The Design of Things to Come: Pragmatic Innovation

This book, by Craig M. Vogel, Jonathan Cagan, Peter Boatwright, sort of naturally follows from previous blog-entries "connecting the dots" from globalization 3.0, to continuous collaboration + innovation, to the sets of right-brained skills Daniel Pink says will be essential to prepare us to move from the information age to the conceptual age.

The Design of Things to Come : How Ordinary People Create Extraordinary Products, is about "people-focused" innovation and how to use the skills Dan Pink describes to create a new breed of innovation that forges an emotional connection to the customer to provide a thrilling customer experience in the various forms it may manifest itself for business.

Throughout the book, the term Pragmatic Innovation is used, enough so that it hopes to become a new "catch phrase" (time will tell if it succeeds). Much of what it describes, including its focus on people and pragmatism, seem very well aligned with the values described in the Agile Manifesto.

Put this book together with the previously mentioned works from Peter Fingar (Extreme Competition), John Hagel and John Seely Brown (The Only Sustainable Edge) and Dan Pink (A Whole New Mind), and you may very well have a blueprint for both strategy and tactics on how to connect, collaborate and innovate and in what areas (and in what ways) to attempt it [such as focusing on "the customer experience" and Human Interaction Management while companies like Google transform the internet into our ubiquitous personal computing platform].

Add a dash of Fanning the Creative Spirit and Innovation at the Speed of Laughter, and maybe we'll get a solid picture of what the ideal future workplace may look like: agile, lean, connective, distributed, collaborative, pragmatic, people-centered, innovative, and dominating the competition.