When you study the great innovators and achievers in history, it turns out that they weren't necessarily smarter or inherently more talented. They simply released their fear of failure and kept trying.READ»
Sir James Dyson has made a mint selling the story of his dogged pursuit of the vacuum cleaner that "never loses suction." But Dyson's newest product doesn't suck. It blows.READ»
Sir James Dyson has made a mint selling the story of his dogged pursuit of the vacuum cleaner that "never loses suction." But Dyson's newest product doesn't suck. It blows.
That's right, Dyson's newest invention is a room fan--a ...READ»
This is way too long for a blog, but what the heck...
“There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system”- Machiavelli (1469-1527)
One of the ...READ»
Yusef Muhammed, the co-designer the 2009 Dyson Award-winning firefighting kitchen faucet, discusses the challenges it meets and the concepts his team discarded.READ»
This week: the dust clears from the controversial Cash for Clunkers--leaving greener, better stimulus programs in its wake? Also, a Dow Jones-type index for measuring climate change, some serious progress (and some serious questions) for electric car companies, and how human teeth could revolutionize the aviation industry.READ»
The Segway hasn't been the runaway hit that inventor Dean Kamen hoped--only 50,000 have been sold in seven years--but that doesn't mean there isn't room for a little healthy competition. The Orbis, a one-wheeled self-balancing urban ...READ»
Impressive advances for the blind abound, but a MIT design team has taken blind technology back to basics with the 6dot Braille Labeler, a tool that prints labels in Braille. The labeler, which was this week selected as the James ...READ»
German designers Wach just unveiled a product concept that any small-apartment denizen will love: A sink that doubles as a dish washer. The piece is part of a show of work by young German designers, called DMY Berlin. ...READ»
Grey water--the wastewater from domestic tasks like washing dishes, doing laundry and bathing--is too good to go down the drain. These designers have invented five smart ways for you to put that dirty water back into circulation.READ»
Design thinking is currently an "It" concept, the topic of countless books and blogs and conference panels. While it can mean a lot of different things to different people, for me, design thinking is a methodology, a tool, ...READ»
James Dyson--the British king of suck, inventor of the cyclonic vacuum--has been awarded a patent for an enitrely new product line: A modular, space-saving kit for kitchen appliances.
Usually, your blender, toaster, tea ...READ»
You don't read about failure very often. And I'm not just talking about ideas that don't see the light of day. I'm talking about people too. Why is this? What are we afraid of? After all, it's not as if it's unknown. Most companies -- ...READ»
Last night the 2008 Dyson Product Design Awards were handed out in New York City. (Yes, that’s Dyson as in Sir James Dyson, TV’s most pretentious vacuum peddler.)
These prizes are awarded annually for inventions that ...READ»
I read Saabira Chaudri's question of the day "Can good design save a bad product?", and immediately thoughts of James Dyson's hideous futuristic vaccume cleaners came to plague me http://www.dyson.com/store/. An example ...READ»
“Anger and frustration are great starting points” for product design, James Dyson, inventor of the eponymous vacuum cleaner, told Fast Company’s Chuck Salter in an interview last spring. At the time, Dyson, who’s famously ...READ»
That's a core question here at Fast Company. I'm always interested to learn where creative people find inspiration. For Sir James Dyson, it's annoyances from everyday life; hand dryers that left his hands moist sent him off to the ...READ»
Look beneath the surface of many great business successes, and you're likely to find a trail of failures that preceded them. Describing the painstaking trial-and-error process that led eventually to the creation of the incandescent ...READ»