Recessions get a bad press. But they are really opportunities
with halitosis. Once you get over the shock, you can set to and
work with the opportunities to create breakthroughs. It’s all about
channelling recessions in a positive way.
The electronics design sector is ripe for this kind of thinking.
The current recession can be deployed in your favour, to blast away
the staid thinking that abounds in the sector. That things are done
the way they are done because they have always been that way is a
common refrain. Time it went the way of the thermionic valve.
Here are five tips, made with appropriate humility, that
reflect the opportunities for change under the cover of the current
recession:
Innovate
Nothing that has gone before will be good enough for the future.
This is code for “innovate” and innovate means doing different
things in different ways, not doing things better.
So take a holistic approach to electronics design that starts with
the broader desired user experience. How do they want to interact
with your product (not how you want them to interact)?
And take a close look at the rule book on which you base your
design methodology. Does it still serve your needs, or does it now
struggle to do so? Is it based on a divide-and-conquer approach to
electronics design, in which you divide the complexity of the task
into manageable elements to conquer the design complexity, only to
find that you have killed off innovation?
Connectivity
It doesn’t matter how cool it is if it’s not connected. I doubt you
need reminding that connectivity is the most important attribute of
any device today. This is also code for saying that making
something look cool is the minimum attribute of a successful
product, and everyone will copy you very quickly.
If the past 40 years of electronics was the age of miniaturisation,
we are already well into the age of connectivity. The next
generation of electronic products will not be stand-alone devices,
as they have been in the past. Instead, electronic products are
being promoted, to become elements in much bigger ecosystems. They
are now the means by which users tap into these ecosystems. The
metal, silicon and plastics from which they are made become less
relevant in this much broader view of design.
So, design from this perspective. That means start (once you have
worked out the desired user experience, of course) with creating
the intelligence you want to pour into the product, and then, and
only then, find the right device hardware into which to pour
it.
After all, you don’t create a statue by starting with the mould.
You reflect first on the emotional connection you want to make with
the work of art you are about to create.
Intelligence
It doesn’t matter how cool it is if it’s dumb. Intelligence is at
the core of successful products, and not just successful consumer
electronic products. The intelligence of a device is also how you
will differentiate in the future, and it is much more difficult to
copy than hardware.
Designers must stop thinking of a design as discrete hardware,
programmable hardware and software, and instead define a design by
its functionality, and then map this functionality to the most
appropriate implementation.
The true value inside tomorrow’s products is defined by the soft
elements of the design. These soft elements should be the focus and
the place to start. Don’t constrain the critical properties, its
function, connectivity and the user experience of the end product
before you have even started.
Changing competition
You no longer know who your competition is, or where they’re based.
Sorry for stating the obvious. But one bad thing about recessions
is that they can camouflage a much larger shift that had started
before the recession kicked in.
Take a deep breath, Google “innovation” and see what comes up.
These data show one thing: that the design and manufacture of
products even as sophisticated as electronic components will likely
be done somewhere else in the future. The question to ask,
therefore, is whether you want to play in this game, and what do
you do to stay in the game?
Check your tools
Nothing should stop you from doing what you want to do, or have to
do. This is code for assess your tools and support systems right
now. If there is any aspect of what they offer, or how they work,
that gets in your way, be ruthless. Change them. Change them now
under the cover of the recession.
Emma Lo Russo is president of Altium