A solid read that attempts to dissect the success of design centric companies like Apple and Ikea. The authors emphasize ‘design as a process not an event‘ and the (somewhat clunky) idea of  ‘customer supply chain management’. The case study on Motorola was interesting. “Motorola doesn’t have a design culture. It has an engineering culture that tries to be a design culture.” I think quite a few companies fall into this category.

The book itself is well designed. Hard backed with large imprinted text on the front, it catches your attention (it caught mine in an airport bookstore while I was trying to catch a flight home). Though the stiff binding makes it difficult to read without both hands.

Fresh off my interviews with Microsoft this book was exactly what I needed to pique my interest in design. It changed the way I look at software development.

A great way to build software is to start out by solving your own problems. You’ll be the target audience and you’ll know what’s important and what’s not. That gives you a great head start on delivering a breakout product.

The key here is understanding that you’re not alone. If you’re having this problem, it’s likely hundreds of thousands of others are in the same boat. There’s your market. Wasn’t that easy?

Well, I’ve worried some about, you know, why write books…why are we teaching people to write books when presidents and senators do not read them, and generals do not read them.
And it’s been the university experience that taught me that there is a very good reason, that you catch people before they become generals and presidents and so forth and you poison their minds with…humanity, and however you want to poison their minds, it’s presumably to encourage them to make a better world.
- Kurt Vonnegut