The Design Management Institute’s European Conference wrapped up last Friday in Madrid. The conference theme focused on how design and innovation are contributing to new business models that are driving the renewal of our global economy and was attended by over 150 business, marketing, and design leaders from around the globe. (Twitter hashtag #dmimadrid). On … Read more

In this digital age, companies have become accustomed to capturing real-time customer data from websites and apps with the click of a mouse or tap of a finger. Nearly every interaction that a customer has on these digital platforms is logged in the form of 1’s and 0’s, making it cheap and easy for a … Read more

Once upon a time, shopping was simple. People drove to the store, viewed the selection at hand, decided what they wanted, and bought. Now, however, shoppers are confronted with an amazing array of channels through which they can research, browse, and purchase, engaging with both brands they know and those they don’t in increasingly complex … Read more

The price wars are on. It’s a vicious battlefield out there. With sites like Amazon and Overstock and the proliferation of showrooming — where consumers browse a physical store before buying an item online, presumably because it’s cheaper — consumers can find the lowest price for anything on their shopping list easily and quickly. Retailers are scrambling — in … Read more

When people talk about creating a brand or managing a brand, they tend to focus on the most obvious parts. Creating a logo that reflects who they are. Crafting a tagline that best articulates their value proposition. Choosing the most visually pleasing typeface. These things do matter (truly, they do), but you’ll miss a key … Read more

Colin Shaw, CEO at Beyond Philosophy, recently wrote an article on LinkedIn questioning (doubting, even) the importance and power of journey mapping. “…most journey mapping sucks! Most journey mapping just looks at the rational side of a Customer Experience and that is less than half of a person’s human experience. If you wish to map … Read more

Today, many businesses struggle to find a balance between operational consistency and giving customers the personal experiences they crave.  Across all industries, companies are attempting to provide both of these qualities for their customers. There is no prewritten formula for success, but recently, a team from Continuum discovered glimmers of insights into this balance in … Read more

With this grindingly slow recovery from the Great Recession, many New Englanders and indeed many Americans have been keeping their cars on the road for near record durations – by many measures, on average 9 to 10 years before finding a replacement. So as this year’s Presidents Day New England car shopping extravaganzas arrive, many … Read more

Smartphones, facebook, Twitter, and other digital tools have enabled people to expect to have everything at their fingertips.  But as the digital world becomes flooded with unlimited options, consumers are looking for services that utilize these tools while elevating the experience as a whole.  Companies are raising the bar by creating services, which would have … Read more

Audi has a problem. It isn’t sales; the cars practically sell themselves. The brand, stalled in the mid-1990s, is now the fastest-growing luxury automaker in the U.S. While still behind such peers as Lexus, Mercedes, and BMW in total unit sales domestically, Audi is coming off 24 straight record months. The trouble is, few drivers come back. Only 46 percent … Read more

Strategist Daniel Sobol, left, and senior designer Peter Strutt, two of Continuum’s big cheeses, debate menu items for a new Bertucci’s spin-off. | Photos by Guido Vitti; Prop Styling: Kara Butterfield People often associate edgy consulting firms with makers of cool tech gear or maybe consumer products giants bent on rebranding. So we were curious to … Read more

From pillows and blankets to carry-on baggage, it seems like airlines are charging for absolutely everything these days. In an appearance on FOX News, Continuum’s own Craig LaRosa breaks down the latest trends in “unbundling” that has led to a proliferation of airline fees. Drawing from his experience with some of the world’s largest travel … Read more

Over the years I have been asked to explain the value of personas. After all, they come in all shapes and sizes and can be expensive to create when you set out to do it right. When I say right, I mean supported by contextual research into the circumstances of the target audience followed by … Read more

Later this month, Continuum will be participating in the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market, the largest winter lifestyle and sports industry gathering in the world. With over 20,000 retailers at the conference, Craig LaRosa, Principal and Service Designer at Continuum, will be speaking about topics that hit very close to home for them: how to battle … Read more

Selfridges, the “Best Department Store in the World” according to last year’s Global Department Stores Summit in Paris, is a chain of department stores in Britain with over 100 years of history. This month, it’s inaugurating a new concept: “No-Noise” shopping, starting from January 7th through February. Along with the introduction of a number of … Read more

The Continuum service design team ended our year with a series of short Service Safaris where we set out in small teams, pith helmets in hand, to immerse ourselves as customers in a range of what we perceived to be interesting service businesses. Apart from treating ourselves at the end of the year, the Safaris … Read more

In an effort to further explore the difficulty retailers face when designing both digital and brick and mortar shopping experiences, Continuum’s 2012 Service Design study uncovered some surprising sentiments around consumer preferences when it comes to shopping both online and in-stores. The number one reason people choose to shop either in-person or online: convenience and … Read more

It wasn’t the holiday cheer Amazon fans were looking for. The online retail giant announced last week it would begin collecting online sales tax from Massachusetts residents, beginning next November. While this will help boost tax collections for the state, it could mean big changes for retailers. Craig LaRosa of the Global Design Consultancy Continuum, joined NECN … Read more

By the time you finish reading this, a perfectly cooked, brilliantly topped brick-oven pizza will have cooked in the blazing hot Oven One, a staple of the newly opened 2ovens restaurant in Shrewsbury, MA. Continuum worked closely with the restaurant’s proprietors to craft the brand proposition, service experience, food concept, visual identity, and environmental design … Read more

According to the U.S. Census, in the last two decades, the number of FDIC-insured financial institutions in the U.S. has been cut in half, from 15,369 to 7,666. And since the 2008 financial crash, banks have seen their loan and mortgage business and overall margins further decline, creating pressure to close more branches. Customers have had … Read more

Don’t be fooled by the flashing marquee lights–the box office is hurting. Last year, movie attendance sunk to its lowest level since 1995. Overall ticket sales have been declining by 2% on average every year since 2002. This month, the box office recorded its worst weekend in years, with the top 12 titles earning $51.9 … Read more

Big companies often looks with envy at how start-ups pull off innovative coups—identifying high-potential opportunities and converting them into compelling new products and services. “Why can’t we do that?” its executives ask. “Aren’t we the ones with the experience, resources, and management know-how to pull off big ideas?” But the tools that make a big … Read more

Last year, the Chief Innovation Officer of a client company asked me why working with us is a better investment than a start-up, in helping them identify new growth opportunities. It’s a great question. Why are we a better bet than investing in a start-up? M&A is not our business, but we do understand what … Read more

By: Kara Miller, WGBH “There have been times in American history when lifestyles changed so dramatically that the very products that shape our lives had to be completely rethought. One of those times was the mid 1940s, when millions of returning veterans wanted houses – and builders like Bill Levitt began to understand the power … Read more

Creating compelling experiences at retail is harder than ever before. In such a saturated marketplace, it is difficult to differentiate. So how can retailers leverage the newest technologies to capture people’s attention? Continuum takes a closer look at using dynamic media as an effective way to connect with customers.Read more

NPR’s Marketplace recently had a segment about the beehive on the roof of New York City’s famed Waldorf Astoria hotel. Sounds kind of random? Well it turns out that in the current times where customers chase hotel room deals like hamburgers off the $1 menu, hotels are beginning to feel a lot more similar than … Read more

A consumer walks into a store, tries on a pair of running shoes, and then hops online to buy them from someone else—10% to 15% cheaper. It’s called “showrooming” and it has a lot of businesses scrambling. Shoppers today are carrying around a multitude of competitors in their pocket.  If they find something they like, … Read more

I remember a 2004 Fast Company article (“Every Move You Make,” by Linda Tischler) that discussed how marketing agencies were employing anthropologists and ethnographers to better understand what consumers do, rather than what they say they do. The story was told through the experience of Ogilvy & Mather’s ethnography group and their lead corporate ethnographer … Read more

Consumers today have unlimited access to retailers. Thanks to smartphones, they can walk into a store, experience the product or service, but then actually make the transaction online–where products might be 10% to 15% cheaper–with the added bonus of having it delivered to their doorstep. This is called “showrooming”–and it’s causing a lot of businesses … Read more

In a recent blog in response to the excellent 2010 book entitled “Service Design Thinking” (Stickdorn/Schneider 2010) I noted that this was the first qualifier of design thinking, as least as I had witnessed at the time, that spoke to how design thinking might be applied to a specific design practice. I also noted that the sky was the limit as to how design practitioners could take design thinking tools and methods and apply them to their own area of practice. “Service Design Thinking” does an excellent job of just this mash-up. The key elements of an integrated service design and design thinking approach to the creation of new business service/product interactions can be outlined as follows:

• Empathy with customers
• Ideation / Co-creation
• Service Journey over time and space/place
• Service/Experience mapping
• Prototyping
• Concept validation / Co-creation
• Objective requirements
• Prioritization and road-mapping
There is a growing recognition amongst financial institutions around the world that differentiating the banking experience is a way to attract new and retain current customers. Many of these initiatives are the product of partnerships with leading design innovation agencies such as Ideo, Continuum, and others. Because of this, the new initiatives are benefitting from design thinking approaches that practice the best practices outlined above.Read more

Every time you ship a package, withdraw cash from the ATM, or call your health insurance provider, you’re experiencing a service system. We’re a service-focused economy: In 2010, Americans spent more than $7 trillion on services–amounting to 67% of total consumer spending. Service design–choreographing the dynamic interactions between companies and people–cannot only transform a company’s image; it can improve people’s lives. But successful service design is complex and complicated, and many companies get it wrong. At Continuum, we have four rules for designing services with purpose.

1. SET THE RIGHT EXPECTATIONS
Many companies make the mistake of overselling their service–a strategy that backfires when customers are inevitably disappointed. (And a disappointed customer is not a return customer.) United Airlines’s recent animated commercial of a father flying aloft on a bird paints a fairytale fantasy of modern-day air travel. Southwest Airlines has a better approach. The discount king has an ad in which a dorky business traveler at a small-town airport can’t contain his glee at having been upgraded to Business Select. (Reward points! Free drinks!) Guess which airline consistently scores higher on consumer satisfaction surveys? Southwest. Because the airline sets its expectations low, it can and does over-deliver.Read more

“Life used to be simpler,” my mom says while making her fourth attempt to update her Windows firmware in order to install Office 2011 on top of Office 2008. I don’t correct her, but I don’t believe her either. As far as I can tell, life has always been complicated; and certainly as long as … Read more

Recent turmoil in the financial services industry has lead many consumers to question how they manage their financial lives, both now and for the long-term. The global recession has compounded the sense of unease consumers feel about entrusting financial services providers with managing and safeguarding the financial fruit of their labors. Trust is at an all-time low.
Trends emerging show consumers are looking for alternative ways to manage their finances, whether through new tools or completely new institutions. In addition, consumers are practicing a frugality that is inspired by a fear of loss of long-term hard-earned assets, leading to a more risk-averse society than has existed for the last decade or so. A recent article in the Boston Globe (10/16/2011 “Gen Y asks: ‘Why should I have faith in the stock market’”) reveals that Generation Y, those born between 1981 and 1995, are displaying a conservative investment profile more akin to someone in their late 50’s considering retirement than someone in their youth with more than 30 years of investing to level out their buy and hold approach.Read more

Frontline employees–the people behind the counter, on the phone, in the cloud, and walking the floor–possess a large measure of control over the customer experience. Their actions determine whether a customer becomes a brand evangelist or detractor. Understanding how best to motivate these employees–and designing processes and strategies to ensure that they’re empowered, energized, and … Read more

Three years after the financial meltdown, housing prices are still in free fall while foreclosures keep rising. Many American homeowners, burned by the home-buying system, are defaulting on their mortgages, taking the hit to their credit rating and walking away from homes that may have lost more than two-thirds of their value.

So, how did we get here? No matter where you put the blame–whether it’s on the banks, mortgage brokers, or buyers–part of the problem is the whole home-buying process. It’s complex, confusing, and emotionally overwhelming.

But buying a home doesn’t have to be so hard. Last December, the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and its new head, Elizabeth Warren, decided they would try to make things easier.Read more

This article was written by Monica Bueno and Tiffany Chu. The cloud might be a little frightening: it’s invisible, all consuming and, scariest of all, it’s telling you that your business needs to change. There are nuances of Service Design within the digital realm that might not be discernible to the unaided eye. Through years … Read more

This article was written by Monica Bueno and Jonathan Podolsky. For years, the innovation and design community has used tools for visualising and evaluating physical products. An arsenal of techniques and technologies have been developed and refined, including advanced 3D visualisation tools and a slew of rapid prototyping equipment. In contrast, we’ve only just begun … Read more