Mauro Porcini

Well, you need to be focused on human needs if you want to innovate for real.

The big difference between today and the past is that in the past, if you were a big organization, a multinational corporation,

you could build these barriers to entry and build a dynamic balance with your competitors in your industry around products eventually, even if those products were not ideal for the people you are serving.

Today, in a world where those barriers to entry are down, driven by the wind of globalization, new technology, digitization, in this kind of world,

The most powerful competitive advantage you can build for your company is human centricity, is a culture that obsessed around the creation of real value for humans.

A culture where your designers, but also your marketers, your finance people, your HR, every function in the company

feel sick in the stomach if your product is not ideal, if it's not the best for your consumers, if it's not the most beautiful, the most functional, the most sustainable, the most ethically viable.

You want a culture of people that even if that product and the brand is extremely profitable and successful,

They're not satisfied until the product is also ideal for people.

And once again, this is more important than ever because in this moment in time, finally human value is aligning with financial value.

In this moment in time,

You can't protect your mediocrity in any form or way with your barriers to entry because in this moment in time, new startups, new innovators, new entrepreneurs can come and attack you exactly in your area of weakness.

So it's survival for your company.

It's survival for humanity because you need products that are really, really good for people.

So I think there is a lot of negativity often about this moment in time, but actually I think it's a very powerful

positive moment in time and earlier you asked me about the designers and the fear of technology you know we should remember what designers do designers are not defined by the media that they use we're not designers just because we know how to use a CAD program or Photoshop or in the past because we knew how to use a Pantone or different kind of technologies we should

What defines us as designers is our ability to imagine incredible solutions to human needs, to imagine incredible chairs for mobile phones or posters or pieces of communication or Internet sites.

It all starts with your mind, your heart, your critical thinking, your ability to

to decodify those unarticulated needs that are out there and transform them in solutions that are meaningful, inspiring, relevant.

So then, yes, we need to take them to life.