Here’s a fascinating, short video clip– just under two minutes long — of Andrew Lippman of the MIT Media Lab discussing the need to develop “open-architecture products” that users can customize. A few highlights of Lippman’s comments:
- “The stability that we associated with products is gone. And so if you try to base your business on a product that you think will last a long time, then I suspect you’re likely to be in trouble — because society will change more rapidly.”
- “The young are not satisfied with products. They’re satisfied with things they can build into their own products. And so the challenge is to build those as open-architecture products.”
Posted in: new product development
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Consumer as innovator is not as universal as Mr. Lippman suggests in this short video. However, the MIT Media Lab is about fast consumerism in highly developed countries. Mr. Lippman’s projects may help develop the media equivalent of Zara’s fast-fashion.
Thanks for your comment, Wade. I passed it on to Professor Lippman, who offers this reply:
ANDREW LIPPMAN, MIT MEDIA LAB: “The recent innovation in product design that is germane to my older
comment made in the video is the iPhone app store. Depending on what
you call the product — the hardware or its use — its success is in
some measure due to its malleability. I think this is what I was
getting at. When the iPhone came out, there were only a few apps and
most of them were boring. What is interesting is how many people
created apps, and how the phone is distinctive by dint of them. This
is in some measure an open architecture product, although we could
quibble about how open it is, especially as compared to an Android.
With respect to Zara, their innovation was in rapid product creation,
but I don’t think they intend that a customer buy clothes as often as
they change them. It’s very much an app store approach with something
new for someone far more often than competitors at the time.
The Media Lab is about research on technologies of expression, among
other things. It is flattering to think that we demonstrate new ideas
as rapidly as Zara creates wardrobes, but it is not directed at
consumerism or necessarily the developed world.”