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Full of the INDEX-spirit
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Interesting concept that I hope to be looking more into
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If something ought to be eco-disposable, it must be diapers
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Interesting concept from Philips Design
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Please note that this is from The Christian Post
Archive for May, 2005
There is no doubt that a massive change is ongoing in China. Not a single Newspaper wouldn’t allow it self not writing about this incredible transformation. Not only for China itself, but for the world economy in general.
The major headlines is about moving production capacity to China, but isn’t it a fact that huge parts of the creative industry also will be – is - moving east?
Ted Fishman – author of ”China.Inc.” - describes the effects of China’s momentous change on the lives and businesses of people everywhere.
I haven’t heard that much about moving the creative disciplines to Asia, to China. Anyone who knows more?
We are very happy to welcome Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino to our crew! We got in contact with Alexandra via CPH127 some month ago and she has introduced us to some really interesting views on design in general and on service design in particular since then.
Originally from Montréal, Canada, Alexandra has been living all over the globe and is now in Italy at IVREA. You can find a presentation of her under "authors" and also here.
Again Alexandra - welcome 
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Great exhibition from major designfirm The Designers Republic
How to define Innovation and design – Bettina von Stamm does a VERY good job trying.
- A design is the tangible outcome, ie the end product of the design process, for example a camera or car etc
- Design is a creative activity
- Design is the process by which information is transformed into a tangible outcome.
In fact the Design Council does a hell of a good job in their work promoting design from a business point of view.
Personally I learn a lot every time I read some of their articles.
I was introduced to a little game the other day to you might know about. It’s almost childish but it really gets to you (maybe because it is childish?).
Let’s call it "user compensated design". Basically its about all the re-design, modifications and changes that users do to products in order to be able to use them properlly. An example
from my own office, the Danish Design Centre - that you would think would have proper design - that you might recognise from your own office.
We have coffee/tea jugs that keeps the beverage inside them warm. They are very nice and we have alot of them.
The problem is they all look the same and once a jug is filled with either coffee or tea it’s impossible to see which beverage is in it. If you have two jugs on a table you don’t know whether you’ll get coffee or tea. The "user compensated design" solution is simple; put a sticker on the jug with e.g TEA in upper-case letters so that its impossible miss. Now the product works even though I guess it looks different than intended…
There are plenty of examples once you start looking for it i.e. the post-its on the computer monitor etc. and its hard to stop looking once you’ve started. While you’re strolling around in the sunshine this weekend see if you can find any examples and share them with the rest of us!
Have a nice one!
I was just burning the midnight oil reading this brilliant post by Ruth Ann Hattori on Joyce Wycoff’s Head’s Up blog about the cost of not innovating. While the whole business world agree that innovation will save us Ruth states - and I believe she’s right - that most execs are in limbo when it comes to the cost of innovation i.e. how can one measure the ROI of innovation?
While the concept of ROI is still valid it is more complex when it comes to innovation. It is also a question of the cost of NOT innovating.
"A simple ROI can never truly measure innovation because it does not account for the lost opportunities, such as AT&T missing the cell phone, Kodak missing the digital camera, and the radio companies that blinked while Sony brought the Walkman to market. Business history is filled with examples of companies that paid a high price for not innovating."
Ruth asks decision makers to think about the limitations of the traditional ROI mindset when it comes to innovation. To help out she presents some interesting clarifying questions.
Read her full post!
I have no clue what-so-ever of what I am doing wrong. I keep ending up in this discussion everytime I engage in a conversation about design and innovation. The question of whether or not China (sometimes we also discuss Asia at large) will be able to compete with us for real. By saying for real I mean competing in making original products and developing those. Most business execs see Chinas a place where you can outsource your manufacturing of original products for 2 bucks an hour. Not that many understand that China will grow and be able to make original products - heck, they’re already there!
Today Rick Poynor from the Design Observer blog came to my rescue. He posted a piece about a new exhibit in China called "Get it Louder". I am a fairly interested in arts, so I went there to look at what they had to offer. And now I have a confession to make: I just sat there.. looking.. for 10 minutes or more.. literally.. 10 minutes is a long time! I kept thinking that we were doomed if China already was this far. And they are!
It’s not that it’s such a big surprise for me, as I have researched this field for a long time now. It’s always fascinating to have your point of views based on something like that. Art might not be directly connected to innovation, but looking at art you can somehow always connect commercial products with some pieces of art. Art is somewhere in the middle between design and innovation. Most inventors (and perhaps also most innovators) understand art and the value of it. So does China.
Some might argue that I am still way out. That China is in no way of competing directly with us. They may base their arguments on (macro) economics, cultural differences and the like, but a fact is that we have no chance of winning the battle of globalization (and there is a large battle going on!) if we keep undermining our opponents. No successful sportsman would argue that they won because they didn’t know who their opponents where, and where they had their strenghts and weaknesses. Same thing goes for innovation and globalization in my opinion.
Bottom line: Do you still dare not to think of China as a competitor? How "developed" does a country/company have to be in order to compete? Try to think of South Korea (a growth in BNP larger than any industrialized country) or Google (everyone kept undermining their importance when they were small).
NITA - the University of Uppsala’s center for user-centric IT development is looking into Service Design together with the Swedish Industrial Design Foundation. You need to read (and understand) Swedish to enjoy most of it but if you do its very, very interesting.
Personally I believe its a discipline that will grow in importance in the coming years and to keep in the loop you should check out the guys at LiveWork, their wiki on Service Design and their collaborators at IVREA.