Q. Where do entrepreneurs find investors?
Depending on the type of investor whether it is a singular accredited investor acting alone, angel investor group or venture capital group, they can all be found in the usual venues that interested parties, who love innovation and technology, can interact with the creators of it. This can include but is not limited to:
• University technology hubs, such as the Office of Technology and Licensing at the universities of Florida or Miami.
• Venture capital association meetings such as the Gulf Coast Venture Forum and the Florida Venture Forum.
• Various local technology incubators.
• Angel groups typically have a system for fielding ideas and then hold scheduled meetings to review and qualify them.
• Accredited and singular angel investors can be found through wealth managers, accountants and attorneys who have a large rolodex of deal makers and investors.

Q. What do you do next when an investor says no or not now?
You thank them for their time, making you better and ask, “what would it take to make you a believer and then investor in my company?” Also ask them who in their network may have an interest in such an idea and company. Investors have different asset class preferences and their rejection of your investment is probably not personal. They may have a rule that high risk, high return investing is not in their long term wealth creation strategy. The key to this process is to talk to a lot of potential investors and realize that your conversion ratio will be close to 2% to 5%. So if you talk to 50 people an outstanding conversion ratio would be 3 investors.

Q. What is the most important activity an entrepreneur should do to succeed in raising capital?
Build a rock solid plan for execution and have very realistic assumptions in your plan. You never get a second chance to make a first impression and a well explained and realistic plan will help overcome doubts. Investors who can afford an investment of this type have likely learned through their own success how to separate blue sky and an achievable plan. Spend time creating an Executive Summary, a ten Page Power Point, and a five year financial forecast and carefully and honestly call out the strengths, opportunities , weaknesses and threats.

Q. Are there pitfalls to avoid in accepting an investment?
Use a securities attorney to draft your investment materials and don’t take just anyone’s capital. The capital you bring in should be from a savvy investors who understands the risks and can ride out the storm if things get bumpy. Most of all find investors who bring more to the table than capital. Find strategic investors who can take your company to the next level; make sure you have good rapport with them from the beginning. It is common for start-ups to fall apart over personality issues.

Q. What is your favorite part of the deal making process?
Seeing all the hard work of the team professionals come to reality and then finally sell or get a purchase and ship and deliver the product.

Q. Is there any particular aspect of a deal that appeal to accredited investors or angel investors?
As we have mentioned, accredited investors like certainty, although they will understand this is a higher risk opportunity. They want to see a credible management team. They know that a qualified management team is as important as a great idea.

Q. What is the difference between an angel investor and an accredited investor?
The best way to a make this distinction is by thinking of the accredited investor as a term to explain the investors net worth and standing vis a vis SEC regulation as it relates to financial strength. Accredited is a term defined by its meaning in SEC regulation. Those rules change from time to time so make sure you are up to date on the latest qualifications. The “Frank/Dodd” Bill came into effect last year and made this hurdle much higher. Angel groups are usually made up of accredited investors, but don’t have to be in all cases. The term “angel” is used to explain what role they play in the investing timing of a company. Angels are early stage and act as a life line to a company’s growth and typically command a larger stake in the company with more protections within their investment than later investors.

Historically inventors have had limited options to develop an idea into an invention.  They either have to purchase the necessary equipment and materials and possess the technical know-how to build their invention, or they have to hire an individual or company to do the work for them. These options will take time, energy and resources that they may not have.

GWIZ in Sarasota is now revolutionizing the innovation process. They have launched a global, state-of-the-art personal fabrication lab that is open to the public.. The Fab Lab gives inventors access to bring their creations to life, opening the door so anyone, even a child, can bypass the traditional barriers to see an idea become an invention.

Molly Morgan, the director of GWIZ shares with us the latest and greatest addition to GWIZ along with her background and plans for the Faulhaber Fab Lab:

Q: What drew you to G-WIZ and subsequently the Fab Lab?
I have always loved science and the non-profit sector. After switching from the path of veterinarian medicine to the arts I pursued a career in non-profit management. That track led me to Sarasota and in turn to the opportunity of being the director of GWIZ.

The opportunity of combining both of my passions to run a science center is what drew me to GWIZ. When the most frequent assessment of your organization is “that’s really cool,” you know you’re in the right business. The mission of GWIZ – The Science Museum is to be the gateway for lifelong adventures in science but the overriding agenda behind the mission is to ignite imaginations… to show that the world around us is amazing, breathtaking and full of unanswered questions. My personal mission is to make geeks the cool kids in school and informal education facilities can make that happen. The idea of the Fab Lab was one that I was introduced to by Dr. Faulhaber. We share the passion of hands-on science education and what better way to expose people to science than empowering our community through personal fabrication.

Q: What is your vision for the future?
My vision is quality, quality, quality. I see the name GWIZ being synonymous with science, technology, engineering and math education throughout Sarasota County and the state of Florida.

Q: How did the Fab Lab come about?
A lot of hard work, creative thinking and generosity. We re-purposed our east wing from being the admin section of our building to a state of the art fabrication lab open to the public.

Q: What is the mission of the Fab Lab?
The Faulhaber Fab Lab’s mission is to spark innovation, collaboration, and creative problem-solving through alternative, ‘hands-on,’ learning opportunities in science, technology, engineering, design, and math.

Q: Do you have plans to join the global Fab Lab community? If so, how would you interact with other Fab Labs around the world?
The Faulhaber Fab Lab is currently connected with the global community of Fab Labs as well as the United States network. There are several conferences each year for Fab Labbers and we make sure that GWIZ is represented at the conf. We also participate on the web network and share best practices.

Q: As a huge asset to the educational community, do you plan to partner with local schools and universities? What would that look like?
YES! We are working with the Sarasota and Manatee school districts to provide access to students through our area through field trips and after-school activities in the Lab. We are also partnering with universities and colleges in the area to make the lab available for all students whether studying architecture at USF Tampa or art at Ringling College. The more the merrier!

As a product development studio we look forward to the fantastic innovation that will come from local talented and imaginative individuals!

ROBRADY design stresses a comprehensive speed-to-market plan by collaborating to identify the greatest areas of opportunity and producing profitable product solutions.

ROBRADY delivers design, production, and capital solutions to its clients in support of their research-to-reality philosophy.Chaos Group provides state of the art rendering solutions for architectural, VFX, film, media and entertainment, automotive design, television and other industries.

What more can you tell us about the ROBRADY work environment? Do you work as a team or individually? Do you work in a big open space or in separate offices ? Is ROBRADY a fun place to work?
ROBRADY is an incredible place to work, and a lot of that comes from the open environment. There are no walls between the departments, industrial designers work across the aisle from the mechanical designers, which promotes the collaborative process. All projects are worked on as a team, with industrial and mechanical designers contributing at all design stages.

THE INSPIRATION
Who worked on the DBO Electric Folding Bicycle project and what is their experience in both the industry and with ROBRADY?
The concept work was a collaboration between the Design Director Rob Brady, Senior Industrial Designer Erik Holmen, Industrial Designers Andre Minoli and Antonio Molinari, and Senior Mechanical Designer David Poirier. Each designer has extensive experience in the transportation and power sports industries and has been with ROBRADY for several years. While ROBRADY has been active in this market space for decades, this was the first complete bicycle project for the team. Once the concept level 3D models were completed, they were handed off to partner DK City’s team of production engineers for the next phase.

How did the DBO Electric Folding Bicycle idea originate ? Why was it chosen as a project for ROBRADY? And how/why did DK City and ROBRADY team up for this project?
The relationship between DK City and ROBRADY was put together by an expert in the electric bicycle field – he believed that the two companies would make a great team. The DBO bike project simply started out as an exercise to design a new folding electric bicycle DK’s expanding lineup of products.

From idea to physical product, how long did this project take to create?
The industrial design phase for ROBRADY starting in May 2009, and completed in August of 2009. There were some production design modifications that took place through January 2010.

THE BACKSTAGE EXPERIENCE
How did ROBRADY use V-Ray for Rhino in this project? Why did you choose V-Ray to visualize this project? And how did V-Ray help in the production?
ROBRADY uses V-Ray for Rhino in all rendering animation applications. The quality level of the renderings is a huge asset when communicating a design to the client. Once of the nicest features of V-Ray is the ability to launch DRSpawner on multiple networked machines in the studio, drastically cutting down on render time.

What was the biggest challenge in creating the DBO Electric Folding Bicycle?
The biggest challenge centered around the folding aspect of the folding bicycle. We wanted to make a design that, at a distance, looked like a folding bike. But you have to work very carefully to make the design function and articulate correctly. It took close collaboration between ID and MD to make sure the concept was groundbreaking but feasible for production.

How long has the team at ROBRADY been using V-Ray for Rhino?
The V-Ray software has been the sole render engine at ROBRADY for about 4 years.

CUSTOMER BENEFITS
Will you share some of the V-Ray settings you used in the DBO Electric Folding Bicycle studio images?
Absolutely, the settings we use are actually very simple. We start with the standard high quality setting, and set the lighting and reflection maps to a studio HDRI environment. This is the regular setup for most renderings the studio does. We will sometimes change the lighting/reflection map depending on the subject matter, but when rendering products and vehicles, I rarely have to change the core settings.

What V-Ray features did you find most useful when rendering the DBO Electric Folding Bicycle?
The ability to map reflections and lighting is extremely useful, but the distributed rendering has to be the best feature as it has saved us countless hours of render time. The ability to use the engine with the Bongo animation plug-in was huge in communicating the folding qualities of the bike.

What are some upcoming projects in which you will rely on V-Ray for rendering?
Every project that enters the studio requiring a 3D model will be rendered with V-Ray.

As seen on the Chaos Group website. Chaos Group provides state of the art rendering solutions for architectural, VFX, film, media and entertainment, automotive design, television and other industries.

Q. Of the experience you have gained managing different projects and teams, how does that contribute to managing a diverse team like ROBRADY?

Q. What do you think is the most important part of the design process?
In the last question I spoke a lot about making mistakes. I think failure is a hugely underrated part of the design process. The key is “failing early and often” and then building upon those failures to generate a positive outcome. The key is not making the same mistakes twice. This sounds really negative, but in practice its how design gets done. You try something, it doesn’t work/fit/feel/look right, and so you make an adjustment and try again. Soon you have a solution that has been proven out during the design process. Then, when you implement this solution your chances of success are far greater than if you didn’t go through this iterative design process. The biggest challenge is understanding that this is not a linear process. Many times an early failure sends you off on a completely different track. Most designers understand this intuitively but most business people want to know why we didn’t just do that the first time?

Q. What do you like and dislike about your design related education? Was it worth it?
My educational experience is a bit unique. I entered Industrial Design school right out of high school in 1990. The first two years of my education were a blast. I was like a sponge soaking up everything I was being taught. But by my third year I was starting to struggle with figuring out how all of this stuff was going to come together and create a meaningful career for me. Right about that time I landed a summer job that turned into a 16 year career. In 2009 I returned to ID school to finish my last year and get my diploma. That was a terrific experience! I really enjoyed sharing classes with the up and coming generation of designers and learning about the way they view the World. My biggest frustration was how little real world experience design school provides towards preparing students to enter the workplace. So yes, it was worth it but not for the obvious reasons. The skills I learned in school have more to do with what I took out of the experience than what was on the curriculum. I just wish I had had that revelation 18 years ago!

As Design Manager at ROBRADY, Donovan manages the daily activities of the studio. He came to ROBRADY from Techtronic Industries, where he was the brand manager for the Ryobi TEK4 line of electronic tools. Prior to that he built and managed the in-house design team at Griffin Technology, the world’s largest Apple accessory brand. Donovan has an Industrial Design degree from Auburn University and has spent the last 18 years building and managing award winning design teams.

Fun Fact: During a school assembly in 4th grade I was misbehaving with some friends by making chicken clucking sounds while the Principal was talking. She heard me and called me up on stage to make my sounds for the whole school in hopes of embarrassing me and teaching me a lesson. Armed with a microphone, I went to town and the whole assembly quickly degenerated into a cacophony of barnyard sounds and laughing. After spending the rest of the day in the Principal’s office I was then assigned the lead role in the upcoming Christmas play.

Q. What do you think is the most important skill to have in order to compete in the graphic design field?

There are a few other skills I think are extremely important, and also help you in your collaboration. Time management is key, if you can’t juggle multiple projects, and stay on deadline, then neither can your team. Communication can be the difference between a client making a good decision and a bad decision, or your design team hitting the mark, you have to be able to say why you did what you did, or communicate the needs of the project to other designers in order to succeed. And, finally, their is the ability to adapt your style to needs of the client or project. A product geared towards women fifty-five and older shouldn’t look like it was designed for 18 year old men. Sometimes compromises need to be made in your personal style to create a successful design.

Q. What do you take inspiration from?
Everything. But no seriously, everything. Whether it be a color palette from a photograph to a design style used for a product package, I find it everywhere. It tends to really get influenced based on projects I am currently working on, but I am constantly on the lookout for interesting designs, interfaces and user experiences that work and that don’t work. I have also found that I have been learning more from things that fail than from things that succeed. Sure, everyone knows the experience of un-boxing an Apple product is clean, simple and well designed, but what about their competitors, how do they do it and what makes them as successful, or less successful, this generally leads to better ideas on how to succeed, but not just be another ‘me too’ product. The other thing I like to do when looking for inspiration for a specific project is look at things in a completely different market space, designing for print? Look for inspiration in the digital realm, and vice versa. Competitive (same market space) and comparative (different market space or medium) research can lead to more differentiated concepts.

Q. What products or designs have really impressed you lately?
Well, we have been doing a lot of packaging recently, and I have seen some really sweet designs during our research. One of the ones that sticks out to me is the Beats line of headphones by Monster. I think the branding is well done, and very consistent across the products, from the packaging to the in store POP. Also the packaging fits the price points of the product. The expensive Pros package feels like a $400 product belongs in it while the lower end $100 tours maintain the feel of high end even though they use different materials. Also they didn’t miss any details in the product that ties it all together, from the red cables to the laser etching its all a cohesive brand experience. I think they really hit the mark.

I was born in Silver Springs Maryland in ‘78. I have lived in Oklahoma, Maryland, Delaware and Florida. I am a Graduate of the Ringling School of Art and Design with a BA in Graphic and Interactive Communication, with a minor in Photography. I have been a member of the ROBRADY team for almost eight years and am currently the Graphic Design Director.

Fun Fact: I was taught to throw a football and play chess by a midshipmen in the Navy that my family sponsored when we lived in Maryland. I throw a decent football and I have a terrible late game in chess.

As the Design4 Conference draws closer, the conversation of “what do you Design4?” is one that I have been having with a variety of designers around the country. From creating a system for transporting clean water in third world countries, to solving more local challenges such as humanizing products in the U.S., people design for a variety of reasons. This past week, I spoke with Rob Brady of ROBRADY design on what he designs for.

For Brady, what gets him up each morning is the dynamic series of events in getting a product to market. “Trying to get products designed and developed, then to actually get them to market,” he says. “It’s a real noble effort because if you can do all that and then get it to market with a handsome margin, then the company, of which you are working through, prospers, which means that all the people who go to work there prosper, which means all the kids get to go to college or they get the house or they pay off their bills.” He says this based off seeing both sides of that paradigm, from companies shutting down entire departments after the bill of materials for a project skyrocketed, losing the product. “To me, it’s been an emotional connection, wanting to be successful with fantastic products, because I believe that a fantastic product will survive anything.”

After discovering the field of Industrial Design, Brady realized it was something he had been doing his whole life. Building GoKarts, different vehicles, and other mechanisms as a kid, he was not far off from the work he does today. From the Vectrix electric bike to The GMP LifeSync (R) Wireless ECG System, ROBRADY design has dabbled in a wide array of fields, designing everything from industrial and consumer products to medical and marine tools.

“What’s beautiful about Industrial Design is that you can stay within Industrial Design, but jump from designing vehicles to designing jet boats to medical products to industrial products to consumer electronics; it’s incredibly diverse,“ says Brady.

In the evolution of his own career, Brady found himself further and further from that hands-on design process vetted in creative problem solving as the company grew larger. “I really had to battle with that for a while; what I came to realize was as I was taking on more of the contractual business, the growth elements, what I really love is creativity. If we’re doing business and we’re trying to set up a new opportunity, or a new studio like at the University of Florida, it’s about the creative aspect of making that deal work that really charges me.”

Over time, that passion for creativity only grew. As of lately, Brady finds himself excited about the ‘humanizing’ of design. “So many companies come to us with new technologies; what’s really needed is to humanize that technology. Fuel cells, as an example, electric vehicles, bring new challenges back to the same human being.” Currently in studio, Brady finds himself solving performance, medical, and ergonomic challenges in the realm of Ziivaa, their latest design venture.

“We’re challenged with trying to solve what’s necessary from a humanizing standpoint, with those new products, and that’s what makes it so exciting.”

Carly Ayres is an undergraduate student at the Rhode Island School of Design, student representative to the Industrial Design department, and co-founder of RISD-ID.ORG.

Syndicated from: IDSA

Source

Q. What fascinates you in building prototypes?
The most fascinating part of building prototypes is that the nature of our work forces us to research, explore, experiment, learn, and develop innovative models day in and day out. Just as products are redesigned and developed so are the materials and processes used in the fabrication. There is very little mundane or repetitive when creating the variety of prototypes found in the concepts developed in the ROBRADY Prototype Lab.

Q. What’s your favorite material to work in?
That’s a tough one; I have always had a passion for woodworking, but enjoy working with any material that allows forgiveness; wood, plastics, and modeling boards.  All of these materials can be utilized in an additive or subtractive process during modeling. I also enjoy the material that is unknown, or new to me; using unknown materials allows the team to explore, learn, and recognize applications where something new and different can be introduced.

Q. What’s a typical designer’s toolkit for you?
This varies depending on the project and could be as small and simple as Exacto blades, 5 minute epoxy, a Dremel and bits, or a variety of drawing tools; rulers, guides, compass, protractor and templates. Other times we work with tools as large as a table saw, Mig welder, or Bridgeport mill. Occasionally projects require us to create custom tools, if I had to limit myself to one tool; it would have to be a good sanding block.

Q. What do you carry around and can’t live without?
Mastercard.

Q. How did you discover you had a talent in design?
I dropped out of the University of Washington School of Business, and enrolled in the School of Art. During my second semester of pre-requisites my 3-D Design professor told me I was a natural for Industrial Design. At the time I didn’t even know what Industrial Design was, the more I learned the more I enjoyed the experience of product development.

Ryan Donahue is a Sarasota native and Graduate from the University of Washington, with a BFA in Industrial Design. He has been working in the Design industry for 8+ years. When Ryan’s not working you can find him fishing, running, snow skiing, and/or just about anything outdoors.

Erik Holmen, Industrial Designer

Q. How long have you been an industrial designer and what is your schooling background?
I trained at the College for Creative Studies (CCS) in Detroit, graduating in 2003 with a BFA in industrial design. Growing up, I loved drawing and designing airplanes and spaceships, wanting to be an aerospace engineer. This was before I knew about industrial design. After a high school art class presentation for the CCS transportation program, I was hooked. I am now living the dream, designing cool new products and vehicles every day!

Q. What are three traits that every industrial designer should excel in?
Creativity, Problem Solving and Visual Communications. Creativity and problem solving go hand in hand; where every product is a three-dimensional puzzle which needs to meet a list of physical and ergonomic requirements, and must be beautiful at the end of the day. Visual communications is extremely important, as is needed to sell your design to others. Traditionally we communicate through sketches and 3-D renderings, depending on the product and stage of completion.

Q. Where do you go for inspiration at the beginning of a project or when creating concepts? Do you spend time researching online blogs, magazines, or print media?
The first step in the design process is competitive / comparative research. This helps to wrap our minds around a product’s market. This is typically done by online searches, or in-store, depending on the product.  For general design inspiration, I keep a stack of art and design books on my desk. I would also advise every designer to keep a “cool stuff” folder on their computer. Everything visually interesting you come across on the net should be kept here for future inspiration.

Q. What software do you prefer? What program do you think is the most vital to know today?
The classics are Photoshop and Illustrator. For sketching and rendering I swear by Corel Painter with a 9″x12″ Wacom tablet. When it comes to 3D modeling and rendering I use Rhino3D and Vray for the render engine. Every industrial designer should have some skills when drawing in the computer, as it is an extremely versatile tool. Knowledge in a 3D program is a necessity, as it enables you to communicate in 3 dimensions with engineers, and can produce photorealistic images and animations of your designs.

(I)There’s a lot of CEO’s out there who are listening to this.  A lot of them have zero design experience.  What two to three insights would you share with them about how they can differentiate their product and service with the use of design?

(R)This very rarely comes up in conversation, but I think more and more it will.

(R)They need to be aware of design.  There’s a call that I got from a presentation I did for General Electric and it’s from the honorary chairman of Sony, Norio Olga — hopefully I got the pronunciation correct — but his quote is, at Sony we assume all products of our competitors will have basically the same technology, price, performance and feature.  Design is the only thing that differentiates one product from another in the marketplace.  And here’s the CEO of Sony — I’m going to guess probably not a designer, but a business person — Robert Hays, who’s the professor at Harvard Business School, quoted as saying 15 years ago companies competed on price, today it’s quality and tomorrow’s it’s design.  If you’re not a CEO that’s aware of design, you’re either in a unique universe where it doesn’t matter or you’re going to find out about it in a harsh way because your competitors are going to show up with that fact.  When you think about design, realize that you can’t get a designer, a credible, talented designer involved in your program too early.  If you’re just scratching your head, if you’re whiteboarding different ideas, if you’re thinking about different ways to go attack your competitors or to offer different designed products or services to your client base, get a designed in the room.  It’s not just about the math, it’s not just about honing what you’ve got in production, it’s about creative thinking and I think designers and the way we’re schooled, we think that way all the time.

(I)Right brain, right?  You look at it spatially

(R)Totally right brain.  And I would challenge the designers that are out there listening.  You have to be right for an analyst brain, you’re got to be aware of the other technical aspects as well, but we work with a number of our clients very early on, very confidentially — they’re called design summits and sometimes we host them here where we bring in people that are very close to the subject and people who are just very creative and are away from the subject, have nothing to do with the subject, but are very creative thinkers, and we put them all in a room and we have a different format of how we go about distilling different ideas for that mission.  But I would say a couple things to think about is certainly if you’re a type of business right now that’s dealing with the recession or the thought of a recession or that R word has entered your mind, those clients of ours who are dealing with that issue right now are talking to us about their future.  Where I think it’s easy to bury your head in the sand and say let’s get to a low burn rate, which is probably a smart move, but let’s get to a low burn rate, put our head in the sand and hope for the best and see when things turn up. We have clients who are right in the heat of that because they’re dealing with products that are gas consumables.  For whatever reason, they’re dealing with their session and they’re investing in us right now to look at their product from a product and a service aspect, and we are developing new designs for them.  We’re a known entity, we’re a known cost, all the numbers are talked about up front so they know what they’re getting into; but we’re setting forth in front of them a whole series of solutions that they can then weigh as to which one they think is the most marketable and then they can pull the trigger on the one they think is the best when they’re ready.  So it could be that we need to talk about design, but we’re not ready to act on design; but the last thing you want to do is say let’s just wait to see when things turn up and then invest later on because then it’s too late, you’re trying to scramble to get things, you’re having to throw tons of money at something, to be able to get it out faster then it should be and nothing is worse than racing to embarrass yourself.  Spend the time to get it right.  So the smart CEO’s that we’re dealing with right now are investing in the studio to look for future products for them and if they can afford to move forward with it, they will; if they can’t afford to, they have it all locked up, they know what the next product is, they’re waiting for market conditions to be just right and then they’ll pull the trigger.  They’re in command of their future.  And what we’re trying to communicate to all of our clients is you’re looking for basically three things, which is aesthetics, ergonomics and performance.  And when you talk about aesthetics, it’s really about brand.  What is going to differentiate your product from others and how can you extrapolate that to a series of products.  From an ergonomic standpoint, what are the human factors; how does the human interact with your products, how can you do that better, more compelling.  And here again in all these things, it really goes to not only the product but also the packaging and the whole service aspect.  And the last one is from performance standpoint.  Make sure that your products are performing properly, prototype as often as possible and when you bring designers into the equation, we’re great at prototyping, we’re great at not falling in love with any solution.  We’ll trash it and start all over again.  I do that to my clients — typically what happens is we actually give them a series of solutions and they say, on now we have a problem, we don’t know which one to choose, and so we’ll work through that.  But if they make a comment of I don’t think you’re hit it on any of these, we say great, let’s start all over, let’s focus in on what we’ve learned, let’s hone it, let’s turn this and get it right, but then again maybe you’re not right; we want to go to the voice of the customer, we want to bring your customer in here, have them look at this, let us listen with designer ears at what your customer is saying and we can certainly hone the product from there.  So if you’re a CEO and you’re thinking about developing any type of a product or service and you don’t have a designer somewhere on your staff, you’ve got a gigantic hole, you’ve got a hole in your organizational lineup and I think you’re going to have a greater challenge in being successful.

(I)So what’s the future of design, what can we be looking forward to?

(R)I think future is going to be brighter from the design side.  I think you’re going to see a lot more — my favorite products in the world are digital products.  They’re insanely smart.  Take an iPhone for an example, every time I hook up to my computer, it goes back to Cupertino, California, says, hey, you guys got any new software for me?  And every once in a while they say yeah, as a matter of fact we’ve got a lot of new software for you.  I tell my family how I got a new phone and they were going crazy because I’m always buying different stuff and they say, well, why did you get a new phone this time.  I said I didn’t, I just hooked it up to charge it and now I have GPS on my phone when I didn’t have it before.  Or as you know in June with that particular company there’s going to be a lot of new push technologies that are coming.  So I’ve already bought this phone and it’s getting smarter every day.  I think digital products are going to be a compelling component to anybody’s landscape; no matter what they’re doing, if you can connect it to the web, connect it and that’s also going to allow you to do something that’s very, very clever in product development and that is, you can release your product sooner to the marketplace, you can begin the revenue stream sooner than anyone else because if the product isn’t perfect you make it perfect by software updates.  And when you have a computer you don’t think twice about coming in in the morning and hitting an update or doing a patch or what-have-you.

(R)I think you’re going to see that across the board.  I think cars, the scooters that we’ve designed or the motorcycles that we designed with Vetrix, there is a way for updates to be e-mailed to you; if you need to take that e-mail and put it into your computer and it makes your product smarter.  Now knowing that, what can we do to have a different user interface every time you update your console?  Wouldn’t it be great to have a flatscreen in front of your car so every three or four months you can have a completely different instrumentation setup, all kinds of different things.  And I think that’s where the future of the products are going.  But also when we say the future, I often joke that I don’t know what today’s date is because all the products that we’re working on are basically 2010, 2011, 2012; so when you ask me what today is, I’ve got to think back for a moment.  We’re not doing anything in 2008.  We’re so far into the future that it’s a blast, but when I see the possibilities with digital tools, we’re taking any and every product we can and figuring out how to give a digital component to it.

(I)So what advice would you give to our listeners who are pursuing their goals?  Words of wisdom.

(R)Well, I don’t know.  I’m living it today, so I feel unbelievable fortunate.  My wife is a fabulous designer and she and I had this discussion not too long ago and it was about design and we feel that everything we do design is pervasive in everything that we think about and everything that we touch and organize.  We have the saying the design chooses you.  You don’t choose design.  But I think what it comes down to at the core is one’s passion.  I’m really passionate about design.  And fortunate to be passionate about design; so when I work 50, 60, 70, 80 hours a week, it’s not really work.  As I’ve said in the past, I’m not doing somebody else’s taxes here, I’m designing jet boats, motorcycles, watercraft, consumer electronic products, new industrial products, taking technologies and trying to mobilize them into consumer products.  So for me, I’m still passionate about it.  It’s really not work.  I couldn’t tell you what my hobby is because this is all I every want to be doing; if I’m not at home with my family, I want to be developing new products.  So I think it’s a pretty big bold question you asked and I think it’s related to passion.  I think if you can find what you’re passionate about then all the self-sacrifices and all your focus and energy, it all makes sense, it’s all very logical.  But if I wasn’t passionate about this, there’s no way, there’s no way I would invest this personal level of attention on it.

(I)Good.  Well, thank you so much for your time.  I do appreciate it and I’m sure all of our listeners will get a lot from your unique focus and what you do.  So best wishes.

(R)I’ve enjoyed it, and thank you very much.

(I)Thank you for listening to this episode of CEO Insights.  For more CEO interviews, for insights into business best practices and for our business blog, visit us at www.ceowise.com.  Leave us a comment.  We’d love to hear from you.  Until next time, so long.

Welcome to this edition of CEO Insights brought to you today by Six Disciplines, Tampa.  Six Disciplines helps companies validate their strategy, create balanced plans and execute more consistently.  The end result is increased organizational performance.  Enjoy the podcast.

Sean Burke (I)
Today we’re with Rob Brady from ROBRADY design.  He is the president and design director.  Thank you for being with us today, Rob.

Rob Brady (R)
Thank you very much for the invitation.

(I) So you’re in the eye candy business.  Tell me about that.

(R) Well, I think that was a phrase that was coined quite some time ago.  I’m not sure who owns that one, but we’ll certainly take it.  The eye candy business, what that is: that’s a way of producing typically two dimensional artwork that shows the end game.  If you’re talking about a boat or a motor cycle or a new consumer product, if you can truly visualize what looks to be a photo-realistic image on a piece or paper quickly and then have multiple versions of that, it’s a pretty powerful and compelling argument whether you’re trying to raise funds, get people aware of your product or just basically flush out some ideas.  We use this with a lot of our clients that will come to us and say, say an instrument manufacturer, we want to sell an instrument to the such-and-such road company instead of just selling them an instrument, we’ll actually design an entire cab interior from an illustration standpoint and then when they walk in the door to sell instruments, they’re not showing instruments, they’re showing the future of that particular company’s interior.  Basically their cockpit.  They grab the attention right away.  They look at a solution like that and it’s a very compelling reason to meet and talk with that individual and, oh, by the way, these are our instruments and this is how we can more easily slide into a conversation about that particular product.  Its like the difference between selling the steak and selling the sizzle. You’re not selling the steak, you’re selling the sizzle and the sizzle sells.

(I) So how is design playing an increasingly important role in business today?

(R) Well, perhaps I’m biased because I don’t have the vision of the last 50 years with this, but it seems to be that everybody is talking about design.  And I think Apple is certainly on the forefront with making that a compelling argument.  Design sells.  Why does it sell?  Well, I think the technology, the way it is today, I think most people have products that are very similar quality and performance levels so what’s going to separate your product from another one?  In many cases, it’s the design.  And so we see design as a differentiator in the market and it’s a powerful component that can help the public choose your product over somebody else’s.

(I) How should design be used as a competitive advantage?  And can you give me some specific product examples.

(R) Yes.  We often say the design center companies out-imagine their competition.  We do things like going beyond what’s called the knowledge economy to the creative economy, creating not just consumer experiences but actually the product at large; and so when we’re working with our various clients, we’re looking to not just sell them a product but, rather, a product experience and some of the cases could be Parker Hannifin as an example.  Now for those of you who know Parker Hannifin, it’s a 10, $11B industrial motion control type company.  What do they have to do with design.  Well, they have envisioned that design is a compelling part of the decision making process and they wanted to not only design their products so that they have a cohesive flavor but also because they could to establish brand recognition.  And with brand recognition you get the synergy of the entire corporation working for you every time you’re going to promote a product and certainly going into new markets, I think Dewalt is a great example where you — once you buy a couple Dewalts you’re really compelled to — you’re locked in.  You’re compelled to buy the rest of the series.  I buy them obviously because I think their ergonomics are great, they work fine and the esthetic is not only pleasing but it’s cohesive with all my tools.  So it works really well.  We’ve done the same thing with Segway.  When we’re developing new products for them, they’re looking for return on investment and so we’re developing solutions for them that make sense from a monetary standpoint but at the same time having aesthetic quality that makes the public think twice and really look hard at your product.

(I) So you shared with me a term that you use called total brand synergy.  What is that?

(R) It’s an element of design that I’ve gotten in over the last year or two, heavily.  I think — I didn’t realize I was into it before, but total brand synergy is taking product design and bringing with it a service design.  Now as a product designer I’ve been developing products for many, many years.  I get the product side.  And for many of those years I don’t know that I put my finger on as to why certain products work so well and others didn’t.  And I think part of it now has come down to the idea of called service design and I think it’s important to realize that service design is just as important as is product design and I think that with all the products that we’re doing today, when we look at product design we not only look at the design of the product but also the brand message, how is this going to carry across other products, but with the brand umbrella, it’s not only the product itself but the service.  Here again, I know I’ll be pointing to Apple a couple times.  I think they do an off-the-charts execution on total brand synergy where it’s not only buying the product that’s a great experience but if you’ve ever opened up an Apple product, the way it’s presented and the way you go through and it communicates, they’ve really spent a tremendous amount of time on the user interface and it shows.

(I) Even from the packaging to the product.

(R) That’s right.  And it makes people want to come back to that company.  And any company can do the synergy design.  We’ve done some pieces for General Electric where they’re selling security systems where our demo kits have the same graphic flare and communication style as does their flash site.  So a customer can be looking at the flash site to get initial information and then when the salesman shows up with our sales kit, they can see the synergy between the two pieces, they can understand the system a lot faster, they get it, and then also of benefit to General Electric in this sense is the person that you’ve sold to is also one of the best champions you could have or your product.  He can take the website and send it off to somebody else and have them begin to do a tour and quickly become familiar with the product at their own leisure and then call back to General Electric when they think they’ve got the right time to buy.

(I) So what companies are balancing both the product design phase that you just spoke about and the service design phase effectively?  I know you mentioned Apple, but are there other ones that you think are doing a really good job in balancing those two areas to reach that synergy?

(R) Well, I wish I could point to more.  I used those two because I think they’re the best two and they’re certainly the ones that people will recognize.  I don’t think it’s out of the realm of anybody developing products.  I think people are trying to do that now and what we’re doing with a lot of our clients and some of them are Fortune 700, certainly Fortune 500’s, as well as start-ups, is to realize that there is a connection between the service and the product side and the service side, a lot of it has to do with how you reach the customer, which can be website, voice, phone, any brochures, any medium that you do there, but also packaging is a huge and compelling component of that.  When someone calls your company either for service or for inquiries, how do you script that, how does all that work?  And you work that all underneath the brand umbrella.  And so some of the programs that we’re working on right now I don’t know — from a confidentiality standpoint, let me be a little bit more general about this.  But we’re looking to do a particular product that we’ve done in the past many times.  And I’m not interested in doing any more.  But we’re taking this product and service component together and so we’re saying well, with this particular product — it’s a powersport product — what if we married it with an entire event, so we’re not only doing a product but the product combines in multiple combinations to be an event and the event is a whole new way to market the product and have people aware of the company, you become — well, for me it’s a much more interesting and compelling opportunity.  So I’m up for it now.  Now I want to do it.  So if you’re out there and you’ve got a particular product you want to bring more energy to it, think about the service side because inherently the service side will influence the product side and then when it’s doing that, it will also influence what we call the brand and then it builds up to the total product synergy.

(I) Yeah.  I know I see — that’s interesting that you bring that point up.  I see a lot of technology companies and health-related companies now have these traveling toolboxes, where they actually go to smaller markets and share their products and services directly with people and it just seems they make that circular route where they’re north in the summer and they come down in the south.  And they’re linking those together as an event.

(R) What incredibly valuable from a consumer side, they get to experience the product one-on-one, so you get to touch people and let them experience your product and its features, benefits and attributes but also from the company side, you’re getting voice of customer feedback on an ongoing basis, and I would not be surprised that as that vehicle travels around displaying their product, those products are switching and they’re changing out, and it’s an incredibly powerful piece of any product development process to have good quality customer feedback.  Because at the end of the day the customer will tell you if you’ve done it at the right price point, if it worked right way, if I’m every going to buy this thing again, if I’m going to buy it the first time.  That is by what you will be graded.  If you can answer those questions at the beginning of the project before you’ve sunk a tremendous amount of capital it, it will either tell you don’t waste your time sinking capital into this market or it will say if you do that, do it this way and do it at this price point.  It’s something that we seek out and we’re trying to do it in many different ways to get that feedback.

(I) How do you determine if there’s a market for your innovations?

(R) That’s a great question.  It’s a great, great question.  We have a lot of history in doing that and we’re still learning.  We learn from our mistakes, we learn from our successes; and fortunately, we’ve had a lot of opportunities to learn from various other clients who have done that, been that and we’ve been a part of that and had front row seat.  So what I look to do is I look to humanize, visualize and commercialize.  Those are the three major steps that I look to do.  And when it comes to judging a new innovation — and we do that quite a lot; we’re at the point now where I would say at least a couple times a week we’re being approached with new projects or even new technologies in one form or another.  So how do we measure it quickly.  First of all, raw technology is not something that a consumer can embrace.  And if you can’t embrace it, they can’t embrace money from the wallet for such an idea.  So you really want to take the technology and humanize it and then with the humanization of that, you basically then move on to visualizing the technology.  What does it actually look like in the consumer’s hand.  And then from there what we like to do before you go on to commercialization, which is really the art of developing the product for market, we like to right after visualization, go into prototyping.  And prototyping at this point is really probably more logical to call it a mock-up because we’re trying to build something very quickly, we don’t really care about the aesthetics so much at that point, we know we can make it look good; that much is a given.  But can it perform right and does it meet the need that is intended.  So prototyping is a huge, huge part and we’ll prototype enough, go back and forth with our focus groups or user groups to get to the point where they have communicated to us that boy, this is really it, this is a nice product and the whole time we’re also looking at price point, what’s the MRSP on a product like this and then what’s the value chain, what’s the bill of material, if that can all make sense.  I refer to it as humanize, visualize and prototype, but — in this particular sequence, but it’s also do the math, because fabulous ideas that cost too much are no longer fabulous ideas.  And everybody who walks in the door with an idea assumes that it’s fabulous and that people will pay whatever; and ten times our of ten they won’t pay whatever.  They’re going to pay a certain price.  There’s a certain value.  If I show you a new design for a laptop, well that makes sense at one price but at a price ten times that, it doesn’t make sense any more.  So do the math is a huge part.  Once you have that where you can see the eye candy and you can see a prototype you can put your hands on and you also have the numbers next to it that say we believe we can hit this price point at such and such a cost; and if that all makes sense, by all means drive it forward; if it doesn’t make sense, keep working at that level until it does, don’t put any more capital into a program, stay small, stay focused.  At the end of the day if you can’t get it to work at that level, there’s no sense in going forward.

(I) Do you start with an MSRP, do you ask your client to say, look, what do you expect this thing to price out at before you even get into the design work?  Or where does that happen?

(R) It happens right at the beginning.  And you’re absolutely right.  That’s not the only core question.  It’s called a product requirements document that we create and it’s at the beginning of any project that we design and the product requirements document identifies all the parameters by which we’re going to be measured and if it’s going to be tested and what product variance might be coming off of this product.  And at the end of the day there’s also the value chain.  What is the bill of materials, what is the cost of goods, what type of tariffs, what type of shipping, what type of cost structure or sales structure are you going direct, one step, two step, is there some kind of bizarre marketing scheme that you’re working on.  And at the end of the day, what’s the MSRP.  If you’re got all those numbers in front of you, first of all does it make sense.  The thing is if you can give me your MSRP, I can work backwards to the bill of materials.  I you give me the bill of materials, I’ll work up to the MSRP and if you don’t know either one, we will make assumptions and we’ll put those numbers and we work it back and forth.  Like a two-way equation; bill of material has to be right and the MSRP has to be right.  And everybody has to get their cut that’s in the chain or else they’re not interested in moving it.  We work all that in the front.  And the nice thing about doing the comprehensive product requirements document is it’s one thing to know those numbers but it’s another thing to know those numbers based against what you’re going to be measured.  So if this is a highly tuned product that has incredible levels of quality control issues, you’re got the FDA, FFA, who knows that type of government agencies might be involved, and at the end of the day you want to, you need to sell this thing at the consumer level for 29 cents and you’re only going to be building 100 a year, those are radical numbers but you get the point.

(I) Right.

(R) There’s no reason to go forward.

(I) Why are we doing this.

(R) That’s right.

(I) So what’s the most exciting project you’ve ever done and worked on?

(R) Tough question.  I would have to say that the most exciting — you’d have to define that.  Perhaps some day I’ll figure it out.  But we’ve done so many products here on so many levels, and I refer to it as a journey because every time we do one, we get smarter.  I think one of the toughest ones we ever did — as a matter of fact, when I went to school at the Art Center in Los Angeles, to date for many years afterwards, that had been the toughest thing I had ever done.  It was the type of school that was very demanding and on top of that, it would take whatever demands you put upon yourself and the hold you to it.  So it was an extremely –

(I) You weren’t going anywhere.

(R) Yeah.  It was an extremely difficult curriculum and I was very proud to get through that.  For the longest time whenever I was thrown an assignment, it’s cigarette racing, you know, we’re finishing a 42-foot offshore performance boat and it’s 4:00 in the morning and we’ve got to finish it for a photo shoot that’s at 6:00am and lightening all around and there’s all this crazy stuff and I just think about some of the stuff I did at Art Center and go well, at least it’s not that bad.

(I) Right.

(R) The  toughest one is when we developed and produced with our partner, with our client Vetrix, we produced three electric scooter for a field sell show in Miami.  I think we worked on it for five months.  The last month everybody in the studio was working only that project, including yours truly, and we were working from 8:00am until midnight for the last month; and then the last week we were working around the clock, where the door wasn’t even locked.  And then in the last 48 hours were straight through.  And it killed me.  It put Art Center in the rearview mirror and it was the toughest thing we had ever done on so many levels.  There’s a tremendous amount of pressure because the investor community was adamant that we had to be there, there were still some question on were they going to be able to raise enough funds for us to finish the product; but, again, we couldn’t stop.  So we had to keep going whether the funds were going to be there or not, and we just knew we had a great partner and they would deliver for us if we delivered for them.  And so absolutely everybody was working on this project. I remember when we finally, at 10:00 on a Monday morning I think Monday or Sunday morning we were rolling these scooters into the truck to be taken down to Miami and I laid down on the cement out in my parking lot, and it felt so good to lay down.  So that was probably the toughest on multiple levels.  But this past year I think one of the most spectacular pieces that we did was for a show in Milan and it’s called EICMA, which is the motorcycle show, and for that show we produced our electric super bike.  We had lobbied to build this thing with our clients and our client and they finally agreed that, yeah, we need to have this product.  They weren’t exactly sure why, but we had sold them on the idea and it made such an incredible launch in Milan where the entire booth was crowded.  There was press going everywhere, the bulbs were going off; you’d think it was some kind of a paparazzi event, it was some kind of superstar.  And at that show the gentleman who was in charge of Ducati Motorcycles, Pierre Treblanche, was the type of guy that I would have had to try to seek out, say let me just talk to you about this item, can we ask you a few questions about wave design.  It was a reversal.  It was so popular and it was so big at the show that he came to the booth.  I wasn’t even at the booth at the time when he was there, but he said I’ve got to talk to the group that was involved in the design of this product.  And I had brought five of my guys with me, which to me was a personal triumph to bring those guys with me.  You know, success by yourself is just about meaningless.  But to have these other guys who had worked so very hard on the project – actually the whole studio did — these are the five guy I had to have at the show to do it, and here’s Pierre Treblanche coming to us.  What were you guys thinking when you did this, what did you think about that.  And he was telling people this is the hottest super bike at the show and it comes from a scooter company called Vectrix.

(I) How about that.

Part two of this interview will be posted, along with the audio podcast, next week.