There is something ironic about the argument of this book, which suggests that companies can turn their customers into idolatrous devotees. Two things wrong here: the authors never explain how this is done, and the entire premise that any product under the right stewardship can be the next iPod -- cultish bought for too much money -- is completely suspect given the economic downturn we face. Save your money -- you can read this sort of drivel on Business Week's website.

I grabbed this book because the title seemed interesting and, hey, the cover is bright orange!

My background is mostly technical; the business side of business has never interested me at all. Never in a million years would I see myself picking up a 'business self-help' or industrial design book, but I figured I would step outside my comfort zone and give it a try.

I am glad that I did. The concepts presented here transcend business alone and the book provides advice and examples of real companies that have succeeded and those that have lost their way. If you're a fan of companies like Apple, Harley-Davidson, BMW, IKEA, or ever wondered what happened to Sharper Image and Polariod, this book should interest you.

I found the book entertaining and readable. However, I did start to lose interest near the last chapter. To me, that means that the book was just long enough for me. Hey, this was a big step for me -- I did finish the book and felt that I came away with a new perspective and respect for companies that invest in design.

The book is well organized and walks through areas like why good design matters, why you should care and provides guidance regarding how to understand your customers and their needs.

I appreciate the sidebar text that effectively summarizes key points on the page in a sentence or two for easy reference or skimming. Nuggets like, "When a company establishes this enduring commitment to a design-driven culture, then the customer, in turn, often grants the company the option to fail once in a while."

The bottom line for me is that any products can be duplicated and reverse-engineered, and anyone can make a great product. The trick is obtaining an emotional connection with your customer so that they will return for more. That requires constant work and company-wide dedication to customer experience engineering and design. Take risks -- and watch what works and what does not. Use that information to make your products and services better.

This book does not set out to give step-by-step instructions for making your business design-oriented -- there is no one method that works for everyone -- but it provides a lot of advice, and F.L.A.V.O.R.

If it was easy, everybody would do it.

"Do You Matter" is a is an important entry in the growing list of titles that address the business of building a brand. In a lot of ways, it is connected to recent titles like "Made to Stick," and "Buying In," in that it focuses on the secondary (and often subliminal) elements of achieving excellence and outselling the competition.

Like those titles, the book focuses on cutting through a cluttered market and making a connection with your customer -- here, the magic connector is design.

100 years ago, in order to buy a pair of shoes, a person found the local shoemaker, told the artisan what he wanted and agreed on a price. The question of whether that shoemaker would get their return business depended on a lot of factors that played out over the relationship: how close did the shoemkaer come to producing what the customer wanted? did the product hold up? how did the product perform for the intended purpose? In other words, there was a personal relationship between the customer and the producer, with the product as fulcrum. Machined, mass-manufacture changed that equation, and the new efficiencies that resulted added a new dimension to the consumer exchange: the customer might sacrifice some control but he would get a better price. Outsourcing and overseas production changed that equation further, nw even the producer lost some control, but price was paramount.

That era has played itself out and all of the efficiencies available have been maximized across nearly all competitors. The result: today, shoes are available from dozens of different and competing companies at about the same level of quality and at the same price with the same convenience of acquisition.

"Do You Matter" attempts to answer the question: how do you seperate your product? Their answer, if Customer A has the choice of five identically priced and similarly useful shoes to choose from, design superiority is where you can grab market share.

The book's premise is particularly resonant given the economic times. There is some question out there as to whether -- in a cost-cutting time -- companies will still make the investments that they have recently expanded in things like sustainability practice, or design. The answer is that succesful businesses will figure out that they must. In a consumer culture where buyers are faced with a bevy of sellers peddling wares of largely similar quality, utility and price, it will be the identification issues that win the day: brand, sustainable id, design preeminence.

The book is set-up very much as a "how-to," and there is where I find one of its weaknesses (or at least a narrowing effect). Who is the reader? Many of the examples they employ in their anecdotes and lessons come from very well-known Fortune 500 companies, or much-heralded maverick small businesses and entrepeneurs. In theory, one could conceive of people in all of these spheres having some utility for the book. But, given that it is very much a "call to action" type of a book, for it to have the desired effect, the reader would have to be a Marketing VP, or someone similarly well-situated to employ the tactics discussed. At the same time, unless they were also the person who was doing the design, the book doesn't give an overall "marching order" that could easily form a philosophy for organization-wide adherence.

For those reasons, I don't see the book serving much purpose beyond the small entrepeneur or Inc. Magazine kind of company where the leadership, management, and ownershiop are tightly enough connected to the sales and marketing (not to mention the other groups employed in industrial design elements) functions to effectuate the change.

This is a worthy title, wrapped up in a snappy orange and black hardcover package (no dust jacket), but offers limited utility.

Do You Matter was fun to read, with lots of good examples and takeaways on just about every other page. I especially liked the way the authors challenge us to ask, "If your company went away, would anyone miss you?"

The authors use "design" in a broad sense to mean the creation of the customer experience. Their horrendous airport experience at Dulles is viewed as bad design. As the authors point out, a for-profit company could not treat its employees that way. And they refer to the supply chain of experience, a potentially powerful concept.

But in the end, these ideas are not new. Back when I began my PhD in 1982, I was interested in services marketing. We presented the same concepts: creating an emotional experience, seeing the service from the customer's perspective, and innovating to give customers more positive experience.

The examples are different, with the exception of Southwest Airlines. And last time I flew Southwest, in 2006, I found the airline has modified some practices that made it such a great example of service deign. Southwest used to give out seating group assignments based on arrival time at the airport. That way passengers were motivated to be there, ready to board and check in on time. But now I had to check in by computer 24 hours early ...a whole different process. So maybe it's time to update that example too.

Bottom line: An enjoyable read. But you'll find similar points in services marketing textbooks and articles from the 1990s. Do You Matter just presents them in a 21st century package.

Ironically, the book itself could benefit from better design. It's tightly bound and the pages don't lie flat unless you bend the spine. The cover is a graphic design that will stand out on any bookstore or library shelf. The title presents two ideas, not necessarily connected. A product or service might matter a great deal, without being loved. And many of us love products and services that don't, or shouldn't, make a lot of difference in our lives.

The book gives a very forceful view of Design driven culture,
to make an emotional connection with customer, think about the
customer interaction at all touch points, be it buying process,
usage, trouble shooting, customer service, repair, any part of
the customer interaction chain. Real world latest examples are
given of companies like Apple and BMW. Revolutionary products
like the iPhone to simple ones like Vicks Vaporub are discussed.

Why do customers use your product? Because they have no other
viable choice or because they do have an emotional attachment
to the product and cant live without you, you really matter to
them.

Design in this way can be extended to research, development
or manufacturing process, sales, marketing, CRM, and all the
processes of the company.

The book gives examples of companies like Apple which embodied
Design into their culture and continued evolving, while Motorola
who made a one off runaway hit the Razr, but could not embody
Design into their culture and today are looking to sell their
mobile business.

I am a Senior Software Engineer, and am responsible for Architectural
design of our software product, and this book has definitely given
me a fascinating change of heart and insight into Design for software
too.

This is a curious book -- an industrial design book where most of the product shots are in black and white and relegated to the margins. I'm not entirely sure how to think of this.

Good design books have an almost porn-like quality to them -- when you pick one up, you expect to see the best the authors have been able to put together, where you can look at the presentation of an object or concept and learn how it's supposed to work and why it does or doesn't. That's because design is inherently visual -- art as interface, the ability to take something and make it accessible to a user or viewer. One of the authors, having spent a great deal of time at Apple in its interface design group, is very strongly aware of this, and in fact if you can find a copy of the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines you can learn exactly the background he came out of to make him qualified to write this book.

Overall the book is a very good read for people who don't quite understand why their products aren't self-evidently superior to those of competitors. A lot of examples of how focusing on function as well as form in design permeate this book -- the difference, for example, between Apple's strong emphasis on integration (from the earliest Macs to the iTunes/iPod system) vs. Dell's screwdriver-shop mentality, or the special aspects of Oxo's Good Grips line that have made it such a huge seller for both disabled and fully abled cooks. (In fact, the Oxo spread is probably the best example of a product shot in the book, two pages of their rather innovatively designed ergonomic products. I wish there was material like this on pretty much every sixth page.)

I guess what I'm getting at is there's a lot of words in here, pretty much all of them correct about the requirements to pay attention to various aspects of design (industrial, interface, graphic, workflow, what have you) in business, but very little actual demonstration material. This book is an airplane read, really -- an essay on things that companies with fanatically loyal customers either take for granted or ignore at their peril. In that regard, it should be required reading for both executives and engineers, since it hammers home the critical point that if your user can't do it comfortably and smoothly, your user would prefer not to do it at all. If all you want is an executive summary, this is an excellent summary of something your customers are probably painfully aware of but may not be able to put into words. However, it seems to me that an engineer might want a bit more -- visual examples, charts, that sort of thing. Perhaps a second volume in the series?

Personally, I really like books that are more about getting you thinking then telling you what to do. That is what this book does. If you're looking at this book because you want to know exactly what steps to take to incorporate design into your product you will probably be disappointed. But it can still be valuable to you. It's not a list of instructions it's "food for thought". And, in my experience, thinking is a really good idea.

I enjoyed reading Do You Matter? It's not a bad book. Easy to read, written in a stream-of-consciousness style like hearing a lecture. Good examples, from the wealth of experience of two designers of renown.

But it's not a good book either. Very rambling, with each chapter covering much the same topics as the others. The organization is poor. Points are made too emphatically - out of the blue - with no buildup or denouement. Like this: "The point is, design is do or die. You have to do it." Those kind of statements give little help to us readers. We need more.

It looks like this book was ghost-written by someone who took notes from the two main authors and wove the text together from the notes. The book reads like that. Not like it was written by an authority, but like it was written by an interviewer of an authority. Not that it is poorly written. But it does not read well, either.

I agree with some of the other reviewers that the design of this book is poor. The narrow columns with the wide outside margins make the book hard to read, but give no benefit, since the margin notes add nothing. There are no helpful illustrations or graphs, although I can imagine many places where there could have been.

And the title - "Do You Matter?" - is hard to figure out. What does the question mean? What is the authors' answer? Are they really talking about design? Or about brand? It takes a lot of work to figure all that out.

That sums up my feeling about this book. You need to put in a lot of work to get much out of this book. If you want a book that helps you build your business, you can find a better book elsewhere.

The basic premise behind this book is valid, and I will state it here to spare readers from having to read it repeatedly in this lazy and poorly organized business book:

1) To make customers truly care about your company and your products, you must focus all your efforts on providing a superior customer experience at every point in the purchase cycle, from unpacking a product to using it to getting it repaired or replaced.
2) This commitment to customer satisfaction must permeate every employee at the company (and their vendors), from top down.
3) Providing customer satisfaction requires constant vigilance and attention to detail, admitting no obstacles, whether from bean counters, researchers, or engineering types.
4) Objective measurements of progress may be misleading; the subjective is king, which apparently means designers are just the ones to lead the charge, with all customer satisfaction efforts emanating from their design concepts.

That's about it. Along the way, the authors throw in some very subjective and mostly obvious observations about companies who matter to customers and companies who don't.

They love Apple, Ikea, and BMW. They think Motorola, Microsoft, and Circuit City have a lot to learn. I'm shocked at these conclusions! SHOCKED!

The careful reader can derive amusement from the authors' disdain for the electronic controls on a Lexus SUV. The same reader can also recognize the discrepancy when the authors fail to mention similarly unworkable electronic controls on some models of the BMWs they so revere. (And BMWs these days are nowhere near as reliable as any Lexus.)

And so on it goes through page after interminable page of this unnecessary tome. Though the book is divided into chapters, they all make the same points; one can start reading on any page and soon catch up on the central thesis, stated above.

There are few hard facts and fewer precise recommendations for implementation other than hiring a design firm to sort all this out for your company. The authors clearly have little love for focus groups, but then fail to explain what sort of research on customer interaction with the product they do suggest -- perhaps observing individual customers from a concealed vantage point? Reading critical comments on a consumer blog?

No less than three editors are credited with having worked on this book. I have to believe that each one of them threw up her hands at trying to make something logical, persuasive, or entertaining out of this meandering mess.

And then the reader occasionally encounters a sentence that makes no sense at all, like this one: "These will be real things -- models, boxes, displays, stores, and so on, but also shares your ideals, your philosophy, and your boundary conditions for your experience." Huh?

In conclusion, I never would have finished this book if I weren't reviewing it for Amazon Vine and looking to have done with the assignment some time in my present lifetime so I can request a free box of cookies or something more appetizing.

I give the book one more than the minimum one star because the cover does catch your eye. If only the contents held your attention...

The premise of this book is to use design to provide an amazing end to end customer experience, so that your company (more so than a specific product or detail) in fact matters to consumers.

There are lots of books on design and on marketing and on customer experience and on management, but few, if any, that bring all this together in a concise format. This book is not necessarily about the in-depth techniques of industrial design, but more about what sort of philosophy is needed to apply basic design concepts to every aspect of a company's interactions with its customers.

The positive examples are a little heavy on Apple, but they are the exemplar in the author's minds. How design can permeate the culture and create a measurable value proposition is interesting and useful to consider. There is a lot that can be applied here if one takes it in the sense it is intended. Though the authors do attempt to boil the core attributes of a design-driven company down to an acronym, the book is not your conventional step by step set of formulas for instant success.

Since they're after a mindset and corporate culture tends to calcify fairly quickly the core concepts may not be an easy thing to drive across an organization. That may also explain why the positive examples are fairly limited (and recent). Thus the conundrum: Though practical, the concepts are difficult to implement.

The question that begins to bug those of us in Middle Age centers around the idea of whether we have made our mark on the world, for better or worse and hoping to find that it is for better and not worse. The authors of Do You Matter? tackle this question for companies and their products.
The central question is, to quote them, " ... has your product, service, or brand established an emotional connection with your customers to the extent they are invested in the interest that you not only survive, but also prosper?" In Do You Matter? I believe they have answered the question in an admirable manner (although with some snarky comments about failing companies and products thrown in for good measure). In the end, their point is that great product design is about more than simply appearance and instead is a "broader experience that includes nearly everything about you [the company], your products and services that your customer comes in contact with. We call this the customer experience supply chain."
Basing their examples of such a customer experience supply chain on such illustrious companies such as Apple, and IKEA, they show that by developing products that are more about ideas than just products is the key to success.
I like this book overall and suggest it as required reading for many if not all of us determined to understand why some companies and their products fail and why others succeed.

From the iPod to the W hotel chain to Virgin Airlines to Michael Graves-designed Target products, this little orange book covers the impact of good design in the business world. I've always appreciated how smart design can affect how consumers think of a product or company, and so this book was very interesting to me. Anyone in business that has a say in how a product is designed should read it.

Here's the chapter list:

1. Design Matters
2. Do You Matter?
3. How to Matter
4. Being Design Driven
5. Your Brand is Not Your Logo
6. Products as Portals
7. Your Products and Services are Talking to People
8. Building a Design-Driven Culture
9. Go Forth and Matter

This book is bland. I did not get much insight into how to improve our company or products. The examples are spordic and noncomprehensive, focusing mostly on Apple. The book averages seven words per line so the overall content is thin.

The first thing that caught my eye about this book was the cover. (Surprise, surprise.) It's hard, bright orange, and features a lovely typographical design that tickles my fancy. I would leave it on a coffee table in the waiting room of a design firm. If I had a waiting room. And a design firm.

I freelance as a graphic designer (among other things), which means I am my own company. I imagined that this book was directed at people like me, but it's not. The perfect audience would be those that don't know much about design and how it affects your experience with a product, environment, or anything in your life for that matter.

The most important point that the book makes is that function is good, form is great, but form with function is awesome. This is a difficult point for a designer to fully explain to many clients (as well as programmers and engineers), mostly because clients do not understand the "why" behind form.

But, put those same people in front of the iPod and, as the book mentions, there is not much to say. Anyone can voice what doesn't make sense, "This button should go here. And I shouldn't have to do this to get that done." So, silence is golden in the user experience department. If it's designed well, the product or environment won't cause you to say much of anything except "it works."

All of this is described in the book with several examples from real-world businesses. But, I cannot give it four stars because it doesn't offer a *solution* to the supposed companies that didn't know "how great design" would make them better. And, after I-don't-know-how-many pages of Apple This and Apple That, I was getting weary of the repetitiveness - not only about Apple, but about the main points.

But, perhaps that repetitiveness works for those outside the design realm. And, even though the book doesn't really answer the question of HOW to do all this, it does open up reasons as to why you should pay attention.

This is a clear and concise book that takes you through the professional steps and importance of design. The book covers how design connects to your client and your world, emotionally and in your own representation of yourself, as well as how design is a construct of your entire entity not just a printed image by the art department - there is so much more to it than that. The authors describe successful applications of design as well as those that were not so successful. They talk about companies that you and I know, so that we understand and see the big picture and the end results. I like this book very much and recommend it for those considering generating any type of impression into the world.

Do You Matter?

Brunner & Emery's beautifully designed orange and black hardcover text explores how great design breeds consumers to love and establish bonds with companies or organizations.

This book appears to be written primarily for students, or professionals in the fields of business, graphic design, industrial design, product design or development, and those interested in the product supply chain. The authors teach us that products are not just objects, there is much more involved. Secrets of design success are explored therein, including discussion of these and more important questions:

Who are you?
What do you do?
Why does it matter?
and of course, Do you matter, or why and how?

This book is highly recommended for those interested in learning how to succeed in business, because "design" truly matters.

In this book Do You Matter?, Robert Brunner and Stewart Emery discuss the importance of design in a successful company. The key idea of this book is understanding how important it is for companies to establish positive emotional connections with their customers. In other words, if your company were to suddenly disappear overnight, would anybody care? The book talks about how important customer experience is to making people love your company.

This idea of great design that they talk about is more than just good product design, but rather it encompasses the entire organizational structure of a company. Customers are attracted to companies that are design focused. The book includes many stories of successful companies that are design focused (e.g. Apple, BMW, IKEA, Whole Foods Market, etc.) and also stories of companies that were once great but have failed because they stopped focusing on the customer experience (e.g. Polaroid or The Sharper Image).

This book is unique because it is useful for both designers and for business people. Much of the book is addressed to people running their own businesses, but the principles presented are also useful for designers to understand. Overall I thought this book was an enjoyable read and included many useful examples for explaining the authors' information.

Whether a Designer, Architect or consumer Do You Matter is an excellent narrative on why design is important.

In an era when American car manufacturers are cutting back on their D&R departments, Brunner reminds us how essential design is. Do You Matter addresses how & why design matters and gives insight to the process design professionals go through when creating nearly every physical thing that surrounds us in our lives.

This book is one of the first books that I have found that is both relavant to the product design field as well as being interesting to read. There are numerous books that talk about theories of design and what one person thinks versus another. However, they tend to do a very poor job of relating the theories to real life execution. The use of case studies and examples help clearly link the authors thoughts to real world application.

As an Industrial Designer that is early in my career, this book gave me great insight into the the "product experience" that isn't taught in design school. This is something that can only come from someone who has lived the "product experience" through both the eyes of the consumer as well as the designer. Robert Brunner has done both and has communicated it clearly to the reader.

Some may say that the book turns into a running advertisement for Apple but I don't look at it from that perspective. The constant use of Apple references is a result of necessity. A necessity because VERY few companies design products beyond it's appearance or basic functionality. However, Apple does it and does it better that anyone else. The references to Apple and what they do that makes them more than justy an electronics manufacturer should serve as a wake-up call for all of the Marketing and Design departments around the world that think they are doing "everything" possible for their products and their consumers.

I recommend this book to any consumer but more importantly, I recommend it to EVERY Industrial Designer.

We all have horror stories about our experiences with poorly designed products and services, which can turn us from being a happy customer - and an advocate, to an irate customer who hates the company.

In "Do you matter?" Robert Brunner and Stewart Emery did an excellent job of telling us exactly how great design will make people love your company! Point-by-point, this book brilliantly lays out how great design must be central to not only the industrial design aspects of products, but must also reach beyond to include designing a compelling personal experience for the customer.

Each point was vividly illuminated with actual case studies and examples of how great design created loyal customers for companies like Apple, Starbucks, Fuego Grills and Jones Soda.

And yes, I liked the bold design and layout of the book. I especially found the wider margins which were filled with notes and illustrations, a nice experience.

I would definitely recommend this book to all designers - and to those CEOs and Executives who are serious about having people love their Company. I rate this book at 5 stars.

This book makes many good points, but overall, does not offer anything new. The book defines "design" so broadly that it seemed to me to be just another book about how to succeed in business. It's hard to argue with "design a great customer experience" and some companies (Apple is the poster child for this) have done it very well. But when you try to make a case that great design is what gets people to spend their money, the concept falls apart.

Consider medical care (in what passes for a "health care system" in the US). Going to a hospital Emergency Room is generally a horrible experience of endless waits, no information, and absurdly high costs, yet people still go. All those expensive "ask your doctor" drugs heavily advertised on TV work exactly the same as generic drugs, and popping one in your mouth is no different from popping the other, but we are supposed to believe that genuine Lipitor is better. Excuse me, but this is nothing but hype. If I buy cheap sneakers at Payless Shoes, am I really missing something because I don't wear Nikes? My point? We are sometimes forced to buy something because we don't have options, and sometimes we are bombarded with messages that one thing is better than another, but common sense tells us it ain't necessarily so.

I will concede that some companies have very loyal customers, and I think that is because their product really is unique and they really do offer customer service that is not like their competitors. I have to agree with the authors that Apple is one such company. My daughter (who barely has any furniture, and struggles to pay her bills) has both an iPod and an iPhone. A few years ago, her iPod was stolen and she was so distraught without it that within a week she had purchased a replacement iPod. I visited her recently in NYC where she lives and was disappointed that she had no printer to print Google maps to show us how to get to a destination. She informed me that Google maps were obsolete, that her iPhone would guide us directly to where we wanted to go. And, to my astonishment, it did! Now that's a breakthrough product.

But how can you pick on a company like Polaroid, who, after all, was done in by technology? Did anyone at the company realize digital cameras would take over and would offer "instant" pictures? I'm sure they did. The problem was, what to do about it? The authors seems to love IKEA, and, as someone who has shopped in three different IKEA stores and bought some of that "put it together yourself" furniture, I have to say that I have had mixed results. I do love their designs and their low prices, plus I love wandering through the store to see all the sample rooms, and the food in the restaurant is wonderful! But I disagree that the instructions are always easy to follow, and several times I was given incorrect information by store employees and, in one case, that meant I had to make another trip back to the store for missing parts. So will I give up on IKEA? No, a trip to IKEA is still a fun experience and I still love what I see in the store.

IKEA and Home Depot are companies the authors cite whose products are aimed at ordinary people, but some of the high end products (like BMW vehicles and W hotels) may attract customers with a kind of snob appeal. Is the approach different when you go after wealthy customers, or do you just do more of the "great customer experience" stuff? Is the central question posed by the book's title really valid? If Apple's competitors can come up with good imitations of the iPhone will customers buy them on price? I think, with products, it is so difficult for companies to retool for something new and to actually see where the market is going, that great design and even a great customer experience can't guarantee success. If Polaroid had created a beautifully crafted camera and fawned over every customer, they still would have lost out to digital cameras.

One more story, though, of how poor customer service can affect buying habits. A half block from my house is a 7-11 convenience store. Both my husband and I have quit going there, each for different reasons. We both prefer to walk a few blocks further to buy our milk and bread somewhere else. Both of us found shopping at 7-11 unpleasant, but we note that the store is still in business and other people shop there. What can we learn from this? Maybe the reasons why people shop and buy are more mysterious than anything we can learn from this book.

When I was reading this book I wondered if it was just me, or did the book really mention Apple too much. Looking at the other reviews, I see that the book did go on about Apple too much.

It's obvious to talk about Apple in a book like this--there's no question Apple should have some presence in such a book. But there's other firms out there focusing on design. When it comes to retail, why not mention Sephora? Speaking as a guy who has only tailgated his other half through a Sephora store, it seems there is a lot of worthy design to talk about relating to Sephora, but they are not mentioned in this book. And yet a contrived mention of GEICO is. Huh? How does GEICO have design? (Hint: Their snail mail and email notifications play into the author's arguments.) The GEICO example is interesting but I'd prefer to see more concrete and real examples.

So in summary, there's some interesting anecdotes in there that might spur some creativity for the reader--but there's not much that's new here. It wasn't the book that I expected to read, which may play into my feelings about the book.

A comprehansive and very interesting look into the design field. I really had no idea how involed and labor intensive this field is. Very impressive. M.Silcox

When many people think of the word "brand", they think of a logo, or maybe a trademarked name. This book presents a case that a "brand" is the *emotional* response someone gets when they think of a brand. In order to have a positive brand, to matter, one needs to practice FLAVOR (an acronym):

Focus - The entire company must focus on the customer experience
Long-term - This can't be seen as event- it must be practiced consistently for a long time
Authentic - The company can't fake it - fake concern, like a fake smile, can be detected
Vigilant - The company must vigilant against losing intensity or direction of its focus
Original - The company can't just imitate another company's brand, it must be unique
Repeatable - This is more a consequence than an objective (probably added for the sake of the acronym) - as a company practices the above, customers will have repeated positive experiences reinforcing the brand, and preventing one good experience from being seen as a "blip" from an average company.

The book does a fantastic job of proving its case with many examples. The one negative is that it intermittently perpetuates a false contradiction between "analytical" and "artistic" types and claims things like the emotional response can't be measured. The warnings against misusing "market research" are solid, but that does not preclude a better type of research (sometimes alluded to in the book) that can allow objective measurement of how the product/company is being perceived. All in all, this is a well written book with a great message from which most companies could benefit.

The Gist:
Successful industrial designers (now consultants) share their observations on the characteristics of a company (product design, brand, loyalty, emotional connection) that cause it to "matter" to the customer, then subsume the universe of these characteristics in a broad definition of design, and argue that if a company doesn't matter (have an emotional connection to customers) it will not survive in the competitive landscape. Heavy on discussion of principles and rich with good examples; light on practical advice.

Overall: 3 stars - an average book.
Pros: Inexpensive, valuable messages, good examples.
Cons: Scant new information, little practical advice, poor editing at times, some typo/grammar problems, and a bright orange accent color that I found jarring

Who might like it:
If you have a general interest in what leads certain companies (notably Apple, over and over and over) to succeed on the basis of brand loyalty and customer delight, you might find this an interesting read, particularly as you recognize companies you either know about, or have had dealings with - Apple, Samsung, Target, Starbucks, Sharper Image, and so on. You might find it interesting to learn how some successful companies address even the smallest aspect of your experience (Whole Foods shines lights on the shopping carts so you find them easily.)

If you are someone who is about to start a business, and you do not understand the most basic of principles about how people make their decisions regarding products, services, and develop loyalty to companies, then this book provides a taste of what should be "common sense," but is remarkably uncommon in the business world. However, this small book won't really give you any tools or techniques you can use, other than to try to understand the best practices of those who have gone before. Yes, you want to create a company culture that, at every level, understands the principles of customer experience, brand loyalty, and the importance of "design" in the sense of the way the product or service and the customer interact. But HOW you do that is not something you would get from this book.

Beyond that, it's hard to imagine that those already in the throes of business wouldn't find this a bit basic (if they already are on board with the concepts) or obtuse (if they are never going to "get it.")

As a math teacher, I wasn't sure at first how a book on design would be of use to me, but by the second chapter, I had several ideas. As a former (at different times) systems analyst, engineering economist, and systems engineer, I really felt at home with the ideas in this book. Not everyone who focuses on design has the vision to think of the entire company as part of a design, but these authors do. The examples were extremely helpful, and so were the specific concepts and mnemonics. This is not a very long or difficult book to read, and I would heartily recommend it.

A must read for marketing guys or MBA's.
Very up to date with updated examples in the market right now. Many brands used as real examples and the strategies behind it; the success and failures.
But all in all, I think making great design takes creativity that can not be taught with just one book.
It also takes just great design to make people love your company. It is also critically important to have excellent customer service, pricing, quality, product warranty/support, etc.
This book offers some insight to further your marketing studies.
If you are a start up, working in marketing fields, I'd highly recommend this book.

The design of the book "Do you matter? How great design will make people love your company" by Robert Brunner and Stewart Emery itself is brilliant, and as a reader I've had a pleasant experience feeling the front cover, flipping through the pages that have an unusual but refreshing layout, and above all a highly readable content.

As a software developer, my `design' work is at many layers of the software development process, which means nothing "if the design experience is wrong."--of course, Brunner et al. isn't talking about software specifically, but what they're writing applies to it just the same. A great software interface, for instance, is "a great product [that] embodies an idea that people can understand and learn about." This is true not just for good graphical user interfaces, where the end-user can effortlessly understand and use a software product, but also within software development, where great interfaces to internal modules guide developers to build the right solution to a problem in an elegant and enjoyable way.

Throughout the book there are examples of great products including Apple's iPod and BMW. Language of design is through metaphors, claim Brunner and Emery. This makes sense to me, as my five-year old daughter learns language any new concept is immediately referenced to something learned before--a metaphor. Design then is meaning.

Being a visual artist in the industry, I'm always on the lookout for new material.

The bright orange binding with the dark black raised font caught my eye easily.

This book gives a slight psychological connection to the world of design. People tend to gravitate towards the "aesthetically" pleasing over the not.

Apple is one of the main companies that the authors use as a prime example/analysis.

I've taken down lots of notes from this book, and will somehow transfer what I've learned into my company.

In a nutshell, it's all about giving the customer a "great experience", so they'll keep coming back for your product over and over. It all starts with visual design.

For a book that takes its own design from austere Swiss modernism, where absolute attention to detail is critical, it's amazing how sloppy "Do You Matter" turns out to be. Repetitive, shallow, and poorly organized, this book feels like little more than the direct transcription of a consulting pitch, cribbed liberally from Lovemarks and a few Bruce Nussbaum articles from the last several years of BusinessWeek. It all boils down to literally nothing more than: "good design is good, but requires a tough effort by the whole organization. And it starts with knowing your customer." Gosh, ya think?

And the constant references to Apple and Apple's products just start to get annoying. I say this as a true believer in the gospel of good design and of the quality of Apple products. But the authors seem to have no new insights into Apple's processes, nor any particularly new information. Most of this stuff could be cribbed from the pages of Business Week the last few years, or any one of the Steve Jobs hagiographies. Again and again, the authors of "Do You Matter" just fall back on the easy crutch of pointing to Apple products as well-designed, desirable, and the result of a design-driven corporate culture. Apple's own press releases tell me as much.

But worst is the quality of writing. Again, authors who have their books laid out beautifully in the manner of Joseph Mueller-Brockmann cannot be excused for not bothering with a copy editor. Switching from the third-person ("companies should...") to the second person ("you have to...") in mid-sentence, repeating sentences almost verbatim within a few pages, and an overall too-casual tone make the text feel like something a student would write. When they referred to something has having a "more seamless sexier" quality than something else, I threw up a little in my mouth. (Something is either seamless, or it is not seamless; it can't be "more seamless". And "sexier" is already a comparative word, you don't need to modify it with 'more'.)

For a book that takes its own design from austere Swiss modernism, where absolute attention to detail is critical, it's amazing how sloppy "Do You Matter" turns out to be. Repetitive, shallow, and poorly organized, this book feels like little more than the direct transcription of a consultant's pitch. The standard references to Apple, Interface (makers of FLOR carpet), a patently made-up anecdote about Harley-Davidson pad out ideas that boil down to literally nothing more than: "good design is good, but requires a tough effort by the whole organization. And it starts with knowing your customer." Gosh, ya think?

And the constant references to Apple and Apple's products just starts to get annoying. I say this as a true believer in the gospel of good design and of the quality of Apple products. But the authors seem to have no new insights into Apple's processes, nor any particularly new information. Most of this stuff could be cribbed from the pages of Business Week the last few years, or any one of the Steve Jobs hagiographies. Again and again, the authors of "Do You Matter" just fall back on the easy crutch of pointing to Apple products as well-designed, desirable, and the result of a design-driven corporate culture. Apple's own press releases tell me as much.

But worst is the quality of writing. Again, authors who have their books laid out beautifully in the manner of Joseph Mueller-Brockmann cannot be excused for not bothering with a copy editor. Switching from the third-person ("companies should...") to the second person ("you have to...") in mid-sentence, repeating sentences almost verbatim within a few pages, and an overall too-casual tone make the text feel like something a student would write. When they referred to something has having a "more seamless sexier" quality than something else, I threw up a little in my mouth. (Something is either seamless, or it is not seamless; it can't be "more seamless". And "sexier" is already a comparative word, you don't need to modify it with "

Everything we do in life, whether consciously or not, can be viewed as involving intention, and therefore design. When we design well, we enhance our own quality of life and that of others. When we design poorly, we diminish life.

This book reflects a clear understanding of these principles, especially in the context of business success. The authors emphasize that companies succeed when their products and services are carefully and intentionally designed to shape customer experiences to tap into their psyches and emotions in a way which helps to meet their deepest human needs for significance and meaning.

The authors give us an abundance of case study examples to illustrate why design is important and how it can be accomplished. Designing in this way takes serious effort, usually including fundamental change in the culture of a business, but the authors present a convincing case that the effort is worth it, perhaps even mandatory for businesses seeking major and lasting success.

The book is well written and entertaining. The content tends to be somewhat repetetive, and so the book could have been shorter, but the repetition is probably helpful in hammering the key points home.

Overall, I highly recommened to the book to anyone in business (which means almost everyone), and also to design professionals, both in industrial design and other design fields.

This book highlights many well known companies such as Apple, Target and Virgin and it details how through design they have created a niche customer base that is devoted to their products and services. Design is everywhere and the best designs are the ones that make your customers connect with you - emotionally. This book helps you think about your customers and how you can implement a design strategy (by design they don't mean just pictures or interiors, but the whole scope of a customer's interaction with your brand) that will give your customers the feeling that they want and need your brand. Today's consumer is very design oriented and if you want to survive and flourish in this era, you need to have a solid strategy, otherwise, you just won't matter.

I must say that this is the kind of book that I enjoy reading. It's filled with stories of various companies (Apple, Mastercard, Home Depot, Dell and many others), how they operate, how they treat their employees and the dialogue they create (or don't create or forget about) with their customer(s). This book is best read by the person who extracts ideas and concepts from others' experiences. If you prefer bulleted lists or textbook-like outlines, then I would skip this book for another - it's not a top ten list of best practices. Also, keep in mind that it is also not a 'how to' book on designing, rather it is more informative and inspirational of the process of creating a brand that directly connects your culture or product to your customer. A bit Apple heavy in discussion, but that didn't bother me.
After reading the book, I'm noticing the 'better' customer practices of my favorite stores (even websites). It also has me thinking about my work and building a 'customer experience' for myself as a brand.

Do you matter? is a well written book. It is readable. It is nicely designed and organized. However, having read many different books on design, I can't say there was anything particularly useful or novel in this book.

The book starts out with using Apple as an example. Then, over, and over, and over, Apple arises as an example of why design matters. While other companies are mentioned, of course, Apple keeps coming back. Look, I totally agree that Apple has used the power of design to differentiate their product, command a premium, and build a loyal customer-base -- I am one of them. But not all companies are product companies selling mainly to consumers. I found very little practical advice, and came away feeling that the authors were in fact less aware than they should be of how many other factors make a company matter.

This book is very, very light on actual facts that could be used to back up the hypotheses or assertions of the authors (i.e that design will make your company "matter"). It is easy to argue that this probably isn't the right book for that kind of treatment ... but in the end, doesn't that just leave us with another person writing about their opinions and views? These are not case studies, just commentary, for the most part.

In the end, I concluded a little cynically that this was a book written by a guy who runs a design consulting company who needs to have the imprimatur of a commercial book title as part of his sales arsenal.

To be fair, that's just a cynical view. This is a fine book on why design matters. If this thought hasn't crossed your mind, and you are running a company that is making something, then I strongly urge you to read this or any other book on the topic. Yes, design is important. But this book doesn't provide unique insight, tangible information, or fresh view that would help you come to this conclusion.

As with other great books, the first thing you'll become is a better observer. You'll likely realize you aren't design-driven and what about your organization is preventing this from being the case. You're ready to act on the recommendations of this book, right?

That's when the wheels come off (or rather, stay on and the car stays in park).

The greatest failing of this book is that it isn't as prescriptive as you'd like. It reads like propaganda; after each chapter you want to change the world! YES! Design matters! I want (or wany my company to be) design-driven! Bring on the iPhones! Unlike say "Inmates are Running the Asylum", a book devoted 50% to the problem and 50% to the solution, the same cannot be said for "Do You Matter?

Its recommendations boil down to:

- You either get it or you don't.
- If you don't, get someone that does.

So in the end, I give it 4 stars. Why Rob? When it's repetitive and doesn't offer a concrete solution? Isn't this a volume on business?

Well yes it is however the case is so compelling and it's so full of terrific examples that it's a great read in spite of its lack of prescription.

I'm now a better observer than I was before, and that alone is worth the price of admission.

As so often with business books, this is both too short and too long. (I say this as the writer of several dozen such books), It's too long in that the core ideas are simple and could be covered by a lengthy article: the basic premise is very solid--design is not a matter of product features but integral to shaping the customer experience. The authors have plenty of expertise and practical know-how and provide a neat review of Apple and of Dell. Of necessity, just as most books on management innovation up to five years were overloaded with Dell as the exemplar of the invincible, this one is somewhat overloaded with Apple, but the coverage is both accurate and easy to follow. It's a book to skim -- that is not meant as a putdown but a praising with faint damns. It's a Good Read.
It's too short in that the effort to extend the ideas into discussions of design as a core element of an organizations culture and strategy, rather than an isolated talent pool or collaboratve unit, don't really work. There are too many truisms and standard checklists about collaboration and leadership that are OK but don't add much to the conventional wisdom. There's a real need for some conceptual originality; the fortunes of Apple are nicely contrasted with Dell's but the comparisons with Motorola (the Razor design as a successful innovation but which was not followed up on -- a product design rather than a designing culture) are pretty flaccid. I wanted more explanation, conjecture, depth of review, and focus on leadership. Apple is a weird company in so many ways and Jobs is, shall we say, not exactly a paragon of normality; Michael Dell is lauded as "brilliant" but nothing comes through aout his imprint as leader. The neglect of Amazon is a weak facet of the book. Bezos is in the Jobs and Dell league and Amazon is as much a winner through design for the branded customer experience as Apple is via products.
The book touches on several subjects that need much more space and depth of anlysis. For example, process design is weakly addressed; I got a sense that the authors are aware of the weakness and try to talk arpund he topic but do not drill down.
All in all, I think this book is worth your consideratiion if you are in a field or company where this mysterious thing called "design" is talked about but not really practiced, or if you know a fair amount about design but haven't thought much about the wider organizational context in which it must be embedded. I wanted much more meat; I got a tasty appetizer instead. The virtues of the book are substantive: decently written and free of the hype and hope mush and turgid pomposity of so mnay books of this ilk, short and readable, and obviously based on very strong practical experience across the design field, including working in Apple.

It seems like the theories in this book will work, and it gives many examples...but I cant help but think "Why would people still react this way in 2008 or beyond?"

The examples are presented very well, and may give insight to some companies that is often overlooked. It isnt for everyone or every industry. Not sure how my gigantic employer would benefit from this, but then again, they HAVE done these things over many years. I guess it has worked?

That was the basic theme I got out of the book. Yes, they applied it to design but it all goes back to basic business...the customers' wants and needs. I have an MBA so a lot of this reminded me of business case studies I used to read in grad school.

I'll say that the second half of this book is better than the first half because it covers more company situations and examples from which to learn. The first half is more like "Ode to Apple." Also, there is a whole lot of what appears to be "observation." I kept wondering if the talk about the various companies was based on data or just simply some personal experiences and observations. Whenever I wrote something like that in grad school, my profs always responded with "Prove it." So I had to find data to back up whatever I said. Thus, in this book (especially the first part) I kept looking for some data to prove or backup the authors' statements. I wouldn't want to read a list of data, of course. That would be boring. But how about a direct correlation with some quantitaive data every now and then...such as..."Because of a lack of focus on the design process, the product and customer experience suffered resulting in a 20% loss of market share. Now that they are coming out with better designs and have returned that focus on this or that part of the design, this company's (such as Dell) revenue has increased by X amount." I felt like this was something of significance that was missing from the book that would give more credibility to what was stated.

The second half is better because it focuses more on helpful ideas and teaching by the examples of various companies. It gives food for thought about improving products (for any type of business, large or small) and reminds the reader that we need to think long term with our businesses. I think so many companies have lost this and the only thing they're thinking about is what they can report to shareholders at the next quarterly meeting. There are good ideas in this book and it is a good refresher for getting back to good business and properly growing your company - not giving the superficial appearance of doing so. I'm glad I read it and it already has me thinking of ways to apply it to our company.

This book is interesting, there are some great currently functioning design ideas discussed; Apple, W Hotels, etc. Design does matter, and the examples discussed are very inspiring to those interested in design and/or own their own company.

3 stars are merited because there is not much instructional advice, though, on how to invoke these great design ideas within your own company. Also, the book's design is a major fail. It was stiff, hard to read and bend. Fun for a coffee table, not the subway.

I have a design degree from the Art Institute of Atlanta. I am always looking for good design books, with relevant and modern use cases. This book is right on target. I also love the design of the book itself, which is especially important, considering the topic.

Ever wonder why the segway didn't take off? Or for that matter how Steve Jobs was able to resurrect Apple? The answer lies in proper design. And I don't mean only industrial design technology, I mean the total philosophy of design. This book gets into it in detail.

Do you matter is a great book about design, specifically about the reasons design matters and then understanding how your design impacts your strategy, your organization and your products. Much like innovation, design is often an afterthought - a bolt-on process, much like window dressing once the house is built. The authors claim, and I agree, that design should infuse your entire strategy. If your strategy embraces design, then all of the factors and capabilities necessary for design to flourish will flow from your strategy. You can see the evidence of this in many service oriented businesses, which have designed strategies and processes to align to internal corporate needs rather than to customer expectations. Design in many firms is at best an afterthought, or the absence of design thinking presents itself in the crazy things we as customers or users have to do.

What I liked about this book is that it takes a holistic view of innovation from the top down - how does design impact strategy and organization, how does it impact products and services, how does it impact your marketing, messages and touchpoints. If you are going to drink the Kool-Aid, you may as well drink it all, and this book can help you as you reposition your firm or design your firm with design thinking from the get go. The book uses a number of firms that rely on design, and you'll see a number of the usual favorites used as examples. Apple anyone? I'd like to see examples of lesser known firms that are using design effectively, rather than use historical analysis to see that Apple was successful because of design. Clearly, other factors were at work as well.

What this book misses is enough focus on the impact of design in customer experience and process design. Since so much of our economy is based on services, we need more examples of design thinking and customer experience in every aspect of the business, not just products. A good model for thinking through the experience of a customer interacting with our products and services is the customer experience journey model, which is often used in service innovation projects.

This is a great book to learn more about design thinking and how to deploy it within a firm, although I think many existing firms will find it hard to convert from their traditional mindsets into more design oriented. I would have liked to have seen examples or models that help existing firms begin to move into a more design oriented model. Small, step by step processes to begin the move into more design orientation, or case studies of firms that had actually done that. Most of the case studies are based on firms that for the most part - accidentally or purposefully - had design thinking from the start.

As with innovation and a number of other differentiators, design is becoming more prevalent as the commoditization of products and services continues. However, one can't simply bolt on some design at the end of the process. Careful, consistent design thinking (or innovation thinking) must be applied from the beginning, and this book provides great insights on how to do that.

`Do you matter?' does an exceptional job of demonstrating how successful companies have taken radical steps to improve all the touch points with their customers. This book is for executives and entrepreneurs who have the foresight to make transformative changes within their company to improve their customer's experience.

One example of this (and there are many in this book) is the launch of Apple's retail stores. Prior to this, the company had a major break in their customer experience; they could not control the entire experience because their products were sold through thousands of small reseller stores. The introduction of their retail strategy was an aggressive and highly controversial move. In 2001, BusinessWeek stated "Sorry Steve, Here's Why Apple Store Won't Work." Now in 2008, Apple retail stores have the highest sales per square foot of any retailer, more than even Tiffany's and Neiman Marcus.

I would highly recommend this book to any executive, manager, or entrepreneur who wants to read some insightful examples of companies that have proactively improved their customer experience, instead of slowly bleeding to death by reactionary decision making while their competitors successfully court their best customers away.

Very nice presentation of the book just look at the colors..... it says buy me!!!!!
It gets very interesting when it addresses companies trying to figure out just how design can help them matter
About what people think of you and your image and what kind of impact would it be to your costumers if you disapear the next day.
It also offers nice examples of companies like motorola and apple and why the design atracts costumers.
It also delivers a clear and iterative process for making sure that products are refined and developed until they become good design.
Highly Recommended

The book "Do you matter? How great design will make people love your company" promotes one idea. Design is more than how stuff looks like.

The authors describe with a lot of examples, how companies with well designed products focus on much more than looks, but really manage the customers experience. They introduce the concept of the "customer experience supply chain" which involves all depts. and processes and every employee of a company, not just the industrial designer.

The books contains some bold statements, most dominantly that every company got to follow their suggestions and start to manager the experience supply chain or this company be doomed. Unfortunately, these statements are not really backed up by facts or even strong arguments.

The most problematic aspect of the book in my opinion is the limited choice of examples. Sure, they cover Apple, BMW, Samsung, and Dell (as a bad example) but what about Toyota, B&O, Braun? Along with the limited choice of companies goes the often missing depth of a case. They often present a collection of examples and anecdotes without looking at the complete story.

But still, I like the general notion of the text and I am also convinced, that actively managing a customer experience supply change does lead to better products.

This book is written by Business leaders to illustrate in words how using design techniques (design, in a very broad sense), in your company, can increase sales, increase your company's imprint in customer's minds, and promote the longevity of your company.

This book uses many examples of failing and thriving companies and techniques to illustrate how it can help us to get into the heads of the customers, and use that information (including feel, taste, smell, emotion, etc.) to link every aspect of your product and company, from it's inception, to it's end product, and beyond to the future.

I will be starting a small business soon. Righ