Innovation Paradigm Replaced

Theory Chapter 2 Product Information Inheritance

Product Information Inheritance

Products contain information, a lot of information. By their very existence products can tell you many useful things about concepts and customer needs. All products simultaneously monitor both these channels and as stepping stones in the continuum they also imply relations with the other steps.

This information inheritance from other stepping stones (see Nesting) enables us to use the product as both a microscope on its past inheritance and a projector on its future. We can look back at the principles and concepts from which it evolved and project these evolutions onto the canvas of extended customer expectations.

If you were to find a sword from Roman times there is little doubt that before long archaeologists would have identified its known provenance, production technology, normal usage and what told us about the society within which it was used.

With modern products with a fully available provenance it rarely occurs to use to study a product as if it was from ancient times. Familiarity breeds contempt. A dustpan is just there. No thought is given to why it was originally created and what ideas over the years have been rejected in continuing to make it. A dustpan and brush has been in use since before Roman times and has been one of the most enduring designs but unless we dig one up it seems unlikely to be looked at with the archaeologists critical eye.

In order to innovate we need to be product archaeologists.

posted by Waldo Hitcher @ 10:55 PM