Given our recent posts about Index 2005, I want to mention Architects for Humanity which has much of the same perspective when talking about design i.e. design to improve life.
"Architecture for Humanity is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1999 to promote architectural and design solutions to global, social and humanitarian crises…We believe that where resources and expertise are scarce, innovative, sustainable and collaborative design can make a difference."
I think they´re right and (unfortunatly) the number of crisis and traumas of the world are not getting fewer so there is enough work to do for all of us if we choose to get involved. Also check out this blog on which the AFH founder, Cameron Sinclair, is a contributor.
Rumours has it that Cameron Sinclair will participate in Index:Views - the summit for creative leaders - this summer as well. Should be interesting…
reboot is rebooting….
After more than 10 years of old ways of creation, old values, and old models for communicating and organizing ourselves, new ways are emerging. That is what reboot7 is about.
reboot’s
heroes are the mavericks who live the new ways and thereby lead and
validate their possibilities—The Sharing Way, The Creation Way, The Web
Way, The History Way and The Natural Way.
Come to Copenhagen - it’s nice in June 
Wednesday I had the opportunity to meet Lotte Darsø – Phd. in Innovation.
It was a very interesting meeting for several reasons.
As a consultant from DDC I had the opportunity to tell her about our view on Design as a catalyst for Innovation – as a methodology.
She - on the other hand - told us about her Phd. Thesis "Innovation in the making" and some other books she’s written.
Highly interesting and most relevant.
We discussed how to motivate innovation and I agree with her when saying that Innovation can’t been learned, it’s a mindset.
Many school’s and educations is trying to figure out how to teach in Innovation in the sense of making people more innovative. But is that possible?
What do you think?
My own experience is that innovation is about framing – you can set up a frame and steer people to act in different ways and as a result there – maybe – is an innovative output. It’s about framing and sharing. Allow you self to ask questions, share what you know and don’t know and you will experience something unexpected…..
Here book about the interpay between Arts and Business is very interesting.
If your are in Copenhagen or in Mamö - be here.
The power of innovation is transforming the way we think of business worldwide. Now the time has come for the nation states to understand their part of the innovation system and following the Lisbon treaty each country in the EU are told to produce nation based innovation strategies. Hence follows the questions: How can nation states engage in innovation initiatives and what does a nation based innovation strategy look like?
Looks great Sweden, is it possible to see how you do that.
Please tell the rest of the world :-). Tell us.
Great initiative and HIGHLY relevant.
Implementing new understanding isn’t always easy. Transformation and change processes is sometimes difficult. Karl Weick wrote a lot about exactly that when claiming 7 aspects about sensemaking.
He stats – “sense is in the eye of the beholder” I agree!
Have you experienced that it’s sometimes difficult having a discussion because of the fact that you don’t discuss the same thing than you counterpart? We all have, haven’t we?
It’s about sensemaking.
In all great transformations we find need for sense making and the design of understanding - GK VanPatten
Given our backgrounds this is not surprising! For this purpose we often create Mindscapes in the form of stories, maps, diagrams and various visual mental constructs. From time to time we will post some NextD examples here in the Mindscapes section of this site.
Read more.
I just stumbled over this site, which is a kind of trend spotting service. I don’t know if they “spot” the right things, but I found some of the trends that inspire me in my daily work.
I thought you maybe would be inspired to. Do you know of other services like this? Other MEGA-trend-scenario’s-building-input-what-ever-services?
When most people think about where new or improved products come from, they imagine two kinds of innovators: either engineers and marketers in big companies trying to "find a need and fill it" or garage entrepreneurs hoping to strike it rich by inventing the next big thing.
But a lot of significant innovations do not come from people trying to figure out what customers may want. They come from the users themselves, who know exactly what they want but cannot get it in existing products.
Read more.
Thx to Anne for pointing me there….
About a month ago Hans Henrik wrote about INDEX:, which is an award show coming to Copenhagen this year. He promised us an interview, but we never got it. I hope he’s still working on this though, because I just realized what fantastic projects they are working on. Their main theory is designs that improve life, and boy do they have good examples of that!
Read the rest of this entry »
When do you know you got the right idea? And how to get there? And when to choose “The one”, how to proceed, exploring, describing, executing, implementing?
Traditional Project Management is mostly steered by a Stage-Gate process. But before moving into a Stage-Gate process there are typical an Ideation.
The early phases/stages is sometimes described as the “Fuzzy Frontend”.
But what I lack is a methodology describing exactly the “Fuzzy Frontend” – Of course I know of a million tools to motivate creativity, but which to use and when to use what?
Any perspectives? Please share.