{"id":1260,"date":"2007-04-25T10:45:36","date_gmt":"2007-04-25T14:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/?p=1260"},"modified":"2007-05-09T12:26:13","modified_gmt":"2007-05-09T16:26:13","slug":"a-recipe-for-preventing-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/?p=1260","title":{"rendered":"A Recipe for Preventing Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"

With all the discussion about “design thinking” and “innovation”, I found some quotes in an article on Appliance Magazine’s<\/em> website that are probably more mainstream than the “hype” crowd would care to admit. In a piece about conceptual appliances, “Conceptual Transformation” (Link)<\/a>, this quote from Matthew Kueny, the head of new product development at Miele USA<\/a>, had me do a double-take:<\/p>\n

I think that the biggest challenge is dealing with consumer habits. If a consumer has to learn to use a product differently it is going to be difficult to sell. You really have to find a way to integrate new concepts and designs into products that don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t try to change user habits and still fit what a consumer is used to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sorry, but that sounds to me like a recipe for bottom-feeding… which probably includes a healthy dollop of focus group worthless<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When I think of highly-innovative products cited as examples of excellence in design – the Swiffer, the iPod, the Dyson vacuum – they don’t follow his safe recipe for success. They’re often the kinds of products I expect from smart development exercises (e.g. “consumer encounters<\/a>” – PDF) or passionate individuals. They take smart chances; intelligent risks. Because sometimes what’s needed are products that break from tradition, overcome bad habits and actually provide an innovative solution.<\/p>\n

Maybe I just need someone to point me to a Miele offering that can share the stage with those products, because while I don’t doubt Miele makes a fine quality product, I don’t see much in their product line that gets me excited or interested. Anyone?<\/p>\n

Equally alarming to me is this subsequent quote:<\/p>\n

You can come up with a great concept, but then you have to deal with the reality of bringing the product to market, and that process can alter the design rather dramatically.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Too bad someone didn’t tell the decision-makers behind the much-maligned Pontiac Aztek how that sort of thing can work against a company (references: Link 1<\/a>, Link 2<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Too late for second-place GM, perhaps, so instead someone might want to inform Kueny that “dramatically” changing a concept means that it might no longer be<\/em> that thing which excited people and which got the project started in the first place. One would think that with 6-7 year development times, the end result would remain true to the original intent. Unfortunate if that’s not the case. And personally, I wonder if a project doesn’t usually lose its way after all that time in development. In my experience, the whole team might have come and gone from a company in that time frame.<\/p>\n

So how many Kueny’s are out there? How many managers playing it generally safe, but willing to take a chance on something in which they have a personal<\/em> investment (e.g. the “Art” product?).<\/p>\n

A whole bunch, I’d guess.<\/p>\n

So has design won<\/a>? Once again, I don’t think so. Playing it safe can<\/em> be good for the career. Development times are probably longer though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With all the discussion about “design thinking” and “innovation”, I found some quotes in an article on Appliance Magazine’s website that are probably more mainstream than the “hype” crowd would care to admit. In a piece about conceptual appliances, “Conceptual … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-administrative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}