An interesting observation that emerges is that the emotional and symbolic side of products does not result from recent market evolution toward “postmodern consumption.”32 Meanings have always ruled product success.

“We have a lot of customers, and we have a lot of research into our installed base. But in the end, for something this complicated, it’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

Innovation has therefore focused on two strategies: quantum leaps in product performance enabled by breakthrough technologies, and improved product solutions enabled by better analysis of users’ needs. The former is the domain of radical innovation pushed by technology, and the latter of incremental innovation pulled by the market (see figure 1-1).

design as making sense of things.

Firms that develop design-driven innovations step back from users and take a broader perspective. They explore how the context in which people live is evolving, both in sociocultural terms (how the reason people buy things is changing) and in technical terms (how technologies, products, and services are shaping that context).

That mirror in which Steve Jobs metaphorically looks at himself is not a magic gizmo that delivers soothsayings: it is the mirror of an executive’s personal culture. It reflects his own vision about why people do things, about how values, norms, beliefs, and aspirations could evolve, and also about how they should evolve.

“Working within the meta-project transcends the creation of an object purely to satisfy a function and necessity. Each object represents… a proposal.”

These innovations do not question dominant meanings but simply refresh and further reinforce them. This is the domain of style.

When more than 30 percent of the population belongs to the creative class, as Richard Florida has suggested, creativity is not in short supply: it is abundant.3 What is in short supply, I’m afraid, are circles of forward-looking researchers whom firms involve in breakthrough projects because of their culture and vision, and because they have someth