Rotman References (a reprint)

Note: This was originally an email to my Biz & Tech in Sustainable Development class... what follows are three articles that are good reference to how design affects business.


Hey Classmates,

Here is a link where you can read the articles that I have been reading through for my independent study in the interconnection between business and design. Right now, I am focusing on articles published in Rotman, a magazine for the Rotman School of Management in Toronto. Below are 3 articles and the reference to which issue you must download.

<http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/news/magazine.htm>


1. "The Design of Business" by Roger Martin - Winter 2004, page 6: This article includes a discussion of how business over the years has moved from utilizing heuristics to algorithms to binary code... and back to heuristics in this new knowledge-based economy. This article also makes points of how innovative businesses must move toward a "design shop" style of work and attitude, utilizing such thinking as abductive reasoning in addition to deductive and inductive reasoning.

2. "Managing Creativity" by Yoram Wind - Spring 2006, page 20: This article includes some similarities and illumination to Christensen and Chesbrough's discussion of how to practically inspire innovation within an organization. For those of you taking Chesbrough's class on Mondays, this may be more slightly resonant, but these two scholars were mentioned in passing in one of the Economists from this week's reading.

3. "Interview with a Creativity Guru: Richard Florida" - Spring 2006, page 10: This article just gives more background on interesting characteristics of the "knowledge economy." It also has some interesting implications on how a second-tier city may have to attract the right human capital... so you can start to extrapolate into our discussion on policies that encourage innovation (if in a slightly different context than developing economies).

If you are interested in more optional reading or thoughts on how our discussion in this class intersect with other MOT courses that intertwine business, innovation, and design concepts (such as Pittman or Chesbrough, or last semester's Beckman classes)... let me know. I'm willing to chat anytime.

Best, Ryan