Thanks for the very interesting link. By the way, the full-text article is available here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/business/yourmoney/24view.html?ex=1324616400&en=d120a9a740a96a4e&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

From what I gathered, their argument is not exactly that design cannot be separated from production, but rather that it shouldn’t be for the sake of long-term (regional/national) innovation. But I felt there was a second argument latent within the first, and slightly different, that innovation invariably has a strong basis in the ability to get things done (rather than just think or design how they should be done), which is reminiscent of Schumpeter’s view of innovation…..and casts a different light upon the discussion, for if real innovation consists equally in both the underlying idea and its implementation, then, theoretically, it does not make any sense to separate the thinkers from the doers….

Is the separation of the doers from the thinkers having a negative or positive effect upon innovation? Though I would be inclined to side with the former answer, mostly for theoretical reasons, I could also see merit in the latter, if only for practical reasons, as in the separation of the *legislative* from the *executive*, for example). What do you think?

That said, I cannot see how the trend toward decoupling design from production can be reversed.