Change By Design

In his new book, the CEO of design shop IDEO shows how even hospitals can transform the way they work by tapping frontline staff to engineer change

BusinessWeek, September 24, 2009 — As the center of economic activity in the developed world shifts inexorably from industrial manufacturing to knowledge creation and service delivery, innovation has become nothing less than a survival strategy. It is, moreover, no longer limited to new physical products but includes new sorts of processes, services, interactions, entertainment forms, and ways of communicating and collaborating.

News Flash From the Future: What Will Journalism Look Like?

Fast Company, June 1, 2009 — We asked the top media minds at global design and innovation firm IDEO (designer of the Apple mouse, consultant to Fortune 500 companies) to imagine: How will we get our news after the traditional model falls apart? Here's their answer.

Lessons from innovation's front lines: An interview with IDEO's CEO

Tim Brown, whose company specializes in innovation, distills the lessons of his career.

McKinsey Quarterly, November 15, 2008 — Many companies claim to be innovative, but few can claim innovation as their raison d’être. One such innovation machine is IDEO—a designer of products, services, and experiences ranging from Apple’s first mass-market computer mouse to aspects of Prada’s store in New York City to the patient-care delivery model at SSM DePaul Health Center, in St. Louis, Missouri.

IDEO’s single-minded focus makes it an intriguing port of call for executives seeking insights on innovation.

Businesses Take a Page From Design Firms†

Sloan-Kettering Taps Industry for Innovative Ideas on Management, Dealing With Unexpected Rivals

Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2008 — When New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center wanted to make the chemotherapy process easier on patients three years ago, it sought help from an unusual place: the design firm IDEO Inc.

The IDEO consultants approached the problem the way they design eggbeaters or CD players: by closely watching patients and testing little changes.

The process delivered surprises. Clinic staffers thought patients disliked long waits for treatments. But patients said other worries were more stressful, so the clinic changed how patients are tested, how they learn about chemotherapy and how they get to the clinics.

Design Thinking†

Thinking like a designer can transform the way you develop products, services, processes—and even strategy.

Harvard Business Review, June 1, 2008 — Thomas Edison created the electric lightbulb and then wrapped an entire industry around it. The lightbulb is most often thought of as his signature invention, but Edison understood that the bulb was little more than a parlor trick without a system of electric power generation and transmission to make it truly useful. So he created that, too.

Thus Edison’s genius lay in his ability to conceive of a fully developed marketplace, not simply a discrete device. He was able to envision how people would want to use what he made, and he engineered toward that insight. He wasn’t always prescient (he originally believed the phonograph would be used mainly as a business machine for recording and replaying dictation), but he invariably gave great consideration to... continue reading

Bringing design to blue chips

Tim Brown, CEO, IDEO

FORTUNE, November 12, 2007 — Design firm IDEO may be small by Fortune 500 standards, but its impact is huge. The legendary Palo Alto consultancy has worked on thousands of projects for clients like Nokia (Charts), P&G (Charts, Fortune 500), and Whirlpool (Charts, Fortune 500); IDEO's team of MBAs, engineers, and designers has helped companies create products from the first Apple mouse to the Palm V to Crest's first standup tube of toothpaste.

Going Off the Beaten Path For New Design Ideas

New York Times, March 12, 2006 —