Readings
Instructions: Read & Reflect
Read. We have selected a series of readings to inform your innovation process (see below). Students should read the appropriate article before Thursday's class and then be prepared to meaningfully contribute to a small group discussion. Some weeks, the instructor will create small groups for students to discuss the articles.
Reflect. Each student must submit a short reflection (200-300 words) to demonstrate you read the paper and thought about how it affects your design work. These reflections should be posted on Canvas by Thursday's class for each week of readings. Your reflections may include:
Summarizing the paper's main ideas and discussing why they matter
Saying what you learned or what surprised you about the material
Critiquing the paper in terms of methodological, logical, technical, and ethical issues
Pointing to other relevant work, such as other related papers (please provide a citation)
Discussing how you might apply the paper's insights or methods to your own design activities this week
Reading List:
Read these papers/chapters/articles every week except week 10. Reflections must be posted on Canvas by Thursday's class for each week listed below. You can also find this collection of readings, plus optional readings, in this Readings folder.
Week 1: Cagan & Vogel, 2012, "Creating Breakthrough Products", Ch. 1.
Week 2: Patnaik and Becker, 1999, "Needfinding The Why and How of Uncovering People’s Needs"
Week 3: Blank and Dorf, 2013, "The Startup Owner's Manual for Web/Mobile Startups", Ch. 2
Week 4: Davidoff, 2007, "Rapidly Exploring Application Design through Speed Dating"
Week 7: Houde and Hill, 1997, "What do Prototypes Prototype?"
Week 8: Heath, 2007, "Made to Stick" (James Le's summary, 2017)
Week 10: No reading
Grading Rubric for Reflections:
We will grade the reading reflection on a 2-pt scale.
2.0 pts: Your answer exhibits a strong effort to gain insights from each reading and to connect with your own design experiences, as well as with other papers or online resources.
1.0 pts: Your answer only shows a satisfactory effort to gain insights from each paper, to share your own design experiences, and does not connect with additional papers or resources.
0.0 pts: No submission.
We have 9 readings / reflections this quarter for 18 possible points. This will comprise 5% of the overall course grade.
Optional Readings / Books / Talks:
Here are great books that every entrepreneur should read. Select portions of these books are included in the required readings above.
Business Model Generation by Osterwalder and Pigneur explains the kind of business plan you will be creating.
The Lean Startup by Ries is a good statement of philosophy.
Sketching User Experiences by Buxton advocates a holistic view of design to achieve success with new products and systems.
Creating Breakthrough Products by Cagan and Vogel offers strategies for uncovering new market opportunities and identifying what customers really value
Startup Owners' Manual by Blank and Dorf has many detailed suggestions for developing business plans.
Founders at Work by Livingston contains interviews with several early internet venture founders. It is often referred as one of the best book talking about the experience of founding a tech-oriented startup.
The Hard Thing about Hard Things by Ben Horowitz is a first person honest account about how difficult it is to start a business.
Good to Great by Jim Collins talks about how can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness.
Normann, Rebundling, how to re-arrange an old business
Porter and Heppelmann, How Smart, Connected Products are Transforming Competition
Christiansen, Disruption, how to challenge an old business
Sinfield, et al., New Business Models, how to re-arrange an old business
Bill Buxton talk: An Informal Walk Through 35 years of Interactive Devices.