Dear Don, Fils and everyone,
There are several other kinds of analyses on this issue. 

Don has raised an old chestnut and it's useful to remember this is a old
discussion in some areas of design. I remember my dad and uncles talking
about it in the early 60s in Manchester! The format of the discussion was
slightly different but it's  in essence the same dialectic. The debate was
whether R&D should lead or support industry. In practical terms this was a
matter of whether the engineering design teams should control manufacturing
or whether they should provide a service to manufacturing (i.e. be under
manufacturing's thumb). I.e. is technology first and design second or vv?
The underlaying factors were also similar to those of the current
discussion. If R&D (design) leads manufacturing they get more status and can
get a bigger slice of the financial pie.

A decade later in the 60s/70s, a similar discussion  happened in another
area of design - marketing and advertising. Again the question was whether
these areas of design lead the business and technology process or provided
services to existing technology in manufacturing. 

The game also played between the design (engineering) departments and the
marketing/ advertising design departments bidding for more resources than
the other departments. Together, in some areas of industry, the design
departments managed to finesse negotiations with other departments by
creating a design process that joined engineering design and marketing
together as the driver of innovation thus gaining more mass and more control
of process and resources. 

Taking a helicopter view, The current discussion seems in essence to be
similarly exposing the dialectic tension between claims from
UX/interaction/user-based/graphic design to take more of the technology
design slice of cake.

A different  way of viewing the situation is to look at the total of all
kinds of design relating to a product in a holistic manner, i.e. include all
aspects of design work that is needed to specify, produce, manufacture and
deliver the product - including that needed by the subsidiary activities. My
rough assessments seem to indicate typically for most products (bookshelves
to high tech electronic equipment), the contribution of  technical design is
about 100 times the contribution from  UX/interaction/user-based/graphic
design. Any product involving UX/interaction/user-based/graphic design is
dependent on huge amounts of technology design. The lead time of technology
design is however typically at least 15 years prior to its use in  any
product. This contrasts with the UX/interaction/user-based/graphic design
which is typically close to market. This holistic view of design shows a
lead time of technological design of 15-25 years before products benefiting
from UX/interaction/user-based/graphic design are seen. In other words, if a
designer creates an innovative design for which technology really doesn't
exist then they will need to wait 15 years or so. If, however, they can use
technology sooner, then they are building on existing technology design
(i.e. technology comes before design) 

A third lens to look this discussion through  is Coasian transaction
analysis. The approach goes a long way to explain *why* Fils' model is
likely to work and why and how it is likely to fail.

There is heaps of information on this kind of stuff  in innovation
diffusion, innovation theory, path dependence, innovation strategy,
entrepreneurship, R&D management, R&I and related areas.

A big useful question yet to be answered is  'What do designers know about
this process that is different from what researchers in the above areas have
already found?' To know that, requires knowing what the researchers in these
areas have already found, which is a lot of work and  a great topic for a
cross-disciplinary conference (Heron Island is nice... if anyone has
funding..).

Best wishes,
Terry
____________________

Dr. Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM, MISI

Director Design-focused Research Group, Design Out Crime Research Group
Researcher, Digital Ecosystems and Business Intelligence Institute
Associate,  Planning and Transport Research Centre
Curtin University, PO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845
Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask]
Visiting Professor, Member of Scientific Council
UNIDCOM/ IADE, Lisbon, Portugal
Honorary Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development
Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
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