I am a fan of Dilbert. His bizarre environment deals with things most in the business world can identify with — and always makes me smile. So when Dilbert's creator, Scott Adams, jumped out from behind his loony-bin office world to pen an article in this weekend's Wall Street Journal about how bad management motivates improvements, I was both amused and inspired. You HAVE to read this article. The last sentence of Adams' humorous rant makes his basic point, "Bad management is how imagination gets wings."
From my view, if I were a vehicle designer, I would say "BRAVO!" to Adams. If you think of the decades of trial and effort among auto designers to sketch, mold, visualize, get approval and, finally build the perfect vehicle for the masses (or niches), their motivation can be partly due to what...? Ugly vehicles before them. Ugly or ill-designed pieces of sheet metal that someone approved for reasons known only to those who have gone too far in the product development process to be able to turn back. (Note: notorious exception - Bob Lutz.)
The folks on the design side of the vehicle business ravenously seek to create a piece of art. And what better inspiration than the cases of poorly designed vehicles before them which somehow made it to market. "Who approved THIS?! I can do better. I can go to a car company who will LET me build what the market wants." Sound familiar? How many stories in the automotive industry have you heard of where OEMs are hiring away great designers or designers move to a competitor where their wings will spread more quickly?
Somewhere out there is a disgruntled person shaving clay in a design studio looking for rejection. Their next great motivator for their next masterpiece. Good for us.
Posted by Lonnie Miller, Vice President, Marketing & Industry Analysis, Polk (11.08.2010)
From my view, if I were a vehicle designer, I would say "BRAVO!" to Adams. If you think of the decades of trial and effort among auto designers to sketch, mold, visualize, get approval and, finally build the perfect vehicle for the masses (or niches), their motivation can be partly due to what...? Ugly vehicles before them. Ugly or ill-designed pieces of sheet metal that someone approved for reasons known only to those who have gone too far in the product development process to be able to turn back. (Note: notorious exception - Bob Lutz.)
The folks on the design side of the vehicle business ravenously seek to create a piece of art. And what better inspiration than the cases of poorly designed vehicles before them which somehow made it to market. "Who approved THIS?! I can do better. I can go to a car company who will LET me build what the market wants." Sound familiar? How many stories in the automotive industry have you heard of where OEMs are hiring away great designers or designers move to a competitor where their wings will spread more quickly?
Somewhere out there is a disgruntled person shaving clay in a design studio looking for rejection. Their next great motivator for their next masterpiece. Good for us.
Posted by Lonnie Miller, Vice President, Marketing & Industry Analysis, Polk (11.08.2010)
Powered by Compendium
Comments for Dilbert-Inspired Vehicle Design