Nickname: Barcelona Design Centre

Review: I find the Thermotech example very useful for this article. I was a speaker at the conference, and I don't understand why we should change the word "design" for "applied innovation" (Martinell comment). Why not, "Design Innovation?" Design is more than a "wonderful working tool." As Tiplady says, there is still a lot of work to do.

Date reviewed: Feb 16, 2006 5:53 PM

Nickname: Christian Martinell (Barcelona)

Review: I agree with most of the comments posted. Indeed it's a good article, Rachel. Still, I wonder why instead of using the word "design" to define consultancy that improves and changes bussinesses we shouldn't say "applied innovation"? The example you mention in your article about the Swedish company has more to do with applied innovation than design, to my understanding. Design is a wonderful working tool, but it's useless if you don't think before what to do with it.

Date reviewed: Jan 31, 2006 10:55 AM

Nickname: Chaunce

Review: After art school, my second job was at General Motors where I was involved with the first Corvette in 1952. The weird thing about this article is that it is just what I've been saying for over 50 years. Maybe some day businesses will listen.

Date reviewed: Jan 27, 2006 5:45 PM

Nickname: Erin

Review: The State of Rhode Island is promoting a design economy. The renowned Rhode Island School of Design has created a Center for Design and Business that's focusing its energy on making design-driven businesses work. They've got an Entrepreneurship Center (incubator) for architects, textiles, multimedia, marketing and more. And, each year RISD gathers hundreds of businesspeople - especially designers - to talk about design at every level of the customer experience. It's called "Success by Design." Hearing folks like James Dyson and the chief marketer for Puma Worldwide talk about how design impacts their bottom line ... it's enough to get the attention of even the "pretty shapes" crowd.

Date reviewed: Jan 27, 2006 4:09 PM

Nickname: Ralf Beuker

Review: Hi Rachel, Thanks for this quite informative article. It's highly appreciated! However it's interesting how these (semi)public organizations, especially in the design sector, manage to bypass all sort of relevant media. Interestingly I'm running one of the leading blogs on design, management & business (http://www.design-management.de) and haven't heard/read anything about this conference so far ... until today via another blog colleague: http://blog.vanderbeeken.com/ Please keep us posted, Ralf Beuker.

Date reviewed: Jan 26, 2006 9:28 PM

Nickname: csven

Review: Excellent article. I wonder, when most business people think Design, do they also still assume designers are only trained to provide styling? As both a 5-yr degreed industrial designer and 4-yr degreed aerospace engineer with an enviable management background, the assumptions so many seem to still make as to what a designer brings to the table (i.e. pretty shapes) can be unintentionally insulting. Perhaps the real lesson in this isn't about design at all. It's that as the population ages and people have more opportunities to explore different career paths, those we meet wearing a particular occupational hat at any moment in time may in fact have far more to offer than is immediately apparent. And this applies to all disciplines.

Date reviewed: Jan 26, 2006 2:20 PM