This is a question that many of us should be asking ourselves, especially those of us that are working on products and services. I think it often becomes the case that we accept much of what has been done and works “well” but only needs some “tweaks” for improvement. We see a model of something we like and may try to transfer that approach, but how often do you really try to push the limits? How often do you step completely away from a product or service you are working on and say “is this really the best and most innovative way to handle this?”
I’m sure by now many if not all of you have seen or at least heard of Google Wave. For those who haven’t take a look at this video, at least the first 30 minutes. They have been working on Google Wave for about 4 years and they have again created something that I think will be game changing for the way communication occurs on the web. The great thing is how they got started, they took a technology, email, that was dreamed up years ago and had an accepted approach and asked an important question. What would email be like if it was invented today? Doing this Google challenged the accepted conventions of sending, forwarding, replying to, and storing messages. They knew that the current approach worked they new it worked well, but they didn’t let this hold them back. They challenged themselves to innovate, not just evolve a concept. What they have come up with is nothing short of impressive and I for one can’t wait to get a chance to use it.
Another innovative design concept is BumpTop. The team at BumpTop took the computer desktop as we know it and threw it out the window. They took the approach of modeling how we work in the offline world and brought that to the computer desktop. Now while there are still some kinks in the design it is a very unique and innovative approach that challenged the accepted norm of the desktop OS whether it be Windows, Mac, or Linux. They believed that just tweaking the existing design wasn’t enough and took a chance. Will BumpTop take off like I expect Google Wave to do? Probably not, but it again shows that what we may all accept as being the norm and the way it should be may not always be the way that is best.
Sure Google has some great resources in terms of people, technology, and money. However, I would say that this shouldn’t mean that only Google can innovate design. I would say that we should all be looking for ways to innovate and change the game. It’s through this approach that we make new strides and develop that wow factor. Sure their may be failure along the way and things may not always be accepted in the end, but without attempts and failures the world would be a boring place.
So how are you innovating on projects? What do you do to get team members to set aside the accepted norm and challenge the standard?
Tags: bumptop, design, google wave, innovate
