Brad Lauster .com

More and more often, I'm finding articles in popular business periodicals about the value of Design. For example, Business Week has been giving out design awards for at least two years and Design is one of Fast Company's "themes."

...not that they're all getting it exactly, but at least they're finally thinking about it. Let's face it, for most Suits, Design is nothing more than visual creativity. In fact, that exact phrase appears in the heading of Fast Company's Design theme page.

Before you get upset, be reminded that cultural change happens slowly and that we've already got a management guru on our side doing his part to speed up the recognition of Design's value proposition in the Business community. His name is Tom Peters.

Tom recently spoke at the DMI Summit Conference in New York. Apparently, he suggested "men couldn't really design effectively for women." Darrel Rhea, who spoke before Peters at the conference, takes Peters to task in his article, "Designing for Aliens: What management guru and design advocate Tom Peters needs to learn about managing design," arguing not only that point, but doing a damn fine job of describing a value proposition that only Design can bring to Business: "the act of uncovering, defining or clarifying the dimensions of human experience related to a product."

While complaining about Business not understanding the value of Design is nothing new, my situation, that is, my personal understanding of the situation is...and it's deeply troubling because the Design community seems to have gotten REAL quiet about this recently. (Shout out to Paula for keepin' the dream alive.) I feel like most of us have forgotten all that talk about how Design should have a place at the table with the CEO, the CFO, the CIO and all the other C_O's. Those arguments are still valid and we still want our seat, damn it!

So what's up? Why are we so quiet? Are we simply happy in our roles as practitioners? Do we, as a community, not understand the benefits of having a position at that level? Am I missing the point completely? Talk to me, people!

Ever wonder who's blogging within 50 miles of brad lauster (dot com)?

I've bumped into my friend, Kathryn Yu, three times in the past week or so. She's a student at Stanford. I thought you might like to know about her blog.

Turns out my friend from work, Brian Young, has a weblog too!

Implemented Nice titles this evening. Let your mouse hover over the links to check it out!
Update Feb. 20, 2003: Turned Nice titles off. The lack of a delay, that Joshua commented about, was driving me crazy.

For those of you who have to own a car, you might want to look at the EPA Green Vehicle Guide before your next purchase.

It rates the environmental performance of vehicles in use (so it doesn't consider factors such as recyclability of the vehicle) on a scale from 0—10 (in other words, from "suck my carcinogenic fumes, you hippy" to "not pollutant free, but close").

The top two vehicles this year are both hybrids — the Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius. The next two top rated are natural gas vehicles — both Honda Civics. Vehicles rated the worst are almost exclusively pickup trucks, SUV's and those big passenger/cargo vans.

An unexpected find near the top of the list was the Honda Element (which is arguably an SUV). It received a respectable, best in class rating of 8. Just goes to show that you don't have to disrespect the environment to be sporty and utility-y.

You've heard of racial profiling, right? Well, yesterday I was transportational profiled.

I forgot to mention that on the same day I was profiled, I saw this guy ride the longest wheelie ever! I remember when all it took to be famous was the ability to ride a wheelie for a block. Man, those were the days.

A couple new digital cameras were announced recently: FinePix F410 and the Nikon Coolpix SQ. Gadget. Lust. Setting. In.

Hoo-ray! I'm going to see Röyksopp at Bimbo's on March 6. Tickets are still available at the box office and through tickets.com. Let me know if you'll be there.

Mark Hurst of has set up a sweet one-day conference called Good Experience Live (gel, for short) that's taking place at the New York Historical Society on May 2, 2003.

Having been thinking, lately, that most of us concerned with Design for Experiencing are too focused on "computer stuff," this seems like a great opportunity to begin a dialog with some interesting people in other domains, while still getting a healthy dose of the good stuff from some interesting people in our area of expertise.

If you attend, tell Mark I said hi!

I just found Steve Portigal's Museum of Foreign Grocery Products. I laughed out loud when I saw the Funky Soy Sauce Pringles. Normally, I make a point of not eating anything "funky" ...and this would be no exception.