That’s the newish tagline for Mercer Management Consulting. This reflects a focus on what they’re calling business design for the past several years…but I’m not seeing much design perspective or mindset in reading their work, like this issue of the Mercer Management Journal on business design.
Business Design == Business Model? Organizational Design?
From the issue:

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Henry Mintzberg is one of my favorite business authors. A decade ago, he founded a new kind of graduate business degree to address shortcomings of traditional MBA programs. The International Masters in Practicing Management focuses on educating mindsets over siloed skillsets, something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately myself.
In describing some of the […]

There’s an interesting challenge in the business and design conversation - business and design means different things to different people.
There are a few themes that arise in b+d conversations:

Design management - how can we manage a design department and integrate designers with the rest of the organization?

Design as a business function - applying the above […]

The coverage of the Xbox 360 launch shows the typical level of design maturity(PDF) in the press - here’s BusinessWeek’s breathy ode to the shell of the machine, which carries on at length about things like “its off-white color with hints of green (a color Microsoft calls “chill”) and its hour-glass curves have already come […]

This is a little project of mine as I keep tabs on consultants related to business and design - looking at business consulting and design consulting credibility, and how they intersect.

What firms are missing?

In my quest for creating simple, pragmatic exercises that promote elements of design thinking, I’ve been looking at games as a core model.
I just submitted a conference proposal looking at games as a way to affect stakeholder mindsets, and am looking at how games provide an avenue for accomodating new perspectives that reframe individuals’ views.
Some […]

The November 2005 Harvard Business Review leads with an article on Innovation versus Complexity (subscription required). The article starts off referencing In-N-Out Burger on Fisherman’s Wharf as a model of balancing complexity and innovation. Since we were just next door, I took some pictures.
The interesting thing about the balance of innovation and complexity is that […]

There’s a fascinating event running next month in Pittsburgh - User Interfaces for Physical Spaces shows how design changed not only the physical layout and website of the Carnegie Library, but also the culture and even parts of the business model. Reshaping the organization’s vocabulary and mindset to become more customer-centric proved to be a […]