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.

How to Turn Research into Innovation Gold

You did the interviews, got the photos, and compiled the reams of data. Now what? A Steelcase experience could guide your next innovation project

BusinessWeek, July 1, 2009 — Throughout the winter of 2006, the long, white walls of the room assigned to Steelcase's (SCS) health-care research team looked like a scrapbook.

The four-member group based in the Grand Rapids (Mich.) headquarters of the office furniture giant was studying the experience of cancer patients, and had spent months interviewing and photographing doctors and patients in oncology units at nine hospitals across the country. Hundreds of the thousands of pictures they'd taken lined the walls, along with almost as many Post-It notes. There were collages, created by cancer patients to express treatment as it is, and as it should be, and interview transcripts and traditional market research in stacks on the conference room table.

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