Design infiltrates the boardroom

Many people at work frequently rattle off the maxim of content being more important that format. Whilst I have never said that content wasn't important, I always felt that one should also pay attention to the look and feel of documents and information - for me it was a sloppy cop out if you didn't do both (I hear many of my former Accenture analysts nodding ruefully after having learnt that lesson the hard way with me). Indeed I always thought that if you could present information concisely and professionally, then there was a good chance you had spent more time thinking through the content. I also remember blogging about Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind book (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Whole-New-Mind-Right-Brainers-Future/dp/1905736541/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1358169562&sr=8-1) where he said that design is one of the key things which will enable right brained people to rule the world. If only I was right brained...When I joined my current company I was extremely excited to find that they had a real user experience (UX) group - finally a way to present technology in a cool way (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience). The following article seems to suggest that this view is now moving into the mainstrean...http://redmonk.com/jgovernor/2013/01/07/on-the-importance-of-design-at-ibm-love-and-margins/#ixzz2HxMCDxcy. Some of my choice quotes from this article are "I am fond of saying that The Best Packager in any Tech Wave Wins and Wins Big. Great UX is a function of masterful packaging. Its not about building the best components but doing the best job of integrating them; so from a CEO perspective (if) you’d want to increase value without increasing investment – design is potentially a means to do just that: refactor the corporation; IBM certainly isn’t alone in recognizing the power of better design. Design is finally breaking into the boardroom; Samsung has underlined its emphasis on design as a differentiator by making former Creative Chief Choi Gee Sung its CEO last year; and, IBM now has a General Manager of Design, a role across all 400k employees and all business divisions". This feels right. Wouldn't it be great if I could help EMC harness this to make one of its three key messages in the market place work better...