World will be different after the recession?

A lot will have changed; more regulations, old respected companies disappearing, fresh business models booming, marketing and branding changing through co-creation, viral marketing, community/consumer power?

Agile virtual networks of companies and individuals will boom: why buy an office/factory and hire 1,000 people when you can do the same - or more in a flexible network?

Could be that one common nominator will be adaptability? Building new businesses that have a minimum of fixed costs, yet the capability to scale up rapidly. Moving brands instead of fixed ideas? Integrator-role might become dominant, pursuing solution-driven offerings that can be rapidly adjusted to user needs on the fly.

Sustainability will grow in importance; not only ecology, but social and financial aspects as well.

And people will once again try and build models that would never be hit by another recession again. The next recession will eventually hit people by surprise after some years. But in between, there is going to be an interesting phase of growth; will it focus on financial growth alone - or growth of meaning as well?

Product Development Day.

By Hannes Seeberg

Product Development Days are organized by InnoEstonia - a part of InnoEurope innovation centre which offers ideas for product developers to inspire and support them in creating new value. Fourth event took place on February 12th in Tallinn. Theme for the day was "What products and services are expedient to developed in the year 2009?"

We were there to understand what is being told about product development in Estonia. Participants came from food industry, IT, branding, universities and trade unions - manufacturing industry was missing in the list. As the organizer pointed out, the amount of participants for the event had decreased 2-3 times due to bad economical situation of Estonian companies.

The topics:
■ "Strategics and product development" by Priit Karjus
■ "What is needed to know about competitors and the market in order to make the right decisions for product development?" by Margus Žuravljov
■ "How to effectively remove risks in product development?" by Toomas Danneberg
■ "How to involve users to company´s product development process?" by Alar Kolk

To note, all of the speakers based their presentations to a question "How to do it?", however did not answer to the theme of the day. See their slides (in Estonian).

Previous speakers for InnoEstonia´s Product Development Days include also Steve Chazin, who directed Apple´s comeback-marketing during the end of 90´s. See his videocast (in English).


More info: hannes.seeberg@provoke.ee & InnoEurope