"Think out of the box." You hear it all the time. In this on-demand webinar, Cutter Fellow Robert D. Austin will inspire you to take a break from the way you typically view product development to consider techniques borrowed from the arts. You'll consider what it takes to create innovative, "special" products -- products that appear better or more useful than the sum of their parts would predict (Apple's iPhone, Samsung's televisions).

Prof. Austin will help you examine several products as though they came together like the plot of a play -- resulting in a coherent interdependency among the parts. This arrangement creates resonance, which differentiates a "special" product from its apparently similar peers. With many real-world examples, you'll learn why:

• Competing on cost isn't always where it's at
• Items normally valued for their functionality should be valued instead for their meaningfulness
• Success stems from managing with a creative economy mindset
• "Special Products" can't usefully be judged by comparison to the market
• Patterns, trajectories, expectations, and closure should combine to create form