Bach and The Art of Design Thinking

As a musician, I get this question often: “Who is your favorite composer?”

Without hesitation, my answer, for as long as I can remember, has been and forever will be, the great German Baroque composer, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). For me, there are many reasons why.

Bach’s music moves me like no other. Though challenging to play, his music is filled with pure joy. Understanding the music of Bach is a lifelong pursuit. Never static, each time I hear or play a work by Bach, I hear something new. Bach’s complex layers are constantly revealing themselves to the focused listener or student. My list could go on and on.

In addition to all of these attributes that I attach to Bach, I am convinced that Bach embraced principles of design thinking throughout his musical career. For instance:

Bach combined the analytical with the intuitive. He coupled research (listening and learning from others) with his amazing intuition, moving things forward by imagining new possibilities. Bach was a master at synthesizing past, present and future into nearly everything he wrote. Even his staunchly well-loved B Minor Mass is now believed by many to have been somewhat of an exercise that Bach used to convey his latest musical discoveries.

Bach employed iterative prototyping. Bach would often reuse his own earlier compositions, revising and improving them. He regularly created three or four versions of a single cantata movement. Referred to as parody in the classical music realm, Bach would re-work a movement from a harpsichord concerto into a cantata movement or parody a minuet from a Brandenburg Concerto in a chorale.

Bach took inspiration from a broad range of experiences and cultures. As a young man of only 20, Bach supposedly walked more than 200 miles from Arnstadt to Lübeck to hear the older, well-established organist and composer, Dietrich Buxtehude, play. Surely, ideas generated by this experience worked themselves into his music. Bach incorporated a variety of music styles from throughout Europe into his works. For example, Bach composed each of the four movements in his Partita for Unaccompanied Flute in a popular dance style of the day with German, Italian, French and English styles all represented.

Bach co-created with others. Bach knew he couldn’t go it alone. He regularly looked to others for inspiration and new ideas. One of his most frequent collaborators was the librettist, Picander. Together, they created a large volume of cantatas and other works including, most notably, the St. Matthew Passion.

Bach regularly embraced constraint as a source of creativity. Probably the most famous example of this is The Musical Offering, inarguably one of Bach’s most striking works. In 1747, upon a visit to the palace of King Frederick the Great of Prussia, the aging Bach was challenged to improvise on a difficult theme given to him by the king, himself a formidable composer. On the spot, Bach improvised a complex fugue at the keyboard. Within two months following his visit, Bach completed The Musical Offering, based entirely on Frederick’s theme. The piece was immediately printed and presented with a dedication to the king.

Bach wrote music for the people. He composed music for the enjoyment of the listener. In Bach’s words, music was “for the recreation of the mind…” Bach’s music can sound simple and elegant, yet beneath the surface exists a highly detailed system of counterpoint and fugue. In addition to his responsibilities as church organist and Kapellmeister (chapel master), Bach directed a Collegium Musicum off and on during his tenure in Leipzig. Actually founded by Telemann, this group of amateur and semi-professional musicians met for informal music making at the coffee-house of Gottfried Zimmermann. Through these performances, Bach was able to hone his skills in writing for a secular audience while giving the people of Leipzig exposure to music outside of the typical church setting. Read A Rollicking Bach Time Is Had By All in today’s New York Times for a modern-day reference to these coffee-house performances.

When we think of early examples of design thinkers, the first person often cited is inventor, Thomas Edison. Yet more than a century before Edison was born, Bach composed a set of 15 keyboard pieces in two contrapuntal parts and termed them inventions. I’m convinced that we can all learn more about design thinking by studying Bach and  listening to anything from his large output of work, be it his cantatas, oratorios, solo partitas, concertos and yes, his inventions.

Let me know what names you’d add to a list of early design thinkers.

NC Screening of Design & Thinking Documentary

It was an honor to present the North Carolina screening premiere of Design & Thinking documentary in Greensboro on Monday, June 4. Sponsored by Quaintance-Weaver Restaurants & Hotels and Syngenta, the event took place in the Hawkins Brown Room at the elegant O. Henry Hotel.

The evening began with drinks and networking as guests began to gather. By 7:15 pm, the approximately 35 guests had arrived and seated themselves at tables facing the upcoming action. Attendees included designers of all ilks, university types, marketing professionals, artists, musicians, architects, scientists, corporate managers, small business owners and non-profit leaders from throughout the North Carolina Piedmont Triad area.

As co-host and designer/owner of Cochran Creative Group, I was pleased to make a few opening remarks. They included:

I first heard the term ‘Design Thinking’ perhaps 4 or 5 years ago. As a designer, I was immediately intrigued. I took it upon myself to read everything I could find on the subject. Then, in late 2010, I had the opportunity to attend a conference on Design Thinking in Toronto. Over the course of 2 days there, I heard many proponents of design thinking share their thoughts. The standout for me was a keynote by Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto. (You’ll hear from him in this film.) I felt as if Roger looked right at me in the audience that day and said (about himself, of course), “I’m a designer. I don’t design things. I design ideas.” I felt that statement described me, as well. That one statement gave me a new-found confidence around what I do for a living.

The documentary you’re about to see, Design & Thinking, is a production of One Time Studio, consisting of a group of 4 young Taiwanese designers who met at the Taipei Design Center U.S. in San Francisco. They were interested in the topic of design thinking and the challenges of blending their various expertise and cross-cultural perspectives.

One Time Studio raised all of the funds to produce the film via KickStarter, the online funding platform for creative projects. I was curious, so I got online and looked at the pledge history for this project. Pledges started at a mere $1, with the majority of backers pledging between $15 and $30. They surpassed their funding goal.

Design & Thinking had its world premiere at the Newport Beach Film Festival on April 28. Subsequent screenings have taken place in New York City, Dallas, Phoenix and Singapore. An internal screening took place at Google headquarters last week. I’m designing the T-shirt now: New York…Mountain View…Greensboro!

Next, I introduced Bill Knowles, head of Learning & Development at Syngenta, North America. Bill talked a bit about his experience with design thinking, having visited IDEO and worked with the Kelley brothers and Tim Brown. Bill described how he and colleague, Uri Hess, developed a course on design thinking that they deliver, globally, to Syngenta employees. The course is a component of Syngenta’s Breakthrough Innovation (BTI) course. Bill suggested that we take notes during the film, recording new ideas and concepts that we may be able to apply to our own work.

We then screened Design & Thinking. When the closing credits rolled by 75 minutes later, the entire room broke into spontaneous applause.

Bill encouraged each table to take about 10 minutes to discuss their impressions and share ideas. Later, he polled the tables and asked each group to share an idea or two that they could immediately take back to their work tomorrow. Lively discussions followed with many people making immediate connections on some of the design thinking concepts addressed in the film. Attendees left with new-found inspiration and an eagerness to learn more about design thinking. Each guest received a copy of the Design & Thinking Resource List we had compiled in advance. You can download it here.

Each day since the screening, I’ve been deluged with positive comments about the event and stories of how participants are already applying design thinking concepts to their work. We hope to host a follow-up event soon in affiliation with Idea Network, an informal group I founded in 2010.

Here are a few of the many excellent quotes from the all-star cast of thought leaders interviewed in the film:

“Your first idea won’t be your best idea.”

“Design is a participatory sport.”

“It’s not about the brief. It’s about what happens after the brief.”

“You have to do in order to know.”

“When design is reduced to a formula, we lose something.”

“In an ambiguous problem, you don’t know what you don’t know.”

“Design thinking is liberating.”

“Think crazy. Think wild.”

And, here’s an excerpt from today’s edition of Syngenta’s Connections newsletter, where the screening event is mentioned:

This week, a movie premiered in Greensboro, N.C., after receiving accolades at the recent Newport Beach Film Festival in California. How did Greensboro become the location for such an exciting event? Because of the influence of Bill Knowles, head, Learning and Development North America. The movie was titled Design and Thinking and was a documentary about a concept called ‘design thinking.’

“Design thinking is something I’ve been teaching at Syngenta and outside our organization for the last several years,” Bill shares. “It juxtaposes with innovation by bringing intuition together with analytical thought. It means going beyond what is and looking at what could be.”

When Bill heard about the film Design and Thinking, he saw it as the perfect opportunity to introduce the concept to other prominent businesses and universities in Greensboro.

Please feel free to add your comments here if you attended the June 4 event. If you have questions on how to bring a design thinking event to your organization, please feel free to contact me at rebecca@cochrancreativegroup.com.

4 Quick Steps To Effective Marketing

Today, effective marketing is more about brains than it is about budget. Whether you’re a start-up or an established company, you’ve no excuse not to jump into the fray. Here are 4 quick steps to finding your marketing sweet spot:

1. Prototype like crazy. Faster experiments mean better results.
2. Measure, but don’t over-measure. Use your gut, too.
3. Re-tool and correct. Adaptability is key.
4. Repeat.

The bottom line? Just get started. Today’s pace doesn’t allow for stragglers.

Design Thinking: Methodology, Mindset or What?

Image via Wikipedia

During the past several years, I’ve spent a fair amount of time exploring design thinking. I’ve read inspiring and insightful books and blogs on the subject, heard in-person keynotes by design thinking experts including Claudia Kotchka and Roger Martin, attended a design thinking conference, engaged in numerous online discussions around the topic and have had many face-to-face conversations with others on this often elusive topic.

My still looming question: Is design thinking a methodology, a mindset or something else?

David Kelley, a founder of IDEO and co-founder of the d.school program at Stanford, in a video interview with Reena Jana of Business Week, stated that design thinking can be learned. Design thinking is not a new methodology, according to Kelley, “it used be to be called design.” Companies are finally recognizing the value of design and many are working to make design thinking part of their corporate DNA.

I tend to agree with Kelley in that design thinking can be learned. But, at the same time, I feel that design thinking is a mindset. According to the World English Dictionary, mindset is defined as “the ideas and attitudes with which a person approaches a situation, especially when these are seen as being difficult to alter.” If this is an accurate definition, then I’m convinced that design thinking also falls into mindset mode.

OK, so design thinking is both methodology and mindset. But, which comes first? How does one acquire the design thinking mindset?

In my case, design thinking has been a way of life for as long as I can remember. At the age of 10, I (luckily) embarked on a path towards becoming a serious classical musician. That meant years and years of developing both sides of my brain and, just naturally, blending analytical thinking with intuitive thinking.

Of all the arts, music is the one which best grooms the mind in that hybrid way. During tens of thousands of hours in the practice room, a musician taps into a blended skill set of analysis and intuition. In learning a new piece or re-learning a piece from our past repertoire, we prototype hundreds of times. That prototyping is done alone, with a teacher, in rehearsal and then again during each actual performance of the work. Whether in a chamber music ensemble or in an orchestra, the nimble musician combines what he has analyzed with what he has prototyped and then adds the layer of intuitive thinking so necessary when interacting with other musicians onstage.

So, for some, design thinking seems to come naturally. Design thinking is a blend of years of learning, prototyping and doing.

What are your thoughts? Are there other fields of study that naturally train us in design thinking? I’d like to hear from you.

Coco and Igor as Innovators

Image via Wikipedia

I just returned from a private* screening of “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky,” the Jan Kounen film which closed the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and is now showing in U.S. theaters. Beautifully filmed and acted, the film spoke to me on multiple levels. As a serious classical musician, lover of Stravinsky’s music and passionate devotee of French culture, Kounen had me from the downbeat.

And, what a downbeat it was! The opening scene depicts the tension leading up to the 1913 world premiere of Diaghilev’s ballet, The Rite of Spring, set to music by Stravinsky, at Le Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris. The unsuspecting audience, so accustomed to ballets like Swan Lake and others from the late-Romantic Russian repertoire, riots. The dancers and orchestra musicians are barely able to continue performing. The entire scene is wildly disruptive.

Interestingly, Coco Chanel is in the audience and she seems to be one of the few listeners who understands Stravinsky’s music. The complicated love story (and aren’t all French love stories complicated?) picks up again in 1920, once she and Stravinsky have each made names for themselves in Paris.

I was struck by the fact that Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky were immediately simpatico, perhaps because they were both innovators. He, a Russian composer then living in Paris, was writing music with uneasy, syncopated rhythms and disruptive harmonies new to the world’s ears. Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel turned the women’s fashion world upside down, designing clothing that was not only chic, but thankfully, comfortably corset-less.

Mark Bernstein, CEO of the Palo Alto Research Center, defines innovation as “a valuable change, unconstrained by the way things are.” If his definition is accurate, then Igor Stravinsky and Coco Chanel should take their places at the top of a list of early 20th century innovators. Although we usually see the term “innovation” attributed to late 20th century corporations such as Procter & Gamble and Apple, let’s not forget some of the world’s earlier innovators who helped to change the way we think.

Which other early 20th century innovators would you add to this list?

* My screening was private only by accident. Pity no one else showed up to enjoy this incredibly insightful film with me.

The Dog Days Are For Reading

What 'cha reading?

Here’s a sampling of what I’ve been reading this summer (so far). I encourage you to comment and share your summer reading recommendations.

• Change By Design by Tim Brown
• The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage by Roger Martin
• In Pursuit of Elegance: Why The Best Ideas Have Something Missing by Matthew E. May
• ReWork by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
• Wired To Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy by Dev Patnaik
• How To Be A Brilliant Thinker by Paul Sloane
• Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler
• The Connectors by Maribeth Kuzmeski
• The Silver Lining by Scott Anthony
• Innovation X: Why a Company’s Toughest Problems Are Its Greatest Advantage by Adam Richardson
• Discovery-Driven Growth: A Breakthrough Process to Reduce Risk and Seize Opportunity by Rita Gunther McGrath and Ian C. MacMillan
• Seizing the White Space: Business Model Innovation for Growth and Renewal by Mark W. Johnson
• The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working by Tony Schwartz

You. On Twitter. 10 Tips.

Last August, I wrote a post entitled “You is #1.” At that time, I was inspired by a new Yale study which revealed that “You” continues to be the #1 most powerful word in the English language, both online and off. “You” is personal. “You” attracts customers. “You” also attracts Twitter followers and keeps them engaged.

Here are my 10 tips on how You can enjoy more success on Twitter.

1. Be yourself.

2. Use your photo. If you use a logo or other avatar, I won’t get to know you. Unless you’re @HarvardBiz or @fastcompany, without that personal touch, I’ll probably lose interest and unfollow you.

3. Use your online bio to give potential followers a snippet of information about you. Your bio can make or break whether someone wants to follow you or not.

4. Whom you choose to follow reflects on you. Be choosy, and remember, as your Twitter strategy evolves and your standards change, you can unfollow anyone at any time.

5. Tell me something about you. This doesn’t mean “Here’s my company name, what I do and please buy something from me.” Tell me something about you. “Happy Birthday to you, Mozart” tells me you’re interested in classical music. “Meet you at the live music milonga tonight at 10” tells me you’re interested in tango. “Think you’ll appreciate today’s op-ed by @NYTimesFriedman on healthcare reform” tells me even more about what interests you.

6. Ask my opinion. Show that you’re interested in me, in how I think and in the issues that matter to me. “What do you think about the new iPad? Is it just an iFad or here to stay?”

7. Ask me what I’m doing. Questions like “What are you reading lately?” or “What are you listening to on your iPod right now?” can really start the conversation.

8. Do tell me what you’re doing, but do so in a way that reveals more about you. Rather than tweeting “I overslept this morning,” a more engaging tweet might be “Stayed up way too late last night reading Roger Martin’s new book, The Design of Business. Overslept, but it was worth it.”

9. Tweet your thoughts. Sure, re-tweeting is encouraged and adding links to other people’s content is an effective strategy. But, make it a priority to regularly post your own thoughts. What is important to you right now? Share that with me. At least 20% of the time, post tweets in your own words. Let me know you can think on your own, that you have opinions and that you truly wish to foster a relationship with me.

10. And, be yourself. (Did I mention that?)

2009: Journey Into the Marketing Unknown

A close friend recently sized me up this way: “You’re most comfortable residing in the ‘unknown’ because that’s where the most learning takes place.”

If that was an accurate assessment, then 2009 was definitely my best year ever. It was chock full of unknowns.

After 10 years as the owner of a marketing and creative design group, all of a sudden, new customers were not beating a path to my door as readily as before. Even long-time customers were scaling back on their marketing initiatives. I took a deep breath and began brushing up on my sales skills, reacquainting myself with some tried and true methods and attending a seminar or two to learn some specific tactics for selling in a down economy.

The marketing and advertising industry was in serious change mode well before the economy took its nosedive. The Internet had already changed everything. No longer were companies relying solely on traditional print and broadcast media to market their products and services. There was and continues to be a whole new set of skills necessary to compete as a marketing professional.

Several years ago, the unknowns of the online world began presenting themselves to me. Website design and email marketing were quickly becoming prerequisites for maintaining a viable business model. In true form, I jumped into those unknowns with both feet, learning as I went and happy to be doing so.

Much to my delight, even more unknowns showed up in 2009. The year has found me gaining fluency in search engine optimization, blogging and social media, especially Twitter. And, I’m reading everything I can get my hands on about design thinking to learn how better to help my business and my customers’ businesses grow in more innovative and human-centered ways. Books of particular note include Ideo’s Tim Brown’s “Change By Design” and “The Design of Business” by Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management.

Despite the unruly and disruptive nature of 2009, I was a bit sorry to see the year come to a close. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that 2010 will present even more unknowns to us all. The pace will quicken too.

Let the learning never end.