Design and Innovation: Seven Tools and Trends to Watch

Great products make use of great ideas and materials and companies are always on the lookout for for new ones. What tools are blue-chip brands and smaller start-ups alike using to accelerate the creative process? We gathered up a selection of accessible tools and hot trends ��� from software to Web sites to process���that savvy managers are tapping into for imaginative results.


TOOL: Materials Are Hot

Inventables, a product innovation consultancy, sends out DesignAid packets of materials to a client list that includes Motorola, Samsung, and General Motors. They contain the latest new materials, preselected and offered up as a springboard for "Eureka!" moments. (Material ConneXion)


TOOL: Social Network Mapping

Managers are mapping informal collaborative relationships to foster creativity. Accenture created a graphic web of social networks within clients' companies to analyze management. Siemens made a social network chart to show how its global software development team would work. Procter & Gamble joined a 53-member social network analysis consortium headed by University of Virginia professor Rob Cross, a prominent researcher on the topic.


TOOL: TRIZ

Although it's gaining steam as a trendy method for fostering structured innovation, TRIZ (a Russian acronym for Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) is a 60-year-old strategy conceived by the late inventor and patent inspector Genrich Altshuller. Altshuller devised a matrix of 39 basic engineering problems and 40 possible solutions to solve them. Consultants say an updated, broader version can teach inventiveness. Avon, BMW, Electrolux, GM, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Motorola, Pfizer, Samsung, and Toyota are all using TRIZ. But managers beware: This pet tool of engineers is wildly complex and best suited for solving technical dilemmas.


TREND: Simulations

Companies are turning to simulation technology to create digital models of systems, products, Web sites, and software before making physical prototypes, writing code, or marketing new products. Starwood is using the virtual world of Second Life to design a new hotel concept. Wachovia, Sprint, and Deloitte Consulting are using iRise simulation software to test user interfaces of customer Web sites before programmers write code. Cold Stone Creamery uses a simulation video game to train sales staff. And frog design created a Flash simulation of an oven control system for TurboChef's new residential oven before making it.

TREND:Rethinking the Workplace

In the age of telecommuting, creative companies are reinventing the office to entice employees to work together face-to-face. The Googleplex, Google's Mountain View (Calif.) HQ, features a series of solid, transparent "tents" made of acrylic that offer coveted personal space as well as a sense of, well, transparency. Legendary furniture designer Douglas Ball recently remade the standard office cubicle for Herman Miller. Called My Studio Environments, the system features translucent walls and doors to offer both privacy and openness. A Swedish company, Offecct, has the most radical solution to the generic cubicle: The Cloud, a self-inflating, 215-square-foot fabric bubble, targeted at corporate users seeking an alternative to conference rooms.

TOOL: Mapping Collaborative Work

History Flow, a data visualization project developed at IBM's Watson Research center, is a free-for-download tool that illustrates how collaborative authors work together and construct vast, fluid documents together on wikis. It has been used to track traffic and vandalism on Wikipedia, but its creators, Martin Watternberg and Fernanda Viegas, are now studying how different wiki designs might affect what types of ideas and texts are produced. Because History Flow is still a research experiment, expect bugs -- although users can e-mail their questions and comments and contribute to the further development of this work-in-progress.


TREND: Really Fast Rapid Prototyping


More than 20 years after rapid prototyping first became popular among engineers, the concept is being used in video-game production and consumer-product design. Both Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center and the Indie Game Jam, a popular video-game industry event, focus on making games as fast as possible to jump-start creativity. Consultancies such as IDEO and Smart Design create early versions of gadgets and devices in cardboard and foam to see quickly what form factors are most ergonomic. And frog design has a new center that fabricates rapid prototypes for their clients.