The
2013 Innovation By Design Conference kicked off this morning as Fast
Company Editor Robert Safian sat down with Nike President & CEO Mark
Parker and VP of Global Design John Hoke for a conversation about how
design propels Nike's $60 billion business forward. In a sweeping
discussion, Parker and Hoke revealed their maker backgrounds, talked
about overcoming resistance to change, shared an inside look at Parker's
creative left-brain/right-brain sketchbook, and more. Here are five
important takeaways about Nike's unique relationship with design that
every innovator should know.Both Parker and Hoke were makers and modders
before they were designers.Wholesale Outerwears cheap Outerwears While
running track at Penn State in the late '70s, Parker would hack his
running shoes to make them better, ripping apart the outsole and
modifying the insole in pursuit of the ultimate performance. Hoke, a
dyslexic, found self-confidence in drawing, and would cut his sneakers
in half to draw them and have a better understanding about their form.
He even came up with a concept similar to Nike's iconic Air line of
shoes when he was 12. Nike was so impressed that they sent him a letter
back, telling Hoke to hit them up for a job when he was old enough. With
that letter in his portfolio, that's just what he eventually did.Even
as a CEO, Parker still keeps a sketchbook. Parker's sketchbook,Buy Cheap Juicy Couture Purses-JC10023 however,
is different in that it keeps both hemispheres of his brain in balance:
Every left page is devoted to business brainstorming, while every right
page to designs and doodling of the elaborate shoes he might dream up.
To Parker, his sketchbook represents the importance of balancing design
against the needs of the business. "I think about balance a lot," Parker
says. "Most of us are out of balance, and that's OK, but you need to
keep your eye on the overall equilibrium to be successful."
Not
surprisingly, Nike tends to use sports metaphors to explain
achievement. To Parker, the success any company experiences is like a
track, and you can get very comfortable running on that track every
day--right up until the point that another runner blows by you.China Wheel Forks The
role of design, says Parker, is to show you where you are in relation
to the other runners. "Design helps a company think about where it is
and where it wants to be."It's important to be open to new ways of
innovating, even if they come at the cost of the proven way of doing
things.Wholesale Caps cheap Caps As
an example, Parker points to Nike's new Flyknit running shoes. For
centuries, shoes have been made by cutting apart material and then
sewing it back together; with the new line, Nike knits a shoe together,
stitch by stitch. Although Flyknit technology allows for Nike to
fine-tune the engineering and performance of a shoe--Hoke equates it to
the difference between painting something pixel by pixel, and cutting a
collage out of magazines--and eliminates 80% to 90% of the material
waste of shoemaking, there was initially resistance within the company
to putting the resources required to create this new way of shoemaking.
Now, Flyknit represents the future. "The role of design at a company is
to allow you to recreate yourself, to allow your company to find a new
way of success before the old way fails," says Parker.Hoke says Nike is
institutionally blessed with "supreme clarity" about its mission: to
merge performance and beauty in athletic products.Wholesale Pink cheap Pink Part
of what allows Nike to retain this clarity is by not branching out too
far, and instead partnering with other companies who might have
strengths that Nike can leverage. The Nike Fuelband and Nike+ activity
trackers are a examples of these kinds of partnerships. Realizing that
Nike would not be able to create the latest and greatest in sensor
technology on its own, it forged partnerships with mobile hardware and
software companies to bring that technology to its audience in a way
that is in keeping with Nike's mission.
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