Creative Abrasion

Creative Abrasion is a term that was originally coined by Jerry Hirshberg who founded NDI (Nissan Design International). As we all read in the article, it is a design strategy that entails allowing two people from opposing design ideologies to come together and try to find a common ground for the end product. Nissan design was a good example of how this design method could be effective in a group that was already being funded by a large, established corporation. The success of the company, however, may have ended up differently depending on how the financials were pulled together in the background.

The reason for the difference I believe is that while it has a strong theory behind the practice, in a start up atmosphere it could possibly create larger conflict and risk of failure. I believe when you are starting a company from the ground up, it would be more beneficial to have everyone on the same page and working towards the same goal with similar mind sets. That's not to say it cannot be beneficial in a small organization, it would just need to be managed correctly.

On the flip side, creative abrasion when it relates to intrapreneurship has proven it self to be a highly successful model to follow. For example, when Steve Jobs formed his team that first created the Apple Macintosh, he separated the group from the politics of the corporate offices and let them work as their own entity. Additionally, the diversity of the group was one of the greatest contributing factors to the success of the first Mac. The diversity of view points, talents and backgrounds enabled the creative abrasion to really take form with in the design group.

If you relate creative abrasion to what we do on a daily basis in our every day jobs, you can see that it happens with out us even knowing it. There are many times we are tasked to come up with a solution to a problem and will bounce idea's off of other people and get their view points. We all work for the same corporation so we will all have the same basic framework for our thinking, but beyond that it is possible to create something much more innovative.