I think Rob raised a few eyebrows with this comment...

>People with purely art or engineering backgrounds usually do not design
>commercially successful consumer products.
>-Rob Curedale

Though Einstein didn't produce any commercially viable products, there are
countless examples of engineers that have designed successful
products.  One that immediately springs to mind is Lonnie Johnson, inventor
of the wildly successful SuperSoaker watergun.  (www.supersoaker.com)
Lonnie is a trained aerospace engineer and a noted expert in fluid
dynamics.  You can find out more about him at
http://www.johnsonrd.com/net/index.htm.

Engineers are trained to solve problems.  Should an engineer discover a
problem of great importance to a large commercial market, then they have
the tools to design and deploy a product to solve these needs.  There are
countless examples of engineers designing products for small niche or
imagine markets, the patent office is full of them.  There is, however, a
significant population of classically trained engineers that have design
many commercially successful products.  Lemelson was one of the most
successful to date.  (www.lemelson.org) Lemelson was success from two
viewpoints, creation of compelling products, and successful prosecution of
companies infringing on his patents.

And what of the people that are trained as neither artists, engineers, or
designers that produce commercially successful products?

Designers do not have a monopoly on the creation of successful
products.  One of the sayings here in the US is that even a blind squirrel
finds a nut.  All we can hope is that training as a designer improves on
serendipity.  Rob's own incredible experience as a designer improves the
chance that his next product will as successful or more so than the previous.

There is a similar debate going on within the entrepreneurship education
community in the US, especially as we now open the opportunities for
entrepreneurship education up to engineers and scientists.  Similar the
nature vs nurture debate in human development, there is much dialogue on
whether or not you can teach someone to be a successful entrepreneur.  Can
we make the same arguement in design?  Are great designers born or are they
made in the educational institutions we hold dear?  Could we have trained
our students to be the Edisons, Dysons, and Curedales?

Being an old farm boy, agricultural metaphors come naturally to me.  If you
consider the creators of commercially successful products to be ripe corn
plants, ladened with ears.  Design education serves to plant corn seeds in
an environment designed to grow all the seeds as tall and bountiful as
possible.  Sometimes a few seeds sprout in the next field where we are
growing broccoli or soybeans.  These corn plants can grow as bountiful as
the largest ones in the corn field.  And sometimes corn grows where no one
expected them, in areas that aren't fertilized or attended to at
all.  These can also rival the corn growing in our carefully tended
cornfield.  At the end of the day, all that matters to the consumer is that
they have corn.  We can be intentioned about growing designers but we must
also acknowledge that success can come from unlikely areas.

John


>My response to this line of reasoning is that: Einstein, and other
>brilliant, creative scientists would definitely disagree. Their
>innovations occurred while doodling and dreaming...
>
>Einstein said something to the effect..." knowledge is good but
>imagination is everything!"
>
>It is the development of the right-side of the brain, i.e.. creative side,
>that allowed them to reach unique, original solutions...not the standard
>knowledge at hand. The knowledge base was a prerequisite to it.
>
>It is not scientists we need worry about but technologists per se, people
>who rely solely on the method and equipment and formula, with no imagination...
>
>Eva
>--
>Eva Lewarne
>[log in to unmask]
>http://www3.sympatico.ca/eve.designs