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Design/Value, The DMI International Singapore Conference began today in Singapore, on the theme of using design and design thinking to solve business objectives. Or rather, creating business value through design. Here's a familiar snippet from their site,

The role of design in business has shifted dramatically over the past few years, and is now becoming recognized as a key business asset that can add true value. With a panel of international experts, this conference will communicate how to create value through design, based on the triple bottom line: economic, social/cultural, and environmental value.

The conference was kicked off by Tonya Peck, Sr User Experience Manager with the Windows Mobile team at Microsoft who shared her experiences on managing two far flung teams - Beijing and Redmond - working on the same design projects together though separated by vast differences in culture, time and geography. This is a challenge that most of us face and I've summarized some key points from her presentation after the jump.

On design in Microsoft however, Peck tells us that a design centric culture is still at in its infancy at Microsoft but increasingly improving its influence and reach. Just last year, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer actually mentioned the word design in public. "They're not wholly sure what they're talking about yet but at least they've started to talk about it" and that's seen as an encouraging sign of hope in a company whose culture has traditionally been 'Type A', task oriented and goals driven. The flipside as Microsoft attempts to understand and integrate design thinking internally is that the attrition rate of designers is as high as 25% and retaining them becomes difficult. I got the feeling that the 'body' of this behemoth knows this even if the head hasn't figured it out yet and is working towards implementing incremental changes but changing the DNA of a successful organization is not an overnight task. Its easy to be cynical however about Microsoft, particularly since design and Macs go together like mom and apple pie but hearing about the company today tells me that its also a company whose very DNA implies that if it wants to change, it either will or die trying. There's something to be said for that kind of focus and drive.

On managing a far flung design team, Peck's presentation covered cross cultural communication, conditions for success and lessons learnt among other things. To summarize:

1. There's a world of difference in communication styles - in China, SMS is used for for both business and social communication with email only as a broad spectrum communication tool that's low profile. In the UK/EU, SMS is also used for social and business communication but here, email is used for CYA, while in the USA its wholly email based and an SMS might simply be used socially.

2. Conditions for success include being respectful of time zones, something that most multinationals tend to forget when setting up conference calls, especially the US based ones. Her suggestion included taking turns between the two time zones for selection of a convenient time, not always HQ time and being resilient when facing the challenges of communicating across time and space.

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3. Lessons learnt where the most important for design, particularly in a large corporation with its own internal corporate culture, was exploring the diversity of peoples rather than ignoring it. The balance between individual and the behemoth was a challenge for the design community who are accustomed to a far more individual, personal style.

More speakers in part two.