Brand is reputation…

and reputation is the sum of customer experiences.” Josh Levine, Great Monday

I found a great interview between Josh Levine, of Great Monday, and Brandon Schauer of Adaptive Path that helps shed light on the record-setting attendance at Coachella 2009 .

Josh’s succint explanation: The company (designs) the experience (is interpreted by) customers (determine) the reputation (is the) brand.

“One caveat: while brand and experience are connected at the hip, there’s one important difference—the company can design the experience, but it’s the customer who decides the reputation.”

And, more in-depth explanation of the need for merging right and left / creative and business to generate growth:

The bottom line is that in order to not only survive the downturn but grow your design-driven business over the next 10 years you have to embrace the tidal wave of change broadsiding our industry. Design is no longer about the artifacts regardless if its a product, an identity system, or even a website—these are all things that can be outsourced on the cheap or worse, slashed from budgets entirely. Today design is about applying right-brain thinking to solve problems in a left-brained world.

I suppose you could say this is what design has always been about. That’s true—but today (and this goes back to your first question) there’s a greater need for the non-linear, generative thinking designers employ to solve problems. Businesses have leveraged themselves to the gills. Cutting budgets and head count will only get you so far. Apply design as a problem-solving tool for businesses and you’ll discover where the real value is, and will continue to be over the next decade.