For One Company Design is a Way of Life...Really!!

If you've never been into a Bang & Olufsen store, or seen one of their products in a magazine, then you've missed a real treat. B&O is the Danish electronics company obsessed with design, not just as a business imperative, but as their only imperative.

This months issue of Fast Company (December 2005) has a wonderful article that looks at the importance of design to B&O. Since its beginnings 80 years ago, the company has featured a combination of aesthetics and technology that are unmatched by any competitor. Sure the products they manufacture come with a pretty hefty price tag - $18,000 speakers, $19,000 brushed-aluminum plasma TV - but every one is stunning to both look at and use.

When I was a kid we used to travel to Atlanta to go shopping and one of the malls we went to had a B&O store. I could spend hours in there just admiring the telephones, phonographs and incredible speakers. As I've grown up, I have never missed an opportunity to stop in a B&O store whenever I get the chance, just to see what they have come up with lately. The 6-CD BeoSound 9000 - where the CD's stay put and the player moves has been one of my favorites since I first saw it.

What makes the B&O story even more amazing is that the person in control of product development and design is an outsider. A freelancer, David Lewis, who believes that being an outsider has significant advantages over being an insider. This way he is able to keep both his objectivity and his ability to develop products without being influenced by internal marketing or engineering issues. The CEO and the internal team focus on operations and execution. A combination that brilliantly plays to everyones strengths.

B&O may be a bit of an extreme example, but they have been very successful for a long time by living on the cutting edge of design innovation. For them it is a way of life, not just a brief affair with style.

Ask yourself, "Do I take design seriously enough - Is it a way of life at my company?" - "Do I have the confidence to turn everything over to an outsider?" - "Are my products really COOL!!! or just run of the mill?"

If you want to up the design quotient in your organization, you must look at it as a long term investment and not just a "project" or "initiative". Great design is a way of life requiring both courage and perseverence, but when you get it right, you can leave the competition in the dust.