Success doesn’t just happen – it happens by design. That was the message of the Third Annual Design & Business Conference, put on by The Center for Design & Business April 27 at the Rhode Island Convention Center. The center is a joint venture of Bryant College and the Rhode Island School of Design. It was established in 1997 to help bring the design and business communities together.
The conference enabled the center to showcase businesses – both local and national – that have become successful through the use of effective design. The keynote speakers included Ned Levine, president of Firebrand LLC, a marketing strategy consulting firm that helps companies develop powerful brands.
Firebrand clients include Fleet, Stanley, Dunkin’ Donuts and Johnson & Wales. Levine, a RISD graduate, first co-founded Rhode Gear, a bicycle accessories company. As president, he built it into a category leader with a distributor network of more than 2,000 stores and annual revenues exceeding $20 million. He co-founded Firebrand in 1992.
“The brand is a powerful management tool,” Levine said.
Deep brands, he said, become an invaluable component of a company — much more than a simple identification. The best, he said, show strength and commitment.
“Disney isn’t about movies and theme parks,” Levine said. “It is about entertainment and a value system. FedEx is about commitment.”
A company with a deep brand, he said, will find that it even helps as a recruitment tool.
“People want to work in organizations that know where they are going,” Levine said.
Levine said that a truly deep brand could define a category. When a stomach rumbles, most consumers think TUMS. Scrape a knee – think BAND-AID. Those in search of affordable airfare are sure to check with Southwest Airlines.
”A deep brand can define a category,” he said.
Other keynote speakers included Lloyd Ward, chief executive officer of the Maytag Corporation. Ward spoke of “Intelligent Innovation,” described as the union of the technologically feasible – from the engineer’s vantage point – with what is technologically desirable – from the consumer’s point of view. Both are necessary, said Ward, neither is sufficient alone.
Ward joined Maytag senior management in 1996, rising to chief executive officer in August 1999. He has received numerous honors, including being among Business Week’s “Top 25 Executives of 1998.”
Richard Saul Wurman, chairman and creative director at TED Conferences, Inc., who has designed and authored more than 65 books on information theory, as well as books on cartographic, medical, financial and sports information, addressed attendees during the morning session. He is also chief executive officer and creative director of a new publishing company called TOP that will develop both a print and a Web presence based on content about health, well being and personal finance.
The conference also featured a series of seminars, ranging from the use of technology in sailboat design to designing Web-based businesses.
There were several success stories told, including that of Delomba Designs of Cranston.
Dennis Delomba, who holds a Master of Fine Arts from RISD, discussed how his firm made strategic decisions to maximize its sales. While Delomba Designs is not necessarily a household name in Rhode Island, it has developed an international reputation. Delomba sells art works throughout the world.
“We’re pretty well known – everywhere but Rhode Island,” said Delomba.
Delomba’s advice for the next generation of artists and business people is to work hard, to acquire as much knowledge and skill as is humanely possible.
”Anticipate the competition that is going to be out there,” he said. “And take every assignment with a ferocious seriousness.”
And always, he said, display confidence.
”Great stories only happen to people who can tell them,” said Delomba.
The mission of the Center for Design & Business is to develop stronger and more profitable businesses by uniting design and business skills.
Among the organizations that have offered the center financial support are: The Providence Journal; Fleet Financial Group; the Rhode Island Human Resource Investment Council; The Samuel Slater Technology Fund; The Providence Plan; Citizens Bank; the former Bank Boston; and the Rhode Island Foundation.
