I offer this link to a recent Forbes editorial with some trepidation,
suspecting that some on this list will read an "art must serve
business" implication here that is unintended. But surely it is good
news that these "art objects" sell well because of their artfulness?
The artists at Vipp think so.
http://www.forbes.com/columnists/2006/11/06/innovation-vipp-marketing-
oped-cx_rda_1107austin.html
If you want to know more about this company, we have a new HBS case
on it that I can share. Perhaps they are an example of an "Art Firm"
in Pierre's sense of that expression (I think -- maybe Pierre will
tell us what he thinks)?
Here's a representative quote from their (Copenhagen) business school
educated part owner and VP of Marketing:
Design is not something that you can be democratic about…. If you
have to ask everybody, “What do you think? What do you like?” it’s a
compromise. What is soul? Who can create soul? Give the best
designers some freedom and make them execute. Don’t ask sales or
marketing what they like. Make the creative people the kings in your
company…. Leave them alone, and keep all the commercial people away
from them...You have to put the smartest design people in charge.
Leave all the old conservative businessmen out back. This is about
feelings, emotions. It has to touch you…and if your company is driven
by business guys in their 50s with MBAs…[if] you have based your
decisions on focus groups, you think you’re going to get ahead?…Put
them into the oil industry and then they can maximize.
Rob
Robert D. Austin
Associate Professor
Harvard Business School
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