James L Adams—People and Products

Interesting use of CourseWork software in Stanford Good Products Bad Products course (ME 314)

The Good Products, Bad Products course at Stanford (ME 314) uses the Stanford course management system CourseWork, now an open source release shared with other schools.  Stanford is now involved in the Sakai project, so that CourseWork 3.0 will no longer be available, but comparable software will be through the Sakai project.  For information on the Sakai project, click here.

In brief, CourseWork allows easy communication over the internet between students and instructors.  One feature of it is a discussion forum, in which student work can be submitted to the instructor and comments/grades/etc. from the instructor submitted to the student.  The work can also be made available to the other students.

David Beach, who now teaches the course, brings in many guest speakers who are involved in the design, development, and marketing of high quality products.  He also assigns my Good Products, Bad Products book, and has the students do the thought problems at the end of the chapters and submit written answers. There is some discussion of the book in class, but also many other activities that require class time.  Also the class is large (100 + students) and many of the students are off-campus taking the course over the internet.  Discussion is extremely helpful in attempting to better understand product quality, so how can he assure feedback to the students and promote discussion outside of class?

The on-campus students are divided into groups of four, and at the end of the quarter each group is asked to give a presentation centered around a company doing a particularly good job of achieving one of the components of high quality contained in my book.  Dave is a fanatic on presentation quality that includes efficient use of media, so he is able to limit each presentation to ten minutes, plus five minutes for questions. The presentations are typically very good indeed.

This year the groups were asked to review the individual student submissions to the thought problems in the book that pertain to the category of their final presentation, give those students feedback on  CourseWork  (open to all), and select the ones they believed to be the best.  This year there were four groups giving presentations on each chapter, so the results of this "pick the best ones" exercise provided  potential additional information for assigning final grades in the course. The groups are thinking about their presentation, so they have a certain amount of "expertise" on the topic, and the individual student submissions help the groups  think about their final presentation as well as resulting in more feedback.   In addition, there are general comments by the students on each other’s submissions.  All of  this added to more discussion outside of class.

This was the first time this approach to encouraging outside discussion and evaluation between the students was used , and I thought it worked quite well, and with a few changes will work even better in the future.    There will supposedly be new “CourseWork” type software available next year that will be similar, but improved. I am hoping for the similarity, because one problem I find with much computer software is that as soon as one learns to use it well, it changes, often by adding new features that add to its complexity and make it more difficult for new users.

After-thoughts on the Stanford Course ME 314 Good Products, Bad Products

 

Due to my time constraints, there were no final student presentations in my post on the chapter in the Good Prodcts, Bad Products course entitled Symbolism and Cultural Values (Chapter 8).  The students did submit individual assignments, which first of all asked them to choose a subculture of which they felt a part and then to choose the product that was most symbolic of this culture, choose the product that was most symbolic of them, and finally choose a product that was not at all symbolic of them.  As I have been doing, I will link you to the student submissions from the 2010 class.  One of the summary pages lists the responses to the first two “choices” above, and is here.  The other lists the responses to the third and fourth “choices” above and is here.  The numbers correlate between the two pages, if you want to follow individuals.  I did not include responses to the question as to whether the product most symbolic was symbolic of them. They were to some extent, but most of of the students, to their credit, resisted the stereotyping of the product.

I am sorry that the time did not allow more complete coverage of this topic, because it is my feeling that as population densities, and population in general, rise, there is more and more desire, and possibly need, for people to belong to a culture (or sub culture) that they respect and admire and that shares their values.  Industrial products play a role in this.  Think of the Prius, the Parker shotgun, the slow cooker, the Harley Davidson, the  private jet, the home steam espresso/capuccino maker, the recliner, the gas grill, the Ford F-150 pickup, and the iPhone.  The traditional direction of industry, has been to try to attract an increasing segment of the population with a product.  This results eventually in a situation which we now face with midsize four-door automobiles or kitchen appliances – they vary only slightly in details from one manufacturer to another throughout the world, or at least the “developed” world.

I am a fan of the traditional trucks in India, which have typically been sold without cabs, allowing the owners huge variation in applying and furnishing the cab—a lower income version of the days in which one would have a custom cab built for one’s Rolls Royce chassis and drive train. I suspect this will not last, and within a few years, Indian trucks will start looking the same as those in the so-called developed world.

 In my high school and college days, there was a wide variation in personal possessions, partly because there was not much money around.  As an example, when I was in high school cars were old and often repaired, and we would modify them partly because we wanted to put a personal mark on our possessions, and in the process became even more closely associated with our cult.  Extreme lowering (the forbears of low-riders), extreme funk, extreme (in those days) speed, etc.

The sub-cultures in my high school were both racial and reflections of the income level and urbanity of the junior  high schools that fed our high schools.  Because of the time and the age group, there was considerable animosity between the sub-cultures, extending to fights, social snubbing, and other painful behavior.  But it was exciting and educational, and we all felt good about being members of our “car” club, even the Sultans of Rialto.

Of course there were other more significant sub-cultural divides—Caltech students vs. Pasadena City College students (source of girls, to the annoyance of the male students there), nerds vs. fuzzies, small school vs. big school, etc.  I never will forget the thrill and anxiety experienced when I escorted a U.S.C sorority girl to a formal sorority/fraternity dance at U.S.C., and won the presigious raffle prize of the night— a set of Tommy Trojan cufflinks.  Fortunately my date did not rat on me, so I returned to Caltech unharmed.

Different cultures and sub cultures cause life to be rich.  Stanford is much more interesting now that it has become more global and offers much more cultural diversity.  California is wonderful because one does not need to travel far to experience different cultures.  A casual trip with local stops from Stanford University into the Central Valley, visiting say Biola and Fresno, and returning by way of Monterey and San Francisco, making sure that the final lap includes Hunter’s Point and East Palo Alto, gives one a fascinating experience with many cultures without the need for a trans ocean flight. Long live cultural diversity.  May industrial products encourage it!

Product Quality and Longevity

One thing I noticed in the ME314 class I have been reporting on, was a focus on new products.  This is in fact typical of our society.  This completely overlooks the value of products that have served the owner well for a long time.  Sometimes, they almost become a part of the owner.  This is a photo of me in my Carhartt jacket, which I bought some time ago—at least ten years.  My son the farmer discovered Carhartt work clothes and suggested that I buy one.  It was quite expensive for work clothes at the time, but I bought it, and plan perhaps to be buried in it.  As you can see, it has seen some hard service, and it is stained and faded.  But never has the zipper failed, it has withstand many brutal slashes and snags, it doesn’t mind water, oil, mud, or most other materials, and it keeps me properly warm and snuggy when the California climate turns treacherously cold. It is part of me, and I don’t want a new one, a cleaner one, or one with  more bells and whistles. To me it is priceless.  And oddly enough, Goodwill Industries would probably  not accept it.

I told this to Marian,my wife, and she countered with a younger, but similarly important garment that has become part of her in only a year or two.  Happily, I noticed it in a student submission on good products and told her about it.  It is a woman’s vest made by Scottevest. Like my Carhartt coat, it was fairly expensive for a vest, but she looks swell in it, and can you believe, it has 24 pockets inside.  Here she is looking for something in it.  She originally bought it to travel, which it was originally designed for, and it is exceptional.  It doesn’t totally replace a suitcase, but all the gadgets, potions, and entertainments she takes with her on trips fit in the pockets, and from the outside, she looks slick as a snake. 

Of course, she now wears it almost constantly no matter what she is doing, and probably has forgotten where such things as purses and fannypacks are.  She loves it far above its original price, and although she says it is beginning to look a bit threadbare, I’ll bet she wears it for many years rather than buy a new one.

Behavioral economists refer to rigorous experiments that show the additional value we place on products that we have owned for long periods of time and have come to love.  You have probably experienced this, if you have ever tried to sell something of this sort and been astonished at how little people will pay for it.  I now keep everything I love that I can.  A storage problem, but would you throw away one of your old pets?

Of course, this isn’t the optimal economic response for  Carhartt and Scottevest.  They now have a broad line of products (men and women) and are constantly coming out with “improved” models, which they might like Marian and me to buy.  But they keep their prices high and their profits reasonable. and as long as they keep their quality  high, everyone should be happy.  

Final post on Stanford ME314 Good Products, Bad Products course

Since my last post, the final two sets of  “good product, bad product” examples were submitted and student groups wrote summaries and gave presentations on them. The first of these was aesthetics, elegance and sophistication, and the second had to do with products that were consistent with a finite earth.  For the first, students were asked to choose a product that they thought was simply beautiful and one that they thought was unbelievably repulsive.  Also to choose a third product that they believed to be extremely elegant and sophisticated.  They were  then asked to justify their choices, and conjecture upon how they could be improved, and what the improvement might do to the cost of the product.  A student paper summarizing the products is here.  Examples of beautiful products from the 2011 course, are shown here;.  Repulsive ones are here.  Ones showing elegance and sophistication are here.

The student groups chose Cartagas (two companies of this name produce “Cuban” cigars, but only one of them is in Cuba), Tesla Motors, Ziiro watches, and Victoria’s Secret.

For the second, the students were asked to think of products that that harmed the earth's environment, and changes could lessen their negative impact .  A student summary of the responses is shown here.  And examples from the 2011 course are shown here. I missed the final student presentations, as I was out of town.  However, Professor Beach and Julie Shryne, the teaching assistant in the course, had many positive things to say about them.  And judging from the quality of the students and the preceeding presentations, I am sorry I missed them.

Speaking of Professor Beach, those of you not having taken the course might be interested in knowing a bit about him, since is not only a superlative teacher, but has been responsible for turning what were the traditional student shops into not only vastly improved facilities, but an extremely exciting and innovative center at Stanford (the Produce Realization Laboratory).  He has an interesting back ground which includes study in the liberal arts, manufacturing experience, engineering degrees, and a strong dedication to video production. He best of all, a wonderful person, filled with good spirits, high motivation, and a dedicated and hard worker.  I am proud to count him among my friends.   A good overview of David Beach and his interests can be seen here.

Update #5 Stanford University course ME 314

Two more Good Products, Bad Products topics have been covered by student presentations since the last post.  Four of them focused on Craftsmanship.  The companies chosen were Heath Ceramics, Ferrari, West Coast Classic and Customs, and Casa Na Avore.  Edith Heath founded Heath Ceramics in the 1940’s, and the company, has clung to her standards, and several of her designs, as it has slowly grown.  Ferrari is wedded to high craftsmanship for both performance and traditional reasons.  West Coast Classic and Customs is a local company that specializes in both restoration to original (or better) condition, or resto-rods.  Casa Na Avore is a Brazilian architecture form that specializes in tree houses.  

The next four groups gave presentation on companies/products that dealt with emotion and human needs.  The first two were Tone Fitness (dumbbells), Disney (Disneyland), Diageo (Captain Morgan Spiced Rum), and Phillip Morris (Marlboro cigarettes).  The group presenting Tone Fitness stressed the user support and motivational information, and did an interesting informal survey that correlated love of the product with the frequency of its use.  Apparently people who buy exercise equipment and do not use it grow to  hate it, whereas those who use it regularly become quite fond of it.  Disneyland needs no explanation.  I have had many opportunities to visit it, since when my kids were growing up I lived in Southern California.  I clearly remember how much I hated to take them to it, and strangely enough, what a good time I had when there.  People like to criticize it, its prices, its long lines, etc., but it truly is a marvel.  Even the French now like it. 

It was interesting that both liquor and cigarettes were chosen this year as examples of products that were associated with strong emotions and, for better or worse, strong needs.  I was embarrassed to realize I had devoted little attention to drugs such as nicotine and alcohol in my book.  They are both endemic to our species, and highly controversial. An interesting point brought up in conjunction with Marlboro cigarettes, is that their advertising budget continues to climb even though it is now restricted in format.  They are putting more of it into sponsoring athletic events, point of  purchase, and, of course, in countries other than the U.S.  An interesting statistic about alcohol, is that is apparently involved in one out of every 25 deaths (75,000 total, 16,000 in automobiles), 40% of suicides, and 60% of murders.  And yes, I drink it.

The presentations, as is usual for the course, were top notch and highly entertaining, complete with volunteers from the audience and costumes.  I think it fair to say that Dave Beach (and I) were quite satisfied.

I am not including URL’s for these companies and products, because your browser will have no problem in finding them, should you want to find out more. The submissions by last year's students for products showing good craftsmanship are shown here, and for products showing poor craftsmanship here.  Similarly those paying strong attention to good fit with emotions and needs are shown here.  Those doing less well at considering emotions and needs are here.

Stanford ME 314 Good Products Bad Products update #4

Since the last update, the class has continued to read my book, done the “good-bad” exercises, listened to some excellent visiting lecturers, and begun to work on their final presentations.  The first four groups, who focused on human fit, delivered their presentations a couple of days ago, and did outstanding jobs.  The first group talked about a company that produces products for people suffering from arthritis (osteo, not rheumatoid).   Arthritis is inevitable if one lives long enough, since it is simply due to the wearing out of cartilage.  I am presently two inches shorter than I once was.  When this was brought to my attention, I complained to my physical therapist daughter in law.  She happily told me that if I lived a really, really long time, I could be six inches shorter than I once was, since six inches of me were cartilage, and it would all wear out.  Nice kid!  Of course, the products of this company (who advertises ther comfort of their products for everybody, not just their target customer group), are easier to use for everyone, and therefore the company is doing well.

The second  company to be studied was a very successful maker of slot machines, and this group came up with the to me interesting conclusion that the human fit of this product was too good, since people became addicted to losing time and money to it.  They illustrated this with a chilling video of a woman who was a slot-machine addict.  The third group studied Wii, as a breakthrough in play stations, and in fact in its effect on computer game designs.  Like the first two groups, they involved student volunteers in their presentations, and I was impressed at the Wii skills of the students who demonstrated.  The fourth group talked about the makers of the Pill, a miniature speaker for digital devices that is enjoying great success, not only because of its small size and therefore compatibility with people seeking a portable speaker, but also because it was “cool”, which resulted in a fine discussion about the overlap between physical fit and emotional response.

The guest speakers provided an interesting contrast.  The first was Nancy Gioia, who is the director of electrification for Ford Motor Company.  She gave a superb summary of Ford’s plans for incorporating hybrid power, plug in hybrid power, and full battery power into their fleet.  It was impressive not only for its completeness, but for the extent to which Ford has incorporated electrification into their product plans.  She stressed not only the benefits of this, but also the necessity that it be compatible with the desired growth and profitability of the country.  A bit of information on her is here.  The next, Adam Grosser, who has had an extremely successful career beginning with Apple and now with a venture capital firm specializing in improving electricity distribution, began by pointing out that true innovation requires time and involves experimentation and failure, and may not be achieved if the sole intention of a company is to maximize income in the short term.  However, after pointing out the many areas of potential improvement in the electrical power business, he ended up captivating the class with venture capital stories.  But he emphasized at the end, that venture capital is a business seeking high returns as fast as possible.   A bit of information on Adam is here and a longer U-Tube lecture at U.C. Berkeley is here.  The final speaker of the period was David Klaus, the Director of Engineering at Proximity, a company in Myanmar producing irrigating equipment at very low costs ($15 U.S. for a foot powered pump).  Proximity’s goal is to bring affordable life-changing products to people with very low income ($1 to $2 a day).  They obviously seek enough income to not only stay in business but grow so that they can reach more people.  An interesting short video on Proximity featuring David is here. 

All three speakers were outstanding, and all in a sense promoting products that will improve the environment, but one as an executive in an established and very large U.S. automobile company, one as a venture capitalist backing entrepreneurs focusing on electrical power distribution, and one as the engineering director of an extremely idealistic company serving extremely low-income people.

The class is a bit behind on submitting its final good product bad product summaries, so I will include them in the next and final update. 

Product Quality and the Senses

Our perception of product quality has a great deal to do with the senses. Not only do we not want our products to be ugly, but we would like them to feel good, sound good, taste good, and smell good.  Sight is our dominant sense, and we have a fair vocabulary to describe our visual images.  We also have a good ability to work with visual images —look at the controls and tools on Photoshop.  But the information we get from our other senses is a bit more difficult to work with.  As an example, consider smell, an extremely important sense, in that it quickly summons up positive and negative reactions and is a strong memory stimulus. If you smell a turkey being cooked, for instance, it might remind  you of last thanksgiving.  The first exciting car I ever owned was a 1956 Austin Healy, which I acquired when I was a young and unfettered Air Force Officer.  I loved it greatly.  It had leather seats, and among its small problems (Lucas electrical system) it leaked oil.

I usually have owned a British sports car  since then.  I presently have a 1970 E-Jag sitting in my garage (Lucas electrical system again).  When I sit in it, I smell leaking oil and leather seats, and it takes me right back to my Austin Healey and  Air Force days.  Sometimes, if depressed, I go sit in my Jaguar.  It will, incidentally, be running by summer, although I must admit I said that last winter.

But most of us are much less equipped to deal with smell in the design of products.  In the case of food products, perfumes, and others where smell is a strong selling point, we are better.  Not only have the components that provide odors been carefully analyzed, but such businesses have access to "experts" who have trained their sense of smell, and a vocabulary to describe various odors.  If you have taken a wine course, you have taken the first step in such training.  But the rest of us are short on both vocabulary and knowledge of the mechanics.  Can  you describe the smell of a pineapple in words?  Do you know the  chemicals you would mix together to attain that smell?  How about the smell of oil and leather?  People have worked on such problems.  Used car dealers have spray cans of new car scent that they apply during detailing.  Real estate agents know that baking cookies in the oven before showing the house helps sell it.  But as far as I know, there are no squirt cans of cookie smell.

We are not even clear on the mechanics of smell.  We know about lenses, retinas, the mechanics of the pupil and the iris.  We know the location of the optic nerve and the area of the brain that turns impulses to images.  But what happens in smell?  If we smell dog poop, do dog poop molecules enter our nose?  If so, what happens then?  Are there specialized dog poop receptors, and if so, where does the signal go in the brain and what does the brain with it?  And our reactions vary among individuals.  I love to smell ground beef being cooked in the kitchen.  It reminds me of hamburgers, which I love, and picnics.  My wife doesn’t like to smell it.  It reminds her of unhealthy food and greasy deposits on the wall.

But even through the process of our sense of smell may be somewhat mysteriousto us,  we at least should be very careful that our products do not emit odors that are inconsistent with their nature, and offensive to us.

The students in the Stanford Good Products, Bad Products course read from Diane Ackerman’s book The Natural History of the Senses.  The link to its Amazon page is in the recommended book list on the right of the page.  It is a wonderfully written book that uses the English Language to describe the workings of, and effects of the senses.  I recommend it to all.  Writers must attempt to convey the results of sensory input to readers in words.  The rest of us have not had much practice in that.  We can measure the stimulus better than work with the response.

Stanford Good Products Bad Products course (ME 314) update #3

The students continue to read my Good Products, Bad Products book and for each chapter submit examples of good and bad products, guesses as to why the bad ones might be bad, and ideas of improving them.  Since the class is large, the amount of information is too large to include in  this blog.  But each of the student groups that will present the final summaries is reading all of the submissions having to do with their topics and giving us a short summary of them.  I will include one of the summaries for Craftsmanship here, one for Emotions and Needs here, and one for Aesthetics, Elegance and Sophistication here.

I will not include any of the good and bad product write ups from the students here, but I will include summaries of good and bad products from the 2011 class. Products showing good craftsmanship are here, and poorly crafted products are here.  Examples of good products as far as Emotions and Needs are here, and bad ones are here.  Some products considered beautiful are shown here. And some thought to be elegant are here.  Finally, here is a list of products that the students found to be repulsive!

During this time period, Peter Mondavi, the Co-proprietor of the Charles Krug Winery, was a guest speaker.  This is one of the older wineries in the Napa valley,  and is noted for the quality of its wine. The Krug home page is here. The class also read from the book Natural History of the Senses, by Diane Ackerman (Knopf Doubleday).  This is one of my favorite books, and I have added it to my recommended list to the right.    She is a wonderful writer and not only talks about the senses, but is able to convey their power through words and stories.

The class also took a field trip the Littlefield Collection of restored military vehicles.  Jacques Littlefield, who unfortunately died a couple of  years ago, was one of my favorite people.  I had the opportunity  to get to know him well because he was a student at Stanford when I joined the faculty in the 1960's, and one of the most regular customers of the student shop.  As projects, he made radio controlled model army tanks.  Upon graduation, he accepted a job in manufacturing at Hewlett Packard.  When he decided to retire in his late 20's, I realized that perhaps he had access to money, and indeed he did, being the son of Ed Littlefield, a billionaire. 

Jacques spend most of his life, effort, and quite a bit of money collecting and restoring military vehicles, especially tracked one.  By the time of his death he had put together not only the largest private collection of tanks in the world, but probably the most beautifully and accurately restored ones.  The collection consists of approximately 100 tanks, and another 100 military vehicles of other types.

The field trip was for several purposes.  The collection shows an amazing level of craftsmanship.  It also demonstrates the love of a person for machines.  Jacques had access to enough money to do anything he wanted to, and he elected to spend much of his life working on and understanding a particular tpe of industrial product.  The collection results in strong, and sometimes mixed, emotions, on the part of the students.  And finally, although brutal devices of war, the mechanisms involved often demonstrate a high degree of elegance.  Jacques also loved trains and other equipment, and his home was complete with one of the largest 7-1/2 inch gauge  model train layout on the west coast.  The San Francisco Live Steam club continues to hold forth there.  And he donated the beautiful organ in the Stanford chapel, and liked it and the people who manufactured it that he had one installed in a specially built addition to his house.  As usual, the trip was most successful.

 

 

 

Product Quality and Standardization

When I was in the U. S. Air Force, I often checked out vehicles from the Motor Pool.  I loved the standardization which allowed me to jump in and drive away.  There was usually an on-off ignition switch that was plainly marked.  There was a big red button on the dash, that if pushed would cause the engine to start.  Controls for lights, horn, etc. were plainly marked and different shapes and sizes.

 Contrast this with checking out a strange rental car at night at an unfamiliar airport.  I no longer simply head for the appropriate freeway as soon as I get the car started (not always obvious how to even do that any more).  I now carefully find and test the many controls having to do with everything from lights to emergency brake, and even throw in the navigation system, if it has one and I intend to use it.  I am tired of washing the windshield when I think I am dimming the lights, and trying to figure out the radio as I move into heavy traffic.  One could be killed that way.

Standardization seems to have disappeared.  It seems as though every team designing or upgrading a product wants to put its own improved features on or in it.  Hey, I figured out a way to combine de-fogging the windshield with opening the gas tank door!  Look, this way you can operate the horn with your foot!  Let’s make all of the buttons the same color and size and line them up in straight rows.  Oh, and let’s not have labels.  They will make the design too busy.

I have bad dreams about burning to death in the back seat of a friend’s car after an accident because I can’t figure out how to work the door handle. And speaking of gas tank doors, it’s nice to now have a little picture telling what side the door is on, but is there any reason they are not all on the same side?

The same, of course is true for many products.  Software needs more standardization.  I realize that it is a counter-capitalistic and heretical thing to say, but isn’t it about time that the operating systems on P.C.’s and Apples converged?  They are very similar now, and after all, Microsoft owns a sizable chunk of Apple.  The remaining differences just serve to further burden already overburdened brains.  And how about projector connectors?  Etc, etc, etc.

This photo shows one of the two “entertainment systems” in my house.  It is a real one, not the type featured in Architectural Digest, or Wired Magazine.  It consists of used, but highly serviceable components,  Note the remote controls under the TV.  One of them is a  “universal” remote, but of course it does not access many control functions on the individual components. We could control them manually, but for various reasons, two of the components, including the receiver, are those dark boxes on the lower right.  A close up of them is shown below:

 

These photos were taken with a floodlight.  Normally the room is quite dark, especially if TV is being watched.  In that lighting it is essentially impossible to make out the labels or the controls, or even find the manual switches, even if one is lying on the floor next to them.    I suppose the designer might have thought that the owner would use the equipment so continuously that manual operation,  when desired or necessary,  could be done by feel. 

Note the lack of clues on how to accomplish various tasks.  We keep the extra five remotes around for when we need to control components such as these without lying on the floor with a flashlight and a magnifying glass, and of course the remotes often stray. The ability to manually control components would be enhanced if I rebuilt the cabinet, but I don't seem to get around to it.  But woe be unto the visitor who tries  to operate this mess.  In fact, woe often unto us. 

The system performs well visually and acoustically, so I am not about to replace it.   It would not only cost money, but I spend too much of my time learning to use new digital stuff.   Besides, this system  reminds me of how not to design controls and labels on devices such as these that are used in normal homes such as ours.

Course Update #2 - Lecturers and Human Fit

The students in the Stanford Good Products, Bad Products course are now interacting with guest lecturers, reading  and discussing chapters of my book, and submitting examples of good and bad products on the topics of the book, beginning with Chapter 4, Human Fit. 

Recent Guest Lecturers were Dave Franchino, the President of Design Concepts, Inc, and Matt Lonoci, Founder and President of Matteo.  Franchino founded very successful design firm in Wisconsin after an equally successful career at General Motors, and is one of the more eloquent and thoughtful designers around.  Lonoci, after briefly working in the financial arena, founded a company that makes high quality fabric products, in particular bedding. He is not only a fascinating story teller about quality in a product area that stdents in the class are typically not familiar with, but also a strong proponent of local manufacturing and treating employees well.

A word about the student examples.  At the end of the quarter there will be presentations on each of the book topics, beginning with Chapter 4.  The first three chapters have been read and thoroughly discussed, but because of the time constraints of the class, the students will only submit examples for chapters 4 through 9.  Students will be giving more formal presentations in the form of media-based cases at the end of the quarter.  There will be four presentations on each topic by groups of four students.  As part of their preparation, these groups will read all of the student examples on their topic, evaluate them, and prepare summaries.

The best way I can describe the student work is to show you examples by linking  you to four pages concerning human fit.  The first one is an overview from one of the student groups on the concerns appearing in the student examples of good and bad human fit.  The second contains three examples considered to show good and bad human fit (students were limited to a paragraph on each example).  The third a list of products considered good  by the students of last year's class, and the fourth a list of the those displaying bad human fit by them.    I include last year's because I have not yet compiled the overall lists for the 2012 class.

Of course, I would expect different populations to submit different types of products.  Perhaps home owners would nominate more appliances, pieces of furniture, and yard equipment, and older people might have more concern for comfort and more difficulty in seeing tiny print from a distance and folding their bodies into small volumes.  And incidentally, we told last year's class not to include Apple products, and software of any sort, because they are so central to the life of students that they would have dominated the lists. Of course some of them disobeyed us.

The reason for these exercises is to cause the students to do some hard thinking about issues of quality—in particular to practice applying the material in the book and other readings, and that they have picked up by interacting with the lecturers.

 

Marc Newson and update on Stanford Good Products, Bad Products Course

There is an article on Marc Newson in the magazine section of the January 29 New York Times. He is presently one of the world’s most visible designers.  We have not talked much about individual designers, but you should find it an interesting read and we will talk more about designers later. 

To date, the course ME 314 has been involved with several things.  The students have read the first five chapters of my book and each student has submitted examples of products that show outstanding human fit, poor human fit, outstanding  craftsmanship, and poor craftsmanship, along with a paragraph justifying each choice. Courseworks, the software used at Stanford and many other universities to allow internet communication and discussion between all parties, now shows some 400 examples and comments by the students and the teaching staff on these examples. This activity will continue through the remaining chapters of my  book.   I will mention some of the conclusions from this exercise in a future post.

The students have been divided into a number of small groups who will  give presentations on the book chapter topics at the end of the term.  These groups have been also asked to read the pertinent product examples from the students and react to them. The purpose of all of this is obviously to stimulate  deeper thinking and more discussion about the topic of product quality

The course utilizes a number of speakers from outside of Stanford presenting  work and thinking that is pertinent to the quest for high quality.  David Beach, the person responsible for the course these days, is particularly interested in imagery not only as a component of good presentations, but also as an aide in evaluating the quality of products.  Therefore the first two speakers were professional media people, one, Jonathan Edelmann speaking on creating stories, and another, Scott Doorley, discussing video.  The next two were typical of the remainder of the speakers, in that they represented companies that they had founded that are particularly noteworthy as far as high quality is concerned.  The first, Peter Dreissigacker,  was co-founder of Concept II, a company that produces oars for competitive rowing and the favored ergometer among rowers.  Their success depends on producing the best.  The second, Steen Strand, was a co-founder of ICON Aircraft, developer of a an amphibious sport aircraft.  A glance at the company URL’s gives a sense of what they are up to.  Obviously quality is key to both of them.  Competitive athletes buy the best, and low-quality airplanes are clearly not desirable.  Concept II is here, and ICON Aircraft is here.

Week 1, the Good Products, Bad Products Course

The Good Products Course is on its way.  I linked a schedule to my last post, and in this one I am including the reading assignments from my book here, in case you are interested.  They are very similar to the ones at the ends of the chapter of the book, only more limited in extent because they need to be read and commented upon (private school, high tuition, feedback required).

The first meeting was devoted to organizing and describing the course, figuring out who the students were, etc.

At the second meeting, Bonnie Wan, the CEO of The Way We Live, gave an excellent presentation of non quantitative marketing research and what can be done with it.  She gave several interesting examples, my favorite being a study performed for a computer game company that wanted to find out more about the culture of street and canyon racers so that they could improve a racing game they sell.  As in most social science research, this required that the people doing the study become accepted by the drivers (young, male, car-freak thrill seekers).  This was unusually difficult, because street and canyon racing, although definitely existing late at night in areas such as Southern California, are illegal.  But they succeeded in the study, and an interesting part is that street racing (city streets) and canyon racing (mountains and the opportunity to go over a cliff if you make a mistake) attract very different people.  Street racing is apparently all about cars, and canyon racing all about drivers. Street racers are into macho, and canyon racers skill.  There are, of course similarities.  For instance, members of both cultures require extremely high adrenaline levels.  Sounds like another version of the different values of drag racers and of  sports car racers.   The reason for her talk was to discuss methods of better understanding cultures and emotions and their relation to products.

I also said a few words about the course and the book, and dropped in a few examples.  I will show you a few photos I used in my next post.  If you are in the class and reading this, you have seen them.  But in the future I will include more photos in my posts because of the lack of same in the book, and will not be showing them in the class.

 

 

 

The Good Products, Bad Products class, ME 314, Winter Quarter, 2012, Stanford University

Classes for Winter Quarter begin in two days, January 9^th, this year.  That has made for a long vacation, so everyone will either be unusually ready to go, or unusually ready for more vacation.  David Beach has been teaching the  Good Products, Bad Products course since I retired in 1999, and has changed it in many ways, although he has kept the intent of the course the same.  He has continued to use my notes, and now that they have been published as a book, he is using it as a text in the course.  It is listed as a graduate course in the school of engineering, but will include students from other parts of the campus as well.  As of now, there are some 80 students signed up for the course on campus, and another 40  part-time students who will be taking it remotely over the internet.  A good sized crowd.

An idea of what occurs in each meeting of the Good Products, Bad Products course is here.  The students will be reading my book and doing exercises similar to the ones listed at the end of the chapters.  They will write short papers on each, and I will talk about them and include some of the more interesting ones on this blog.  They will also read two other books.  Classes will involve guest speakers representing companies and individuals concerned with and producing high quality products, lectures from David Beach, and discussions of the reading material, the speakers, and whatever other product-quality related concerns arise during the quarter.  The schedule of the course may change in deference to such concerns. 

I will also be making comments in the blog on various aspects of quality, probably at times going beyond the material in my book.  I will from time to time give you updates on the course.  You are encouraged to comment on my posts, and I will forward the comments to the class, should they fit the activities that are under way. The more diversity in input to the students, the better.

The class concludes with a series of consistently impressive presentations on the material in my book.  Groups of students select the topic areas, do appropriate research, and being a bright and talented bunch with a love of media, come up with presentations that are entertaining as well as educational.  I obviously cannot deliver the entire course to you in a blog, but I will keep you in touch.  Stay tuned!