An example that he gave was that of a CD player.  When the product first came to market, it was a true innovation.  There was not a product like it, and it was an improvement on the audio experience above and beyond its predecessors.  On the other hand, a product like the Bang & Olufson CD player was innovative in its approach to aesthetics and interaction, but was not a true innovation.  This differentiation is something that could be utilzed in a product development plan.  By categorizing product initiatives as something that is innovative or an innovation will help to determine the scale of resources as well as a time line for completion.  An innovative product can be put in the pipeline for short or near term realizations, while an innovation might be a long term (or open ended) time line.  Fitch’s approach is to utilze this differentiation throughout it’s business practice.

On the other side of the globe, LPK from Cincinnati presented a brief introduction to trend forecasting.  There were a variety of concepts from the social realm, as well as technology specific trends that will be affecting the product design world.  For example, LPK discussed the emergence of a global middle class that is heavily affecting consumerism on a large scale.  They also brought focus to the current “greening” of brands and the diminshing ability to differentiate between them.  On the technology side, there were diverse examples ranging from purity (in form and perception) to the blur between the offline and online world.  It was an eye opening view of emerging technologies and social trends.

One of the more relevant and impactful presentations was from John Guenther of Hewlett Packard.  His presentation was  detailed observation and analysis of the growth and emphasis on design within their product development process.  There were very detailed examples of challenges they had faced, and overcame, to make design an integral part of the process.  Design should contribute to the business success, yet it should do so without sacrificing art.  Guenther explained the importance of utilizing well researched design as a strategic tool for growing a successful product line that departed from the conventional.  A major challenge was to move away from producing an idea and looking for a fitting market.

The action was pretty fast, and was a lot of fun for the first round.  The HON car got some pretty great reactions from the crowd and observers.  The car in the first heat that it competed against was one of last year’s winners, and was only .03 seconds faster.  Tomorrow I will try and tweak the weight situation in order to maximize its potential.  Luckily, the IBM team has been very accommodating to let me test and tune it before tomorrow night’s competition.

One of the more significant presentations was given by Paul Hatch, the director of TEAMS design in Chicago.  His presentation was a collection of observations and experimentation regarding the influence of music on design and designers.  He showed how his office used to play a mix of music all throughout the day.  He went on to discuss the usage of specific genres of music at different times of the day to increase productivity and creativity for respective tasks.  He also gave an example of a case in which one person who listened to one type of music was given that of another designers.  It illustrated the connection between the type of music one listened to and the type of design one produces (regarding aesthetic details or emotion).  He talked about the possibility of implementing certain types of music into mood boards.  This would let designers get a feel, and sound, of what a proposed product is supposed to be like.  All in all, it was an extremely interesting and  thought capturing presentation.

The discussion started from the use of innovation in presentation techniques.  This would mean the use of animation, video, or “commercials” to demonstrate and explain products or processes.  Next was the importance of designers pushing the boundaries of manufacturers, to ensure quality and to retain original design intent.  Bruce Clayton brough up an excellent point of “innovate or die”.  This meant the use of innovation to rethink or redesign a product(line) in order to save it from being eliminated in the market and even internally.

There was also significant talk of how to get executive management to accept the risk of innovation.  There were obvious solutions:  using business cases to back up design proposals and using prototyping to effectively illustrate feasibility.  However, aside from these two solutions there were significant questions remaining.  One of the last points made was extremely significant, moreso than other parts of the discussion.  That point was to establish a practice of documenting failures.  It was much easier to learn from past mistakes in order to make future decisions intelligently.

Men tend to have completely opposite purchasing styles from women.  Men are priority based, while it seems women are more about maximizing an opportunity.  For example, men will decide up front what it is that they need to purchase.  The will focus on the essential features or necessities, and narrow down options based upon basic elimination.  On the other hand, women utilize discovery to determine the product to be purchased.  They begin with the concept of the problem and explore as many options as possible.  They tend to decide at the very end of the process, and extra features tend to be a deciding factor.

Marti, from what I saw, is an author as well as a member of the Trend Sight group.  Her information was extremely valuable and appropriate to any marketing.  One of her final points summarized excellently:  designing for women tends to expand the appeal of the product for men.  She also eluded to proper research techniques dealing with women.  For example, producing qualitative results from surveys and focus groups.  Regarding the focus groups, she mentioned having female only groups so as to not influence conversational dynamics by a male presence.

Another speaker Thursday morning was Bryan Nesbitt, from GM North America.  I found his talk to be quite timely and very significant.  His presentation was a discussion of a transition from a silo-ed design methodology to one that provides a balance between engineering, design, and manufacturing.  More specifically, equality in development between industrial design and engineering.  One of his points was the undervaluation of design during the development process.   He emphasized the responsibility of the designers to follow through with engineering and manufacturing, after it has passed initial design phases, in order to control design intent and finished quality.

Bryan illustrated GM’s situation by explaining their collaborative effort between color, component design, and the finished quality of the product.  A balance within the design process enabled significant growth and improvement within the design department, as well as the finished products.  Along with this design balance was an emphasis on designing for the emerging markets.  For the automotive industry, that is typically India and China.