An apple without a cause

Required reading for my Business of Design class. This one is a good one. These were the highlights for me:

As a result, many 20th century organizations succeeded by instituting fairly linear improvements, such as re-engineering, supply chain management, enhanced customer responsiveness, and cost controls.These ideas were consistent with the traditional Taylorist view of the company as a centrally-driven entity that creates wealth by getting better and better at doing the same thing.

Competition is no longer in global scale- intensive industries; rather, it’s in non-traditional, imagination-intensive industries. Today’s businesses are sensing an increased demand for speed in product development, design cycles, inventory turns, and competitive response, and there are major implica- tions for the individuals within those organizations. I would argue that in the 21st century, value creation will be defined more by the conversion of mysteries to heuristics – and that as a result, we are on the cusp of a design revolution in business.

We start out with these mysteries, and at some point, we put enough thought into them to produce a first-level understanding of the question at hand.We develop heuristics – ways of understanding the general principles of heretofore mysteries. Heuristics are rules of thumb or sets of guidelines for solving a mystery by organized exploration of the possibilities.

In the modern era, a fourth important step has been added to the sequence of mystery to heuristic to algorithm. Eventually, some algorithms now get coded into software. This means reducing the algorithm – the strict set of rules – into a series of 0’s and 1’s – binary code

The skill of design, at its core, is the ability to reach into the mystery of some seemingly intractable problem – whether it’s a problem of product design, architectural design, or systems design – and apply the creativity, innovation and mastery necessary to convert the mystery to a heuristic – a way of knowing and understanding.