tzimize said:
Monsterfurby said:
First thing to keep in mind when trying to innovate: Everything that exists has a reason to exist. If you want to improve it, find that reason first, then think about how to make the thing better. Not the other way around.
Simple but brilliant philosophy. Strange that it seems so hard to follow.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the finest of wisdom the internet has to offer. If only product designers and innovation managers took 10 minutes a day to browse fora and google for such jewels and other old adages. The world would be a better place and we'd be flying space cars and have sex with robots. Dear god, why would anyone spend years slogging it out at uni, and then spend another decade researching unproven technologies to try and find the next best thing, only to fail over and over, while the internet contains everything one could ever hope for.
Please refrain from spouting nonsense; This should have been basic knowledge. Never ask the consumer what they want; Never assume the consumer knows what they want. Consumers are clueless. Never assume technology is only useful in one specific application, field or context (refrigerators, GPS, combustion engines, x-ray machines, ..)
Mankind would still be trying to rub sticks together to make fires if we adapted your dogma. People would just keep improving on their sticks, technique, whatever. Sure, we'd have the best frigging sticks possible, make the fastest and most reliable fire ever. They'd be shiny, polished, symbols of wealth. We could have an entire economy basic on manufacturing and exporting sticks. You could be the kind of sticks, sitting on your throne, being envied by the plebs. God himself would be jealous of your stick mastery. But for fuck's sake; I'd rather use the world's crappiest lighter or matches compared to the greatest pair of sticks mankind has ever known. Because PROGRESS!