The mind behind the designs at 3M

The 3M Co.'s Global Design Lab doesn't look like the other office space at the company's Maplewood headquarters.

Mauro Porcini likes it that way. He's a longtime 3M employee - and now a recent Italian import to the Maplewood campus - brought in to refresh the company's approach to design.

He's not wasting any time.

Porcini and his team provided "strong direction" for the redesigned office space on the headquarters campus, he said. And it's emblematic of what Porcini's team is starting to do for 3M's vast array of products.

"We cleared out everything; lights, carpet," Porcini said as he showed off the white, bright wide-open office. "If you looked at my house, you'd recognize the space."

Large stacks of over-sized Post-it Notes, several feet square in bright shades of pink and green, greet visitors at the lab's entrance.

A wide streak of fuchsia in the carpet curves from the entrance into the heart of the office and past project rooms, all with their own theme.

Inside Porcini's all-white office, a large iconic poster of Audrey Hepburn - decked out in pearls and a tiara in a scene from "Breakfast at Tiffany's" - hangs behind his glass desk.

One of the designers, Lee Fain, keeps a Razor scooter at his workspace that he uses to wheel around the office.

What in the name of William L. McKnight is going on here?

One change in 3M's recent approach to design work is the involvement of designers earlier in the product development process.

"It's not that 3M hasn't done design before," said Don Branch, the 3M vice president responsible for the Filtrete brand within the consumer and office business. "But design, in many companies, meant that you develop a product and then right before you launch it, you make it pretty."

Integration of design into the earliest stages of product development is central to Porcini's method.

In an article by Porcini that appeared in dmi Review, a design-related publication, he wrote that when he joined 3M, he focused on "identifying sponsors within marketing and R&D" who could get designers involved at the start. He doesn't want design thought of as a "cake decoration."

3M also is doing more "ethnographic" research and involving designers in that process. The research involves spending time in a consumer's home, watching how they go about tasks to see what products may need modification, or coming up with ideas for completely new products. For the first time, Branch said, 3M designers are involved in that early research work.

3M recently has done such research in households in Korea, China and Japan with an eye toward building its water filtration business, Branch said.

In those Asian countries water purity is a much bigger issue for consumers than in the U.S., and 3M already has launched a well-received filter developed specifically for the market in Taiwan.

The company's efforts to move its product development closer to its end markets also factor into Porcini's mission. The design team has about 50 employees around the world now in offices including Milan, Shanghai, Tokyo and another set to open in Brazil next year.

Joe Harlan, former head of 3M's consumer and office business, lobbied for Porcini's 2009 move from Milan to Maplewood. That changed the dynamic of Porcini's influence, Branch said.

3M's core of research and development is still in Maplewood, and Porcini got to know the people making key decisions.

"When you're remotely located, it's hard to know who's zooming who," Branch said. "Now he's here, and he's figuring out how to make a difference. And he's been very effective at that."

People on Branch's team from 3M's design, labs and marketing departments meet almost weekly now to review potential new products, Branch said. With about 40 active projects in the hopper, they work to make refinements and decide which products are ready for market. The team recently introduced a slim water pitcher with a smaller filter and a design that doesn't take up as much refrigerator space.

Good design, Porcini said, "is always about smart, curious people coming up with new ideas."

Those ideas, with a Porcini influence, have included a number of new Post-it Note dispensers, including curvier, modern concepts that consumers have embraced. A more recent dispenser - with a cork bottom and a heavy glass top holding the notes in place - sold well in Europe and is going global.

The design team also worked on a sleek handheld camcorder/projector that has won favorable reviews from tech enthusiasts.

"Elegance," Porcini wrote in the design magazine, "describes the simplest path to solve even the most complex problem."

But he noted some users require "several layers of complexity" in their interaction with a cellphone or a camera "as that's what satisfies their need for feeling like an expert" or keeps them engaged over time.

3M safety glasses also got the design team's treatment, with thicker, more stylish curves. A marketer in Italy told Porcini "several people were buying them for skiing and cycling."

Porcini's team also has developed numerous prototypes, including snap bracelets with digital display screens and a large hoop light.

The team's potential to influence design has few limitations, as they're already working on products in all six of 3M's "big businesses." Given the materials and technology areas where 3M flourishes - adhesives, abrasives and high-tech goods such as optical film - and the 1,200 new products the company is introducing each year, Porcini's team will have no shortage of creative outlets.