Could Social Sourcing save Product Design, Quirky Thinks so

Where are the companies that claim to want creative individuals? How can they strive to have creativity when IT is so hard to define? How do corporation stay creative or as I like to put it “foster creativity”? This question came up when I heard an interview with the principals of MailChimp http://mailchimp.com/ Ben Chestnut and Aaron Walter. One thing I heard them say was that in a company “where failure is not an option, neither is success.” They also discussed how to make it possible to ingrain creativity as a cornerstone of their firm rather than as an assignment somebody gets every so often. This actually begs the question, if it is even possible for a company to stay creative all the time.

Which companies manage to stay at the top of the creativity curve and how do they do it?

Many people would put Apple at the pinnacle of innovation and creation. Certainly they have a recipe for desirable consumer electronics, but it is my understanding that under Jobs at least, it was sort of a, my way or the highway mentality. Which is great when you have a visionary genius as leader. What happens when the leadership falls to mere mortals? This is what time will tell. It is possible that the great team that Jobs put together in Menlo Park may now have a chance to shine all on their own given that one aspect of Jobs’ genius was spotting and motivating talent. So Apple is a corporate structure that is peopled by the gifted and talented society but without Jobs’ special genius and leadership will they all have a chance to develop or will they, like a herd of cats all scamper off to chase their personal ball of string?

At MailChimp they spoke of seeding the departments with non work related projects and challenges like supplying build a ‘bot kits and bringing in music industry professionals to handle marketing chores. In this way keeping fresh ideas flowing.

Google is also known to be a creative juggernaught but it is my understanding that they have a high burn out rate. They pull the best and the brightest out of university and tap them for their new ideas and youthful outlook. But the way it has been described to me strikes me as plugging you in like a battery in the Matrix and discarding you when you are dried up. It is an interesting model to bring the Noogles in before the cement has set around their education and sapping the creative juice from them but it also presupposes that mature folk have little or nothing to offer.

But these are technology companies what about other industries? I have myself have been told I was “too” creative by top design firms and one even told me that they had no wish to “stifle my creativity” which is nice to hear, except when you are a 30something fresh out of design school looking for that career launching job.

So if at 30something I am too creative and the best of the youth generation is being drawn off to technology firms, who is innovating and creating the other products in the world? Well as it turns out, you.

There is a great newish company called Quirky, yes Quirky http://www.quirky.com/ at least the domain was available, and what they do is assist inventors through development to market.  The initial inception, well that still has to come from you.

So Quirky is a new, call it, crowd source product design and development firm were social influencers are used to vote on everything from design and development to pricing and marketing. It is a wonderfully fluid system defining the product stream from idea to store shelf.

I have long felt that there was a paucity of good development in consumer products with lackluster designs and a seeming unwillingness to innovate. The only progress seems to be in the area of planned obsolescence. Things do seem to break down on schedule. Even in one of the quickest and arguably most innovative industries of mobile devices we still see basic rectangles that have no relationship to the face.

So where is the creativity, where is the development where are the stride steps forward. When Ray Charles was trying to make his way in the world he knew his ears would allow him to mimic anyone and their sound. But it wasn’t until he started to listen to his own voice that he created his own sound. When will the product design firms have the faith to listen to their own voice and create their own sound?

It is my hope that the social aspects that Quirky can provide will lead to exciting developments in new products.