Most people confuse a technical capability with technology and
that ultimately technology is a technical capability.
Plus the human outcome that it creates.
Hey everyone. My name is Henry Surya be Robin.
And you're listening to the tekhelet Juno, the show will be
bringing you the greatest technical leaders practitioners
and thought leaders in the industry to discuss about their
Journey ideas and practices that we all can learn and apply to
build a highly performing technical team and to make an
impact in your personal work. So let's dive into our Journal.
Hello, everyone, it's me. Again, Henry, Surah, one with
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For today's episode. I am extremely happy.
Share my conversation with Team. Kobe.
The man who was behind the legendary Apple Stores, which
was first designed in 2001, in New York.
I'm sure that many of, you know, and admire the concept and
design of the Apple stores with its simple.
Minimalistic glass box style that blurred the boundaries
between physical and digital space.
Having come up with such revolutionary and extraordinary
design, Tim and his company, a tink is also widely deemed as
the apples best kept secret, what?
King closely with Steve Jobs and have been continuously working
with Apple for the past two decades, Tim and his globally
recognized and award-winning strategic design firm.
Eight have also been at the Forefront of innovation creating
groundbreaking experiences. For some of the most beloved
Brands such as Virgin Atlantic Airways Nike Coke Citibank and
many others. Tim is also a frequent keynote
speaker and speaks on topics surrounding design innovation,
technology and business. Location for many
internationally known forums, he has been featured and recognized
for his work in prominent Publications, like Harvard
Business Review Bloomberg, The Economist the zine and Fast
Company. In this episode, Tim shared how
successful Brands built radical impact by creating
groundbreaking human experiences with experience design.
We started off with his journey founding 8 and how he ended up
working with Steve Jobs and coming up with the original.
Sign of the iconic Apple's Flagship stores, we then dive
deep into experience design, starting with how important it
is to understand the human outcomes to building the
strategy and tactics to create value with a unique Human
Experience. We then discuss about how Asia
is evolving in terms of experience design and how
important it is for Asia to escape from emulation trap.
We also touch on how covid has been dramatically changing the
world and the potential massive impact of AI and Ml that is yet
to be witness towards the end. Tim share insights about some
future trends that he's currently working on to
transform the industries and shape the future in human
connection from retail banking, real estate, telecommunication,
and even government, I hope that you will enjoy this great
episode. Please.
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tracks. Hey everyone, welcome to another
technique Journal show today. I'm so happy to meet one of the
person who I long, admired. We met randomly through some A
DC and their team. Kobe is the guest today.
He is well known for his company called eighth inning, and it's
actually deem as Apple's best kept secret.
So, if you guys don't know about, eighth-inning
eighth-inning with the close partner with apple who set up
the first Apple Stores, even the concept, the openings and things
like that team actually work with Steve Jobs closely for 12
years and team is also the expert in brand experience,
experience design, even architecture and things like
that. So, I'm looking forward really
to the composition today and hope that we can learn a lot of
things about experience design brand experience and how to
implement that in technology. So, welcome to the show.
Hey, thank you. It's great to be here.
Henry. So team in the first place.
Normally, I would ask my guests to share about the career
journey and maybe you can highlight some of the turning
points or major success that you have had in your career.
So far, sure. We'll just briefly, I founded
our company. Now, 30 years ago in San
Francisco. We're probably best known for
the work with apple. We were hired by Steve when he
came back to the company 1997 to work on product launches.
And probably best known for the Apple retail work, which you
mentioned. I wrote a white paper and gave
it to Steve to look at why Apple should do Flagship retail.
We got started on a whiteboard and worked with him.
Basically when he was healthy through those 12 years up until
his passing. We're in our 22nd or 23rd year
now and retainer with apple. I've kind of lost track.
But after she passed away, I moved to Singapore.
I live now in Singapore and permanent resident.
Here in Singapore. We've been growing our Studios.
We now have eight locations around the world and work with
some of the leading companies across really every different
sector of business. So if you can share maybe the
beginning, why would Steve choose a tink?
Do you have something before that?
So, we were working on the 1996 Olympics?
We designed the Pavilion for Swatch, and we were probably one
of the leading companies. Open.
He's at least in the Bay Area, working on exhibitions and
events. And we are originally asked to
launch the colored IMAX. And so he asked us to come and
make a proposal. He wanted something completely
different from the Apple Mac World.
Type of events. We took one look at the colored
IMAX and basically said the only thing we need to do is to put
them on simple forms. Basically create large light
boxes and put the products on light box and let light express
the quality of the product and he fell in love with the fact
that we made the product to here.
Not the booth and then we sort of scaled everything from there
to kind of large landscape scale fixtures in those days.
Almost everything was pretty small and fussy.
And so we just made everything five times larger than it had
normally been suddenly. It gave Apple about gravitas in
the booth that was distinctive and it started become the
language for the brand very quickly.
Can you tell us more about a tink?
What do you guys specialize in? And what other brands that
you're currently working with? Or maybe past experience past
successes? Sure, our Focus Is as you
mentioned, looking at branded experience.
So we do a lot of strategic work as well as design work.
For some of the leading companies.
We focus on designing Human Experience, which is looking at
each of those words. And the qualities that they
represent. Our Client List is pretty
extensive. We work with Nissan in the
automotive sector. We work with Jaguar, Land Rover.
We work with Tesla. We've worked with a number of
automobile companies in the retail sector, of course, with
apple. That's led to Tiffany and luxury
brands. As well as startups, we work a
lot now with banking. There's a lot of transformation
happening in banking. So, we're very actively involved
with some of the larger Banks. We've worked with Citibank and
Barclays and Ock Bank in Turkey, Bangkok Bangkok, in Thailand a
number of others who are engaged in today.
Anyway, I could go through each category, but I think each one
of them what we're doing is helping them work.
On the strategy of how their business is transforming and how
is technology an enabler to make the experience that people have
with their brand, a rich guy. Compelling and relevant to them,
right? So it's much like in immersive
experience in terms of brand, including the product strategy
probably, and how the customers would interact with them,
including the product, and maybe customer support and things like
that. Yeah.
So we look at experience, really defined in three Realms.
So, the first thing to recognize is everything is about a
relationship. So, if you look at the
relationship between customers and Brands, it's about alignment
of values. The things that brands do for
people. Is what makes them valuable and
so if people can understand what it is, you do it goes a long way
into developing that relationship and people
typically respond to a number of different touch points in order
to understand the values that accompany has.
So we call those experience Realms.
And that means the communications, that means the
environments, that means the behavior, which the
interpersonal, human behavior models that are created, and it
means the products and services. So really those four Realms are
the primary Touch points that are created between a brand and
their customers. So why is it important for a
company or a start-up? In fact to start focusing on
this thing? What do we call this area as
well? Maybe there's a name.
Well, yeah. I mean, we basically help Define
their experience and experience design.
We do something at the beginning of most projects, called an
experience master plan, which is outlining how all of these
different touchpoints make sense with one another.
So that what people feel is really consistent, deep
understanding of what the company is about.
If you Go Babel, you understand the stores, the people, the
products and services, the way they communicate.
All of that is expressed in a way that is accessible to
people, but it also conveys the values that the company stands
for. And if you align with those
values, you tend to engage with them.
That's why people talk about irrational, loyalty all the
time. This sort of, why do I always go
out and buy an iPhone? When there might be cheaper or
different products that I may want to buy, but when it goes
back to understanding those values and recognizing those
values or the things that are meaningful to you.
That you tend to be a bit more dedicated to that relationship
and that's really across any companies across any marriage,
you name it, it works across Human Relationships.
So what do you think that Apple did so?
Well that can create this irrational loyalty or maybe if
to me is more like Fanatics, you know, like apple friends.
Yeah. Well it goes back to really a
long Legacy of what Steve built during this first time with
apple and then ultimately, through see a second time, but I
think historically, there have been a lot of people who really
love Steve and there's been a number of People who really
hated Steve. He's sort of Drew this polarity
with people, but a big part of it was he understood technology
differently than almost to the way?
The majority of people I would say think of technology today.
Most people confuse a technical capability with technology and
that ultimately technology is a technical capability.
Plus the human outcome that it creates.
So we tend to get into the business of selling the next
technical capability that people come up with, you know, whether
we need a foldable phone or not. I don't know.
No, but if it serves an outcome, then it will have value.
And if it doesn't, it becomes a digestible kind of technical
capability and we move on to the next thing.
So, I think he tended to look at technology differently.
I think than most people. One of the things that he did
was he broke down the walls that used to be constructed around
technology as a sort of protected Zone that only those
who were focused on the engineering could deal with the
tack. He broke that down so that
everyone could have access to that technology.
And I think that was the big Thomas of apple and I think it's
historically been that as a company, but it's this notion
that technology should be Democratic.
It should be something for everyone that it shouldn't be in
the hands of a few. And I think that that's an
incredibly compelling position. And the people who believe in
that also tend to believe in the company.
And then from there, it's a question of trust.
Any great brand is about trust. If you say one thing and do
another you're in trouble, so you have to really make sure
what it is. You say you stand for is what
you believe because cuz once you do that, you have to be able to
fulfill against it. I think that's a build loyalty
with people over the years to a level.
That's probably surprised many people because we used to be on
a consumption. Society way of thinking about
the world. We bought the next car with the
next feature and benefit that we had tacked on to it.
But you know, we're starting to get smarter about the things we
consume smarter and more demanding about the brands that
we engage with those things than have to come through and be
communicated, so that people can just determine whether they want
to participate with you or not. Becomes the basis for that
relationship. Thanks for sharing that.
I mean, this is my first time, hearing technology should not be
just capability. The definition of Technology
itself is more the human outcome as well.
So I think that's a very good thing to share.
Thanks for that. I also realized that you have
this venture or maybe some part of your business, called X8
Ventures and you always keep using number eight.
Is there any particular reason or is it a Chinese?
You know, but station. Good punctuated.
Yes. When we started the company.
Be my business partner was from Taiwan.
And so we put my name and her name together and started the
company and it was probably the worst branding decision.
We could have made. No one could pronounce either
one of our names and so after the first year, we said, you
know, we better change this to something that people
understand. And so, she suggested the name
8, I like the kind of the Symmetry this sort of infinity
aspect of it. And I said, okay, let's try
that. We changed the name.
The next year. We are hard by Richard Branson
and Steve Jobs from their mom. I said, okay.
I'm not going to question the funk shui at all.
Working just fine. Right?
And I think also that led you to become the apples.
Best kept secret, right? Why was it Dimas secret?
I thought people would know that you guys worked with alcohol,
right? Well, yeah, so, you know,
working with companies like apple.
And again, this is many many years now, but particularly when
Steve was alive, we weren't allowed to talk about the work
we did at all. It's all meant to be contained
within our confidentiality agreements and things.
And as the company grew, and as we moved to different office,
and we started having different offices working in similar
sectors and Stuff then more and more people learned about what
we were doing. Many people who had left, Apple
went to another company and hired us to work for those
companies. And so, I think it was The
Economist or someone like that, who coined the phrase, apples
best kept secret, but we're probably really terrible at
public relations. We don't talk a whole lot, a
little more so with podcast and things like this, but we're just
not really heavy into. I think intelligent marketing.
I think we tend to work from word of mouth and through
long-term relationships, which we've had with companies around
the world. I think, if I can summarize, You
can probably show it through the results of work rather than the
marketing. So in terms of Apple Stores, I
know that you had run some conferences before and because
of that Steve found you guys, but how did you come up with
that Innovative idea to come up the flagship store, you know,
like the concept of the Apple Stores.
Yeah. Well Apple had traditionally
suffered. We're done work with Nike and
with the North Face and both of them were essentially oems who
sold their product through third-party channels the foot.
Walker's of the world sold, the majority of Nike shoes.
The North Face made Great Outdoor Equipment, but they
traditionally didn't have their own stores.
They would sell through dealers. Who carried many different
brands. And what was happening to them,
was they were always being counter sold.
They always had somebody in between the relationship between
their company and their customers.
And we saw that Apple was suffering, basically from the
same thing. If you were to go into in those
days, it was Fry's Electronics or CompUSA or any of those kind
of things you would have found the device.
Were controlling that relationship and many cases.
People would be driven in by Apple advertising and then
they'd be counter sold to a cheaper product with the
reseller had a higher margin on. So, we basically frame the
argument that Apple needed to control the relationship with
their customers. We had seen Nike doing that.
They were one of our clients previously.
We had seen the North Face doing that.
They were one of our clients previously in terms of
developing retail. So it was a natural extension of
the similar solution for the same problem that many companies
were experiencing and so Steve read the white.
Paper, we got a call one day from his assistant said, Steve
wants a capabilities presentation.
He'll be there in 30 minutes. He's in the car on the way over.
And so he came in and interviewed us and we talked
about what the potential was and got a call back the next day and
said, come down. Let's start working on Apple
retail. We start with a big whiteboard
and my business partner and I and Steve.
But we were the first people really hired to look at what
Apple retail would become and how did you come up with the
concept of the story self, you know, like quite minimalist and
sleek and fancy. That kind of Well, I think in
those days it was interesting time because I think Steve
wasn't an expert on retail. He was still sort of learning.
He had put Mickey Drexler who was formerly at the gap on the
board to talk about retail. When we started developing the
program. He would have board members come
in. Look at the space and make
comments coming from Mickey's background.
The approach was just a pair of shorts or t-shirts and you put
them close together. You have a m circulation and it
looks like a real full Buffet of product and Steve sort of hated
that what he wanted was. Space.
And he wanted it to feel different from other retail.
And I think this was one of the genius aspects that Steve always
did. He looked at what was
conventional wisdom of a category and looked at how to
differentiate himself from them and I think that was consistent
throughout his career if it's conventional wisdom.
That's what everybody's going to be doing.
And so, you're going to have a hard time to stand out from that
if conventional wisdom is to make everything packed tight
together. He should make it open in the
events and stuff that we had designed.
It was very open space. It was Scale.
It had a different spatial quality and I think ultimately
that type of experience he started to see more and more as
what would make apple a distinctive brand and Steve made
all the decisions. We made lots of proposals about
Solutions, but he was The Keeper of the brand, he understood the
qualities and values that Apple should stand for and then the
design had to figure out how to express those things.
How they are, any other biggest lessons or influence from Steve
that maybe shape you to what you're doing next, you know,
like In your next project. So life even well, there were
many things when we got to know him pretty well over 12 years
how he worked with people. He's notoriously talked about as
being a difficult person to work with, but I think it's more the
limitation of the people working with him than him.
He tended in those days to be, I think intellectually
ambidextrous if that's even a term but you know, somebody
would come to him with a logic and he would track through a
logic tree and understand. If there was a bust in that
logic tree or not. He's very used to looking at
software and programming and That and so he could figure out
if the logic was working or not. And let's assume that the logic
was working, then he would turn and look at it intuitively and
he would say, you know, this doesn't feel right or there's
something about it doesn't feel right.
If you're somebody who's used to doing really good at logic, you
struggle with feedback. That doesn't feel right and
likewise, if you're somebody who's really good at intuitive,
kind of understanding of what feels right.
And the logic is a bust, then you're going to have a problem
with him. He was notoriously short
tempered certainly, but he was just impatient.
You know, and I think that he was expecting everybody to look
at it, using both parts of the brain and being able to expect
that. He would have solutions that
should address both. And I think that's just marked
somebody who just has the intellectual processing power to
look at problems like that. It sounds really awesome.
You know, you have this so-called.
Oh, what do you call it? Intellectually ambidextrous
having the intellectual capability of logic and also
intuition, so I haven't even really met a person like that,
but maybe one day I would. So Tim you mentioned the term.
Experience design. I don't come from the design
background. Can you explain?
What is actually experience design?
Well, I guess it goes back to. How do you create value for us?
We have something called a value creation engine and this is a
structure in the way. We try to frame the problem so
that we can solve the problem but we start with human
outcomes. If you're any designer, the
value that you bring to the world is delivering something
that has some impact for people turns out.
That's also the way you create value.
Akley, so you create value for people, they will tend to
participate in your product and your brand, whatever it may be.
So the first thing we try to do is frame human outcomes.
What are the objectives that make sense for your brand?
The things that you stand for and then Define what are the
outcomes that you should be achieving for those people who
engage with your brand? The second part is then you form
the strategy and the strategy has to ladder back to those
outcomes. You can have all kinds of
strategies. There's a million strategy
companies out there looking at different ways of doing things
look, Things that other people have done.
But there's a lot of noise in that what you need to be doing,
is creating a strategy, the ladders back to the human
outcome. And then the next layer is the
tactic and the tactics that you use have to support the
strategy. So the tactics support the
strategy, the strategy supports the outcomes, I would say, 90%
of the companies who originally come to us.
We'll come to us with a tactical idea.
Some tactic in mind. I saw so-and-so.
Do this particular solution. I want to do that.
Ian and so we have to say, Okay, that's an interesting tactic.
Let's put it in the tactic box, but we don't know if it makes
any sense until we have a strategy and outcome definition.
And if it does, then the tactic could make perfect sense.
On the other hand. It could be a complete mistake
because it doesn't support your hierarchy.
And so we try to frame experience, design is then the
experience are the different touch points that convey that
strategy and deliver those outcomes.
It seems I guess like a lot of jargon, but it's you know, it's
fundamentally as All three step kind of framework, but if you
put the right pieces in the right place, it's organizing.
The thought is half the battle. And I think that it's been very
helpful for us to develop that approach and to continue to
practice and improve on that approach.
Based on experience, we've had in China experience.
We had in the Middle East experience in North America, and
Europe, and cetera. So it seems to be something that
does relate back to really human nature.
And ultimately, that's what we're dealing with here is how
to get people to behave in a way, with your brand, or with
your Company that's fulfilling and engaging so I can relate
when you mentioned, just now people came out with the tactic.
First is building a product considered a tactic in this
case. Well, in this case, I would say
that your product needs to ladder back to.
Does it deliver the outcomes that you hope to achieve.
If so your product which fundamentally is defined in the
strategy layer because you're saying that I need to deliver
this type of thing, this type of experienced for there to be
value and then the product tactic or actually the methods
that Used to deliver that strategy.
So you might say that what I need is a mobile phone.
But within that one of the tactics is that I need an app
based system to support my user experience to make my mobile
device valuable or vice versa these days.
It's as much about the software as it is a hardware.
So I think it's how you're framing the point of view and
that point of view has to go back to what is the value
creation structure that you're working with?
So I can see. I mean, like, terms of startups
these days, many of them. Probably would start with An
idea. OK.
I have this cool idea built a product but probably not
necessarily the value that the one that you're talking about.
And is it fair to say for those startups who have built a
product. Do you work with the founders to
come up with? I don't know, like the vision,
the value for the company and then probably some mission
statements before. You can actually come up with a
strategy and tactics and probably revamping what they
offered initially. Well, yeah, I mean whether you
revamp it or whether it needs to evolve in a particular way, a
lot of companies say, well you guys work with all these Big
companies, how do you work with small companies or startups and
smes and in fact, startups and smes are much easier than
working with the big guys. The big eyes, have lots of
Legacy problems. They have lots of political
infighting. There's all kinds of static that
you don't really encounter in smaller companies.
We have a lot of startups that we work with particularly in our
Venture group, where they come to us and say, we'd like you to
apply those same principles to our business and we don't have
any money to pay you. So we end up with a kind of
equity exchange engagement. But the point is we help them.
Them. Align those values in a way that
they can see a clear path to success.
If you look at how companies are creating value you need to have
that product idea of some concept of why you matter and we
really want to question that you need to express it through the
brand values and personality and things that you have.
But what a lot of people get stuck with let's say Steve's
personality. So he was this way or that way
as a character and I think that's what the mistake, what he
understood was really, what? Technology was.
And he applied both experience and skill to that.
In order to be successful. I think people tend to think
there's a shortcut to that, and I think experience and skill is
really two parts that are really no make up this relationship of
what makes a successful company. Because a lot of stars may have
a fantastic idea, but they lack some skills or some experience
in a particular decision that will either help them go forward
or go sideways. I think it's important to
understand that. Even with Steve, you took those
core things. It wasn't like Like some black
magic where he hypnotized everyone with his salesmanship.
He was a good salesman, but that's under estimating.
I think what really he brought to the table.
So I know this Probably sounds a little bit daunting to us, but
if you can summarize for those people who are new to this
concept, how should they start? Is there any framework or
strategy that they can do in order to come up with the
values? The strategy and align them in
such a way, that is towards a one, clear direct path.
Yeah. I mean, everyone's looking for a
formula. I think that Important is the
way ideas come to you. They may come in the shower.
They may come through a linear, logical process.
They're going to come to different people in different
ways. The important thing is that if
you have these elements, then how do you structure them?
So it gives you the most advantage to being a company.
That's delivering a product to a market.
Then you can start to put more structure around the process and
the process is just one part. So it's the process.
The experience you have in making the decisions to getting
from point A to point B, and it's The skill sets that you
have, that allow you to get there.
So I kept hearing a lot of people mentioning about design
thinking, is there any relation design, thinking experience,
designed design thinking has become a buzzword in our view.
It wasn't particularly a new thing.
It's what they teach every designer in school, but it's
just the start. And so you may have a design
thinking process, which is very helpful to have, you identify
ideas to help understand your customer the how to empathize
with the people that you're engaging with.
But you're not done. You've just begun.
People tend to think I do the design thinking process.
Therefore. I must be done.
I've done that. That's the magic bullet or the
Silver Bullet. I'm now ready to go, mint money.
But the reality is design, thinking is just the beginning
of a process that is starting to move you down a path of
leveraging, creativity and Innovation into your business.
There are many other aspects to that again, design thinking
probably falls under that process headline, whereas
experience and skill are other parts that you need to support.
With but again, it's only the beginning of a design process.
There's design thinking and then there's designed doing, there's
more to it than thinking about it, right there has to be that
skill applied to have the design actually create value these
days. It's not just about product.
It could also be services and also maybe just digital version
of product. Is there any difference on
treating each of them? Well, I think there are many
differences, but there are also many conditions that are
similar. If you were designing product at
Apple without a software component to it.
It probably would have never pushed the brand to what it was.
And so I tend to look at the hardware and software today as
having a relationship. You will have Pure Play hardware
and pure-play software. But I think that the strength is
to me in some hybrid of those two, even if you design an app,
it still has to have an interface on your mobile device
that works or it has to have an interface on your computer.
That works to me at ladders back to The Human Experience.
If my experience with it is You see, for me to understand if
it's engaging, if it makes my life better in some form,
whether its base level of convenience or at a higher level
of sort of providing fulfillment and Enlightenment, whatever.
Along that Spectrum, I think you still fundamentally have to
think of Human Experience. You have to think it's human
outcome. And if you achieve that, then it
actually makes all your other design decisions and your
business decisions easier because it gives you some
framework for making decisions, right?
I'm interested for things like Software driven product, like,
for example, you mentioned app. Maybe it's just website, things
like e-commerce, and things like that.
We can see there are a variety of them.
One is probably more need forces, the others but still
people are using them. In this case, does it mean that
the value itself is much much higher and people seem to
probably not differentiating much about the interface and
things like that. Is that fair to say?
Well, I think products are still differentiated by interphase
Google's greatest design in the history of the company is a
rectangle, too. Take a search engine and to put
whatever it is, you want into this box, type it and get an
answer. It was the most brilliant design
decision. I think that was made in the
company. And the reason was it allowed
everyone to participate. I'm old enough to remember all
the other search engines that existed before Google and they
were complex different factors and you could tweak it and turn
it this way and turn it that way.
And what you really wanted was just something that you could
write in the box and be happy with, get the answer you were
looking for, that goes back to understanding Human Nature.
Sure, and the adoption, an idea by itself is not Innovation.
It comes back to people have to adopt your idea for you to have
create value or to have meaning in terms of what you're doing.
And again, to me that's recognizing that the design
allows you to interface with whatever your product is today,
especially people are far more sophisticated far, more
demanding than they were when all this began.
So they're that level of sophistication.
If you're not offering something that recognizes those things, as
almost Baseline today in, Ecology, then I think you're
going to struggle and so it's important to go through that
process of developing. What are the aspects of your
offer to me? It's some key things one is,
what is it? What Makes You Different?
What makes it distinctive? And the other one is, how do I
connect with it on an emotional level?
I actually have to care about it today.
Whereas if it's a purely functional thing.
I don't necessarily have to care.
I don't have to care about my dog food or my toilet tissue or
whatever. It may be, right.
These are things that are very functional, kind of Baseline
things, but on the other hand, And if a brand makes me feel
something about it, I'm far more inclined to connect with it and
use it. And if they demonstrate that,
they're considering me in the equation of what they're
building. That's really where they start
to create value pretty insightful thinking.
I mean, like, I haven't really seen it that way, but the last
one year, it's all about covid. Definitely.
Is there anything difference in terms of experience design
because of the covid? I think there's a lot of things
that are against affected by covid.
In Asia. We had Stars before King around
but the year before 2020, no one was still talking about SARS.
So, on one hand, you can say, you know, it came and it went,
and we kind of forgot about it with covid.
Obviously. It's lasting longer, and it's
struggling to get things in hand.
But I think was happening through.
This is, there's some realizations about the old way
of doing things that are being fundamentally Challenge from our
businesses. Globally.
There were two aspects of this. The first aspect sort of work
from home, people realize that it's pretty ridiculous to spend
the Amount of time and money that we spend traveling from one
place to another that the whole effort of moving from one place
to another is quite expensive. And in some cases difficult.
I may live 10 kilometers from where I work.
There's this whole dynamic that exists between them.
And so on one hand people recognize that maybe we should
question some of our core systems even ladders back to
even Urban Design. We have to start planning work
space within our living space. Do we need to start designing
homes that have workspace as well in the same way we have
kitchen. In closet and living rooms and
things. But then the other side of the
coin is it's made us appreciate each other more and I seen this
as well in our business. There's a reason why countries
put the most extreme criminal elements of their society into
solitary confinement. It's an extreme form of
punishment and that we're social creatures.
If we are left without a way of interacting socially, some
people by their nature, are more comfortable with it than others,
but Extreme separation actually has.
I think Mental impact on people's psychology on their
happiness, is why we're attracted to having mates versus
living alone in a cave. And I think this idea that the
social infrastructure that we once had has been disrupted, but
it's not to say we still don't need that social infrastructure.
And it's a question of, how does that manifest?
How does it come back and create meaning in our lives?
I have a good friend who's very outward person.
He gets a lot of energy from speaking directly with people.
He's been suffering the most during this pandemic because
It's like, you took away oxygen from the way he lives.
There are so many factors that covid is kind of putting out
there for us to understand the amount that we were traveling.
I'm sure many people were traveling, particularly from
Singapore, you tend to travel a lot as a hub here, but the fact
that I've traveled, maybe once in a year is a first for me,
probably since college, so I think all of these things make
us question, what are our infrastructure systems?
There's a great book by Thomas Friedman and talks about thank
you for being late. I think it was actually speaking
at Google as well. The a of thank you for being
late. What's interesting about it is
he talks about we're at a point in time where the rate of change
is actually outpacing, our ability to recognize it and
adapt to it before the next change occurs.
And he thinks this is the first time in human history where
that's occurred. So, usually, when that happens,
we're at a point on exponential growth path of some form of
dramatic change, and I think part of it is just recognizing
that we're probably at that point as a culture as a society
as people. Sounds like an interesting book
if I can ask further. So when the change keeps on
increasing and outpacing us further and further, what do you
think would happen? Well, you can imagine it's going
to get to a point where you can see today.
A lot of people are sort of locking up your kind of Frozen,
because what they thought was, the norm yesterday is not the
norm today. And so that has a paralyzing
effect. It terrifies people.
We start having political unrest.
Obviously, the examples in the u.s.
Today, you start to make people afraid of the world.
There is When there's that much anxiety, when there's that much
lack of solutions. To the problem is, when more
fundamental changes start to occur.
I think that as a designer, it's kind of what we live for we're
designed to deal and adopt and adapt with changing conditions.
It's kind of a skill set that we're used to, but if you look
at change in your life, dramatic changes in every person's life
are the hardest things we ever go through loss of a loved one
divorce or whatever. It is moving to a new city,
having exposure to a new culture.
All of those things are extremely dramatic as an impact
in our lives. I think that we're at a point
where dealing with change again, Thomas Friedman talks about this
condition called Dynamic stability.
Our sense of stability is actually one of persistent
change and I think where we're heading is that we have to be
comfortable with everything being looser than it was.
We're no longer assembly line world that we once were apart
from covid. Obviously, which is one of the
biggest change I have in my life.
The other one, that is dimple. Really big change in potentially
many people's life is actually AI + ml artificial intelligence
and machine learning. So what do you think in terms of
how a I am L works in tandem with experience design.
Well, I'm really interested in a is something that I think is
fascinating Professor ring at Stanford talks about AI being
sort of like when we invented electricity, you know, when we
invented electricity, we didn't know that we would be doing Zoom
calls together. The idea that AI is full
potential is Still to be recognized, and we can start
with the easy obvious stuff. Right?
When we created electricity. The next thing was a light bulb,
but it wasn't the microprocessor.
And so, I think there is that notion that we're at the
beginning of a new capability, that's pretty phenomenal.
And if it's as impactful as electricity, as you says, then
the kinds of opportunities to create new things, ladders back
to that experience design, letters back to the ability to
Define human outcomes and deliver positive value.
I think, also, we tend to think of everything in a poll.
Ready, but there's been this situation where, you know, okay,
my job is going to be replaced by a robot, or at some point,
everything that I'm doing is going to be able to be done by
Automation and I think that to some degree.
There's certainly anxiety and Truth to that.
But on the other hand, it's a bit of a distraction.
The idea that it's you versus the machine means, you're not
looking at the real problem. The real problem is who owns the
machine and I think we should be far more concerned about who are
the people who possess the ability.
T to control this technology rather than everyone controlling
it. And I think that that's a real
fundamental realization that at some point people will wake up
to the fact that my privacy belongs to me.
It's worth some money to others. Therefore.
I need to be compensated to share, whatever it is that
you're interested to learn about me.
I think also, with respect to the engagement with AI, there's
incredible concern that people could have if it were to fall
into individuals or small groups of individual hands as opposed
to being allowed. To be open for everyone.
Not every company wants to hear that, I know.
But I think that the reality is, what would Steve have done?
Is he would have democratized technology?
So that day I became the most distributed potential
Improvement in society that we could possibly have.
So anyway, I have a number of different views on a I obviously
I think there's some fascinating new opportunities in that it's
an area that we're pursuing. Just did a podcast with guy
who's working with data analytics called slave to the
algo. We talked a lot.
About AI on that podcast. But anyway, I think it is a
fascinating area and certainly one that requires some real
thought and consideration. I'm intrigued.
By the way you mentioned, AI is like electricity.
So what are some of the things that AI am L has driven in
designed to change? Probably new ways of thinking,
how experience can be improved with a imli mean?
Maybe you can mention some of the past Trends, which AI
actually driven this kind of change.
Yeah, I guess it's still early. I mean, most a is been used.
Determine whether you could get a car loan or whether you get
paroled from prison or some of these kinds of very tactical
things, but I think it's becoming more and more
sophisticated. Certainly, the analytics are
starting to move more and more into predictive things.
I don't think it's a mystery that we can teach a piano to
play to have your Steinway. Play out, beautiful rendition of
a particular piece of music whether or not we can get the
machine learning or the technology to actually create
the next Mona Lisa, or not is a real question, right?
Because I think human beings are still incredibly.
Complex, not fully understood creatures and the idea that we
have memory and we have completely disassociated
knowledge. That.
We have a number of different factors.
Besides linear processing means that we have I think many more
Dimensions to explore in terms of relationship, between AI or
ml engagements have to offer. So team.
I know you mentioned earlier that you move to Singapore after
Steve Jobs passed away. So what brought you to Singapore
in the first place? Why you interested in this
country? Or maybe this region in
particular? Killer well, so my wife is from
Asia. So, I've been coming to Asia for
many, many years. My father passed away the year
before. Steve did our business had been
primarily in North America and Europe, and I believe really the
future is Asia. That's the next growth.
If you look at Singapore, within an eight-hour flight, we
probably have five point, five billion people out of the seven
point something on the planet and the majority of them are
under 30 years old. So when you look at a place, On
Earth that you can have the most impact.
I think this to me struck me as an incredible challenge.
Coming to Singapore. I was very impressed with
Singapore. I still am but the idea that it
virtually everything you encounter, whether you agree or
disagree with whatever the execution is.
Everything has been considered. There's very few things here.
That one hasn't looked at evaluated in some form and
determine that this is the best way forward.
Nobody's perfect. No place is perfect.
But a place that is trying to do that.
That is trying to consider the best outcome.
I look at Lee Kuan Yew not as the father of Singapore.
Of course. He's the father of Singapore,
but I don't look at him as a politician.
He was an extraordinary politician.
I look at him as a designer. Here's a guy who found the keys
to a successful Nation are rooted in diversity.
They're rooted in tolerance with others.
They're rooted in the fact that you had to plant 10,000 trees a
year in Singapore to bring it back to a sort of this Garden
State. The accountants would never
approve the ten thousand of years.
It was purely a financial decision.
It was me. Meant to be a system for living.
And I think that most countries would benefit look at covid and
how it's been handled in Singapore, most countries would
benefit from the kind of consideration is being given to
every aspect of life. Here.
The incentive is that the majority of the population
benefits from it as opposed to a few people benefit from it.
So, I think many of the qualities that I found appealing
in Singapore, were rooted in that.
The other part of it was coming from California coming from
Silicon Valley, the valley had sort of become a bit, like an Of
Wall Street, much of the innovators, many of the real
interesting. Thinkers.
It was basically falling into this system of how to raise
Capital create, leverage value, and exit the party while that's
part of the natural business. I think it's a bit cynical in
that. It's not really delivering the
fullest potential of creating value when I came to Singapore.
This was 10 years ago. Probably I would say it was very
young in the mindset of thinking about developing technology and
Innovation and entrepreneurs and things hisses.
All before, all the VCS came to town, there was a certain kind
of a youthful, innocence to the whole ecosystem around that and
I found that it reminded me a lot of early days in the valley.
And so I thought the next Steve Jobs is not going to be in
California. He's going to be somewhere else.
I think it'd be great to figure out who that is and help them
get to wherever they are. Very interesting thought indeed.
So what do you think is the promise within Asia in terms of
leading the next apple or maybe Nike the promise?
Well again, I guess it goes back to the It's an opportunity for
people here because of the basic demographic.
Psychographic conditions. There's been a growth out of
poverty to developing a greater and greater middle class, which
means you're going to have a lot of other products and services
in demand. These are all things that are at
a kind of macroeconomic level that are positive contributors.
You don't have quite the same aging population problems that
they have in the US or in Japan Etc from that perspective.
Those macro conditions are things that are going to make
the economic opportunities. He's pretty expansive and I
guess is the right word. There's gonna be many chances
for people here to start businesses grow businesses.
And it's kind of, I think at the Forefront of the potential that
can be realized here in Asia that to me.
It's better to be where we're going, then sort of dragging
along the tail. And I think the opportunities
here are also hopefully not just to emulate.
I think Asia has a problem of wanting to emulate too easily
and has been somewhat successful in emulating others, in other
places, but I Time to also step up a bit more that we have to
put more pressure on ourselves to move Beyond being like
something that we've seen before and start to really Define A New
Path forward that's in design. That's an engineering that's a
new product and Company Creations.
I think it's time for the next level of maturity.
And of course, there's been successes by emulating other
successes, but that's not really that important.
What's important is we gained a level of confidence and
excellence in what we're creating here in Asia that makes
it not just World class, but World defining.
Yeah, so I kind of agree. I mean, here in Asia, we tend to
simulate a lot, especially in the Valley from the big brands
in us and Europe and things like that.
What do you think we can do better in terms of expressing
the uniqueness of Asia. Is it about diversity?
Or is it about the demographics or language and things like
that? Which part do you think is the
most things potentially that we could explore further?
I think it's probably the thing that's been historically a
challenge in many places. How do you get diverse peoples
to come together? Work together, contribute
together, grow, and benefit together?
And I think it's maybe doing it not at the exclusion of others.
But in a more idealistic, kind of framework.
And I think that Asia is particularly well suited,
because if you look at Europe, there are many countries and
they all have very diverse traditions and cultures.
We have a similar thing here in Asia, but Singapore, has this
kind of Melting Pot in a way. It's a mini Melting Pot, kind of
approach, that can demonstrate that.
There's real value in having groups of people solve complex
problems, I think our problems in the world are much more
complicated today than they were 15 years ago. 20 years ago, 50
years ago. They keep getting more and more
complicated. It's kind of this notion that no
one is stronger than everyone. It takes a group of people with
some diverse insights to actually solve for a new
condition. Those new insights rather than
being a hindrance or, actually, the key to success coming from
California. I think it's a phenomenal place.
I love California. It is a Diverse place and it's
tried to demonstrate that. There's a benefit to diversity
of thinking, and diversity of culture and input.
And it turns out it's a pretty successful economy on its own.
I think that there is that next Generation.
If you were to take a region to adopt that kind of posture.
I think you would have phenomenal upside.
I think it just sort of sets the sensibilities for what are the
things that younger Generations are looking at and really how we
have to work together to a large degree, to solve some of these
problems that are outside of, everybody's Order borders are
pretty old-fashioned idea if you ask me, right, right.
Yeah, so pretty relatable problem that we have now.
So in terms of notable brands from Asia, which are some of the
Brand's you think are doing really, really well coming up
with their own identity and sense of uniqueness in terms of
design brand experience and things like that.
Yeah. I mean a lot of them may have
begun by emulating some other company that they admire.
So I think there are those in the technology world.
Who formulated apple and have sort of tried to come and be a
similar company. For Asia?
There are those who have emulated, Uber and tries to
deliver Transportation Solutions, Etc.
But they've also, then grown beyond that and I think that's
what's interesting. If you look at much of the
learnings that grab is doing, they're learning from WeChat.
They're learning from Alibaba. They're creating now some new
kind of Dynamics and new hybrid conditions.
I think. Xiaomi is doing a similar thing
where they may have pet used to look at Apple, but now they're
starting to Recognize that their business model is actually quite
unique and they're taking a pretty aggressive posture to go
into the most populated countries with the most diverse
range of electronic products. Not just handsets, not just
laptops, but everything from lighting to Mobility.
I happen to love Aesop, which is an Australian brand.
I don't know if we get to call Australia part of Asia, but I
guess I do Aesop is a company that has carved its own path in
a pretty complicated competitive environment and I think it has
come out with a unique As well as something where there's
strong emotional connections to it.
So I think there are a number of Brands like that.
But I do think that the emulation trap is one that
people have to sort of mature out of and start to have
confidence in creating their own new innovation.
Because, you know, it's all about risk rights.
What you perceive to have as a risk assessment, and if you
emulate somebody while it's less risky because I know it works
over there, on the other hand. It doesn't imply that you
actually have the confidence to do it on your own.
So I think it's also a maturing of the leadership and people who
are Taking those risks, you know, it's okay to take risk
today. The biggest risk you can do is
nothing. Now.
Steve would have listened to people telling him that the
Apple Stores were going to fail, he would have never built the
store if he would never would have built the store, the
company would never be a two trillion dollar company.
So the biggest risk is listening to the pundits and fearing to
take some chance. I think we need to take some
chances, try some things, and that active experimentation is
incredibly liberating when it comes down to it.
Yeah, so hopefully we can see more people like Steve Jobs, the
one that you term intellectually.
Hopefully we can see more and more people with more intuition
side of them, being expressed in this Asia rather than just
emulating from the West. So, team.
I know that you work a lot these days about some of the Futures.
Right? About banking about retail
Hospitality. Maybe can you share a little bit
on that area? Sure.
Yeah. Well, I mean, we're involved in
a lot of Industries business categories that are under
extreme pressure to transform banking is one of them, the
fintech progression that has been going on for a number of
years now, 10 or In years had been primarily focused on
fragments serving some part of banking and it's left the banks
to be pretty confident because they on the regulatory
relationship that all these guys who are sitting there, nibbling
at their fragments. They can kind of just adopt some
best practices and keep going, but we're seeing in a lot of our
work. Now Banks who are under really
serious threat to transform themselves either because of the
market they're in or because of the business conditions that
they find themselves and I think that working on this
relationship. Between digital and physical
elements is a space that is pretty fascinating.
We're working with the largest real estate development company
in Tokyo to help solve. What is the future of in retail?
That's a huge problem. Everybody thinks that it's
either e-commerce or bricks and mortar.
And in fact, it's a hybrid of that that I think is ultimately
going to be pretty interesting, but I think the challenges that
we face have a lot to do with the fact that the rate of change
in the technology is so fast, and a lot of people are kind of
Frozen as I mentioned earlier. Sure, they're sort of deer in
the headlights, kind of thing, you know, the cars coming.
We don't know whether to go left or right.
And so you hit by the car. This is a product of the times
that we're living in and so helping companies figure out
which way to go and how to frame the priorities for the
decision-making starts to get you back to answering those
fundamental questions that I was talking about earlier.
Would you mind sharing some of the latest projects that you
think might be interesting that my pop up in the near term in
terms of future of banking future of real estate?
Yeah. I mean, I think We're doing one
for one of the largest companies, when largest banks in
Thailand, we've been tasked to help them really transform the
industry. And we've taken a pretty bold
approach with that. It's pushing technology as well
as pushing the thinking behind human interaction.
So, I think we're stretching some boundaries there in Telco.
We work for a company called Globe Telecom.
We started working with them. They were 23 percent market
share. Now.
They're 56 percent market, share and the big change, there was
being a Telco and thinking that there are Essentially behaving,
like a utility company. They're basically selling the
pipes for selling you, the speeds and feeds, and we said,
you guys aren't a utility company.
You're an entertainment company, you're providing things that
people care about the care about the entertainment.
They care about the communication and care about
what comes through the pipes. They'll buy the pipes.
We don't have to sell the pipes, but let's focus on becoming an
entertainment company. And if you were an entertainment
company, how would that change your business?
And of course, you still need to build the bikes, you still need
to have the infrastructure, but that's not what people want to
buy. Nobody is thrilled to go.
Buy a pipe. They're very thrilled to go by
whatever is something from Disney, or something from NBA,
or whatever. It might be.
It means refocusing and sort of putting your business through a
different lens in order to find success.
It's that sort of thing. We're seeing in Hospitality now,
with impact on covid, many distressed properties.
Many people are looking at these properties going.
Okay. If this is a different
condition, I would we think about these properties and
starting to help developers reframe what they I'd do with
different locations. As I mentioned in banking, in
the Middle East. We were approached last year
since covid. We haven't been able to proceed
with it. But somebody asked me if we
would ever consider designing a government and I thought that
was a fascinating design problem.
If you were to take everything that you've learned about
successful governance of people and take what you think are the
things they're going to deliver the best outcomes, what might
that government look like? And it may not look like any of
the ones we've seen to date, but I thought it was a fascinating
design. Problem, of course, I've never
been asked anything like that before, but it was one of these
things that, you know, what would be probably the most
challenging Most Fascinating design problem, and it would be
to solve some of those kinds of problems that have the impact on
the most people, while it's pretty interesting.
It is ining, a government. I mean, is it a secretive
project or can you share yourself against your, which
government? But it's fascinating, and I
mean, they're very unique condition and we'll see what
happens. I don't know with covid.
We haven't had the opportunity to get started, but that could
be a very interesting. Arresting assignment.
That's one of the ones. I'm kind of looking forward to
cool. I'm looking forward to the
result obviously, so too. It's been a pleasant
conversation so far, you know, I learned a lot especially about
design about brand about how we can create value to humanity.
But unfortunately, because of the time we have to end.
But before we end the conversation, normally I would
ask my guests to share three technical leadership wisdom.
You can also Share three design leadership wisdom if you would
like, so, Tim, would you share some of your wisdom in your
career? So, Lessons Learned the first
one, which I mentioned, which is focus on human outcomes.
If you want to really create value that I think is primary,
the second one is recognized that 50% of all the potential
out there in the world is the future.
A lot of people. Look at research.
Look at the past. They ask people what they would
think about this particular product.
It really only understand it in the context of what they know,
but there's 50% of the rest of the space or the opportunity is
something that they don't know. Oh, and this do something that I
think Steve really was very good at anticipating the things that
people don't know they need yet. What are they?
And I think looking forward looking into that future space.
Don't worry about what is today. That let's stretch particularly
in a time of Rapid change. Don't be afraid to stretch.
And then the last one, I think we are all trained with a
strength whether it's the more right-brained or left-brained
kind of dominance. And it's important that whatever
we have as our strengths, that we also exercise the weaker side
as well as the Inside. So it's one thing to make the
strong side stronger, but I think you can tend to look at
particularly when it comes to different ways of thinking, it's
important to create balance and I think creating balance in your
thought, process in your approach.
There's nothing wrong with having both an analytical side
and an intuitive side. It's good to exercise both those
muscles right? Very insightful.
Wisdom indeed. So teeny people are interested
to find you online. Where can they find you?
Yeah, you can search my name Timco, BK, Obe my Email is k, 0b
e, at eight inc.com TIG HT inc.com.
Our website is aiding.com, so there should be some different
ways to track me down, right? So thank you so much for your
time. It's really a pleasure and
looking forward to see you're designing a government result.
Thanks Henry. Appreciate it.
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