Overcrowded - Designing Meaningful Products in a World Awash with Ideas

Verganti argues that in a market awash with ideas, the rare and valuable move is innovation of meaning — changing what a product means to people, not merely adding features. A business-facing take that maps onto the SDF's Procedures (how that meaning is worked out) and its Partners view that meaning is made with others. Published by MIT Press in 2017, Overcrowded presents an approach to innovation that does not set out to solve existing problems but to find breakthrough, meaningful experiences. Rather than brainstorming, which produces many unfiltered ideas, it proposes starting from a vision that is then subjected to criticism, first from a sparring partner, then a circle of radical thinkers, then external experts and interpreters, and only then from users. Verganti describes companies, including Nest Labs, Apple, Yankee Candle and Philips Healthcare, that have built successful businesses this way, arguing that innovation driven by meaning is how value is created in a world where ideas are abundant but novel visions are rare.