When making industrial design products you’re very likely also trying to innovate or even invent new concepts (unless you’re solely into ’styling’). And while that is certainly the goal for many, and although ocassionally you stumble upon some true innovative concepts, in my opinion you’re most likely looking at “micro innovation” or – more plainly – improvement.

Improvement in products is important, because when you, as a consumer, are replacing a product with a new one, you expect added features – you’re looking for that piece of innovation that justifies the purchase. The case is clear when you’re replacing something that is a commodity: replacing a bicycle is much more fun if the new bicycle has some added feature that the old one didn’t (e.g. drive belt instead of chain).

And it’s also why it sucks so much replacing your old laptop with a new one: it’s fun to feel the added speed when you open your favorite apps to begin with, but very soon you start feeling sorry you spent €2.000 on something that’s essentially identical to what you had before. Unless it comes with some innovative feature (Apple did it right when they introduced the magnetically attached power cord “MagSafe”).

I really don’t believe in new products that just look better and don’t bring any improvement to what the product needs to do and to the people using it (unless what you’re replacing is fugly). So basically: Improve your products or don’t sell any!

It’s a well known fact that ideas that are kept in the drawer never reach their potential. Ideas need to be brought out into the open, discussed, elaborated upon, shown to people, tossed and turned etc. etc. until the idea transforms into a business opportunity, a product, a concept or whatever.
This proces of refining the raw idea into something usefull is being optimised in a variety of ways. A common buzz concept is crowdsourcing which intend to reduce the risk of creating products that people don’t really like. Another concept is userdriven innovation which is similar and by no means a new invention – except maybe in the product design world where designers traditionally have been sitting behind closed doors crafting their designs without any interaction with the end consumer.

One startup that builds on these new concepts is quirky which call themselves a ’social product development company’.

The idea is brilliant and also very simple: a) submit your idea, b) pay a small fee, and c) let the community (i.e. registered users) decide which product to take into production (they are currently rallying votes for product # 5).
If your idea is chosen, quirky and the rest of the community will help develop, build, and sell the product and part of the revenue goes back to you and other users that influenced the product.
There’s a lot more to the concept, so go check it out!

It’s all about sharing your idea, and making money. Excellent concept – and perhaps one for you to transform to the European market?
Or maybe just submit your 4-year-old-idea-in-the-drawer and make tons of money?

Luckily this can actually be turned around to something positive. In product design a well known tool is the ‘bug list’: every time something annoys (or ‘bugs’) you, you write it down on the bug list. Whether you have the list on you or your just taking a mental note and writing it down later is not important (as long as you don’t forget it). The important thing is the reflection itself, and the effect it has: a) it makes you feel good to delve in the fact that you are annoyed and are able to pinpoint exactly what annoys you :), and b) it gives you a list of ideas that each could develop into an invention or a new product.

And since we are very good at being annoyed, it is quite easy to come up with a long list of things that need improvements – from door knobs to bicycle locks.

Who knows, maybe one of your ‘bugs’ might actually be something worth exploring further (if you live in Denmark there is a lot of help to find at www.opfind.nu on how to take your ideas a bit further).