Design's Role in Innovation

In the previous post we analyzed the three different sources of innovation and we briefly saw why the design-driven approach is the most powerful. Now, I have the honor and privilege to report you a unique Q&A session with 4 major experts about design.

They will address a very important and fascinating topic: the role of design in innovation.

Jonathan Salem-Baskin

Global Brand Strategist

 

Q: “How would you define Design?”

A: “Design is the order and sense that we impart on otherwise chaotic existence. Design is the structure that we as humans impose over what is... it’s the meaning we give to experience that in and of itself that might not have any meaning. Design is structure and purpose where maybe none exists naturally.”

Roberto Verganti

Professor of Management of Innovation

Q: “What is the function of design?”

A: “Design has a very important connection to the innovation of product services and business models, and the way design can innovate things is by changing the meaning or making things more meaningful. It’s not about the style, it’s not about the technology, and it’s not about the functionalities. Design is about the innovation of the meaning.”

Paul Bennett


IDEO




Q: “What is the relationship between business and design?”

A: “Design is business and business is design. I think that businesses that don’t understand fundamentally that design is not just about the decoration of something but it’s about the solution and it’s about the way to design forward and it is strategic, I don’t think that those are the businesses that are going to survive.”

Bonnie Dean

Senior Advisor, Quantum Property Partnership

Q: “How do companies react to ‘design revolutions’?”

A: “I think most companies, if you interviewed them after they had been through a design intervention would say that it brought a lot of intangible things that are harder to measure. And for many, it’s helped change their culture and it’s made it a more open culture, it’s made it more adventurous, and it’s made them understand how to assess risk differently in ways that the risks they choose to take, they have more chance of being commercially successful with those risks.”

Paul Bennett

Q: “What is the role of design thinking in innovation?”

A: “I personally think we are at a really interesting moment in time. I think we are at a time, there’s a great phrase, an Inuit proverb, which is ‘the storm is the time to fish’. I think the economic storm is still swirling over all of our heads. If you take the metaphor to its logical conclusion, the fishes are under the surface and there are a lot of really great ideas there to fish for. So to me, what I think we need in a time like this is action. So, there’s a lot of discussion about design thinking, which is fantastic, but I think we need to overlap design thinking with design doing, and this is about making stuff happen.”

-Michele Bellini-

Note: This post is part of a college class and it is a fictional recreation of Q&A session, which in reality never happened. The words of these eminent experts are taken from the video “Design’s Role in Innovation” published by Design Council UK.