Funky Name, Nice Product: SkunkJuice earbuds SkunkJuice has paired a small innovation with a coherent product narrative.
Updated Tue Jan 18, 2011
In Search of Strivers at CES I'm headed to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show and here's what I want to know: Which exhibitors in the sea of booths, announcements, demos, and sales pitches are not quite satisfied with what they are showing?
Updated Thu Jan 6, 2011
Evolution has some lessons for Product Design The first in a series of entries on the role and nature of function in Design. In the world of product development, it strikes me that the link between function and form is often broken.
Posted Tue May 19, 2009
Sustainability as a Work in Progress Talk of Green Design is dominated by examples of products made of recycled materials, but sustainability is about more than materials. It’s about material sourcing. It’s about manufacturing processes. It’s about shipping and receiving.
Posted Mon Nov 17, 2008
Fuel Economy? Recently, I was filling up my Beetle and the guy at the next pump commented that I must get great gas mileage. "It gets high 20s on the highway if I'm lucky." I said, rather unenthused.
But he was impressed. "A whole lot better than this thing." he said motioning to his mid-sized SUV.
Posted Mon Aug 25, 2008
Is comfort bad for design and bad for business?
Before I’m accused of promoting masochism, or suggesting that we all give up our worldly possessions in pursuit of design truth, let me clarify.
Posted Mon Jul 14, 2008
Brand Dilemma: Losing Faith in a Service Provider
Branding is often viewed as window dressing for the sake of making an initial impression and closing a sale. The problem is that if your company changes a slogan, but not its practices or service, the slogan will eventually fall flat. If you don't live up to the hype your customers will lose faith, as I did recently.
I purchased mobile phone services from a company I switched to after a bad experience with one of its competitors. Has anyone had a good experience with their cell phone provider?
Posted Thu Jun 12, 2008
The Stuff of Innovation: The Point
I came across a service that I think is pretty ingenious.
The Point(www.thepoint.com), as they describe it, “is a platform for group action, helping you make things happen that you wouldn’t accomplish alone.”
Posted Fri Jun 6, 2008
Design and Innovation: What's the Problem?
Innovation requires an environment that is open to new ideas. That's all well and good, but innovation is more than blue sky. In order to encourage new and novel solutions, you have to ask the right questions.
Many brainstorming sessions are centered around questions that boil down to “What should we do in response to our competitor’s product or service?” Now the reason you are having the meeting in the first place may be because your competitor has just taken a big chunk of your market share, so that seems like a legitimate question.
Posted Thu Apr 24, 2008
Are You a Consultant or a Vendor?
Put another way, do you give your clients what they ask for, or, do you offer your best judgment even when it’s not what they want to hear?
Now before you dismiss this as a question meant for someone else, let me say this: No number of design awards, glowing articles, or Fortune 100 clients grants you exemption from this question.
Posted Thu Apr 24, 2008
The stuff of innovation: The Carver
I have been wanting to post about The Carver for a while because it’s such a nice example of innovation. Too often there is a tendency to talk about innovation in terms of things that are a little different than the norm. The guys who developed the carver have merged concepts of motorcycle and automobile and solved some tricky engineering problems to make their creation real.
Posted Wed Apr 9, 2008
Share on StumbleUpon
Share on LinkedIn