innovation playground Idris Mootee

China Is Pushing The Frontiers Of Innovation. It Needs To Move Beyond Just Technological Progress. China Is Behind In Commercialization And It Is A Big Gap To Fill.

There were lots of interesting debates about "new thinking around innovation and future development of enterprises in China.” With almost three decades of sustained economic growth and orchestrated government support for advance technology research resulted in a large talent pool (but still not large enough) and many are well trained by foreign univerisities and companies.

China has made impressive achievement in many areas including network technologies, article physics, structural biology, genomics, human space exploration, supercomputing and high-speed rail which is part of China's centrally designed and state-led innovation model. Moving towards a more innovative economy is one of the main challenges facing China's President Xi Jinping. He understands what is important for China to sustain prosperity and development. China has developed a range of policies to create "indigenous innovation" to reduce dependence on foreign countries for advanced technologies including government procurement, competing technology standards, and requiring technology transfer from multinational corporations in return for access to Chinese market. Is this enough?

At the same time there is more proof that the western style of management is becoming more and more less effective and sometimes even becoming a barrier to innovation reform. To achieve China’s vision and development goal, China must produce and support innovators whose ideas and execution will enable China to create greater and broader economic wealth beyond manufacturing, infrastructure and real estate development. For most companies in China I've talked to, they are a long way from understanding what it takes to make innovation real beyond basic R&D and to compete outside of its demestic market.

China’s innovation cannot just rely on progress in science and technology but in both education and research; the most crucial piece is to be able to own the core technologies and design applications (let me stress - technology alone is not enough, without design), which China is still reliant on foreign companies. The most important strategy is to acquire innovation skills as a core capability so China’s companies will be less dependent on foreign IP and can create ecosystem of technologies that local companies can build upon.

Innovation goes beyond idea generation but also commercialization. It requires a new level of thinking and cross-industries and collaborative-competition that is currently not happening in China. Currently, the model of business education doesn’t deliver on innovation training as they basically modeled after the west.

Most of today's Western style of management and business problem-solving is primarily made up of prescriptive remedies still very much rooted in decades-old conceptual frameworks, developed in the 80’s as a response to pressing events then. They not only have long outlived their usefulness for Fortune 500s, they were not designed to handle today’s unprecedented pace of continuous disruption nor are they irrelevant when applying in emerging economic power such as China which has a very different historical, political and cultural values as well as a unique operating environment and a well deserved national aspirations.

My guess is that 80% of what they teach in business schools MBA’s curriculum today are not applicable for managers in China. Despite managers in China being thirsty for management development training, the net results are less to be desired. In short, we are beyond the point of questioning the effectiveness of western management practices; we need a China approach to management. Or perhaps China should take on the role to reinvent management.

This Is Just The Begining Of The Mobile OS Battle. Plenty Of New Players Will Join The Game.

The mobile OS war is getting more interesting and the current market share battle is between iOS and Android will go on for a while. Will there be a breakout of it will be more like a Pepsi vs. Coca Cola market share battle that has been lasting for decades? Android is getting better momentum the last two years and I expect that to continue. I think the overall market share is stabilizing and the other two Windows and Blackberry will remain niche players. Newcomers will join the game and there are three in the US and they are Mozilla, Tizen and Canonical. There are a few emerging ones in Asia and they all worth keeping a close watch, especially those up and coming companies in China.

In China Android accounts for 86% of all new smartphones sales and there are three times as many Android users than the US. The business model is basically freemium, developers hoping to make money from in-app purchase. The Android ecosystem is growing like crazy as people find iPhone is getting a little boring and may be too restricted.  

There will be surprises that in the next 12 months perhaps cool smart phones from China that came from nowhere selling for half the price and have even better performance.  There was a private lab test done on the top 10 most popular smartphone in China a few months back and the result was 5 of the 10 most popular Android devices from local Chinese manufacturers perform better than the imports. They include the Lenovo A750 and the XIAOMI MI 1S.  

Apple is watching the market closely and also struggling whether to add a stylus for the next iPhone,  it will be a tough one as they have always been strongly against it and the Samsung Galazy stylus is nicely designed. There are no definite right or wrong in this business and the behavior changes so quickly.

Expect some big design shift for the next iteration of Android that leverages more of the Hybrid Card layout.  Android needs to jump into the next game in terms of user experience and it demands a shift in overall visual language from current Jelly Bean paradigms to something really different. The jump from Gingerbread to Ice Cream Sandwich was a big jump. I believe Android will be looking at gestures control beyond the screen, perhaps the back and even the side. Apple already has a patent filed 2006 relating to using gestures on its back and a recent Google patent might bring that concept to next generation of Android phones. The principle is as easy as touching the back casing of the Android device in order to interact with the gadget and that can drastically improve the user experience. Imagine back tapping to change page or call list etc. It will be powerful when combined with acoustic feedback. The battle of mobile interfaces design has barely begun. And Facebook is joining the party.

We Need To Change The Way We Use Trash, One Imagination At A Time. It Is About Behavior As Much As Economics.

We all love shopping and some do more than other. We love to buy shoes, clothes, electronic gadgets, toys and cameras. We all know we can’t continue on like this, the stuff we buy today is way worse than what we were buying a decade ago, everything has tons of electronic components inside which is really hard to recycle.

I guess if I try to name the top three most frequent purchases outside of food and other necessities, it would be 1/ shoes 2/consumer electronics (cell phones and laptops) and 3/clothing and accessories.

We don’t buy and throw away a TV every 12 months, but we do these days for cell phones. Thanks to Nokia, Apple, Sony Erickson, Samsung, LG and Blackberry. Shoes are probably something that we can rethink. Not by changing the habits of buying less shoes, but the way we manufacture them and discard them. Every time you walk pass a Camper shop (they are nice), you feel like you need to pick something for the season.

Sustainable shoes is not something new, the above is the Nike Dunks made out of old skate decks. Very cool. I remember visiting a Spanish company 15 years ago and they used recycle tires to make shoes. Not sure if they are still around. So how do we reduce the footprint of shoes? Whether it is your Pradas, UGHs or Nikes or Campers.

Company such as Simple shoe has an environmentally holistic approach to their business design. Simple uses recycled and sustainable products such as hemp, bamboo, car tires, wool, silk, plastics and crepe rubber, in their shoe manufacturing process. They also have an Ethical Supply Chain Guidelines that spell out the fair practice that Simple’s manufacturing and distributing partners must adhere to. Companies like Nike and Patagonia have been doing that that for a long time.

Or take a look at Novacas boots. From their mission statement, “Novacas is a vegan owned and operated business that produces, manufactures and distributes leather alternative cruelty-free shoes and footwear.” I like the cruelty-free one, not exactly sure what it means. I think they can use some help in the design.

Nike has something cool to offer, and they have rediscovered a new life for the print media after death. Nike just released the Women's Premium Print Pack, a limited edition set of three shoe styles, all made using shredded magazines. I hope they used the right magazines such as Vogue, Good Company, NY Times and may be Wallpaper. The pack contains the Flash Macro Premium, the Blazer Mid Premium, and the Air Rift Premium. Unfortunately they are only available in Europe and China. Let’s hope you won’t get caught with your shoes made from recycle banned magazines in China.

Idea Couture brings design thinking to sustainability big time. And not in a simplistic way of using recycled material. It is not that simple. The real economics of sustainability is still a work-in-process. Some desiners are naive about sustainability. But we need to start somewhere, Idea Couture just launched a site called Use2, the idea is to inspire young designers and design students (and high school students) to rethink the after life of objects. Thank you IC Use2 team (Sady, Jessica, Simon, Paul, Lily, Emma, Cheesan) for making this real. Please share that with your friends.

Use2 has lots of DIY ideas for people to use in class or to inspire designer to think about the second life of their designs. It is a designer’s responsibly to make sure that even old products can create value and until they become absolutely useless then they should go into being recycled. Recycle is also a costly thing that people are not aware of. It costs us more environmentally to recycle many products than to throw them away. The problem requires real d-school and b-school thinking. It is as much as about behavior as about economics.

Have a Happy and Green New Year!

There Is One Thing That Is In Common Between Apple And China. Both Are Unstoppable And Locomotives Of Innovation For The Future.

It is so fascinating that everywhere I go in China this week, people are trying to sell me the Chinese versions of iPhone, iPad and other iThings that Apple has yet invented. I was really interesting to get my hands on the Apple Skin, the nickname of a Chinese original (yes, original, patent cleared) add on device that turned an iTouch into an iPhone but unfortunately they were taken off the market, so I went for an iHaircut instead. Not bad at all, there is really no risk for me here, it is not like buying an iPhone here in China. You never know what you'll get.

One guy showed me how it works; it was working really well when I used it to make a test call. That’s a real innovation that Apple missed. You can make calls and send text with this silicone rubber case with a SIM card slot and a dock connector. It is produced by a start-up Yosion Technology and was selling for RMB 388 (US$57) apiece. The gadget was invented by a 24-year-old Chinese graduate who felt it “inconvenient to have a mobile and an iPod Touch at the same time, and decided to solve the problem himself. We need more people like him.

To make it work for making calls and sending text, users would have to jailbreak their iPods to install Yosion and YsSMS apps. This is innovation Chinese style. I also tried the Chinese 5 inches iPad, pretty good and selling for only RMB600 (US$80) 3G enabled. I was tempted to bring one home for fun.

No one will disagree with me with the statement that Apple is probably the most loved brand by their users, employees, investors and even competitors. It is an innovative powerhouse, a very profitable company and earned itself tremendous market influence. The brand has more clout than BMW or Prada; the retail stores have better economics than a drug store and a market cap surpasses Microsoft. So who do they go from here?

The interesting question arises…what is Apple’s business? Computers? Software? Music? Consumer electronics? Lottery? The lottery business (app stores) is definitely an interesting one, doesn’t matter who wins the lottery, everyone will be paying Apple a fee. To date, iPod, iPhone and iMac are essentially creating a product category and have no competition—at least for now. iPod is not an MP3 Player. iPhone is not just a smartphone, iPad is not an e-reader and iMac is not a desktop PC. How can they do it across three categories?

Another question is how are they planning to extend the iPhone/iTouch/iPad UX platform to others? I don’t like what I am seeing if I am Nintendo’s CEO. And the same for Sony, they got beaten once on music player and can’t afford to be killed on gaming console. A patent application was filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on a hinged-screen version of Apple's iMac desktop that has a touch-sensitive screen. The hinge appears to allow the computer to alternate between a traditional vertical desktop configuration and a flat, iPad-like surface when rocked back on its hinge. I am not 100% sure if Apple will actually do it or just using the patent to create a barrier for entry. I bet Apple is thinking about a different experience gaming device….iPad is one for many already. So where else would Apple use this touch screen technology? Kitchen? School? Business? Entertainment? Retail? Apple is unstoppable.

Is The Age Of 'Indovation' And 'Chinovation' Becoming Real And What Are The Threats To Established Global Companies ?

‘The age of ‘Indovation’ dawns’ - this headline from Financial Times caught my attention while I was sitting on a plane flying out of New Jersey. It is an interesting article about Armin Bruck, managing director of Siemens in India, trying to convince the board of the Siemens of the potential of Indian innovation. He gave them the keys to a Tata Nano to convey the “smell and feel” of a revolutionary mass market product and to persuade his company that it should improve its pipeline of local inventions aimed at Indian consumers.

So, in February, Peter Löscher, the company’s chief executive, and his colleagues Heinrich Heisinger and Joe Kaeser piled into the world’s cheapest car – priced at $2,000 – and drove round New Delhi. I think the same can be said about ‘Chinovation’. Innovation from emerging economies will change the dynamics of global competition and forces every company to rethink or reconfigure their strategy for developing its high-quality technology for low-cost emerging markets. Good quality and low cost products with advance technology will becoming an important battlefield between global companies and local companies in India and China.

FT reported that after three months of that February visit, Siemens had declared publicly its intention to develop more than 80 “base level” products – targeted at financially constrained mass markets – with an investment of €3bn in India, China, Russia and Brazil over the next 3 years. Siemens expects to raise its order book 10-fold in India from these redesigned products during the next decade to €1bn a year. It also foresees double-digit profitability from the low-cost, high-quality strategy – what in India is called “frugal engineering”.

China understands the accelerating competition and the need to develop high value add industries, China is actively transforming itself from a low-cost manufacturer to global innovation test bed. The manufacturing base big domestic market give them a competitive advantage, but China’s companies still face tough challenges in their quest to move up the global value chain, and they still have a long way to go, but need to move fast.

In short, Chinese companies don’t understand ‘innovation’, let alone innovating beyond manufacturing. The idea of a ‘customer’ is still pretty foreign to Chinese companies and to understand how to embed empathy and user needs to help innovation is a long way away, because of cultural differences as well as business management mind set. China today does not have the talent base nor the culture for design and innovation at the corporate level, developing leadership skills is vital to close those gaps, and at the same time be able to attune to the end user will open vast new opportunities for consumer-centric innovation. It is at least 10 years away.

The concept of creative industries (happening in Shanghai and Beijing but not much outside these two big cities) in the context of China raises important issues, they have been trying to develop the creative industries with Chinese characteristics, but there are plenty to be done on intellectual property and copyright protection, design education, regional and enterprise development, consumer activism, and the fundamental tensions within the creative industries between individual design creativity and industrial scale. Only if the barriers are crossed otherwise the creative industries will no more than just fringes. 

But the trend is unstoppable and it is a serious threat for those companies in the west such as the Siemens or GEs of the world. Siemens understands the threat and is acting fast.

There Are So Shortage Of Wicked Problems Out There. Just The Coffee Cup Alone Is A Hard One To Solve, Not For The Lack Of Trying.

Sustainability and in particularly recycling is a very tricky topic. Just use coffee cup as an example, Today there are 58 billion disposable coffee cups being thrown away, unrecycled, around the world each year. Often least understood by consumers and even governments and large corporations.

There is a long held assumptions charging by the quantity to consumers can provide incentives to reduce consumption. The sad reality is the benefit of many program do not outweigh the costs. I think there can be more impact on the product and packaging design side to help with the problems. One most common challenge is coffee cups, which are used in all coffee shops and cafeterias. These paper coffee cups aren’t made from recycled paper. Mostly are manufactured using 100% bleached virgin paperboard.

There are many reasons why manufacturers don’t use recycled paper. First, in the US, FDA regulations are regulating paper pulp that is used in direct contact with food and beverages. Second, recycled paper isn’t strong enough to hold liquid. Starbucks experimented with a variety of coffee cups made with recycled paper with mixed results. Leaking is the main issue. In 2007, Starbucks has begun to use cups made from 10% post-consumer materials, while the remaining 90% of the cup is composed of new paper. It is not that they are not trying, it is a very difficult one to solve.

During the manufacturing process, paper cups are laminated with a plastic resin called polyethylene. This helps keep beverages warm and prevents them from absorbing liquids and leaking. The plastic also prevents the cup from being recycled. Every paper cup that is manufactured and coated with plastic resin ends up in a landfill. Yes the paper will decompose but this process releases methane, a greenhouse gas with 23 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide.

Reusable cup is a better idea? Not sure the economics of washing including water consumption for the purpose makes sense. Studies suggest that ceramic mug has the lowest material intensity but only if it has been used at least 50 times. If you use it for at least 250 times, then it is a good idea. We need to develop the habit of bring-our-own-cups. For disposable cups, forget about plastic cups as they can’t hold hot drinks. Let’s look at the cost. Styrofoam costs around 15-30 cents; paper cups cost 35-50 cents and100% compostable good paper cups costs over 80 cents, all depending on volume and quality.

Yes, paper is less expensive and is biodegradable and the consumption perception is that it is greener. But the paper production process can cause almost twice as much CO2 emissions and energy consumption as creating plastic or styrofoam products. But styrofoam is made from benzene and other chemicals that contribute to smog and global warming. It is not biodegradable and it never deteriorates. They are already banned in many cities in the US. This is probably the worst choice.

To help solve this wicked problem. there is the Betacup Challenge, an open-ended crowd-sourced competition for design of coffee cups that address the problem of disposable coffee cups. They received more than 200 submissions. Here is a link to the international entries section. Not sure if there are many good ideas submitted. This is not an easy one.

A few companies are now sponsoring the Betacup Challenge including Threadless which has launched a Betacup tie-in contest for the design of "an amazing tee inspired by coffee". Starbucks is involved but not sure how committed not because they don’t believe in it, they know how hard it is and they are not betting on it. BTW there is no guarantee to implement any of the winning designs.

Don’t expect a viable solution to come out from this. The organizers behind the Betacup Challenge says that it will have been a success if it catalyzes conversation about bringing sustainable practices to the morning latte ritual. That’s is 100% true.

When Made In The UK Is Not Good Enough. Can Design Leadership Help The UK?

I saw Kenya Hara’s book Designing Design in Tokyo a few months ago, but it was in Japanese so I didn’t guy it. I saw the English edition today at the Tate’s book store so I picked it up. I always wanted to read that it, now it is available in English. Kenya Hara is a Japanese graphic designer and curator or the Muji Man, he is art director of Muji since 2001. His design philosophy is putting an emphasis on “emptiness” in both the visual and philosophical traditions of Japan. I am not sure how Japan got into this minimalist thing, it is not in their history.

Lunch at the top floor of Tate Modern is probably the best place to talk about art and design. Usually a good view of London but not today.  Yes they are two very different things, are they really? Design in Europe has a much longer history and tradition, and there are huge differences between how design is being used. Ever approach to branding is so different, UK branding and design firms talk of 'brand experience', expressed through retail design and interactions design and the like, their continental counterparts in Europe still focus on traditional elements of branding such as logo, packaging and corporate identity. And in the US, we’re talking about branding as business strategy.

I think British design is undergoing some form of identity crisis as structural changes are happening. A designer who manufacturers his/her designs realized that it is no longer an advantage to make things in the UK. With the emergence of China as the factory of the world, products bearing a 'made in Britain' tag are deemed expensive and of no better quality than Chinese made products, with some exception in the luxury brand goods. UK, I believe, still provides the best design education in the world. They are just a little ahead of the US and tens of years ahead of Asia, except Japan. A lot of businesses believe that if production goes abroad, you can keep R&D in the UK, let me tell you but that’s not always the case. In many case when you lose one, you often lose the other. This is a dangerous assumptions. This debate is worth a separate blog post.

What about Korea? Seoul is the 2010 World Design Capital and has one of the world's most technologically advanced infrastructures. It is ranked first on the Digital Opportunity Index and its Digital Media City is the world's first complex for high-tech technologies, a test-bed for futuristic multimedia applications. They are certainly way ahead of China but has yet to rise above the European standard.

And for China, along with an increasing consciousness of innovation (it means different things there) in Chinese industries, demand for design within Chinese companies is growing fat, as are expectations of the quality of design required. Design is not widely appreciated or understood. In the past 10 years hundred of design programs have emerged with more than 10,000 design graduates stepping into industry each year. There is a lack of opportunities and mentorship as well international exposure means it needs as least a decade before they are ready for prime time. The lag between demand and supply in design management education is becoming a major bottleneck constraining the development of the design management profession in China.

The 21st century has often been referred to as the century of design, where design drives innovation and plays a key role in assuring sustainability and creating growth for organizations, many countries are not ready for this. The west still has an advantage.

Everything is Art In Its Best Form; Business, Technology and Design Are the Same. May Be Art School Wasn't A Bad Choice Afterall?

My first post in a week. No access to Typepad and Facebook in China. I’ve spent a lot of time meeting with designers in Shanghai (both expat and local), potential clients and employees.. Picture above one of the many creative districts and the one below is one of potential office spaces for Idea Couture Shanghai. Design is something that is in very high demand, any form of design from ID to architecture to graphic. Graphic design is mostly what people is referring to when we mention the word “design”. Graphic design has become an art and a commodity, just looking at those printed junks everywhere and most are not even worth the paper that they are printed on.

How is graphic design changing? Is graphic design going way? In the future, everything we touch is interactive and signages are smart and all media will be rich. Will there be a place for print? I guess so, I love printed material, especially coffee table books. They accessorize my home just as a Hermes scarf accessorizes your sweater, or a well-designed book that accessorizes your brand.

What progress has graphic design made the last 20 years? I’ve heard graphic designers screaming, “Design can change the world”. I wonder what a poster or logo can do in driving change. I love graphic design, a designer (at heart) I always treat it as an art, an identify system for our societies and cultures. Graphic art is a great representation of cultures, seeing how emerging markets embarking on a design-maturity journey, I can see graphic design embarks on different paths than we went through. In the next 20 years we will see new emerging graphic languages. These languages are collective, social, global fast moving, reflecting not only local challenges but also global hopes. 

My graphic journey is very much like everyone else. I grew up inspired by Le Corbusier and Bauhaus. Helvetica is the font I used and until we were asked to use ITC Garamond when Apple implemented the new brand ID then. Those work from the Apple Brand ID design team were classic. I actually collect many of them. The Mac graphics cutely abstract, child-like drawings of the computer's components in pure bright colors-red, green, yellow, blue and gray-with a handsome logotype in ITC Garamond Regular, optically condensed to about 80% and then redrawn to give it a livelier look than its classical "parent." This combination of approachable, deliberately Picasso-like “fun” art with an obviously serious logo presents the user not only with a friendly product, but a friend whom you are supposed to trust.

I still have many of the design pieces as my collection. When Clement Mok talked about the design guidelines at Apple (or lack of it): “Steve Jobs had in mind something very simple, something very different from existing standards, and something with a personality-something that would transcend the technological appeal of the computer.” After 10 rounds of comps and living with the engineers in the Macintosh division day-in and day-out for months, we were nowhere. The solution didn’t come until we realized that those engineers are not technicians, but poets and artisans. It came to us.”

People there were spending 90 hours a week working on the first Mac out of passion and the belief that they can change the world. The engineers were using the technology medium to create art: what they designed is really a new art form-that of the 1980s. The takeaway is anything is its best form is an art – business, design or technology.

China Needs A National Design Policy. But More So, Need Entrepreneurs That Think Big And Long-Term.

China's design industry experts are calling for greater government support in order to help the their manufacturers raise the competitiveness with design innovation. Zhu Tao, president of China Industrial Design Association, said the Chinese economy suffered heavily from the global economic crisis, with factory closures and layoffs. "Without our own design, we won't have our own brands. Without our own brands, we won't be independent in the world. Being an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) is no way out," he said. China does have a design policy. Not even the US has one.

I exchanged some views last week with Dori Tunstall about the challenges of getting government to develop an effective design policy. She is the organizer of the U.S. National Design Policy Initiative. Trained as an Anthropologist at Stanford with a doctorate degree, (she is actually a Design Anthropologist and she sees her job is to seeking to answer the question, "what does it mean to be human?"). Dori’s idea is that this design policy document of regulations is not something to "force upon" on designers. Rather this document serves as the blueprint for the participating design organizations to coordinate, channel, and prioritize their activities as we more deeply engage with government partners. It's the activities that are important. If the government never signs a "US Design Policy" bill, it is fine as long as the proposals are written into other legislation. The problem with regulations that effect designers today is that designers are not at the table.

I think every country needs one. US and China particularly so, it is about maintaining competitive advantages for industries. China is the world's largest producer of more than 200 product types from bicycles, batteries to shoes and TV sets. Today “Made In China” means cheap and low quality goods If Chinese companies seriously wanted to transform crisis into an opportunity, they need to focus more on 1/ learning from world class design firms 2/ develop advanced programs to train higher skilled designs 3/ close the gap of branding capability of Chinese firms from a managerial perspective.

Beijing is hosting the 2009 Icograda World Design Congress and the 1st Beijing Design Week, starting this week. The Chinese mainland will be hosting the Congress for the first time and the five-day event will consist of 12 exhibitions of creative designs, forums, lectures and design events. Attendants include British Design Council chief executive David Kester, Republic of Korea (ROK) Institute of Design Promotion president Kim Hyun-tae, renowned Hong Kong designer Freeman Lau, car designer Olivier Boulay, and Japanese designer Kohei Sugiura. China enjoyed the benefit of a large domestic consumer market; this allows Chinese brands an opportunity to become world-class brands.

It will take more than 10 years for China to develop design capability that are comparable to world standard, so they better start soon. The biggest barrier is still the “short-termism” mindset of Chinese entrepreneurs that needs to change first. While the quality B-schools in Asia are getting very up-to-date with support from top international schools, D-schools in Asia has a long way to go. No schools have successfully evolved from a traditional focus on aesthetics and products to embrace higher level design thinking. The best Asian schools provide students with good technical skills, but their graduates leave without the ability to work across disciplines or to use design strategically. UK and US D-schools are at a significant advantage and will take

What’s The Future Of Design In China? What Is China's Design Strategy?

What’s the future of design in China? Or will China ever have a real design future? Do they ever need one at all? As part our China strategy I’ve visited half-a-dozen of design firms in China last week and got a pretty good snapshot of the state of the industry while sharing my points of views on how design will evolve in China.

There is a vibrant Chinese design culture (somewhat narrow in scope) within the context of China's industrialization, consumer evolution and technological change. From the entrepreneurial spirit of industrial designers, to society's aspirations for higher quality of life, to the global ambitions of a nation, we’re seeing the emerging of a new design culture in China. But it is not without challenge, majority of businesses in China are on a get-rich-fast mode and their motto is let’s copy and modify what is selling in the west. Their focus is mainly on cost versus functions and that’s it. Product cycles are insanely short and market changes overnight. So planning is not their thing if know what it is at all.  Overall the quality of Chinese design is at least 10 years behind from the west although they cost only a fraction (20-30% of design costs in the US).

Chinese design schools are graduating thousands of young and technically proficient designers every year. The problem is lack of mentorship and exposure are limiting the growth of these young talents. Korea did try to export industrial designers to China a few years back but without success. Korean thinks China would want to have a few Samsungs of LGs. But for the moment, most Chinese companies remain ultra short-term and very pragmatic. China’s economy is largely based on a factory mindset. It will be a 10 years journey for designers and companies to make a leap into design thinking in China.

In the meantime, expect to see more “cheap” rip-offs. One company just launched an iPhone clone with a built-in projector. The Epoq EGP-PP01 projector phone is the world’s first commercially available handset which will allow you the ability to project approximately 2 hours worth of footage (30-inch VGA image) onto your wall of choice; whether it be at the office or doing the elevator pitch in the elevator. Will get one next time I am in China.