Design Driven Innovation: Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating What Things Mean

These companies instead search for new possibilities that are consistent with the evolution of sociocultural phenomena but that are not there until a company transforms them into products and proposes them to people. They look for the seeds that they can cultivate into blossoms.

beauty and innovation sometimes even compete. People associate beauty with aesthetic standards they already have in mind. However, novel products—especially those that are radically innovative—do not conform to existing standards: they try to impose new ones.

Apple is building a scenario of life in which people rent or buy movies at the iTunes stores, download songs from this online store and listen to them through the iPod, and back up data and upload applications wirelessly. In this scenario there is no room for CDs and DVDs. Apple has therefore released its newest notebook, the MacBook Air, without a

A company looking for radical innovation of meaning does not get too close to users, because the meaning users give to things is bounded by the existing sociocultural regime. Instead, when investing in radical innovation of meaning, companies such as Artemide and Alessi take a step back and investigate the evolution of society, economy, culture, ar

Technologies are therefore closely related to meanings, and indeed technological breakthroughs often trigger radical innovations in meanings

A product’s language is its material, texture, smell, name, and, of course, form (style is only one aspect of a product’s language).

Radical innovations of meanings, being unexpected, sometimes initially confuse people. To prepare the ground for groundbreaking proposals, firms leverage the seductive power of interpreters. By discussing and internalizing a firm’s novel vision, these interpreters inevitably change the life context (through the technologies they develop, the produc

It has not provided people with an improved interpretation of what they already mean by, and expect from, a lamp: a more beautiful object. Rather, the company has proposed a different and unexpected meaning: a light that makes you feel better. This meaning, unsolicited, was what people were actually waiting for.

These proposals, however, are not dreams without a foundation. They end up being what people were waiting for, once they see them. They often love them much more than products that companies have developed by scrutinizing users’ needs. These proposals are wellsprings for the creation of sustainable profit.