What happens when there is no leader? Starlings, bees, and ants manage just fine. In fact, they form staggeringly complicated societies, all without a Toscanini to conduct them into harmony.
How?
We gaze down at the bottom-up logic of cities, Google, even our very own brains.
GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States has 90 guns for every 100 citizens, making it the most heavily armed society in the world, a report released on Tuesday said.
U.S. citizens own 270 million of the world's 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies.
About 4.5 million of the 8 million new guns manufactured worldwide each year are purchased in the United States, it said.
"There is roughly one firearm for every seven people worldwide. Without the United States, though, this drops to about one firearm per 10 people," it said.
On a per-capita basis, Yemen had the second most heavily armed citizenry behind the United States, with 61 guns per 100 people, followed by Finland with 56, Switzerland with 46, Iraq with 39 and Serbia with 38.
My column Look and Feel is just that. Stories about how things look and feel — usually with a business twist. I rant, I rave, I give advice and most importantly, I look at things and react to them. After spending thirty years in the field of the visual arts I have assumed this as my calling. It's what I get hired to do. I love it and am very passionate about it.
This article is going to be an update to the August 2006 article BIG IDEA. Since preparing that story I have run across several more examples of big ideas, but these have a twist. They are all very heavy on the big idea and light on the budget (although as you will see, some do spend money). They feature the product (or their talent) in a clever way - presenting the use - theatrically, stressing the advantage creatively or coupling the product with something from everyday life in such a way as to make it stand out, endear you to it and promote it.
These last few are a different approach and as I found, the web offers up a multitude of examples of very creative ideas on small budgets. Just do a Google search for that!
One woman used the top of her refrigerator http://noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com like a dry erase board to create a website promoting her book. It is very creative, has a surprise, makes you laugh and I wanted to read every page.
Two years ago, on June 23, 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first “ethnic” drug. Called BiDil (pronounced “bye-dill”), it was intended to treat congestive heart failure—the progressive weakening of the heart muscle to the point where it can no longer pump blood efficiently—in African-Americans only. The approval was widely declared to be a significant step toward a new era of personalized medicine, an era in which pharmaceuticals would be specifically designed to work with an individual’s particular genetic makeup. Known as pharmacogenomics, this approach to drug development promises to reduce the cost and increase the safety and efficacy of new therapies. BiDil was also hailed as a means to improve the health of African-Americans, a community woefully underserved by the U.S. medical establishment. Organizations such as the Association of Black Cardiologists and the Congressional Black Caucus strongly supported the drug’s approval.
# posted by Peter Durand @ Friday, August 17, 2007 0 comments
"Benefits & Pitfalls of Metaphors & Syntopical Readings" or "Why We Have a Library"
Books sure are pretty.
And, they make people look smart.
But the books are a vital part of our tool set for helping teams think faster, better and more creativelier [spell check did NOT like that word!].
Here are some resources giving the background of how other organizations use metaphorical reading, research outside their subject areas, and their own libraries as tools and methods for innovation in business.
Syntopical Reading… Intelligent Dialog Mortimor Adler developed the term and method called Syntopical Reading in How To Read A Book [rbtfBook]. The idea is to read many books at the same time - on a given subject - and aggressively dialoging with the authors. First, you see things this way that otherwise would not be revealed. In addition, it is possible to read a set of books, that together, bring information and insight to a subject that none of them, singularly, cover. by Matt Taylor
The Syntopicon as an Instrument of Liberal Education The Syntopicon serves the end of liberal education to the extent that it facilitates the reading of the great books and, beyond that, the study and teaching of them. To make the nature of this educational contribution clear, it is necessary to distinguish between the integral and the syntopical reading of great books. by Mortimer Adler. Ph.D.
The Fruitful Flaws of Strategy Metaphors Harvard Business Review | It’s tempting to draw business lessons from other disciplines—warfare, biology, music. But most managers do it badly. Instead of being seduced by the similarities between business and another field, you need to look for places where the metaphor breaks down. by Tihamér von Ghyczy
Unearth Growth by Digging in the Dirt Fast Company | Everything you need to know about innovation is growing (and dying) in a garden near you. So forget balanced scorecards, six sigma and SWOT analysis and read this instead. by Richard Watson
# posted by Peter Durand @ Friday, August 17, 2007
Fast Company: Unearth Growth by Digging in the Dirt
by Richard Watson
Everything you need to know about innovation is growing (and dying) in a garden near you. So forget balanced scorecards, six sigma and SWOT analysis and read this instead.
There is an element of business, which, as far as I know, has never been written about. Business is like gardening. That’s right; growing a business is like growing a tree. I know this sounds flaky, and I’ve probably lost many of you at this point, but for those of you that remain, consider this: most metaphors about business are about sport or war. This is useful, but the fatal floor in these analogies is that both have an end point in the immediate future. Moreover, the objective of both is to defeat a clearly defined enemy. Aims and outcomes are always fairly clear.
The feeling in most organizations like these is that business is a mechanical process. In this context the analogies of war and sport are very apt. It’s all about pre-planned strategies, resources and control within a fairly fixed environment or known set of rules.
But real life doesn’t work quite like that does it? We cannot control everything and it is egotistical to think that we can.
Google Health, codename “Weaver”, is Google’s planned health information storage program. Google’s Vice President of Engineering Adam Bosworth lobbies for the program for quite a while now. Adam said the current US health care system is challenged when it comes to “supporting caregivers and communicating between different medical organizations.” Adam went on to say that people “need the medical information that is out there and available to be organized and made accessible to all ... Health information should be easier to access and organize, especially in ways that make it as simple as possible to find the information that is most relevant to a specific patient’s needs.” Adam adds that this – making information accessible – happens to be along Google’s mission.
The New York Times today writes that “about 20 percent of the [US] patient population have computerized records
The summer flies by. Already the Back-to-School ads are dominating television and newspaper advertisements. Memorial Day gives way to the 4th of July in a blink of an eye. Labor Day is the official mindset end of summer and many kids go back into the classroom well before the holiday.
GodbeyWorks is a company that is promoting and yes, screaming for the public to pay attention to development activities that promote entrepreneurship, development of creative jobs, design and value added products and services. The recent “white paper” by Vision Shared, Culture, Creativity and Innovation, West Virginia in the New Economy, recommends actions to government, education and business to encourage such development. Taking the responsibility down to a personal level, I gathered thoughts on this question, “How do parents encourage the creative development of their own children?” more >>
2041.com was founded by explorer, adventurer, lecturer Robert Swan, OBE, the first man to walk to both the North and South poles. Swan has dedicated his life to the preservation of the Antarctic wilderness and promoting recycling, renewable energy and sustainability to combat the effects of global warming. see video
The E-Base is a sustainable green building operated in an environmental and resource efficient manner. The materials which were very carefully selected include recycled and renewable resources. It is believed that a cornerstone of sustainable design is to retain as many resources as possible within a community however, there are no building materials produced or indigenous supplies available in Antarctica. All of the building materials chosen are sustainable products and include, structurally insulated panels from WinterPanel, 100 percent post consumer recycled rubber interior flooring from EcoSurfaces and an energy star watertight blanket with low VOCs for the roof and siding from Metacrylics.
THE E-BASE GOES LIVE In 2008, Swan and a small team will live in the E-Base for two weeks demonstrating the use of the renewable and sustainable technologies. Their daily actvities will be covered on this website and transmitted 'live' around the world throughout their stay.
Business people need to develop a better understanding of design, form partnerships between themselves and creativity, and apply strategy to design thinking, in order to compete effectively today.
This article shares 6 tips "to help navigate thoroughly confusing waters."
As an accomplished businessperson you probably know a lot about strategy and little about creativity. Creativity is the key to innovation. And, if innovation is (as testified almost everywhere these days) the Midas touch for business today, understanding creativity involves a lot more than orchestrating regimented processes. Most businesses are run by adding columns of numbers, and led by financially motivated business managers armed with…. strategies. If creativity is the fuel that brings innovation to life, then strategy is the mirror equivalent for business.
Visual thinking, storytelling, DNA, and adaptable processes all help enormously. For designers today, a good understanding of the" business comfort zone" with ideas and concepts is a tool as powerful as any Alias rendering or beautifully executed aesthetic prototype. Creativity is the currency, but the strategic foundation is equally important.
# posted by Peter Durand @ Friday, August 10, 2007 0 comments
Fast Compnay Sketch Pad: Elizabeth Arden
This series from the business innovation mag shows how the creative process works -- from brainstorming to sketches, color and font selection and webdesign.
The spa for ladies who lunch goes for younger, more contemporary women with a new line of hair-care products. The brand-identity designers at Alexander Isley Inc. created the packaging to speak to that audience.
# posted by Peter Durand @ Friday, August 10, 2007 0 comments
Xerox's inventor-in-chief
An innovation revival has lifted profits to $1.2 billion. Fortune's Geoff Colvin asks CTO Sophie Vandebroek: Can the company keep it up?
There has been much ado about Hillary's appearance on Fortune Magazine's cover in July, but what caught my eye was this interview with Xerox's chief innovator.
The company's smart document technology holds much promise for the paper-glutted medical field.
One key to the turnaround: Xerox has become an innovation power again, producing new technologies that can read, understand, route, and protect documents, among other things. Leading that effort is Vandebroek, 45, the company's chief technology officer since late 2005. Her task is to keep Xerox at the leading edge of infotech progress in ways that make shareholders richer.
Born and raised in Belgium, Vandebroek has a doctorate in electrical engineering from Cornell; she first joined Xerox in 1991. Before an invited audience in New York City, she talked with Fortune's Geoff Colvin about the difference between invention and innovation; why Xerox employs anthropologists; how to make girls passionate about engineering; and much else. Edited excerpts:
A new report from the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the easiest, least inexpensive changes to data center operations - involving tweaks to software, layout and air conditioning - could boost efficiency by 20 percent.
But even that level of improvement would still lead to higher overall electric use in the coming years. Going further, and actually reducing information-technology's strain on the electric grid, will require a more aggressive commitment. The EPA says 45 percent improvement - enough to lower electricity usage by 2011 - can be achieved with existing technologies.)
For example, almost all the energy that goes into the air conditioning systems is used to run giant chillers that make the air pumped through the rooms' raised floors a brisk 55 degrees or so, sometimes as low as the 40s. Such extremely cold air is blasted in to guarantee that no single server's temperature gets much above the optimum level, which is around 70 degrees.
# posted by Peter Durand @ Thursday, August 09, 2007 0 comments
eHealthRisk: The Human Factor
The eHealthRisk blog is a forum for examining privacy, security, safety, project and business risks associated with the application of information and telecommunications technologies to health care.
Without question the best book I've read about human factors engineering and the issues that arise when we put human beings and technology together is The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way We Live With Technology by Kim Vicente. Vicente has written a very readable and fascinating book drawing on real life experiences from the aviation, nuclear, health care and other high risk industries. The book is organized around the "Human-Tech Ladder" which describes a hierarchy of relationships that explains why things sometimes go wrong when humans and technology mix. The ladder looks at the following factors:
Physical - Size, shape, location weight, colour, material Psychological - Information content/structure, cause/effect relations Team - Authority, communications patterns, responsibilities Organizational - Corporate culture, reward structures, staffing levels
Political - Policy agenda, budget allocations, laws, regulations
What does the healthcare blogosphere look like? That is, how are all the healthcare IT blogs interconnected? To begin to answer this question, we’ll need some idea of the composition of health IT blogs. Fortunately we have HITSphere, a growing list of about healthcare IT blogs (now numbering about 50.)
# posted by Peter Durand @ Thursday, August 09, 2007 0 comments
Creativity Pure and Applied in Social Enterprise
Whether starting up a new design firm or unlocking the power of nanotechnology, creativity in business is key. But how do we move from idea to practical implementation? Join the conversation.
In a recent comment on The Edge, Prof. Ravi Arapurakal suggested there are two types of creativity, viz: creativity for generating anything new, and creativity for fulfilling a purpose.
I'd like to rename those, Creativity Pure and Applied, and discuss them both here, getting into some tips and techniques.
Applied creativity is creativity that is pointed in the direction of problem solving, where the problem is known in advance.
Pure creativity is free-roaming, and typically introduces materials we are aware of but haven't brought into consciousness -- often in response to some deep-seated concern or issue that has been "in the back of our mind" for some time.
Meet Sam Goldman, the ultimate social entrepreneur. A former Peace Corps volunteer in Benin who grew up in Mauritania, Pakistan, Peru, India and Rwanda, he studied biology and environmental studies in Canada and received his MBA from Stanford.
He just launched d.light, the social venture that received best honors at the recent Global Social Venture Competition held at the University of California at Berkeley. (see video of his story)
Sam wants to provide a source of light that is safe and cheap, a decision he made when his neighbor’s son in Benin was badly burned by a kerosene lamp.
Watch Sam as he explains his goals to Global X. And read “let there d.light,” his new blog, only on Social Edge.
2 Billion people in the world currently live without access to electricity. They rely on kerosene and candles for their lighting needs. These sources of light are expensive, hazardous and polluting. We believe that in an era of unprecedented technological growth, we can bring light, safety and prosperity to millions of hardworking households. We want to make kerosene lanterns a part of history, where they belong.
