Tag Results: strategy
A designer is an emerging synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, objective economist and evolutionary strategist.
The Best Possible Strategic Plan
We Have a Strategic Plan. It’s Called Doing Things.
Baltimore Print Studios printed what’s possibly the best strategic plan out there. At a certain point it’s best to cut out all the “strategic planning” (procrastination) and start doing.
A designer is an emerging synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, objective economist and evolutionary strategist.
- R. Buckminster Fuller
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.
Sun Tzu
It seems to me that the right approach is to think as you act, to learn while you practice, to develop systems and frameworks through doing.
The Birth of a Shoe Company
“Nineteen years ago, I wanted to open a shoe company with limited money. From experience I knew one had to get in quickly because so often new companies run out of cash flow before they get the chance to conduct business. I also knew it was easier to get credit from factories in Europe who needed the business than from American banks that didn’t. So I lined up the factories, went to Europe, designed a collection of shoes, and returned to the states to sell them.
At the time, a shoe company had two options. You could get a room at the Hilton and become 1 of about 1100 shoe companies selling their goods. This didn’t provide the identity or image I felt necessary for a new company, and it cost a lot more money than I had to spend. The other way was to do what the big companies do and get a fancy showroom in Midtown Manhattan not far from the Hilton. More identity, much more money too.
I had an idea.
I called a friend in the trucking business and asked to borrow one of his trucks to park in Midtown Manhattan. He said sure, but good luck getting permission. I went to the Mayor’s office, Koch at the time, and asked how one gets permission to park a 40 foot trailer truck in Midtown Manhattan. He said one doesn’t. The only people the city gives parking permits to are production companies shooting full length motion pictures and utility companies like Con Ed or AT&T. So that day I went to the stationery store and changed our company letterhead from Kenneth Cole, Inc. to Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. and the next day I applied for a permit to shoot a full length film entitled “The Birth of a Shoe Company.”
With Kenneth Cole Productions painted on the side of the truck, we parked at 1370 6th Avenue, across from the New York Hilton, the day of shoe show. We opened for business with a fully furnished 40 ft trailer, a director (Sometimes there was film in the camera, sometimes there wasn’t), models as actresses, and two of New York’s finest, compliments of Mayor Koch, as our doormen. We sold 40 thousand pairs of shoes in two and a half days (the entire available production) and we were off and running.
To this day the company is still named Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. and serves as a reminder to the importance of resourcefulness and innovative problem solving.”
The innovative beginnings of Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc. was driven by the determination to become resourceful when confronted with NO.
Kenneth Cole - Our Story
Where do new ideas come from? This film is about design strategists and how they identify the right ideas. It was produced by the global innovation consultancy Continuum.
“sometimes the user’s [their] needs are to be surprised and delighted. And they can’t tell us how to surprise and delight them, that has to come from us.”
The Brand Gap
An excellent presentation on how to bridge the distance between business strategy and design through branding. “Branding is not what you say it is. It’s what they say it is.”View on slideshare
