I happened to turn on the television this morning and heard columnist George Will interviewing the CEO of General Motors. In one question he referred to something I found interesting, a comment made by GM’s Robert Lutz. I found a link referring to his comment (read it here) which quotes Mr. Lutz. Here’s what got my attention:

Robert Lutz, head of GM’s product development, says, “We’re not in the transportation business, we are in the arts and entertainment business.” Ford, perhaps with his Mustang in mind, emphatically agrees: “There’s a high emotional component to buying decisions.”

The other ingredient of revival must be better products. Meaning, among other things, cars that better express the emotional rather than just the utilitarian — the “arts and entertainment” as well as the transportation — aspect of cars.

Interesting to me is that this sounds like some kind of revelation. Didn’t the Big Three realize this years ago? And if it is a revelation for them, and assuming they’re more progressive than most industries, what does that say about all the supposed “design & innovation” sweeping corporate America?

One word: Hype.

I see more and more small companies trying to follow this overblown “trend”, and in so doing contribute to it. But most often their idea of design is strictly aesthetics – not rethinking the problem, the solution, or the processes they use; the one’s in which they have so much invested. When the issue is no longer newsworthy, maybe then things will have changed. Wake me from cryo when that happens.