature. Once you posses a thing, the graph of excitement rapidly goes down and one starts looking for other things to satisfy his urge to posses. Thus it is a paradox that having more stuff will not make one satisfied, but hungry to look for more stuff, in turn making him unsatisfied and hence, unhappy. What we really 'need' is to be loved and not just keep on having more stuff. Have you ever thought that being with our parents, friends, partners and giving them everything – emotionally, is more satisfying than watching T.V or giving out a big and expensive gift. As I like to say, emotions are best expressed through emotions!

Yes, I was talking about being an aware customer, a responsible person and a sustainable citizen. I always relate the notion of being 'human' to being 'sustainable'. Being sustainable is not just using 'green' products, using public transport or using less paper. It is also about being responsible for what we do, respecting ourselves, others and the planet. Sustainability is about being satisfied with what we have, what we are and being happy. Even though we keep on producing, consuming and trashing 'stuff', even though we demean nature's best resources, even though we have invented the fastest ways of globe trotting and in turn polluting the planet, even though we have become loners, we still feel the need to socialize, the need to be cared for, the need to be loved, as we did in any era. The fact that we realize that our world has limited resources and that we all live in one single home, we tend to get even closer and our world shirks to become one big human family. After all, sustainability is all about being what we are – humans!

A business that makes people feel cared about, one that promises being light on the earth (e.g: is durable, is non-toxic) and has a purpose that people connect with, is likely to be sustainable.

(book review) The Brand Gap

The Brand Gap: How to bridge the distance between Business Strategy & Design by Marty Neumeier
New Riders, NY-USA, 2003


Anyone – be it in the business world, marketing, design, branding or elsewhere realize the power of the word - 'Brand'. Everyone talks about things like branded products, brand identity or brand experience and that a brand defines one's personality or marks one's likes and dislikes. But does everyone really understand what a 'brand' really means? Marty Neumier answers it all for us.

The author gives a new and a practical definition to 'building a brand' while explaining the 5 disciplines of brand building viz. :
1.Differentiate
2.Collaborate
3.Innovate
4.Validate
5.Cultivate

The book runs around all sorts of processes that go in creating, maintaining and growing a brand – the successful and the not-so-successful ones. The book starts from the very basic question: 'What is a brand?' and treads through branding, trends, the tests, problems,  strategy, creativity, names, avatars, designing, packaging, marketing, globalism and evolution of 'brand' to very comprehensive 'take-home' lessons. And these are just a few topics the book talks about.

As they say - “Good things come in small packages”, the best thing about this book is that Marty covers it all in a tiny little book that one can finish reading in a couple of hours. Its like taking a 'one quick pill' for all.

I would recommend this book to anyone with a background in design, business, branding, consumer study, engineering, psychology and anyone who likes to know the story behind brands.

You can view a presentation on the book by the author –  The Brand Gap
Its a huge presentation but worth a watch!

(book review) Cradle to Cradle

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the way we make things by William McDonough & Michael Braungart
North Point Press, NY-USA, 2002

I would describe 'Cradle to Cradle' as a landmark in the field of  Sustainability, written by architect and designer, William McDonough and German chemist Michael Braungart. This book got me introduced to sustainability more than a year ago and now, I own a personal copy that I love to read after intervals. The book puts across the idea of using nature as a model to design things and adopt the 'cradle to cradle' system in contrast to the traditional 'cradle to grave' system  of our industrial manufacturing. The language is simple and the authors explain their position through daily-life examples that are easy to comprehend.

The 'book' itself is designed based on the 'Cradle to Cradle' concept. The product is completely recyclable, not made out of trees and is water-proof. The book is a bit heavy than it looks – It is printed on a synthetic paper made made out of plastic resins and inorganic fillers. The whole idea is to reprocess the book once it is done with, to transform it into a new book – so that the system functions in a loop – cradle to cradle.

Apparently, being less bad is not good for the environment and neither is down-cycling (the authors clearly state that down-cycling is not re-cycling: Down-cycling degrades the product with every use increasing its toxic content). They say that, design is the basic intention of human-beings and with inventions like paints that give out VOCs or carbon emitting vehicles, the intention seems to be 'destruction of the planet'. They propose to play the infinite game of 'Cradle to Cradle' where the waste from one product becomes food for another. The Stone-Age did not end because humans ran out of stone – so why can't we go through this age without exhausting earth's resources.

This book is not one of those usual books on sustainability that talk only about reduce, reuse, recycle and regulate. In fact, the authors' thoughts suggest that we can grow bigger while maintaining the planet's resources. The book is based on the principle that - “Waste equals food”. They give an interesting example of 'leased services' where the producer takes full responsibility of truly re-cycling any product he produces. The authors rate many of today's design solutions as badly designed systems and products that are manufactured without taking into consideration their life-cycle.

The ideas of making oxygen emitting roofs or buildings that produce more energy than they consume or making products that turn into soil after use are interesting. There are many such examples and arguments based on an array of perspectives – scientific, design oriented, business, historical and philosophical.

This book is a must read for designers, architects, manufacturers, business people, environmentalists and anyone who cares about the planet and our future.