Technology, Design or Something Else?

I recently came across a blog discussing the importance of technology vs design for a product. I beleive that such discussions show how living in one particular domain can seriously hamper the breadth of vision. Like the classic blind men interpreting the elephant in different ways, each person tends to interpret his or her interpretation as the most important one. When you are talking about a product, you are talking about business. And business is a sum of parts. Nevertheless, from business point of view, elements like marketing, service and reach will always dominate either technology or design. Technology and design have to pass a minimum threshold. Beyond that the client retention and longevity of a business is too deeply dependent on the above mentioned key factors. A business is made by the people who run it, who have a vision to find innovative use of design or technology.

Not many engineers or designers go on to become the CEO of a company (unless they start their own company or get business education). This is not a co-incident. Technology and design functions require lesser people management than most other functions. They are also, generally, least political. To research and to simply come up with ideas is not enough. The ability to find practical uses for the ideas, to be able to take them to people profitably, manage people and then sustain the process reliably over a significant duration defines business. Any successful entrepreneur can tell you that technology or design is but a small, though important, part of the whole equation.