Ideo CEO Tim Brown says that communications technology is leading us back to the kind of participation economy that existed before the industrial revolution such that a great product or service is no longer defined as something where the customer doesn't have to do anything. A good service will be defined as one that draws customers in as participants.


In this video interview, Brown expands on the implications of communications technology for businesses and designers with Ideas Project, a new website brought to you by Nokia. Ideas Project is an online space that provides a new way to interact with thought leaders and their big ideas about the future of connected communications. For more on this idea from Tim Brown, visit http://www.ideasproject.com.

Tim Brown, who became CEO of the renowned design firm Ideo in 2000, believes in the development of ideas through action--observing customers, prototyping, testing, refining--rather than abstract thought. An industrial designer by training, his work has earned him numerous design awards and has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Axis Gallery in Tokyo, and the Design Museum in London. Tim advises senior executives and boards of Fortune 100 companies and has led strategic client relationships with such organizations as Mayo Clinic, Microsoft, Pepsi, Procter & Gamble, and Steelcase. Tim has a special interest in the convergence of technology and the arts, as well as the ways in which design can be used to promote the well being of people living in emerging economies. A regular speaker on the value of design thinking, his upcoming book, Change By Design, on how design thinking transforms organizations, will be released by HarperBusiness in September 2009.

Ideas Project, a project of Nokia, brings together the most visionary and influential big thinkers to contemplate the big ideas that matter most to the future of communications. It is also a new kind of conversation platform aimed at uncovering the connections between these big thinkers and their disruptive ideas.

Explore the Ideas Project website at http://www.ideasproject.com, subscribe to its RSS feed, join its Twitter feed, and come back often to learn about great new big ideas as they break.