ferentiable strategies among them. Only the last two create an opportunity to differentiate products, services, experiences, brands, or companies, and only innovation creates lasting, organic growth (including forging new markets, not merely new offerings). And as the markets become ever more global, competition from even more players makes innovation that much more critical.

On a panel in San Francisco this past June, this very question was posed to four leaders, including myself. All agreed that while an MBA wasn’t a requirement, what was necessary was for developers (designers, engineers, managers, etc.) to have a better understanding and appreciation for all business functions as well as the ability to use the vocabulary of business to describe design and innovation concerns in relation to traditional business issues.

This is the imperative behind the creation of California College of the Arts’ (CCA) new MBA in design management. While it’s a business degree, not a design degree, its perspective comes from design thinking and processes. The purpose isn’t to create the next generation of leading designers (that’s the purpose of CCA’s design MFA), nor is it to create a generation of managers of the design function (like the many design-management degrees around the world). Instead, the focus of this program is to create the next generation of innovation leaders, whether from a design or other business background, who can lead organizations through innovation at any level.

The program is structured around traditional MBA courses, though it’s focused entirely on innovation. Students interested in MBAs focused on real estate management, international trade, or international finance will, undoubtedly, go elsewhere. However, this program seeks to attract those wishing to understand how to implement innovation in the best possible ways and in a variety of contexts. Every course is infused with the best thinking, perspectives, and tools of meaning, innovation, and sustainability.

Though the program is small (limited to 30 people per year) and new (the first students started this fall), it has already attracted a surprising interest. With only a bit more than four months’ notice, we received 90 applications for the 30 openings. Next year we project at least 250 applications.

In the near future, we plan to launch an executive certificate program for those who already have a business degree or extensive business experience as well as workshops for shorter, more intense learning that reach even more people.

To further help people navigate the intersection of design and business, we’ve created a resources center on the program’s website that lists the best articles, books, resources, blogs, and other programs that address design-led innovation, meaning, and sustainability: www.designmba.org.

What Is Innovation?

Innovation can take several forms:

• Better offerings and experi- ences (in other words: products, services, and events)

• Better processes (internal and external)

• Better organizations (struc- tures and functioning)

Each of these can create an advantage and, oftentimes, one that is both differentiable and protectable (to ensure that it’s not one others can quickly use to relevel the playing field). Innovation can also serve to create better markets, not only better solutions, and, ultimately, even a better world. Before you think that sounds too lofty, consider how innovations in clean energy, new materials, new services, and new investment solutions are serving to send us down a more sustainable path— one that is direly needed.

One of the missteps that many businesses make, however, is to equate innovation simply with “new.” The most successful innovations are not merely novel, but meaningful and significant. It may be too much to think that any innovation can be sustainable (in the sense that it will create a long-

term, lasting advantage) but, certainly, significant innovations create short- and medium-term advantages that last far longer than other solutions.

Appropriate innovations create opportunities for both customer and company that provide value for both. The technology field, for example, is continually awash in solutions brought to market that are novel, well designed, and well engineered (take the Segway, for example) that nonetheless fail because they don’t satisfy a real customer need. Some innovations are hidden from the customer (or, often, other stakeholders such as suppliers or partners, competitors, and communities), as in the case with WalMart’s restructuring and streamlining of operations and relationships with manufacturers throughout their entire, and multiple, supply chains. Other innovations are visible to everyone engaged to buy, use, interact, deconstruct, etc., such as Method’s line of less-toxic cleaning products. Not only are these innovative products but Method is positioning them in the marketplace in innovative ways, which is mostly about effective messaging in packaging, ads, and online.

 

Why Can’t Most Organizations Innovate Effectively? Innovation isn’t a big mystery either. There are already plenty of books, workshops, consultants, and programs to help organizations innovate effectively. But most organizations are still finding it difficult to innovate. Some of the reasons include: