Original author Geoff Mark

We’ve been reading a lot lately…

This from the Times.
This from Kevin Kelly.

A recent article in the NY Times, “Eureka! It Really Takes Years of Hard Work,” demystifies some recent discussions about innovation in a way that has us smiling around here. In short, reports Times writer Janet Rae-Dupree, innovation is less about the A-ha! (or epiphany) moment and more about Edison’s 1% inspiration + 99% perspiration explanation of genius.

She quotes Scott Berkun from his book, The Myths of Innovation, “I didn’t invent the English language. I have to use a language that someone else created in order to talk to you. So the process by which something is created is always incremental. It always involves using stuff that other people have made.”

This is a huge validation for those of us in the business of design, which has always been the business of innovation (but then, aren’t we all in that business?).

In our Web 2.0+ world, we constantly see benefits to our customers and ourselves of the power of “appropriate appropriation.” We’re not talking about intellectual grand larceny, but rather, acknowledging the fact that everything (including the low-cost, high impact Big Idea) is the result of inspired accretions from ready minds — assembling something wonderful from the steady addition, and availability, of smaller wondrous parts.

For us, what and how we design — an identity, a showroom, a website, literature, whatever — will ultimately be a matter of assembling great bits. And those bits may include ancient cultural symbols, shared emotions, story structures used since the dawn of humanity, languages based on languages based on languages, open source code, tried-and-true interface standards, and, yes, fresh, exciting, new ideas.

When we’ve done our job well, we’ve assembled all of these bits in a way that, for now at least, gives our customers and their audiences an experience that propels each toward their goals. We hope in a memorable way.

And Kevin Kelly’s piece will be on everyone’s minds for some time to come. It’ll form the basis of C-level discussions across the world, if it hasn’t already. We are discussing it ourselves. When so many of our clients, and when we ourselves, produce products that that can be borrowed and duplicated and built upon so quickly, where is the new value? Kelly lays out a yellow brick road, perhaps.

These articles are not going to influence the way we work far into the future. They are guideposts for today’s work. In our world of corporate communications consulting and development, the assemblage of bits into something new has been our practice for… always.

Today we use open-source programming, assembling mash-ups of pre-honed applications, using feeds for content from existing systems.

But we have always used imagery and words and typography historically and culturally known to trigger ideas and emotions for our customers and their customers. Our design strategies for spaces and artifacts are accrued from years of study and experience in the contexts, the materials, the production processes, and in the human exchanges that take place in business environments.

When studying usability, we record behaviors of users through research and metrics, then compare our results with accumulated data and knowledge stores from others who are engaged in the same field of study. Borrowing “best practices” from other authors and inventors.

But where any design house establishes greatest value (and makes its money) is in this one thing… when we work with our customers and their customers to discover what is “unreproducable” in their products or experiences or expertise. What is their central, unique idea, the source of their strength? How can we protect that and make it stronger?

We call our iterative process “design calisthenics.” We know lots of iterations ultimately result in great work. Those iterations are influenced by talented people on both sides of the project budget who share a big picture, and bring expertise. It doesn’t hurt to have people around who can see how small parts can work together to improve the whole.

So, I’m lifting my super-caffeinated drink to the hard workers. You know who you are. Happy reading to you. Have you been reading along these lines lately? We’d love to read all about it.