Design-Driven Innovation: Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating What Things Mean

Until now, the literature on innovation has focused either on radical innovation pushed by technology or incremental innovation pulled by the market. In Design-Driven Innovation: How to Compete by Radically Innovating the Meaning of Products, Roberto Verganti introduces a third strategy, a radical shift in perspective that introduces a bold new way of competing. Design-driven innovations do not come from the market; they create new markets. They don't push new technologies; they push new meanings.

Roberto Verganti is Professor of Management of Innovation at Politecnico di Milano. He is the founder of PROject Science, a consulting institute which advises global corporations on the management of strategic innovation, and is the author of many articles in scientific journals, as well as the article "Innovating Through Design," published in the Harvard Business Review (December 2006).

1. Design-Driven Innovation. An introductionPart One: The Strategy of Design-Driven Innovation 2. Design and Meanings. Innovating by making sense of things 3. Radical Pushes. Placing design-driven innovation in the strategy of a firm 4. Technology Epiphanies. The interplay between technology-push and design-driven innovation 5. The Value and the Challenges. Why companies do or do not invest in design-driven innovationPart Two: The Process of Design-Driven Innovation 6. The Interpreters. Doing research with the design discourse 7. Listening. Finding and attracting key interpreters 8. Interpreting. Developing your own vision 9. Addressing. Leveraging the seductive power of the interpretersPart Three: Building Design-Driven Capabilities 10. The Design-Driven Lab. How to start 11. Businesspeople. The key role of top executives and their culture