Our man Jeff over at PSFK picked up on this cool entry in the New York Times written by Rob Walker on ‘hypothetical products’ and their value to innovation. Of course these explorations have real value in terms of refining the idea or illuminating or what can or should be attempted, but what’s really interesting to us is when they jump the curb and enter the real world. Look at the Optimus Keyboard for instance, it totally started as vaporware but it found a way to get made.
With our recent release of the Better Idea Generator we’ve begun exploring this topic first hand just to see what happens when you let an idea go free. To be honest, we’d love for it come back to us like when you let an animal go in a Disney movie…except maybe this time with a pile of cash in it’s mouth. But if we’re only able to provide some inspiration and help build upon the construct of an idea we’re happy with that too.
For the sake of conversation and if you’ve read this far down. Walker posts in the comments of his article: “The non-marketplace context of hypothetical products frees the designer to leapfrog practical-minded meetings about market share and profit margins and the like and to land at the bigger questions: is this something companies should do — or must do?”
In your experience, does commercial rigor stymie creativity? and go.
Tags: hypothetical products, Rob Walker, the New York Times
