(Ruta Writes...) books that made me think...

I am writing this as a reply to someone who asked me about which book I really liked... or which author I feel makes me think the most.

As far as the 'Business' domain is concerned, I like to listen to and read Guy Kawasaki. He writes and talks simplistic - but his thoughts hit the right target - spot on. Currently, I have been reading Seth Godin's book called Linchpin - and now I have started realizing why people like him so much! I have read many books on design, strategy and branding - Many of those were by people I really admire - Were educating. These books taught me a lot about the actual practice of design business - They introduced me to some of the finest and innovative projects. But there was one book that really made me think and change my perception:

Wired to Care by Dev Patnaik
We always hear or read 'be human' in your designs or 'think about the customer first' or at times giving a 'personalized experience'. This is easy to read in books, to say and to talk about. Solving real world issues by design and applying these principles at the same time, is always a hard task. At times, designers go clueless about bringing in the human factor. Dev Patnaik clears the clouds around reaching to your end consumer with a human hand - through design, branding and strategies - He likes looking at any problem through the lens of EMPATHY. It is one of the books that changed my perception about creating great brands. They do not happen - they are created through EMPATHY.

Also, I liked one of my recent reads by Alina Wheeler  (look below for the review)
She goes through the entire branding process in her book - It feels like a textbook and I like the way she goes about describing all the processes with the help of graphics, quotes and "some text". I feel this book is an important one because no one at school or in our professional careers teaches us the A-Z of the design/ branding process - You have to learn it by yourself. I feel if the entire process is taught to all the design students right from the very start - be it any discipline, I guess the interaction between teams at work will be more close and harmonious and there will be no "new discoveries" at work

I just cannot write enough about the authors, designers or strategists I like. But a few others apart from Dev Patnaik, Alina Wheeler, Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin are Marty Neumeier, Tim Brown, Hartmut Esslinger, Tom Kelly and the list doesn't just end there. I have still a lot more to read, learn, to do and to explore. The next book on my to read list is 'Brand Identity Essentials' by Kevin Budelmann, Yang Kim, and Curt Wozniak.

(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!