Meanings result from interaction between user and product. They are not an intrinsic part of a product and cannot be designed deterministically. A company may think of a product’s possible meanings and design its features, technologies, and languages to act as a platform, a space where the user can provide his own interpretation. Indeed, people lov

To understand possible new meanings, the company steps back and looks at the big picture to see what people could love in a yet-to-exist scenario and how they might receive new proposals.

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.

This strategy is called design-driven innovation because design, in its etymological essence, means “making sense of things.”

Firms that develop design-driven innovations step back from users and take a broader perspective. They explore how the context in which people live is evolving, both in sociocultural terms (how the reason people buy things is changing) and in technical terms (how technologies, products, and services are shaping that context).

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

After all, we are humans. We spend our entire lives looking for meaning. Who really believes that we can smile at our spouse and children or cheer our colleagues, and then, after a millisecond, switch off our limbic system and become inhuman when we drive our cars or buy the next peripheral for our offices?

This process reflects the profound and precise dynamics of research rather than the speed of brainstorming. It implies sharing knowledge through exploratory experiments rather than extemporaneous creativity. It resembles the process of science and engineering (although it targets meanings rather than technologies) more than that of a creative agenc

In periods of economic downturn, product meanings become even more relevant. Firms must be able to cut costs without cutting identity and value.