New and improved!

(And you may tell yourself,"This is not my beautiful house!'')

McDonald's, Pottery Barn, Gap, IKEA, and Starbucks are simply embedded in a metropolitan landscape. These corporate giants guarantee a certain sameness for all. The Awesomeness Manifesto, a recent post by Umair Haque suggests that 'awesomeness' replaces innovation as the economic advantage for any organization. Although the article refers to cars and cellular phones, creativity as a cure applies to so much more; clothing, furniture, toys, the arts, education, housing etc.

"What is innovative often fails to delight, inspire, and enlighten — because, as we've discussed, innovation is less concerned with raw creativity. Awesomeness puts creativity front and center. Awesome stuff evokes an emotive reaction because it's fundamentally new, unexpected, and 1000x better. Just ask Steve Jobs. The iPhone and iPod were pooh-poohed by analysts, who questioned how innovative they really were — but the Steve has turned multiple industries upside down through the power of awesomeness.

When you can make awesome stuff, you don't need to find "better" ways to sell it. The fundamental challenge of the 21st century isn't selling the same old lame, toxic junk in new ways: its detoxifying and dezombifying it, by learning how to make insanely great stuff in the first place."


You can read Haque's original post here.