Last April I had the opportunity to visit Kuala Lumpur. We had a room in the nicely positioned Traders Hotel (opposite the Petronas towers) with a fabulous swimming pool/ cocktail bar at the roof top.

It struck me that after arriving with the hotel limousine service; we didn't need to check in at the reception counter. Instead, a young friendly lady welcomed us at the front door and guided us directly to our room. In the room she checked our registration and gave all necessary information about the hotel and its environments.

This was such a nice experience: instead of guarding, and running behind, our – then – 1,5 year old baby-girl exploring the reception area (as children do), we were able to settle down a bit and the little one was able to freely test the bed (jump on it), bathroom and the marvelous views while we were doing the bit more serious stuff. This was such a relaxing way of arriving!

Would love to design with people from the hospitality business more of these wonderful experiences & services. After all “how can we take care that our visitors have a nice, homely experience while staying at us?” is probably the most interesting question for the hospitality business.

Summer holidays – at least mine – are over. Two weeks of fabulous camping in France came to a –rainy- end. Of course I have been looking around with my ‘service-design’ and ‘design-thinking’ glasses on. And I don’t know if the following service has been thought through by a designer, but it was clear that somebody with a user centered focus worked on the showers on one of the campsites.

The brief could have been:

How do we take care that a campsite guest can take a shower with a minimum of chance that his clothes become wet (as is usually the case)?

The implemented solution:

The shower was connected to the ceiling pointing to the wall in the back (!) in stead of 1) connected to the wall behind in the back (as clothes become wet easily) – pointing to the door or 2) on the ceiling pointing downwards (clothes become less wett, but still). It was the first time my clothes didn’t become wet at all!! I was happy as a child, appreciating that somebody had been thinking about a solution to the annoyance of having to put on wet clothes.

Last week at Amstelstation (Amsterdam) two Spanish tourists asked me where to buy a public transport card in Amsterdam. They stood in front one of the newly installed machines from which you can buy such cards. Helpful as always, I intended to navigate them through the menu to make sure that they would buy the right ticket.

Then, to my big surprise – and astonishment - the English menu and the given options were completely incomprehensible (for a non-native Dutch speaker).  I am not talking about the technology-based look and feel of the touch screen menu’s. Clearly these could have been designed much better. The used words where shockingly bad.

 What the f****k does a “GVB ride ticket mean”?  GVB would translate as Municipal Transport Company but who would know? Would the option “public transport ticket”, “Amsterdam Public Transport” or just “ticket” not been more sufficient?

 Other buttons are equally bad: I am curious to learn how many tourists and foreigners would know the meaning of an “Anonymous OV-Chipkaart’. I won’t summarize the political discussion behind registered and anonymous travelling. However the wording is again Dunglish (Dutch-English): OV-Chipkaart is not English, neither is Chipknip (as far as I can recall this is a branded name in the Netherlands) or Pin card (which should read Debit Card). Please guys of the design department.. this is bad, really bad.

This is dangerous territory for me to be in: my English is far from perfect (and some former teachers will be happy to show what I have written in the past). But I know about design thinking and if the “person-in-charge-of-the-words” would have taken a user into account, and would have shown some proto-types to native English speakers, these screens would at least be comprehensible.

If the “person-in-charge-of-the-words”, is interested in assigning me and some creative people to redevelop this touch screen: you can reach me at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Last March I went the Redesigning Business Conference organised by the British Design Council and the Economist. It was a really inspiring meeting (for reports) and I am still processing the materials in a lecture on design, innovation and beating the crisis. 

It was very interesting that several speakers referred to the Chinese sign of Crisis, being build by the two characters 'danger' and 'opportunity'. This shows really some true wisdom, in every crisis or bad situation, one should look at the potential opportunities it may give. 

When I did some additional research on internet (even though one of the lessons during the conference was that the answer is not on the internet) I came across a post by Victor H. Mair (professor of Chinese language and literature at the University of Pennsylvania) who states that this is not correct and explains quiet well how the combination of the two characters interact.

An article in the Adformatie (Dutch magazine on marketing) of March 25 referred to a method developed by the Red Dot institute about the value of design. Of course there are quiet a lot of different research institutes and magazines that try to find hard facts. Apparently the Red Dot institute - known for their design awards - investigated the stock price (between the years 2003 - 2009). of their award winners  and compared this to the Dow Jones Euro Index Stoxx 50. The winners (goes without saying that these are the design minded companies) not only do better in in good times, but according to the article the recession doesn't hit as hard either.

More can be red in Design Value - A strategy for business success by Peter Zec and Burkhard Jacob (2010).

On the same day I red this article, I spoke to Mrs. van Gemert (interior architect and the president of the interior architects foundation in the Netherlands) at a meeting in Pakhuis de Zwijger. She emphasized as well that if a shop is developed by an interior designer, the turnover of a company will be higher after the refurbishment. Will ask her to send me some facts & figures to support this statement.

I saw this postcard at a bar in Amsterdam last week. And my first thought was, indeed long live the recession. It goes without saying that the recession is a pain if you loose your job. However I red an article last week by Andrew Razeghi (Kellogg School of Management) on innovation through times of recession with some remarkable examples of companies that - in spite of a recession - have invested in innovation and design, and therefore became leaders in their field. Soon an update/ nice pics on this article. 

Long live the recession indeed: it creates many opportunities to innovate!

Image: Postcard from RTV Noord Holland on the local elections that are held today in the Netherlands.

Vorige week (23/2) las ik in het Financieel Dagblad het artikel; "Smaakmakers slepen duizendpoot DSM door crisis heen"

De transformatieslag naar een 'kennisconcern' kost tijd en vereist grote investeringen in innovatie. DSM heeft daartoe een bedrijfsonderdeel opgericht dat investeert in nieuwe technologieën, zowel binnen als buiten DSM. Om beleggers in dat innovatiegeweld een richtsnoer te geven, heeft het concern beloofd dat het euro 1 mrd extra omzet zal maken uit nieuwe producten in 2010. Die lat ligt hoog, maar nu al kan worden gezegd dat het bedrijf daarin is geslaagd.

1 mrd aan extra omzet... in tijden van crisis... indrukwekkend. Ben benieuwd wat de methoden van innoveren is. 

Next week I will attend the conference The Big Rethink, on how companies can shape the future through innovation and design. Looking forward to hear and meet the different speakers! Think Roberto Verganit, Paul Bennett, Joe Ferry and Richard Seymore.