Dear Lars, Harold and all.
Design and innovation is so intimately linked that young designers seem to
seriously think that by creating something new they are innovative.
Innovation has no value of its own if it does not mean development.
Innovation as new, is according to my opinion a problem, which has to be
addressed from a sustainability point of view. The phrase quoted by Harold,
'the process of making something new a part of a population's everyday
life', could work as a heading of an article focusing on the reason behind
our society of wasted resources. For every new there is an old, which is
wasted.
Design should always mean development, even if sometimes in small steps.
Best wishes
Kristina
----- Original Message -----
From: "Harold Nelson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 6:57 PM
Subject: Re: Design - Innovation
Lars
I think your question is a good one. In my own experience in different
contexts (business, government, academic, etc.) I find a variety of
concepts applied to, or implied by, the term 'innovation'. The term is
used interchangeably with the concepts of creativity, invention,
discovery-- in other words anything which is new. In the US,
innovation is being pushed as necessary and essential to everyone's
well-being. The thing that will improve education, health, safety,
etc., etc. and of course that which will make businesses competitive
in the new global economy.
When I talk with people in organizations who have decided innovation
is the strategy of choice, I try to define innovation as 'the process
of making something new a part of a population's everyday life'.
Processes like those described in the book "Tipping Point" (Malcolm
Gladwell, 2000), or the article "The Long Nose of Innovation" (Bill
Buxton, BusinessWeek 2008), or Everett Rogers' model of the diffusion
of innovation are all examples of innovation processes. Innovation can
be accomplished through 'selling', 'serving', 'imposing' or other
means of infusing new ideas into a population. I explain to them that
different sources can produce 'new' (to them) ideas or things as
innovations, for example: old ideas that are merely new to a
particular population ( 'democratic governance' in societies that have
never had that experience.) I also explain that successful innovations
are not by definition-- good. An example I use is the spread of crack
cocaine in the US. It is one of the most successful innovations in
recent history for this part of the world. It is diffused throughout
urban, suburban, small town, and rural areas.
In the past a distinction was made that Apple was a creative company
and Microsoft was not; by using this idea of innovation it can be said
that Microsoft is very successful as an innovator and Apple was less
so historically, however this seems to be changing.
For me design-fueled innovation is just one of many means of making
something new an integral part of their everyday lives. The 'new' in
this case is something that is the outcome of a design process —
creating something that does not yet exist to serve the desires or
needs of an other. Designing includes innovation processes that can be
as simple as an architect serving a single client or a product
saturating a market of millions of people.
Harold
On May 22, 2008, at 6:16 AM, Lars Albinsson wrote:
> Dear all,
>
>
>
> A simple (and probably suicidely naïve) question: what is the
> difference (if
> there is one) between design and innovation?
>
>
>
> I suppose I am not the first one to ask this, but I haven’t found
> someone
> specifically addressing the question, even though there appears to be
> debates on the issue…
>
>
>
> My hypothesis (based on Lakoff and Krippendorff) is that there is a
> difference in that innovation is associated with the challenge or
> alteration
> of some peoples “prototypes” (in the Roch sense), while design may
> or may
> not do this. That is; design is more general than innovation. (and
> the step
> from invention to innovation would be the process of getting people to
> accept that alteration.)
>
>
>
> Or does this just prove my pan-galactic ignorance?
>
>
>
> /Lars
>
>
Harold G. Nelson, Ph.D.
www.haroldnelson.com
President; Advanced Design Institute
www.advanceddesign.org
Trustee & Past-President; International Society for Systems Science
www.isss.org
Affiliated faculty, M. Eng., U. Wash.
http://www.me.washington.edu/people/faculty/hgnelson/
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