Instantly Obsolete

Everyone’s talking about innovation. Some are even doing it. But how do you institutionalize it? Susan Wojcicki’s contribution to Google’s latest Think Quarterly offers eight guiding principles. Smart and clear thinking.

In our line of work we spend a whole lot of time discussing and celebrating the “big” innovations – the disruptive technologies and cultural game changers that the likes of Google and Apple appear to roll out daily.

However, we shouldn’t overlook the seemingly smaller innovations that could have a huge cumulative impact on our future.

Here’s one with some promise.

The 98 Pen. Developed by DBA, a New York-based product design company. It’s “the only 98% biodegradable pen in the world”, made from a potato-based plastic, filled ecological-safe ink AND produced at a wind-powered facility to boot.

Above: A 60 second video showing an app being made with App inventor for Android.

This week Google introduced App Inventor for Android — a radical step in demystifying app development and encouraging in a whole new class of citizen creators.

I remember in the late-eighties and early-nineties how threatened designers were about the burgeoning world of desktop publishing. Typesetters had already gone the way of the Dodo and with every corner copy store equipped with Macs loaded with WYSIWYG layout software, it seemed that role of designers might be in jeopardy.

While it may have ended a few floundering careers, it also forced the good designers to get better. With basic layout commoditized, superior craftsmanship and strategic services were required to offer real value for clients.

Flash forward twenty plus years.
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