Ok Cameron. I certainly agree that a creative inventor can create a  
less marketable product than someone who stays close to the  
understandings of users and patterns of established markets. In a 2002  
paper "Situating Innovation in Design Theory, Education and Practice"  
published in the Cumulus Working Papers from the Col Val d'Elsa  
Conference, The University of Art and Design, Helsinki, I compared the  
Segway as a creative invention that failed to anticipate its  
marketability to the innovation of adding a new handle to the Good  
Grips kitchen utensils redesigned by Smart Design for universal ease  
of use. This historic innovation built on user understanding and  
existing marketing and manufacturing practices to generate a very  
successful product as well as a new appreciation of designing for  
usability. But dwelling on the Segway as an example of creative design  
(or egomania) is  beside the point and distracts from my attempt to  
discuss the correlates of creativity which can inform both innovation  
and invention. I certainly would not want to educate my students to   
have "a certain capacity to tolerate enslavement to petty constraints  
and impoverishing inhibitions. " Creatively avoiding such constraints  
on good design by individuals and teams is what is at issue.

Charles

On Jul 20, 2009, at 5:08 PM, Cameron Tonkinwise wrote:

>> A design that is not a redesign: The
>> Segway Personal Transporter is not a redesign of any previous form of
>> transportation unless you consider roller skates in its league.
>
> The Segway is a great example of what my biases
> and deficiencies as a design studio teacher make
> me worry about Mackinnon's research.
>
> If Kemper's journalism is to be believed, Dean
> Kamen (inventor of Segway) does appear to be
> quite an egomaniac: http://tinyurl.com/md9643 .
> (See also Hayward's less careful:
> _Ego Check: Why Executive Hubris is Wrecking
> Companies and Careers and How to Avoid the Trap_
> http://tinyurl.com/kvxxcq )
>
> That 'entrepreneurship as media entertainment' is
> certainly what got the product to market. But many
> of the diagnoses about why it has become an icon of
> a design failure (though it seems to have found a
> less spectacular niche in the sustainable markets
> of security patrolling, particularly of sprawling
> retail and light-industrial sites) have to do with
> the fact that it could not be positioned. Because
> it claims not to be a redesign, its function is
> not easily recognizable. This is not only the
> case for the consumers, but also for all those
> committees of mediocrity like local councils, who
> decide what can and can't go on a sidewalk, or
> need registration as a road vehicle (hence its
> primary market running around less regulated
> private property).
>
> I am paraphrasing a boxed insert into the 5th
> edition of Everett Rogers _Diffusion of Innovations_
> page 148, called 'Classifying the Segway'. See also
> this paper in the International Journal of Product
> Development:
> http://www.systematic-innovation.com/Articles/05/Oct05-Defining%20%60Breakth
> rough%27%20Product%20Design%20Solutions.pdf
>
> And see also the 'Restrictions on Use' paragraphs in
> the Segway's wikipedia entry [which is a good time to
> mention de-individualized creativity: wikinomics,
> wisdom of crowds, here comes everybody, WeThink, etc]
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segway_PT#Restrictions_on_use
>
> The point is that creativity is all well and good
> unless that outcome makes a difference, and to
> make a difference you need to be able to negotiate
> current socio-materialist inertia, which it seems
> is best done by observing and listening to others,
> or better collaborating with others, and their
> existing functional categories, in order to work
> out how to redesign them. What fan groups are now
> doing for the segway - laboriously hoping to transi-
> tion out of niche-dom by creating diverse socio-
> technical networks that would appropriately position
> this innovation - is what Kamen should have done at
> the outset, had he not had the personality that made
> him insist on his independence of thought and action.
>
> My bias, in studio teaching, is therefore to help
> students become socio-technical networkers - the
> personality for which is a certain capacity to
> tolerate enslavement to petty constraints and
> impovershing inhibitions.
>
> If you share my prejudice, I cannot recommend enough:
>
> THE KEY TO SUCCESS IN INNOVATION* PART I:
> THE ART OF INTERESSEMENT
> MADELEINE AKRICH, MICHEL CALLON and BRUNO LATOUR
> International Journal of Innovation Management
> Vol. 6, No. 2 (June 2002) pp. 187–206
>
> THE KEY TO SUCCESS IN INNOVATION* PART II:
> THE ART OF CHOOSING GOOD SPOKESPERSONS
> MADELEINE AKRICH, MICHEL CALLON and BRUNO LATOUR
> International Journal of Innovation Management
> Vol. 6, No. 2 (June 2002) pp. 207–225
>
> Cameron