Extreme Collaboration & Reebok Pumps

I was recently speaking to Continuum, who are now a big US industrial design and innovation company but back in the early 80's they were essentially a medical devices company who picked up an unusual commission from Reebok. This led to them developing the Reebok pump which embedded an aortic (bloodvessel) clearing device into a standard pair of trainers. It was a very lateral leap but hugely successful and made Reebok bigger than Nike (at the time) and was the best selling trainer for several years. Extreme collaboration in action…