1. ThingTank
IdeasLab @ CEI
MIT SkolTech Initiative
Neil Rubens (UEC,Tokyo)
Elisa Giacardi (TU Delft)
Chris Speed (Edinburgh)

2. $200Cost $50 $5 $0.01
Traditional Product Development
n focus on improving some of the aspects:
Innovation
n doing something different rather than doing the same thing
better
n combining concepts from different realms
that would not normally be put together

3. Innovation Difficulty
n basic design of fork hasn’t changed for centuries

4. What can we do differently in
order to be innovative?

5. What if we change the way we use things?

6. What if we change the way we use things?

7. Novel Products Development

8. Usage-centered
Product Innovation
discover
novel usages
create
new products
?
?!?!????!!?!??
??!!?!????!!?!?
???!!?!??????!
!?!????!!?!!!??
??!!?!???!!!?!?
Proposed
p.s.
this works for any thing
(not only for the forks)

9. Please think of other ways in which
forks could be used.

10. Coming up with many ideas is
difficult.
What can we do about it?

11. Product Development:
Traditional
designer
crowd
things

12. Product Development: Current
n & community
designer
community
things
712 contributors
quirky.com

13. Product Development: Future
n & things
n 1 designer, 100’s of contributors, millions of things
designer
community
things
n Internet of Things
n soon more data will be produced by things
than humans (Gartner)
happilab

14. Challenge: Availability of Data
n sensors are not widespread yet

15. Solution
n Use traditional (external) sensors: i.e. camera/photos, etc.
millions of photos are available online

16. n Use AI to identify different usages
Solution
different

17. Bottom-up AI-assisted Product Innovation
n use AI to find different usages of things
n to collaborate with community & designers
n on product innovation
innovation
designer
community
things

18. Usage-based Innovation

19. Deviation
n Object is used for a different purpose (than originally intended)
n Object is not modified

20. Hybridization
n The object is used for a different purpose than originally intended,
however in order to perform additional function the object is modified.

21. Partial Hybridization
n object adopts some of the desirable properties of another object
n usage is unchanged

22. Repurpose
n object is modified for new usage
n object is no longer able to perform
its original function

23. Instrumentation
n object is fitted with additional sensors
n may provide sensory feedback to the user

24. Property Adaptation
n new object adopts some of the desirable properties of the original object
n usage is changed

25. simple fork inspired many products
Innovationn doing something different
n combining concepts from different realms
that would not normally be put together
what if we innovate based on other
products:

26. Things <-> Usages
n Things -> Usages
n e.g. different usages of fork
n Things <- Usages
n e.g. different approaches to storage

27. Which Innovation resulted in:
n 320% rise in bilateral trade; during the first 5 years of
adoption
n By comparison, a bilateral free-trade agreement raised trade by:
45% over 20 years
(Economist)

28. Containerization

29. Can we find innovative storage
things & uses

30. stairs
used as
storage
storage
used as
stairs

33. Cute pictures, but is this practical?

34. phones are now rarely used as phones

35. Project Goals
n Development of AI-assisted platform for discovery of
innovative links between things <-> usages
n Construction of large-scale usage database
n Development of innovative products and approaches

36. Benefits
n Product Innovation
n Long-tail Manufacturing
n allow manufacturers to create a variety of new products
n Educational
n Teaching tool for innovation & creativity
n Environmental
n reuse, multi-purpose
n more project usages are yet to be discovered …

37. References
n References for all of the images are listed on ThingTank.org