The Art of Product Design: Changing How Things Get Made

Product development is a team sport, but at most companies it isnt practiced that way. Companies should be drawing on the creativity of engaged customers and the ideas of outsiders, but instead they go back to the same small group of internal experts for new ideas. Designers and engineers should be connecting with marketing, sales, customer support, suppliers and most importantly, customers, but instead they sit in cubes and occasionally try to convey their ideas to outsiders by way of slides. It doesnt have to be this way, and for an increasing number of companies, it isnt. How are these companies different? Theyve opened up their product development process, embracing Open Engineering. The Art of Product Designis about the rise of this approach, a way of breaking down barriers and taking advantage of web-based communities, knowledge and tools to accelerate the design and manufacturing processes. Open Engineering relies on easy flows of information inside and outside an organization, increasing the quality and frequency of input from different groups and stakeholders. Its crowdsourcing, its collaborating, its sharing and connecting. And its helping a growing number of companies create better products faster than they ever imagined.