No big deals with formalities. The new year is already 12 days old and I hope that it will be a good and still prosperous one given the external environment we are all affected by in one or the other fashion these days!
On a sidenote I’d like to point those of you who are interested in shorter bits of information, links and conversations from my end to my twitter presence where I’ve been pretty active recently: http://www.twitter.com/iterations. If you’d like what you read you might consider following me. Thanks for you attention on this.
Anyway what I’ve wanted to share with you today is a 500 words piece I’ve written for a conference book project where people from across the globe have been asked for their take on ‘The Future of Innovation’. Needless to say that I’ve written my essay/post/piece quite close to the deadline, but that’s no excuse for sure ;-) So comments are welcome and also any ideas on how to take my musings to another level. Here we go:
The Future of Innovation
While working on this essay about “The Future of Innovation” I was thinking that quite a few submissions from other colleagues will likely deal with providing a most comprehensive definition of “Innovation”.Usually I would have also followed this approach, but a quotation by Marty Neumeiner (Author of “The Brand Gap”) on his definition of a Brand has changed my view: “A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service or organisation”. Accordingly how do you like mine: “Innovation is part of a user’s gut feeling about a new product, service or organisation”? I have to admit that the more I think about it the more I like this approach to innovation. Let me shortly discuss why I do so, what the implications of this view actually are and what kind of role Design can play on the “Future of Innovation”.
When we usually think about Innovation most of us and in particular the ‘average’ consumer thinks big. Accordingly Innovation is something we tend to link to either being radical or transformative in its character. Good examples for these areas are the automotive industry and Hydrogen powered cars (radical) or the ever changing channels and tools of the internet as means of ‘transforming’ our communications. Needless to say that the media find reporting about the big far more attractive than digging into the ‘long tail’ of what remains: Incremental Innovation.
As a matter of fact in times of scarce financial resources and a climate of risk aversion I do see lots of potential in the area of ‘incremental’ innovation, because amongst others it refers back to my definition above on the user’s “gut feeling”. Typically ‘radical’ and ‘transformative’ innovation encompass lots of resources mostly from R&D in order to change our lives dramatically. In contrast ‘incremental’ innovation is focussing on the tiny, silent, hidden things that affect our every day life and make it more pleasant, easier, say less disruptive. No doubt very often incremental innovation does not create the big ‘Ahhs’ that radical innovation is usually triggering. However it is positively affecting our ‘gut feeling’ by making us say “Wow!”
Let me shortly illustrate my point by showing how Design is facilitating these incremental innovations at Apple Computer. At Apple products you hardly see Design elements as means to make things simply look pretty. Instead they address functions and solutions that make the user feeling ‘Wow!’. Just a few examples are the magnetic power adapter that prevents the computer from accidentally being dragged down, the smooth scroll on the iPhone making searches more ‘real’ or the simplicity of the iMac (one body, a mouse and keyboard). What they stand for is a shifting focus from simply applying new technology (for technology’s sake) to delivering meaning and value by design instead. [Thanks go to Erik Roscam Abbing for borrowing this last sentence from a recent DMI article on Brand Driven Innovation]
I think that this focus on ‘Incremental Innovation’ will offer a huge potential for the future of innovation. In particular it makes innovation more accessible and applicable for a broader range of companies. And for the consumers it will certainly create these ‘Wows’ that so many companies are desperately trying to reach for.
