king talk

Today I stumbled upon an entry at UX-Blog which reported about a review of the upcoming book of Steve Johnson. It‘s about the process of innovation and how people and companies can create a process for innovation. He says, that innovation isn‘t one mysterious thing popping out of nowhere. Every innovation is a sequence of small novel steps with many people involved. There isn‘t a lonely creator having the genious idea. Real innovation happens when different visions come to life, collide and result in a bigger breakthrough. The medium internet has tons of information and offers you a big network of innovative thinkers and makers (though, it also can be very distractive). If you are able to connect the advantages of various media (like books, web, movies, etc.)  you provide a basis for innovation.

One last note: Besides the fact that Steve Johnson is a great thinker, the sketching style of his videos is really enjoyable.

One of my favorite authors, Don Norman, has released a new essay about design research and technological innovation. It think he is right, writing that »successful revolutionary innovation is rare … most new product development is innovative, but at a very tiny, incremental level«. First of all many »major innovation comes from technologists who have little understanding of all this design research stuff«, but they are not popular from start. »When I was at Apple, I watched many innovative products fail. Badly done? No, simply ahead of their time.«

But what is the solution? »… incremental improvement is the most powerful and important mechanism for a company, all the excitement revolves around the dramatic breakthrough. And yes, the payoffs from these inventions are so large that their success cam compensate for the risk … Once a product direction has been established, research with customers can enhance and improve it. Beforehand? Leave it to the technologists. They will get the grand ideas running, but their implications are apt to be complex, overwhelming, and just plain horrid. Horrid applications? Yes, but that’s good news: we will forever be indispensible.« True, true…