Last week I had a great conversation with a designer here in Minneapolis where we were talking about the Design Economy as the next wave in business. The basic idea is that as products and information become commodities, economic advantage shifts to the realm of design. The Star Tribune had a story about the Design Economy in today's paper.

Q Have we entered a design economy?

A The information economy is still with us. But the paradoxical effect of the Internet is that it has made information so widely available that it holds no real economic value. Everybody can get incredible amounts of information, so there's no competitive advantage of having it. The idea of the design economy is that, for developed countries like ours, which cannot compete in a global marketplace on price or even quite often on the quality of a product, we have to compete on the basis of innovation, creativity and imagination, which takes you to design. By design, I don't mean just aesthetics but function and cultural adaptability.

Q What's an example in our daily lives?

A Apple and the iPod. Competitors came out with products that were cheaper, but didn't look as good or feel as good or form an emotional bond with the customer. Or look at the car industry. The American segment struggles because it still operates under the old assumption that price matters most. But people will pay a higher price for a Toyota Prius because it has a multiple meaning: It gets you places, but it uses less gas and carries this symbolism of doing something for the environment.

It used to be that an American product would sell whether it was well designed or not. Now a product must not only be priced right and have quality and aesthetic value, but form an emotional attachment. It empowers you to have every song you've ever liked stuffed into this tiny thing in your pocket that you can take with you anywhere. Look what you can do on your cell phone now. These products go deeper than aesthetics. They become almost a part of your body.

In a globalized economy, most manufacturing work (software code included) can be done elsewhere in the world at a significantly lower cost than can be done in the US. This means that competitive advantage in the US will have to be driven by design and creativity. Richard Florida's Rise of the Creative Class is a fantastic and detailed text on this account.

This shift to the commodification of information also affects churches and religious communities. Recently I typed "Jesus" into the search field of the Barnes & Noble web site and received more than 22,000 hits. Jesus is a commodity. No one needs churches or clergy to tell them about Jesus or any other religion for that matter, it can all be found somewhere else. The design economy holds true for faith communities as well, churches will be judged by how well, or not, they help live their faith, not on their ability to provide information.

The folks over at Signals vs. Noise, a software design blog, speak of good software design as 'helping the user kick ass.' I love the notion of good design helping the user to do great things, and this seems to be the basic idea behind most good design. In an entirely different field, Susan Susanka's "Not So Big House" design concepts focus on homes being smarter, not just bigger, are a great example of design as a central piece of better living.

So what does this look like for faith communities? What does a church that helps its users kick ass look like? It will likely be different depending on people and location, but I don't think any community will get to a place of good design without a lot of intentionality. Good design cannot be something you tack onto the end of the creation process to make it look pretty. Often this just ends up being an exercise in polishing a turd. Good design is integral to the whole creation process, with the end user in mind through the entire development. Where does this all go, I'm not sure, but I know I do love good design.

For a brief historical article on Design Economy matters, see BusinessWeek's article here.