So Pete Mortensen comments that the reason we don’t see more coverage of sideways innovation is that it simply isn’t sexy. I agree – my point isn’t that sideways innovation never happens. It’s that it doesn’t seem to happen systematically in most organizations. As I pointed out in my original post, Procter & Gamble have [...]

In the design and innovation conversation, we’re obsessed with looking backwards (witness the endless dissections of the ipod’s genesis) and looking forwards (what’s the next big thing?). I think that innovation and design benefit even more from looking sideways. Looking sideways means looking to other disciplines and industries to find mature solutions and frames that we can [...]

I should note – while my last post breaks down Pampers Kandoo wipes using the design maturity model, I’ve never actually bought the product (we’re not that far along in our own toddler experience yet). So I was interested to see the product in the wild when I was invited over to dinner yesterday. Even [...]

So, something that I’ve been thinking about is how the different elements of the design maturity model (Style, Form+Function, Problem Solving, and Framing) can be used as filters to look at and understand a product. I’ve broken down Pampers Kandoo Flushable Wipes to illustrate. Kandoo is P&G’s line of toilet training products for use by [...]

Meredith Davis heads up one of the few Ph.D. programs in design in the United States. I was surprised and thrilled to read her recent AIGA interview about the state of design education, where she references my design maturity continuum to discuss the challenges and opportunities for design education today. Wow!

Advocating for greater design maturity can be frustrating – it seems that design will perenially be pigeonholed as the craft of making things pretty. This morning I’ve spent some time thinking about the root causes that lead to design being boxed in, and I’ve come up with a couple ideas. I’d like to hear more [...]

So, I wrote in 2005 about why most designers aren’t design thinkers, yet. Unfortunately, I think that the rising popularity of design, innovation, and design thinking has actually been detrimental and limiting the growth of the industry’s design maturity. The reason: as more and more coverage has been devoted to these topics, many designers have [...]