Overcrowded

The standard text on innovation advises would-be innovators to conduct creative brainstorming sessions and seek input from outsidersżusers or communities. This kind of innovating can be effective at improving products but not at capturing bigger opportunities in the marketplace. In this book Roberto Verganti offers a new approachżone that does not set out to solve existing problems but to find breakthrough meaningful experiences. There is no brainstormingżwhich produces too many ideas, unfilteredżbut a vision, subject to criticism. It does not come from outsiders but from one person's unique interpretation. The alternate path to innovation mapped by Verganti aims to discover not how things work but why we need things. It gives customers something more meaningfulżsomething they can love. Verganti describes the work of companies, including Nest Labs, Apple, Yankee Candle, and Philips Healthcare, that have created successful businesses by doing just this. Nest Labs, for example, didn't create a more advanced programmable thermostat, because people don't love to program their home appliances. Nest's thermostat learns the habits of the household and bases its temperature settings accordingly.