Memorandum+8


 * Three Literatures **


 * __Literature 1__**


 * // Longer Lasting Products: Alternatives to the Throwaway Society //**

__This literature focuses on:__ -How we can change or design strategies and business practices to extend the lifespan of durable goods to benefit the environment and make consumerism more sustainable. - Tim Cooper has collected a strong collection of diverse essays from many of the leading thinkers in the field which demonstrate a range of different approaches to ensure that we can begin to move away from a throwaway society. Why is it in our own best interests to have things that last? Why do we fail to design, produce and maintain longer-lasting products in the interests of global survival, climate change mitigation, and out of consideration for future generations?

__Relevant aspects of its genealogy include:__ -Acceptance of a throwaway society -Life cycle analysis -Changes in consumer behavior

__This work has evolved in recent years by:__ -With the electronics industry changing so rapidly, many of the proposed strategies are too idealistic

__Key sub-themes articulated in this work include:__ -Longer time in the design phase -More focus on reuse and repurposing -Sacrificing cost for quality of durable goods

__Quotes and concrete examples to make these descriptions stronger:__ -“The present economic system requires us to consume and throw away more and more goods. Yet often it's our desire, and the best interests of the environment, for these goods to last. The contributors to this book, who comprise many of the most significant international thinkers in the field, explore how longer lasting products could offer enhanced value while reducing environmental impacts. If we created fewer but better quality products, looked after them carefully and invested more in repair, renovation and upgrading, would this direct our economy onto a more sustainable course? The solution sounds simple, yet it requires a seismic shift in how we think, whether as producers or consumers, and our voracious appetite for novelty. The complex range of issues associated with product life-spans demands a multidisciplinary approach. The book covers historical context, design, engineering, marketing, law, government policy, consumer behavior and systems of provision. It addresses the whole range of consumer durables – vehicles, kitchen appliances, audio-visual equipment and other domestic products, furniture and floor coverings, hardware, garden tools, clothing, household textiles, recreational goods and DIY goods – as well as the re-use of packaging. Longer Lasting Products provides policy makers, those involved in product design, manufacturing and marketing, and all of us as consumers, with clear and compelling guidance as to how we can move away from a throwaway culture towards an economy sustained by more durable goods.” -“The complex range of issues associated with product life-spans demands a multidisciplinary approach”

__How my research will draw on and contribute to this literature:__ -My research will focus partially on determining under what conditions it is necessary for us to need to extend product lifespan and what criteria make a consumer product a durable good. There is always a relation to the speed of technological change. Are there products that can exist indefinitely within this system? This is what I hope to find out. -We are addicted to novelty and I don’t think this will ever change and therefore we cannot keep hoping to change people’s behavior and practice but rather, force current practice to become impractical and obsolete.


 * __Literature 2__**


 * //Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things//**

__This literature focuses on:__ -How to create products that are not only environmentally neutral in their impact but actually provide a form of nutrients to the earth and have a positive impact. - "Reduce, reuse, recycle," urges environmentalists to do more with less in order to minimize damage. Such an approach only perpetuates the one-way, "cradle to grave" manufacturing model, dating to the Industrial Revolution that creates such fantastic amounts of waste and pollution in the first place. Why not challenge the belief that human industry must damage the natural world? Why not take nature itself as our model for making things? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we consider its abundance not wasteful but safe, beautiful, and highly effective.

__Relevant aspects of its genealogy include:__ -Product life cycle analysis -The rise of consumerism and wasteful habits

__This work has evolved in recent years by:__ -The introduction to a new book to update this one called //The Upcycle//

__Key sub-themes articulated in this work include:__ -Upcycling -Recycling and reuse -Intelligent materials management -Planned and perceived obsolescence, novelty, warranty -Iteration and the pace of innovation

__Quotes and concrete examples to make these descriptions stronger:__ -“Ultimately a regulation is a signal of design failure...it is what we call a license to harm: a permit issued by a government to an industry so that it may dispense sickness, destruction, and death at an "acceptable" rate.” -“The average lawn is an interesting beast: people plant it, then douse it with artificial fertilizers and dangerous pesticides to make it grow and to keep it uniform-all so that they can hack and mow what they encouraged to grow. And woe to the small yellow flower that rears its head!” - “Here's where redesign begins in earnest, where we stop trying to be less bad and we start figuring out how to be good.”

__How my research will draw on and contribute to this literature:__ -As designers, we must look at the world in a different way and in so doing, come up with new ideas. Design is not about emulating the latest styles and appeal of products in consumer markets but the conversion from need to demand and problem into solution. Convergent thinking involves analyzing sets of available choices, selecting and implementing the most ideal of these existing choices to be implemented in society. This strategy works well for optimizing an existing world of present systems. If we are all looking at the same choices and scenarios from existing sets, we're all likely to draw the same conclusions and come up with the same ideas and innovations. There's a real chance that if we come up with new choices, we will conceive of far superior innovations. In order to create new innovations, the creation of the choices themselves must be of primary concern and this is where divergent thinking comes into play. In order to be successful, companies need to do short-term innovation in the form of iteration, medium-term innovation, and long-term breakthrough innovation. An additional challenge arises in applying company resources to address these three types of innovation that can accelerate the company's success. New ideas all too often tend to be incremental and predictable.


 * __Literature 3__**


 * // The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff is trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-and a Vision for Change. //**

__This literature focuses on:__ -We have too much Stuff, and too much of it is toxic. Outlining the five stages of our consumption-driven economy; from extraction through production, distribution, consumption, and disposal; the author vividly illuminates its frightening repercussions. - This work tells the story of the stuff we use every day –where our bottled water, mobile phones and jeans come from, how they are made and distributed, and where they really go when we throw them away.

__Relevant aspects of its genealogy include:__ -The history of how we to “design for the dumps” -Robust design and intrinsic obsolescence -Planned and perceived obsolescence

__This work has evolved in recent years by:__ -The YouTube video has gone viral and this book is based on it. Later revised to include next steps forward and what we all can do to save the planet.

__Key sub-themes articulated in this work include:__ -Product Life cycle -Waste management and landfills -E-waste and the temporal relation we have with consumer products -Manufacturing sustainability and energy consumption -Material Toxicities and responsible disposal

__Quotes and concrete examples to make these descriptions stronger:__ -“This is not the way things have to be. It's within our power to stop the environmental damage, social injustice, and health hazards caused by polluting production and excessive consumption.” -“We depend on this planet to eat, drink, breathe, and live. Figuring out how to keep our life support system running needs to be our number-one priority. Nothing is more important than finding a way to live together - justly, respectfully, sustainably, joyfully - on the only planet we can call home.” -“the assumptions that "pollution is the price of progress" or that "we must choose between jobs and the environment" have long limited our creative thinking about innovative solutions that can be good for the environment, the workers, and a healthy economy.” -“Why sit and stare at a box beaming messages indoctrinating us into consumer culture for hours a day when there are so many more enjoyable alternatives available?”

__How my research will draw on and contribute to this literature:__ -My research may mostly just critique this work and all the things that Annie Leonard either got wrong or just scratched the surface on. I may be approaching this sustainability problem from a more optimistic vantage point but I believe that habits have already become so engrained in our society that it will be impossible to change these ways unless it becomes physically impossible to do so anymore or a better option that conforms to human nature comes about.

=**Thirty References and Short Annotations**=

Slade, Giles. Made to break: Technology and obsolescence in America. Harvard University Press, 2009. -I have already started reading this book and it is a great source for the background of planned obsolescence and contributing to my timeline and it sheds light on many of the challenges to making design of especially consumer electronic goods sustainable. Much of the book focuses on the origins of the microprocessor and the evolution of production and miniaturization of devices like cell phones, computers, and radios. It points out many of the problems and tells it like it is with countless case studies and examples; however, there is little focus on moving out of this system and possible alternative strategies.

Johnson, Steven. Where good ideas come from: The natural history of innovation. Penguin UK, 2010.u -This book I have also started reading although I imagine I should be able to pick and choose what chapters may be most helpful. Johnson has written many great works and this is certainly one of them. For my focus on innovation for my thesis, I am getting at the heart of idea generation and creating value and technological progress. I will be valuable for me to understand Johnson’s theories so I can either support his position of argue against it based on his evidence and methodology as well as my own knowledge, experience, and intuition.

McDonough, William, and Michael Braungart. Cradle to cradle: Remaking the way we make things. MacMillan, 2010. -This is a book written by two field experts in sustainability and green design consulting. This is the number one book on my list because it establishes the principles for C2C as the standards for green design and it is a highly credible source. I have started reading it and so far the case studies are very good examples to illustrate the practicality of these principles of eliminating cradle to grave and moving to nutrient rich products that give back. The concept of upcycling, I have yet to be convinced of and I imagine I will be heading the sequel to this work very carefully. McDonough, William, and Michael Braungart. The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability--designing for Abundance. Macmillan, 2013. -This book is the sequel to Cradle to Cradle an it would be good if I could read them both because this is essentially a documentation of what has been learned from years of implementing C2C practices. It highlights the successes and justifies the failures. These failures are the gaps in their work that I want to address.

Jay, Harman. //The Shark's Paintbrush: Biomimicry and how Nature is Inspiring Innovation//. Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2013. -Biomimicry and nature may as answer to design challenges. There are over 2 million known species of life on earth, all optimized for specific conditions. There is a whole world of proven designs out there in nature. We just need to apply them to our designs, tap in to the infinite possibilities and look to nature for tested and proven ideas. This will be a great source when I get into my thesis discussions on innovation, iteration, evolution, revolution and how everything is connected and interdependent.

Leonard, Annie. //The story of stuff: How our obsession with stuff is trashing the planet, our communities, and our health-and a vision for change//. Simon and Schuster, 2010. -I intend to read this entire book but I will probably only argue against most of the claims the author makes. I won’t regurgitate what it’s about because I’ve seen the video 100 times. This book is the extended version of the YouTube video and if you’ve seen the critique video of it, you start to question her credibility and realized that nothing seems to be pear reviewed and Leonard makes far too simplified proposals based on extremely complex issues that I get the impression she does not fully understand. Nevertheless, some of her arguments are spot on but also quite obvious and I can certainly mention these perspectives and support those that seem valid.

Diamandis, Peter H., and Steven Kotler. //Abundance: The future is better than you think//. Simon and Schuster, 2012. - This is an interesting book that takes a completely new perspective and proposes that, from a sustainability and resource perspective, things are not as bad as we make them out to be. Technological advancement and other factors have a way of making the once finite quite abundant. This is an interesting view that is far more optimistic about the future based on our current trends but it doesn’t mean that should carry on with our destructive and wasteful tendencies.

Schumacher, Ernst Friedrich. Small is beautiful: A study of economics as if people mattered. Random House, 1993. -Based on the tittle, this work may seem slightly off topic but I assure you it is spot on my subject for a few chapters. Product design is about people and there are few products that are not designed for us or products that we directly interact with and touch. Friedrich examines what product design could be if not influence by profit and what the relationship between individual consumers and corporations would be like if the needs of these people were of primary concern.

Packard, Vance. The waste makers. Vol. 1064. Penguin, 1967. -I’ll admit this is an old work but the ideas can contribute to my timeline and many of Packard’s ideas became the seeds of change and a global awareness of the need for change utmost a wasteful consumer society. The idea of the unacceptability of accumulating waste in landfills and toxic pollution rampant throughout the world will be discussed throughout my thesis.

Thompson, Debora Viana, Rebecca W. Hamilton, and Roland T. Rust. "Feature fatigue: When product capabilities become too much of a good thing." //Journal of marketing research// 42.4 (2005): 431-442. - As technology advances, it becomes more feasible to load products with a large number of features, each of which individually might be perceived as useful. This article details studies that examine how consumers balance their desires for capability and usability when they evaluate products and how these desires shift over time. It is argued that “choosing the number of features that maximizes initial choice results in the inclusion of too many features, potentially decreasing customer lifetime value. As the emphasis on future sales increases, the optimal number of features decreases. The results suggest that firms should consider having a larger number of more specialized products, each with a limited number of features, rather than loading all possible features into one product.” This is a great article for me because feature creep is a big factor to consider in consumer product design. Too many features will inevitable decrease the usability of a product, especially if there is sensory overload or an excessive amount of thinking involved in user interaction.

Wilhelm, Wendy, Alice Yankov, and Patrick Magee. "Mobile phone consumption behavior and the need for sustainability innovations." Journal of Strategic Innovation and Sustainability 7.2 (2011): 20-40. -This article introduces various needs for innovation toward more sustainable consumer electronics and actually proposes some of these examples. It is interesting to see the specific sustainability challenges and demands for any given product. I have realized that there is no cookie cutter solution or policies. Products are far too divers and their design process far too complex for an all-encompassing sol solution to ever be proposed or even considered. This is the conclusion I will attempt to support in my work.

Wilhelm, Wendy Bryce. "Encoraging Sustainable Consumption thought Product Lifetime Extension The Case of Mobile Phone." Jurnal USA: Western Washington University (2012). -Much like Tim Cooper’s work, this article strives to convince readers that durable goods can both be practice in modern capitalist business norms and profitable and beneficial to all parties and primarily consumers. It is argued that this is more sustainable in the long-term and proposed various paths to pursue such a future. It varies from Cooper’s work in that it is specifically forced on cell phones and similar electronic devices. This is where I break in support of this strategy because I think that there must always be a balance between durability and necessary upgrade enabled through innovation and enhanced capabilities. No product can ever be perfectly designed even for a specific user because there are always design compromises and needs change with time. This is where 4D printing may come into play where the products are capable of evolving with the users to continue to meet their changing needs.

Clem, Andrew. "Embedded Sustainability: The Next Big Competitive Advantage." //Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship// 17.1 (2012): 114. -This article argues that in the near future, it may be far more profitable and practice to integrate ecofriendly policies into a business models. It is primarily about long-term thinking and planning for an inevitable future of diminishing resources and extreme consequences that threaten a company’s survival.

Sivulka, Juliann. //Soap, sex, and cigarettes: A cultural history of American advertising//. Cengage Learning, 2011. - This book provides insight into how our culture of consumerism and materialism was born and has changed and strengthened though the advertising industry. It explores all that influence the development of modern advertising from the Coca-Cola bottle to big brand commercials of modern day multimedia. It would seem as though advertising is a bit demonized in this book but is entirely understandable and I believe these ties in as a facet of perceived obsolescence which I intend to get to the root of.

Goel, Rajeev K. "Uncertain innovation with uncertain product durability."//Applied Economics Letters// 13.13 (2006): 829-834. -The idea of unintentional and inevitable obsolescence is explored in this article. I came to this conclusion independently from the beginning so it will be interesting to see the author’s justification for this argument. Uncertainty seems to be the big player. Unintended consequences are nearly impossible to eliminate but certain strategies are discussed for practicing control of as much of the ecological outcomes of product production, use, and end of life as possible.

Levine, David. "A simple durable goods model." //The Quarterly Journal of Economics// (1985): 775-788. -This pear reviewed article lays out the basics and then complexities of the durable goods model. “The durability of a good has two implications. First, it can be stored in inventories by producers. Second, if it provides a stream of services to consumers, consumers may wish to defer purchases to take advantage of price fluctuations. The most significant conclusion is that the stockpiling of demand that results when consumers defer purchases explains why the variance of output exceeds the variance of sales even if demand shocks are serially independent. What I took away from this article was that one of the biggest obstacles to sustainability in general and one of the barriers to good green design that I must address first and foremost in my essay is cost. We must find ways to make sustainable design and design for longer lasting durable goods more cost effective so as to incentivize business to pursue such green practices.

Köksal, Gülser, and Alpay Eği̇tman. "Planning and design of industrial engineering education quality." //Computers & Industrial Engineering// 35.3 (1998): 639-642. -I believe that a design lead revolution is what is necessary to change the course of unsustainable product design. This can be accomplished through drastically revising design education and making product lifecycle and sustainable factors a primary requirement before a product can be released to the world. I understand that regulation is not the solution but once good practice becomes habit and the norm, markets and industries will adapt.

Noble, David F. //America by design: Science, technology, and the rise of corporate capitalism//. No. 588. Oxford University Press, 1979. -This article clarifies advancing technology’s role in the creation of commercial capitalism. I don’t intend to use this as a source for my thesis but I do need to understand the basic principles and motivations for capitalism. It is my hope that in doing so, I can make appropriate connections to the perpetuation of a wasteful consumer culture and identify the true relationship between excessive consumption and free enterprise. I suspect it is a perpetuating system with the concept of credit at the heart of the beast.

Lewis, W. P., and E. Bonollo. "An analysis of professional skills in design: implications for education and research." //Design Studies// 23.4 (2002): 385-406. -I fully agree with the implications for research and design education revision proposed in this study. There is a serious lack of practice skills in current design education and the need for real-world experience before real-world work is a difficult problem to address with a dismal employment prospects starting out. There seems to be an oversaturation of inadequately trained recent designer and engineering graduates. Although this article doesn’t mention much about implementing sustainability into this revised education, the same principles apply.

Green, Lance N., and Elivio Bonollo. "Studio-based teaching: history and advantages in the teaching of design." //World Transactions on Eng. and Tech. Edu// 2.2 (2003): 269-272. -This is something that I also would like to interview PDI professors about because it seems I am very lucky to be getting studio experience as an engineering student. We are lucky to have an environment somewhat conducive to collaboration and innovative thinking. In many engineering schools, theory is the primary concern and there is little hope for practice project experience. This article I may certainly be able to incorporate into my discussion of proper designer training and education as well as having the right tools to get the job done most efficiently and effectively.

French, Michael J. //Invention and evolution: design in nature and engineering//. Cambridge University Press, 1994. -This article is just wonderful and it is an argument for the merit in being open to inspiration from nature for engineering and design. Many inventions throughout history have been based on observations or and attempts at copying nature. Others have derived their novel ideas from inventions that used biomimicry. It would seem that iteration is inevitable and you can skip a few letters every now and then but the path from A to Z usually includes B though Y. This work is well written, very interesting, and extremely relevant to my own innovation and iteration analysis.

Hybs, Ivan, and John S. Gero. "An evolutionary process model of design."//Design Studies// 13.3 (1992): 273-290. -This article creates a model for the design process not just from useful aspects of nature as in biomimicry, but a model based on evolution itself, the natural mechanism by which adaptation and functional optimization is achieved in species. I have always viewed the design process in such a manner and so this article will be very interesting to read. I imagine that I will be able to use this work in support of whatever contribution to the topic I come up with. This article may not be all that original and I suggest that many of the concepts discussed are quite intuitive and therefore, not previously articulated in such a manner.

Pentland, Alex. //Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread-The Lessons from a New Science//. Penguin, 2014. -This paper is very similar in motives and in nature to Johnson’s //Where Good Ideas Come From//. There is more of a focus on the social aspects and human interactions. The primary focus relates to the spread of ideas enabled though the social tendencies engrained in human nature. The internet has only amplified these mechanisms and accelerated the spread of information and ideas at an unfathomable rate. The real interesting part is how we as a society filter through all the noise and ensure that the best ideas are found and nurtured into actuality.

Berger, Warren. //A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas//. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2014. -If am to discuss the process of true innovation, I must first understand the mechanisms of creativity and if it is something we all have or a set of skills, procedures or state of mind that enable anyone to make the right connections to come to useful insights and good ideas. I need to dig to the bottom of the innovation process and go through it myself. This is where I could benefit from apply the methods of questioning everything and looking at the world with a critical eye to my inventor Studio project.

Goel, Ashok K., Daniel A. McAdams, and Robert B. Stone. //Biologically Inspired Design: Computational Methods and Tools//. Springer Publishing Company, Incorporated, 2013. -Well this is certainly an intriguing intersection of two of my topics. I want to talk about the need for design tools to improve to make visualizing ideas and collaboration so much simpler. This article suggests an approach where the design tool gap is addressed though advance and powerful computational tools inspired by nature. One example is CAD software that optimizes material use based on material use minimization with results generated looking very similar to natural bone structures and even synthetic-bio hybrid trust designs based on specific design parameters.

Ellenberg, Jordan. //How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking//. Penguin, 2014. -The primary significance of this book for my research is the application of big data analytics and mathematical modeling to aid in the design process with everything from customer needs and ethnographic study analytics to predictive market trend modeling. I suggest that marketing departments may become a rare commodity in the no so distant future with the help of big data. I we are able to leverage the power and capabilities of technology to create tools that perpetuate the process of continual improvement and exponential growth, we could reach a better future very soon.

Helms, Michael, Swaroop S. Vattam, and Ashok K. Goel. "Biologically inspired design: process and products." //Design Studies// 30.5 (2009): 606-622. -This is yet another reference so that I can become familiar with biomimicry. It is interesting that the note a distinct difference between designing by being inspired and influenced by nature and startup barrowing of stealing nature itself within or as a product. This is the engineering of products that use elements found in nature that are beneficial to us in some way. Eban Bayer’s mushroom packaging is just one example of this type of loosely defined biomimicry. This design study dives into a discussion of modifying nature and bioengineering to combine various elements of nature to meet a specific need or accomplish a function that we as humans are directly concerned with. This is most understood though genetic modification and gene manipulation. It would be a lot of work to get into the debates on genetically modified organism (GMO). There are many that are against what they call acting as the hand of god and changing organisms. They see it as unnatural. I believe however that these very same people would be in support of the exact opposite argument when concerning durable goods design that uses modified nature. What would seem more “natural”, a car grown from modified seeds that uses energy from the sun and filters water and cleans the air, or our current cars that pollute the air and are made of metal and rubber and produced in carbon pumping industrial plants with no consideration of nature except perhaps in their exterior design aesthetic? Few are likely to choose the latter.

Meadows, Donella, Jorgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows. //Limits to growth: the 30-year update//. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2004. -Nothing happens in a vacuum sustainable design is no exception. There is so much that drives the effectiveness of efforts for sustainability on our planet and this book examines growth and a rising population with finite resources along with the factors that contribute to rate of growth and problems that arise under our seemingly infinite potential for growth and progress. This was written a while ago but this is the 30 year update which verifies the 5 variables discussed which include world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion.

Dougherty, Deborah. "Interpretive barriers to successful product innovation in large firms." //Organization Science// 3.2 (1992): 179-202. -This is a significant and widely cited work that examines the problems that arise related to successfully implementing innovative ideas within a product’s design as an organization expands and becomes a large company with more structure. I have made it a goal of mine to understand the effect that different organizational structures have on how a consumer product turns out and what structures and systems are best for different types of products or constraints. For my purposes, the most important of these constraints is sustainability and responsible design of lifecycle.

Freel, Mark S. "Barriers to product innovation in small manufacturing firms."//International Small Business Journal// 18.2 (2000): 60-80. -Contrasting to the negatives of innovating at a large firm, this article looks into the challenges and problems that arise as small businesses and startups attempt to bring new and innovative products to market. They can only stay alive and grow if they innovate but there are still challenges present. Even if the vision of the company aligns with a culture of innovation, company resources and proper channels are far more limited for smaller companies and leverage tends to favor larger organizations with bigger reputations.

Millman, A. F. "Understanding Barriers to Product Innovation at the R & D: Marketing Interface." //Management Decision// 20.3 (1982): 10-22. -keeping with the same theme, this article now examines the role of management and the effective methods proven for effective research and development though appropriate marketing strategies. The managerial positions are to regulate marketing with intern provides criteria under which development can be steered. This is a far better alternative to micromanaging the engineering team at every step of development. This is an interesting perspective and I suppose I can’t argue with product innovation validity through this method; however, I want to find works that support my working theory that a designated marketing department may in fact hinder the innovation process and that marketing can be done by the designers and engineers in a multidisciplinary team during a customer needs and discovery phase of a project. Marketing should really be executed by those designing the product who are closest to both the product and the end users. Or at least that’s how I’d like it to be. Especially present in large companies, marketing chases trends to increase profit; yet, the appropriate product market fit and ideas for new product innovations can come from the finance intern all the way up to the CEO. There shouldn’t be a group that limits where design focus must be placed but perhaps this should be the decisions of the designers themselves.