(Photo from Steve Jurvetson's awesome Flickr stream.)
I spend some part of each day working with teams to design better offerings for users on behalf of big companies. I love it.
Part of my job is to constantly search for inspiring business models, design new ones and assess the business implications of our early and evolving designs. When we're working on an established business, I'm constantly reminded that big companies have highly-evolved business models. There's a reason for it: very smart people and competition have taken them there over time.
But doing something new and better, by definition, challenges the model. I have to constantly remind myself to (respectfully) challenge them. Otherwise, we might not find the right "new" thing to do.
Arguing usually doesn't work, but designing can inspire a worthwhile change. We might design a compelling enough alternative to reconsider the current model. Or, we might find other inspiring models to help us reconsider the possibilities of the brand and offering.
It can feel like kicking your way out of a sleeping bag. But when it works, it's a beautiful thing.
There's a lot being written on the topic right now, especially from the standpoint of the entrepreneur. John Mullins has a great little essay on the ins and outs of business models and how entrepreneurs need to evolve into them. Colin has been doing a lot of thinking about how this thinking is translating into big companies as well as small companies.
