The Mesh - Lisa Gansky [23]
design is continuous and two-way.
Since Mesh businesses are in closer touch, their customers’ priorities, desires, and complaints float more quickly to the top than in traditional businesses. Collected data can be fed back to the manufacturer to improve the product over time. This is important because, for many products, manufacturers and designers have become separated from the ultimate user. The retail distribution channel creates a chasm that prevents customer feedback from reaching the designers in a timely way and without filters. For a car manufacturer with new releases targeted, say, to parents or to first-time drivers, a car-sharing company is a treasure chest of new information. The manufacturer might also survey groups of members for feedback: What did you like or dislike about the car? Was it easy to find things? Did you find the back seat comfortable? Did your mobile phone, GPS, or music device pop in simply and function well? What would you change about the car? This is the Mesh “virtuous circle of trust” in action: Learn. Test. Play. Engage. Rinse and repeat.
Currently, the long cycle time to design and manufacture a car is absurd. Better, more timely information from customers may speed it up. To close this gap, a few companies have formed that facilitate direct feedback between customers and manufacturers, including feedback 2.0 in France and Get Satisfaction in the States. Other sites, such as the U.K.’s FixMyStreet, perform a similar function for local governments, allowing easy feedback from citizens about neighborhood problems.
think far. build near.
The Mesh is poised to inspire a whole new generation of heirloom designers who will in turn fuel and support Mesh business strategies. A German site, Open Design, uses the methods of open software design, with creative commons licenses, and applies them to furniture and other products. Another site, RedesignMe, is a platform for companies seeking design solutions and designers offering them. The good ones are adopted and paid for. We’re at the beginning of a new era of design that uses the Web, customer engagement, and buckets of imagination to create better goods and services.
4
In with the Mesh
WHAT’S HERE: why now?; what gets measured gets managed; hidden assets in what some call waste; being dense is cool; the value of your customers’ footsteps, or how can I make you never go?
Giant corporations cultivate an air of permanence and inevitability. They want you to think the big brands of yesterday will be just as strong forever. Economic historians know better. In eras of great instability—and the financial crisis that broke out in 2008 is one whopper of an upheaval—pillar companies crumble. New ones rise up. Few who begin the crisis on top come out on top. Who would have believed a few years ago that Merrill Lynch, whose muscular bronze bull long served as the symbol of the strength and power of Wall Street, would be liquidated for pennies on the dollar?
According to a recent study by the Kauffman Foundation, nearly half of the companies on Inc. magazine’s 2008 list of fastest-growing companies were founded in a recession or bear market. Fifty-seven percent of the Fortune 500 companies were founded during downturns, an above-average number of them during the Great Depression. Instability forces change.
In fact, many of the biggest brands in the world today are vulnerable. Most people simply don’t trust them. It’s tough to get 96 percent of Americans to agree on anything. But according to a 2009 Harris poll, that’s the number that agree Wall Street and credit card companies are dishonest and can’t be trusted. Only 14 percent now trust big business, period.
The recession has changed people’s attitudes in other ways as well. According to one study, eight out of ten Americans are “inclined to buy less stuff,” and nine out of ten are considering “opting for a simpler life.” This questioning helps explain why popular books on thrift, such as Theodore Malloch’s