d+ | kodw - Highlights from Kowledge of Design Week 2015

HIGHLIGHTS FROM KNOWLEDGE OF DESIGN WEEK 2015

Content Foreword

Message from Dr Edmund Lee

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Speakers

Arne Bergh/ Masaaki Kanai

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Jennifer Allen/ Jason Lee

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Francesco Maria Furno/ Pablo Galeano

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Per Kristiansen

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Tim Stock

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Stephen S.Y. Wong

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The Knowledge of Design Week (KODW) overview

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Building creative confidence for more human-centred experiences After 10 successful years, the Knowledge of Design Week (KODW), organised by Hong Kong Design Centre (HKDC), has firmly established itself as an intensive learning week in Asia. Inspired by the belief that design makes a key difference, KODW is a multifaceted event that includes presentations, workshops and networking opportunities, bringing together influencers in the local and international design communities.

Keeping a close watch on trends, “Designing Service Futures”, the overarching theme of KODW 2015, emphasised the way executives and designers can heighten their sensibilities to design culture and technology through the deployment of new design thinking. In a rapidly changing and interconnected world, top-flight speakers and workshop presenters attending KODW expressed the need for new knowledge and mindsets to create empathy and human values that foster customer engagement, profitability and well-being. These are beliefs that HKDC strives throughout the year to advocate, promote and create awareness of in the Hong Kong business community.

As you turn the pages of this book we hope you enjoy the various highlights of KODW we have captured for your enjoyment and inspiration. We also hope the knowledge will help build creative confidence and it will serve both as a reminder and a keepsake of a truly empowering week.

We hope you enjoy discovering how Tim Stock explains the importance of analysing big data in order to identify cultural signals and trends. Meanwhile, Per Kristiansen shares his thoughts on fostering creativity thought through team-building metaphors using Lego bricks. As technology revolutionises business in all sectors, Francesco Maria Furno and Pablo Galeano, co-founders of relajaelcoco, highlight how designing the right infographics

– infographics that are communicative, cool and appeal to common sense – can help companies, and even governments in engaging their stakeholders. Arne Bergh provides details of the design and construction methods used to build an ice hotel north of the Arctic Circle capturing the natural resource. Equally grippingly, Masaaki Kanai offers insights into how a renowned Japanese brand is shifting its focus to the rest of the world. In another interview, Stephen S.Y. Wong, CEO of Asia Miles Limited, suggests ways to keep design customer-centric, while Jason Lee and Jennifer Allen investigate how ethnography can be used to discover and understand the consumers and pattern of consumerism.

Servicing future at its core is about peoplecentric design and user experience. When we exercise those foresights and set more examples across sectors, we will be creating more human-centred experiences of the future through design thinking and innovation.

Yours sincerely, Dr Edmund Lee Executive Director Hong Kong Design Centre

Arne Bergh

Creative Director, ICEHOTEL AB, Sweden

“Is it not terribly sad when the hotel melts?”

Arne Bergh, founder and creative director of ICEHOTEL, Sweden, watches his 65-room, 5,500 square-metre hotel thaw and dissolve every spring. But no, Bergh says – it’s not sad at all. “Just the opposite! It’s incredibly beautiful when the roof melts and opens and the sun comes through. That’s when you truly feel the ephemeral aspect of it.”

ICEHOTEL is an exceptional example of art and design made locally for a global audience. Every year more than 50,000 visitors from around the world journey 200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle to experience this fully functional hotel made (and remade each season) entirely from snow and ice.

At Knowledge of Design Week 2015, Bergh

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joined the InnoDesign Leadership Forum to speak on his experiences in creating a worldfamous brand from a single natural material.

Funnily enough, Bergh’s Leadership Forum copanellist shares his interest in the most basic material of all – water.

Masaaki Kanai, chairman of the MUJI Group, doesn’t rely on water as a raw material (ICEHOTEL uses 50,000 cubic metres of the stuff every season) but rather as an inspiration.

“As humans, the only thing we truly need is water. That influences MUJI products. We take design back to the basics.”

Kanai describes the aesthetic of Japanese home goods store MUJI in one word: “Minimalism.”

“Other companies add bells and whistles to their products,” Kanai explains. “You could say their designers are thinking about orange juice or Coke. Our designers are still thinking – water.”

MUJI is renowned for its design simplicity, whereas ICEHOTEL seems much more complex – and yet, according to Bergh, minimalism also inspires ICEHOTEL. “We have big limitations – no colours and no other materials.” ICEHOTEL is made of only snow and ice, turned into a mixture called snice. “Our colours are white and transparent. Our materials are snow and ice. We want to achieve true design and architecture by being true to nature.”

“We could put a Coca-Cola sign above the hotel and get millions,” says Bergh, “but that wouldn’t be true to our values.” Bergh’s colleague Jens Thoms Ivarsson gives another example during his KODW session “Material, Creativity & Form: The Creative Process of ICEHOTEL”. When MINI

Cooper became an ICEHOTEL brand partner “we told them – do something more creative than just putting a car into an ICEHOTEL room.”

ICEHOTEL and MINI collaborated to make an ice design from the shapes of the MINI car, then translated that design into the structure of a room.

Along with minimalism inspired by natural elements, both MUJI and ICEHOTEL have built their brands around the concept of design thinking – the practice of using design to solve everyday problems. “MUJI designs look good,” says Kanai, “but they aren’t created to be stylish. We design to give everyone, regardless of wealth, the products they need to improve their lifestyle.”

That value of good design for the masses continues to influence MUJI’s expansion around the world. The first MUJI store outside Japan opened in London in 1991. That same year,

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Masaaki Kanai

Chairman and Representative Director, Ryohin Keikaku Company Limited, Japan

MUJI also opened in Hong Kong, and today, it has more than 500 stores in 26 countries around the globe. One major area of expansion is mainland China, which now has 128 stores.

Kanai says that as MUJI finds new customers the brand never loses sight of where everything began. “We remain true to our minimalist values. That never changes.” Kanai’s colleague, Naoyuki Yamamoto, who also spoke at KODW, added that the brand’s success abroad is a result of collaboration. “Every country has its own way of doing things, so we want local suggestions,” said Yamamoto in the KODW “When MUJI Concepts Meet Chinese Culture session”. “We send Japanese employees to MUJI stores overseas and they work with local staff to achieve best practices together.”

ICEHOTEL

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also

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collaboration, says Bergh. “Our designers, just like our guests, come from around the world and there’s a huge amount of collaboration on site. I’ve heard our designers say they’ve never before experienced a place where people help each other so generously.”

Bergh adds that working in such a particular environment with global collaborators and a novel material is an experience designers can take home. “Designing with a new material gives you freedom of mind. It’s an exciting opportunity to build new skills and try new ideas. That can inspire designers for a long time to come.”

ICEHOTEL has also started offering design classes to take local innovation and design further afield. “Our design school is a place to trade ideas and skills,” Bergh explains. “The name of our village, Jukkasjärvi, means ‘meeting

place’ and that’s what we are – a meeting place for our guests, artists and designers that’s now become a global network.”

MUJI, too, contributes to global design education with its annual MUJI Awards. “Our goal with the MUJI Awards is to get people thinking outside the box,” Kanai explains. “It’s about using minimalism and design thinking to solve problems and we want to get young designers involved from all around the world.”

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Jennifer Allen

Principal Strategist, Continuum, USA

A quality consumer experience is key to service design thinking In today’s competitive marketplace, the customer quality experience has assumed a major role as a key business differentiator, making the practice of strategic consumer ethnographic research increasingly important.

“If a product or service is going to achieve success there is no substitute for the deep understanding of customers and their experiences, beliefs, expectations and the satisfaction and dissatisfaction that you get through ethnographic research,” says Jason Lee, Senior Designer, Space Group, Continuum Innovation LLC. Lee explains how consumer ethnography can be used to discover and understand the consumer’s point of view and some of the unexpected usage or reactions to physical and digital environments. He says consumer ethnography is designed not only to identify what drives a product or service purchase decision, but also detail the thoughts, 8

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feelings, and happenings that occur when a consumer decides to make a purchase or use a service.

As design thinking becomes more commonplace in the business world, Lee says companies are turning to consumer ethnographic research to ensure products and services are more consumer-orientated and user-friendly. As digital platforms across all industry sectors increasingly play a larger role between consumer and company interactions, Lee says consumer ethnographic research can play a strategic part in strengthening relationships with consumers. He cites the example of Interactive Voice Response (IVR), or automated telephone answering systems, often the cause of frustration, and very often the first point of contact a consumer has with a company or large government organisation. “IVR systems are not based on natural language, but

with small adjustments, user adherence, as well as willingness to use the system, can be increased,” says Lee, adding that the IVR system American Express uses is a prime example of a customer-centric approach.

During the Knowledge of Design Week (KODW), participants taking part in the Consumer Ethnography for Services Design workshop were able to experience firsthand how the process could be applied to different organisations and situations. Following a short “listening” ice-breaking session where participants were asked to recall three interesting facts about the person they had spent a few minutes talking to, the workshop moved on to show how usercentric design can be used in an accessible way, says Violet Chen, Senior Design Strategist, Continuum Innovation LLC. “The workshop gave an immersive tour of the process Continuum undertakes in understanding consumers, analysing and envisioning usercentric design projects, and demystifying the concept of design thinking,” Chen says.

Participants were asked to watch a video of a

car rental experience, deconstruct the various steps from the perspective of the consumer and suggest ways to improve the service. Workshop participants were also given brand attributes and asked to develop a strategy based on insights and prompts from the workshop trainers to deliver a superior customer journey.

Chen says the biggest takeaway was a perspective built on respect for the usercentric process, as well as an understanding of the design perspective’s importance and relevance to real-world experiences. “We have strived to present the process, its constituent parts and the results of the process in a way that allows mindful embrace of innovation as a discipline,” says Chen, who emphasises that a fundamental aspect of this perspective is the ability to wait and interpret, instead of saying “no” too quickly. For instance, by prioritising user experience, and approaching design problems with the intent of solving them for the user, participants from different backgrounds and practices realise that they can align goals and prioritise clearly, as well as generate less selfd+|kodw

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Jason Lee

Senior Designer, Space Group, Continuum Innovation LLC, USA doubt about design choices.

Chen points out that in the new era, where companies are trying to build ecosystems of user experiences, consumer ethnography should serve as a builtin mechanism for them to self-diagnose and correct the lapses in their service offerings. “This is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that the consumption eco-system is relevant and desirable to win loyal users,” Chen says.

She says that while the history of the service industry in China is relatively short, nowhere does she see this happening faster than on the mainland. “As the market matures, many new providers are bringing new forms of service to the landscape,” Chen says. Consequently, a new generation of consumers has started to demand more sophisticated services. “A more user-friendly service stands out and quickly wins user loyalty,’’ notes Chen. For example, she says a prime example is the way that Alipay Financial Services has woken up the financial giants in the industry.

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Meanwhile, the millennial generation has arrived, says Jennifer Allen, Principal Strategist with Continuum, in the US. Allen believes that while Gen Y digital natives are now coming of age, with Gen Z children hot on their heels, the way that companies think about their service and product designs will be robustly challenged.

“If the millennial generation is the first of multitasking, non-linear-thinking, what does a future of post-millennials hold?” asks Allen, who highlights the fact that the millennial generation will be the dominant consumer force as early as 2020.

“They are thinking ahead into the future, and at the same time living life online, with no filter; they want their experiences to be real,” Allen says. Unlike previous generations, the millennials have access to online insights into just about everything and making comparisons.

“With access to an overwhelming amount of information and data, there is an emergence of non-design, the elimination of tradition, to a trend of design that is hidden,” Allen says.

View Jason Lee Video Online

View Jennifer Allen Video Online

On Twitter Amber Matthews @ambermatthews

Jason Lee @_Continuum on the iterative prototyping process used for a customer-centric bank. #kodw2015 #servicedesign 10:44 AM - 11 Jun 2015

Live Report

June 11, 2015 10:00

“Service design needs to provide consistency and integrated customer experiences,” says Lee. He goes on to talk about the importance of designing iterative prototypes to create a new and better banking experience for customers. “People are going to the bank less and less these days. To give them better service technology we must build prototypes -- and to build those we need to have an understanding of the customer journey.”

Find out more about Jason & Jennifer’s insights on our blog coverage d+|kodw 11

Francesco Maria Furno (left) & Pablo Galeano (right) Co-founders, relajaelcoco, Spain

Joy and beauty colour the message of infographics Along with an eye-catching visual appeal and an easy-to-grasp presentation of key information, Pablo Galeano and Francesco Maria Furno bring something extra to the infographics they create.

For the pair, co-founders of relajaelcoco, a Madrid-based graphic design studio, their work gives them the opportunity to exercise more than just their technical skills.

“It has a logical part, about structure and composition, but there is also an emotional part, with the drawings and the illustrations,” explains Furno. “We want to feed both parts of the brain.

“Our infographics are always colourful and full of small characters and elements because this represents the way we live life. We are happy people and we work in a happy way and we want to express that in each project.”

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This combination of joie de vivre and professionalism has ensured their work and found a market, not only in their native Spain, but internationally as well, for publications and organisations such as WiredUK magazine and the BBC in Britain, and Entertainment Weekly in the US. Galeano and Furno, who met and began working together while studying graphic design at IED in Barcelona, are clear on the reasons behind the growing popularity of the form they work in.

“We think an infographic is the best way to represent information because the brain works by initially recognising images not words,” says Furno. “Your brain immediately identifies the essential information in the big picture – whereas it has to process words or a phrase first.”

Photo by relajaelcoco

Part of the programme they followed at IED examined the way the human mind handles images, such as those in a poster or a doublepage spread in a magazine.

“We looked at the way people react in front of shapes,” Galeano explains. “During our three-year course we did both theoretical and practical exercises, so it was, and is, a learningby-doing process.”

As with so much of their commercial work, the workshop Galeano and Furno ran at the Hong Kong Design Centre’s Knowledge of Design Week managed to deliver a serious message in a fun way, ensuring the experience had real impact.

The 22 participants included both graphic designers and representatives of companies likely to use infographics. Furno first took them through the considerations involved when transforming brand data into a simple infographic structure.

He explained how, after analysing the data, brainstorming ideas and sketching ways of representing it, a designer needs to settle on a structure for the information hierarchies, decide on the best way to utilise the brand’s colour palette, as well as choose the shapes to use within the design – given that regular shapes have more impact.

The participants then paired up to produce an infographic based on specific sets of data from research conducted by Spanish banking group BBVA into the popularity of various social media platforms and online businesses, along with some figures around “cyberworking”.

With only two-and-a-half hours to complete the task, Furno’s main advice was to keep it simple, as “there’s no time to create the Sistine Chapel”.

“Finding the right visual metaphor is the most important and difficult part of the process because you have to decide exactly how you are going to represent data and information in a d+|kodw 13

Photo by relajaelcoco

graphic way,” he adds.

As the teams worked on their concepts, Furno and Galeano went from desk to desk offering help and advice.

Critiquing the completed infographics, Galeano said he was impressed with what had been created in such a short period of time and how some pairs had come up with particularly eloquent solutions.

Casting an eye over his industry in general, Furno believes that now is a great time to be a graphic designer. “The technology is improving, the environment is improving and the cultural level of the user is improving too. Also, there are a lot of companies who need to improve their brands.”

In the last six months, relajaelcoco has been working on a virtual reality project, for which the

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partners’ infographic skills have been a perfect fit.

“Visual data is the most important part of virtual reality as you need to spread a lot of user information inside that medium,” Furno points out.

“And the visual principles are the same whether you are working for a magazine, or in a virtual reality environment, or whatever,” Galeano adds.

“What is changing is the user experience – you just have to know what kind of environment they are in and how much time they have.”

Furno sums up those fundamental visual principles of an infographic. “The idea is that you have a big picture that calls to people and says ‘Hey, look at me!’ But then you also have a few steps, a few levels, that they can decide to read or not, depending on whether they are interested or have the time.”

Photo by relajaelcoco

View Furno & Galeano Video Online

On Twitter Charmaine So @charmso

The Power of Infographics. “People are stopping to grow up. They are starting to become children again.” #KODW2015 8:35 PM - 10 Jun 2015

Live Report

June 11, 2015 11:00

Discussing the future of education in service and design, Furno and Galeano mention the future for young designers: “Smaller studios mean more opportunities for designers outside of the big agencies.

That’s a great opportunity for young talent.” They say that the current unemployment situation in Spain isn’t a reflection on young creatives within the country. “The lack of jobs has nothing to do with designers, who are not only producing quality work but also continue to work very, very hard.”

Discover more infographics insights from Furno and Galeano on our blog coverage

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Per Kristiansen

Master Trainer, LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®; Partner & Co-Founder, Trivium, Denmark

Lego brick play can help build businesses For almost 80 years Lego bricks have captivated the attention of children. Now those same iconic toys are being used in workshops to help companies and organisations understand complex design and operating challenges and make strategic business decisions.

Per Kristiansen, a facilitator of the company’s global initiative Lego® Serious Play ® (LSP) and a partner in the Danish consultancy firm Trivium, says that at first the idea of using Lego bricks to achieve business-orientated results can seem a little strange. “Reactions vary from scepticism, to how can you mix work with play, to being curious,” says Kristiansen, who was in Hong Kong to run an LSP workshop as part of the Knowledge of Design Week (KODW).

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As the name suggests, LSP involves Lego bricks, but Kristiansen – a pioneer of the concept – stresses that it is far more than simply playing with plastic bricks. “It is a structured process with a clear methodology that takes advantage of the close link between the hands and the brain,” he says. Kristiansen explains that LSP is a flexible business tool for communicating ideas, reviewing situations, creating new perspectives and uncovering new insights and ideas that provide unique solutions to challenging problems. It can also be used to evaluate the design of products and services and ways to connect with consumers. To maximise the benefits of LSP, Kristiansen suggests that enterprises should use the process on a real problem or challenge, as opposed to testing the idea on an unimportant project.

Everyone has a say In the manner of the Chinese proverb “Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I may remember.

Involve me and I will understand”, Kristiansen says building models to represent a situation or a particular issue increases an individual’s confidence and gives them the ability to tell a story far more easily than traditional brainstorming methods. “Often, people will have a ‘eureka’ moment when they will say ‘I didn’t realise I knew that’,” says Kristiansen, who points out that the Lego pieces work as a catalyst, and when used for building metaphors, trigger processes that often workshop participants were previously unaware of. “LSP can help people to think and discuss more creatively about ways to solve a particular issue and rethink strategies,” he says. In today’s fast-paced, multi-dimensional business world, it is vital that companies continually look for ways to develop innovative and winning strategies. “LSP is one of the tools

they can use to unlock the collective potential of an organisation instead of a few individuals,” says Kristiansen.

During workshop sessions, each person in a group of 8 to 10 is provided with an assortment of Lego pieces and uses them to build a model interpreting a series of questions or scenarios set by the facilitator. The role of the facilitator is to ensure that the scenarios are clearly understood and that each participant’s key idea is included in the completed model. Workshops always begin with individuals building several models independently, before participants move on to build models in pairs or larger groups. Once they have assembled a three-dimensional model for a particular scenario, each participant shares his or her model’s meaning and story with the rest of the team. “The process allows for all participants to be equally involved,” says Kristiansen. “Individuals use the process of building a three-dimensional model to

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communicate, to think and express ideas,” he adds. Kristiansen says LSP is also a proven way of fostering creative thinking through team-building exercises because the process encourages everyone to participate, including those who normally stay quiet during meetings.

Furthermore, according to Kristiansen, LSP eliminates the common workplace situation of the 20/80 meeting which can hinder the flow of ideas. These meetings happen when 20 per cent of the people attending the meeting use 80 per cent of the speaking time. “We have all been in meetings that have been dominated by a few people and where some people never contribute,” observes Kristiansen.

Created and developed by Johan Roos and Victor Bart, two professors from Switzerland’s Institute for Management Development, and Kjeld Kristiansen, Lego group founder, LSP is often described as “a passionate and practical

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process for building confidence, commitment and insight”. Per Kristiansen says LSP has taken off quickly in countries where companies are looking for growth and are not anchored in traditional ways of implementing business solutions. He says companies in eastern Europe, South Africa, South America and developing countries in Asia where markets and economies are evolving quickly are all keen to embrace LSP. Hands-on experience During a workshop held at the Knowledge of Design Week, Kristiansen’s participants from different organisations were asked to build a model to represent the type of society they would like to live in. They were also asked to create one representing a community that would provide the most favourable living conditions for the majority, while ignoring their own selfinterests.

“This is such a good way of thinking out and conveying ideas that would never be listened to during a meeting,’’ enthuses one participant.

“I was able to see things through the eyes of my teammates for the day and have them listen to my story,” she adds. Echoing the concept, Kristiansen says people rarely speak as clearly or in such a meaningful way in the workplace or during meetings as they do during a LSP workshop. “The tangible construction of models allows individuals to have conversations which flow and take into account other people’s perspectives,” he concludes.

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Tim Stock

Assistant Professor, Parsons The New School for Design; Co-Founder & Managing Director, scenarioDNA, USA

Design insight through culture mapping Big data – it’s a term we hear a lot, but not necessarily one we understand. Tim Stock, an expert in turning big data trends into brand insight, says it doesn’t matter. “We need to remove the term big data,” Stock explains. “That term just means: the world. Big data helps us see our lives, both on and offline.”

If big data is the world, we’re going to need a good map to get around. Stock is an assistant professor at Parsons The New School for Design and co-founder of the consultancy scenarioDNA, where he uses a methodology known as culture mapping to show clients like Nike and IKEA how to analyse data and predict trends better than ever before.

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“History is full of hidden stories,” Stock says, explaining that culture mapping removes bias and allows us to see the past with more accuracy and insight by showing us patterns we hadn’t seen before. “Culture mapping means understanding language, connections and relationships. It describes how we’re connecting as people in the past, present and future.”

That glimpse at detailed cultural networks is achieved through analysis of the vast amounts of data flowing across digitised media, communications and consumption.

All that data is offering designers and brands an unprecedented understanding of customer needs and future trends – especially important in a globalised world.

“On a global scale, culture mapping is vital,” Stock says. “With culture mapping we can connect local perspective to global data. The old way, in the 20th century, was to assume culture would spread in a kind of colonising way.

Now we can localise and respond to unique differences in every market.”

What’s more, culture mapping allows brands to see what’s happening in design and innovation around the world. “The really interesting markets are the emerging ones. Thanks to their growing middle classes, they are far more dynamic. This is where we will find the next great ideas.”

Stock emphasises that culture mapping is by no means just an analysis of what is popular. In fact, it is dissent and outright protest that often provide the most insight. “When we do culture mapping we’re not looking for obvious signifiers.

We’re looking for unexpected clues. Language

is a system – it migrates, it changes, you see dissent. That’s what’s influencing the future and that’s what we’re interested in.”

“Companies don’t make trends, people do.

That’s the trend that never changes,” Stock says, while also explaining how smart brands tap into trends to accelerate and improve on them, especially with the use of design thinking.

“Culture mapping is abstract, but design thinking pulls it all together. With design thinking it’s possible to create something, to turn the insight of culture mapping into a viable product.”

In a kitchen for example, some designers might think screened surfaces are the future – but culture mapping tells a different story. “I had a company back in the 90s who thought we would do our banking from our microwave,” Stock says. “But actually, kitchen design trends

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are more influenced by the fact that people are now using their kitchens to grow food rather than just store it.”

It is not about making a product just because the technology is available, Stock says. Designers need a broad understanding of how people live and what they need. “Before, designers would draw for a perfect world, but the true value of design isn’t felt until you’ve put it in the real world. That’s why designers need to understand the world – and that’s what culture mapping helps us do.”

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View Tim Stock Video Online

On Twitter Martina Olbertová @MartinaOlb

Amazingly insightful presentation by @timstock on Seeing the Future by Visualising #Culture slideshare.net/scenariodna/kodw-keynote … #semiotics #linguistics 12:45 AM - 11 Jun 2015

Live Report

June 10, 2015 09:30

‘’Retailers need to hack into popular culture,’’ says Tim Stock, Assistant Professor, Parsons The New School for Design; Co-Founder & Managing Director, Scenario DNA, USA. “You have to put consumers into the story,” he says adding that design is more than just the products; it needs empathy with the consumer and building experiences,’ he says while pointing out if companies want to remain sustainable themselves, they have to pay attention to sustainability. “What you thought you knew last year is soon history, it changes from month to month,” concludes Stock.

Read on to find out more about the session on visualising culture in our blog coverage d+|kodw 23

Stephen S.Y. Wong

Chief Executive Officer, Asia Miles Limited, Hong Kong

Putting the customer first worldwide “How do we put the customer at the centre of business?” asks Stephen S.Y. Wong, CEO of Asia Miles Limited and speaker at the KODW session “Towards Stakeholder Centricity: Our Journey So Far”.

Customers are important stakeholders in business and design, but Wong has an especially vested interest – he has more than seven million of them.

“We have 26 airline partners and over 500 non-airline partners around the world,” he says, describing the Asia Miles journey of growth and service. “We’ve moved from just air travel rewards to lifestyle rewards as well. We’ve also moved into customer-centrism.”

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Wong explains that collaboration has been a key component of Asia Miles’ drive to put the customer first. It began in 1999 when three airlines joined together under the Asia Miles programme to offer a seamless brand experience for all kinds of customers. “That was the beginning of Asian airline collaboration,” he says.

Today Asia Miles partners with British Airways, Qantas and many other airlines, engaging diverse stakeholders from across regions and nations while remaining true to the core identity of the Asia Miles brand.

“It is always difficult to strike the necessary balance between staying true to your core brand ethos while tailoring to a specific market,” Wong

explains. It’s a challenge – and an opportunity– we’ve heard about again and again at KODW 2015. In an increasingly globalised world, how do brands “glocalise” their design for local customers around the world?

“Our approach is customer-centric locally,” says Wong, expanding on the Asia Miles “glocalisation” mode. “That enables us to develop empathy with local stakeholders – then we are able to make local interpretations of global propositions.”

From local to global, Wong and his staff rely on design thinking to stay focused on what the customer needs. “Design thinking is an approach to innovation that naturally puts the customer in the centre,” says Wong. “Design thinking and customer-centrism are intertwined – each one inherently embodies the other.”

Design thinking is often defined as the practice

of using design to solve everyday problems – so it makes sense that identifying those problems naturally leads to a greater focus on identifying what the customer wants and providing it.

But that philosophy isn’t so simple to put into practice, according to Wong. “The methodology of design thinking is easy to learn but difficult to master,” he says.

To help employees utilise design thinking to its full potential, Asia Miles emphasises education and first-hand experience. “We run regular Design Thinking Workshops to introduce the philosophy and approach,” says Wong. “We also believe the best way to teach design thinking and customer-centricity to staff is to allow them to experience it within the context of their own work. Staff participate in problemsolving exercises facilitated by our customer experience and design team. These ‘internal coaches’ show staff how to use design thinking.”

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According to Wong, design thinking and customer-centrism must be built on a platform of quantitative research – as well as creativity.

“Good design thinking demands ethnographic research,” says Wong. “You need to go out and do the research, talk to people. We give our staff the time they need to do that key fieldwork.”

Online platforms also provide an excellent space for customer research and interaction.

Creativity – the other piece of the puzzle – is something Wong says isn’t always easy to teach. “Sometimes my team jokes about pretending to be creative. They see me coming, grab a Post-it note and act like they’re coming up with ideas!”

Wong says true creative exploration is essential because it can lead to innovation. Of course, innovation always carries an element of risk in

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business and design, but according to Wong, design thinking can abate that. “Design thinking encourages simple prototyping and testing, which mitigates the risk of launching potentially bold initiatives to the market,” Wong explains.

What’s more, the customer-centric method can inspire new and creative market offerings.

“Through close engagement with stakeholders, design thinking helps to define opportunities for innovation in products and experience,” he adds.

Finally, Wong has an important piece of advice for his staff and for all designers: “Be curious”.

Curiosity can be a bad word in Cantonese, explains Wong, “but for designers it’s important to always ask questions and to explore the purpose of what we see and experience”.

View Stephen S.Y. Wong Video Online

On Twitter Amber Matthews @ambermatthews

Stephen Wong on how @AsiaMiles internalise Stakeholder Centricity as part of the brand DNA. #kodw2015 #designthinking 4:24 PM - 11 Jun 2015

Live Report

June 11, 2015 14:00

Wong says there are advantages to taking calculated risk in design and innovation: “Sometimes we plan so much that by the time an idea is implemented it’s already out of date. Our principle is – think about the risk. If everything fails, what will happen? If the risk isn’t that big, go for it.”

What else did Stephen share ?

Find out more on our blog coverage

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Jerry Liu

Head of CreateHK

Bringing together top minds in design to brainstorm the future The Knowledge of Design Week (KODW) celebrated its tenth anniversary by once again providing an ideal platform for participants to meet, learn, and share a broad range of perspectives on the influences driving the latest global trends in design and innovation.

Organised by the non-profit Hong Kong Design Centre (HKDC) under the key theme of “Designing Service Futures”, attendees at the HKDC’s annual flagship event heard about different insights that can help Hong Kong’s service industries transform business challenges into competitive future services and build collaborative opportunities to enable the creation of new kinds of social and economic value.

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The weeklong event from June 8 to 12 featured a lively mix of informative conferences and handson workshops structured to help designers and representatives from large and small businesses explore ways in which design thinking can give them a competitive edge in the fight to deliver innovative products and experiences.

Guest speaker at the opening ceremony, Jerry Liu, head of CreateHK, set up under the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau, told the capacity audience that the government considers design to be an important driver of economic success. “KODW is conducive to enhancing the competitiveness, and sustaining the development, of Hong Kong’s design sector,” Liu says.

Edmund Lee

Executive Director of Hong Kong Design Centre

During his remarks at the opening ceremony, Dr Edmund Lee, HKDC executive director, noted that servicing no longer refers to a customerfacing frontline role, and that from finance to hospitality, marketing and IT, servicing is the buzzword. “Future services need executives and designers with heightened sensibility to design, culture and technology,” Lee says, adding that new knowledge, and a new mindset, are needed to create empathy and human values that foster customer engagement, profitability and well-being.

Introducing himself as an anthropologist, because he is fascinated with culture, Tim Stock, assistant professor at Parsons The New School for Design, in the US, offers the view that as digital plays a role in daily living and becomes part of the cultural processes, brands need to be aware of changing cultures to engage with consumers. “You have to put consumers into

the story,” says Stock, who is also co-founder and managing director of scenarioDNA. He was among more than 20 designers and industry and trend leaders sharing experiences and design challenges through recent projects which exercise design thinking and innovation in creating service experiences of the future.

Commenting on the advantages of taking calculated risk in design and innovation, Stephen Wong, CEO of Asia Miles Limtied, Hong Kong, advises: “Sometimes we plan so much that by the time an idea is implemented it’s already out of date. Our principle is: think about the risk. If everything fails, what will happen? If the risk isn’t that big, go for it,” Wong says.

Meanwhile, Simon Tye, Executive Director at research firm Ipsos Asia Pacific, of France, says data indicates consumers want to have brands that focus on them as individuals. “One of the

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fastest places this is happening in China, where the sense of self and individualism can be seen through bespoke shoes, eyeglass cases, to clothes,” Tye says.

As expanding urbanisation, accelerating technology, ageing populations and greater global connections revolutionise business in all sectors, Jason Cornelius, design director at FITCH, of Singapore, observed during his “Experience Signatures” session that in a world where there is more change every five years than there was in the past 50 years, “brands need to learn to adapt”.

Highlighting what it takes to translate a global brand for local markets, Naoyuki Yamamoto, director and vice-general manager, MUJI

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(Shanghai) Co., Ltd., offers the example of Hong Kong, his company’s centre of design and overseas business development, particularly for developing in the mainland. “We came to Hong Kong first and mainland visitors learned about MUJI in Hong Kong,” Yamamoto explains.

The strong theme resonating throughout the week was that designers should play to their strengths and strive to remain authentic.

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