According to Business Week, 2009 was the year when innovators either cut-back on their innovation effort, or discovered "Trickle Up" innovation.
I think there is a lot of truth in this. We certainly worked on a number of projects in the last year that took product concepts originally developed for the needs of emerging, or low income markets … and re-purposed them for previously affluent western markets.
I also think there is a lot of good sense in the thought advanced in a recent issue of Wired that it is better to get a concept 80% right and do it quickly, than to wait until it is 100% right … and potentially never do it at all.
I strongly suspect that 2010 will be an equally pragmatic year … and probably all the better for it!
If you are interested in how you could apply "Trickle Up" or "Good Enough", take a look at our new Rapid Recycling Workshops offering, I think they are an ideal vehicle for delivering this kind of fast, pragmatic innovation initiative.