From the Seedcamp about pages:
“There will be a diverse mentor network of serial entrepreneurs, corporates, venture capitalists, recruiters, marketing specialists, lawyers and accountants that will help the selected teams put together the foundations of a viable business.”
How about designers?
Technology plays alone are starting to lose their distinctiveness in many of the more-crowded areas of the marketplace.
Great service and interaction design are on the rise as strategic differentiators for products as diverse as the iPhone and Facebook.
Bruce Nussbaum in BusinessWeek:
“Innovation is no longer just about new technology per se. It is about new models of organization. Design is no longer just about form anymore but is a method of thinking that can let you to see around corners. And the high tech breakthroughs that do count today are not about speed and performance but about collaboration, conversation and co-creation. Thatâs what Web 2.0 is all about.”
The article that’s taken from is entitled: “CEOs Must Be Designers, Not Just Hire Them”.
Not sure I agree about CEOs breaking out OmniGraffle, but what about entrepreneurs?
I wonder how many Seedcamp teams will have a interaction designer on board, as part of the core – or even a designer as the lead entrepreneur?
Are they going to bake great design in from the get-go, or put lipstick on their baby gorillas?
I think it will be the former.
If there’s one Brit caricature of the entrepreneur, it’s the inventor – the engineer/designer/impressario: Baylis, Dyson, Roope!
Nussbaum’s article, in bulk is a speech he gave at the RCA, which traditionally has grown quite a few of those designer/engineer/inventor/entrepreneurs in the world of atoms.
Prof Tom Barker‘s crew springs to mind, as do some of the graduates of the Design Interactions course.
The line between hackers and interaction designers is blurring as they start small businesses that are starting to make waves in the big business press.
As I mentioned, my experience of HackDay Europe was that
“It really does seem that the hacker crowd in London/Europe at least is crossing over more and more with the interaction design crowd, and a new school of developers is coming through who are starting to become excellent interaction designers – who really know their medium and have empathy with users.”
So I have high-hopes.
I’m also glad to say that the Seedcamp team are going to have user-researchers, usability experts and interaction designers in their mentor network, including me for some reason…
Looking forward to it.
Petafloptimism 
Hackday Europe was terrible timing – I registered and was really looking forward to going, but it turned out to be 2 days after the RCA degree show went up, and I’d already had hardly any sleep, never mind pitching up for a 24hr hackathon.
Same for everyone else, otherwise there would’ve been a big posse of us for sure!
Chris
(recently graduated Design Interactioner)
ps: rca.*org*.uk …?
Yes, and one of seedcamp’s application criteria is that one co-founder must be a developer… fair point, but good design will cost you as much in time/money at some point too, if not more. You can outsource much of the vanilla technoogy – not sure you can the UX.
Just found this blog and see that I have some hours of pleasant readings to do (as well all coming rss feeds =) Keep up the good posting!