Electricity is an example of a general purpose technology, like the steam engine before it. General purpose technologies drive most economic growth, because they unleash cascades of complementary innovations, like lightbulbs and, yes, factory redesign.
You need to have a redesign because familiarity breeds a kind of complacency.
If there are flaws they are in ourselves, and our task therefore must be one not of redesign but of renewal and reaffirmation, especially of the standards in which all of us believe.
Part of the redesign of FEMA is that they have so many people on standby, whether it is a retired nurse or a doctor who will take time off to go exactly where they are needed.
Cities are ripe for redesign, and many are already well on that path. Cloud-based networks that provide easy and inexpensive access to and tracking of services like transportation, energy, waste management, bill pay, citizen engagement and more are testing and enriching their services.
I have been motivated by this idea since I was a kid that if we invented machines that were created in the way that people are - were aware, have free will, inventive machines, machines that would be geniuses - potentially, they could reinvent themselves. They're not just applying it to other things - they could actually redesign themselves.
I am in that glorious position where I can redesign and re-package my own work.
I think in conventional magazine wisdom, you need to have a redesign every decade or so.
I didn't grow up thinking I'd be a decorator. Design is my greatest passion, and it naturally just pulled me down the path. Same with TV. Being famous or having a show was never the motivation. I got a call and was swept up by the challenge of that first small space redesign.
Many retail stores have consumer trackers that study how long your eyes linger on one product, whether you follow it through by touch, and things that you buy. You can redesign things on a shelf, all by tracking such information.