Perspectives — design insight

Alex Osterwalder is a man who, by his own admission, is somewhat obsessed with tools. And he's pretty adept at creating them. His 'Business Model Canvas' and 'Value Proposition Canvas' have been put into practice across the globe by start ups through to multinational corporations.  An understanding and application of these tools is often what separates the start ups that succeed from those that fail. And as much as they help a start up search for a winning customer value proposition and a viable business model, they are also used by established organisations to help them innovate, to develop new offerings that will ensure their future prosperity as old models are disrupted....

I recently came across an app which embodies true empathy, not to mention concern, for human behaviour. Created by New York-based artist and designer, Ekene Ijeoma, 'Look Up' is designed to engage with pedestrians who are often so absorbed in their mobile world that they risk their own safety by failing to look up as they cross the street. The app uses GPS to determine when a user is nearing an intersection, and on approach, an image of abstracted eyeballs appears on screen, lights up and the phone begins to vibrate. Not only that, using data from a government database, the app signals the relative danger of the approaching intersection, conveying the number of injuries and fatalities...

There's general consensus that today’s business environment is more volatile and unpredictable than ever. Disruption of products, services, channels, policies, talent, brands and supply chains is increasing as nimble start ups attack the component parts within the value chain of established incumbents across all industries. Organisations require a robust capacity to innovate in order to survive, and this requires that they have both creative leaders and a creative culture. The leadership challenge, well articulated by Tim Brown, CEO of renowned design strategy firm IDEO, is that most of today’s leaders achieved their position through having the right answer, whereas in our increasingly complex and interconnected world, it's nigh on impossible...

In deciding where and how to compete, every organisation makes choices about the products and services they will offer, and the strategies they will pursue to get there. Having a well managed, systematised process to evaluate these choices is essential. You likely have many more opportunities to pursue than your resources permit and research indicates that it is your ability to allocate resources based on project merit that most strongly determines your innovation performance. A number of frameworks exist to aid prioritisation of the ideas for development. Their differences in rigour will impact on speed to market, and their suitability for deployment varies according to the scale...