Casio G-Shock Watch Design Offers Escapist Fun(ction)

I have four Casio G-shock watches. I buy them because they are great underwater down to 200 meters. They last a really long time and withstand lots of punishment.

Ok, I'm not a Navy Seal nor am I a deep sea diver. I'm currently wearing a bright red Rescue series watch with moon phases and tides for my location. This along with a myriad of other timekeeping features. I also can look at times adjusted for different world cities in 29 different time zones.

Something about the romance of water and far a way places! And the red color. I'm really a big kid. The red is great fun. I wear this watch everywhere, even when I put on a suit and tie.

Casio G-Shock - G7900A-4

Wearing it reminds me I'm supposed to be having fun and not be so serious. The one thing it lacks (right now) is smart phone capability where I can talk into it like Dick Tracy used to talk into his watch (acutally a two-way wrist radio)  I'd imagine it would have to coordinate with a bluetooth ear piece design wise.  Is this in the works Casio watch and technology designers?  I hope so.  Question is can you make a submersible to 200 meters phone watch with a touch screen?  Wouldn't that be something?

What Steve Jobs Means to Me and Us

    Losing Steve Jobs today is sad for so many.  I grew up with Apple first as an upstart hip some would say way out of bounds computer company in the early 80's.  My dad worked for IBM and was everything Big Blue.  So of course when I read about and saw early stuff about Apple, the two Steve's, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniack I was all ears.
    Steve and Steve inspired me then to think outside the box, that's its ok to innovate, heck you can even start something in your garage.  Maybe you didn't know how to run a business but if you had an idea,  ingenuity and a whole lot of chutzpah  you could imagine and act on making a better world.
     Today I am parent of 13 year and 11 year old boys and am so excited to share with them some of the interesting, game changing Apple products and tools so many of us seem unable to live without, our iPods, iTouches, MacBooks.  My boys ironically feel the same I did way back when about all of these things.  They're inspired as I am only for different reasons I think.
     Peering down into our new iTouch screen light lighting up their eyes and faces they see a world of possibilities I never dreamed of when I was their age.  As they dance circles around me showing intuitively how the iTouch works, where to find things in the interfaces and such, I say to myself under my breath, what technologies and how will they be living with them as they age and mature?
     How will they work?  Will there be "offices" as we understand them today? Will their kids when they are the same age as they are now and they're adults seem the same to them as they do to me?  Given what I've seen the answer is so far is a resounding yes.  Saying so cause the hair on my neck rise in excitement and my pulse quicken.
     Reflecting again on the passing of Steve Jobs and thinking about the world of possibilities before us, the sense of invention and inspiration surrounding us I can't think of a more fitting epitaph and legacy for this giant of technology and cultural change.  We owe so much to you and your drive to explore. We'll miss your unbounded passion, always surpassing the boundaries of the possible, seeking new places filled with invention, innovation and more gracefulness.

    Thanks Steve.  

Workplace and Innovation - Some Thoughts

     Fall is upon Vermont in its wondrous glory.  We transition from the outward focused time of summer to the more inward reflective moments we experience with the change of seasons.  Maybe this is why even in adulthood we're still wired to "back to school time".

A Fiery Maple Tree - Crimson Abundance 

     Maybe that's why I so much enjoyed a recent seminar on Innovation, Culture and Workplace issues given by Rich Benoit from Steelcase's Applied Research and Consulting group at Business Interiors, their local dealership in Northern Vermont.
     Rich started the conversation out by asking us about what innovation, an all too common buzzwords in business circles today meant to us.  A participant shared how they thought inventions are things we consumers don't buy while we willingly pay for innovations such as iPads, iPhones, Sony Walkman's from a generation or two ago, IBM personal computer and iMac's.  Similarly the Toyota Prius also comes to mind.  The phenomena of Google and Facebook were also touched on by our group.
     This ice-breaking question led Rich to share findings from Steelcase's research about different innovation types moving from the incremental betterment of an existing product to the reductive, then to the break through to expansive and self-evolving.  The earlier examples our group came up with were mostly in the breakthrough and expansive category.  These products and services all altered how we live, play and work.  In some way they acted as game changers deeply resonating with consumer culture and the marketplace.
     What then is the secret sauce for cultivating work cultures which innovate?  Everyone talks about innovation being critical to business success but how do leaders make it happen?  Surprisingly Rich said effective workplace design done well can help set the stage for work cultures to innovate.  
     First off, as Rich shared with us and as found in the illuminating white paper published by Steelcase last fall "How the Workplace Fosters Innovation", you must  understand the DNA and behavioral tendencies of your organization before proceeding to deeply into workplace design.  Essentially you must know how your work culture ticks and why it works your way rather than another.  This is critical when designing buildings and interior spaces filled with expensive workplace equipment and furniture.  Wishful thinking with miss matched design choices can short circuit best intentions for organizational change and innovation efforts.
     So how and where do you and your organization begin? It's simple.  Seek to understand what kind of innovative organization you are now and identify the culture of innovation you can realistically become over time.  By combining best practices in work process, workplace design and integration of work tools supporting work and the workplace you can build organizational muscle memory expanding capabilities in collaboration, team and individual effectiveness, and enhancing speed of ideas and products to market.

Inspiration in Sky Blue and Yellow

     Rich shared an interesting graphic which is also found in the white paper on page 5.  It shows the spectrum of Models of Innovation ranging from centralized do it from within efforts to off-site to more  decentralized examples relying on outside consultants to provide innovation to the most decentralized of them all, the network model.  Wikipedia is a great example of a service and product being built in a peer enabled user community located in the cloud.  In this model there is very little physical workspace as the service is dispersed across the internet in a virtual community.  
     These models of innovation also sync with the developmental age of the business or organization.  An early stage do it yourself garage innovator may naturally need to transition to differing models of innovation to stay successful as the company matures, takes on more employees, begins to grow into larger more independent workgroup and expanding its facitilies.  As you can imagine matching physical design to ever evolving businesses, their leadership models and work cultures can be very tricky.  I believe successful work cultures try new things, are willing to fail and "fail forward", believing in the quality of their ideas, people and their core business offer.
     Rich then showed a variety of tantilizing images aligning collaborative workspace with these different Innovation Models.  The physical design very clearly depicted the Innovation Model in design of informal, formal meeting spaces, how much openness there was versus closed broken up spaces, how furniture and tables were organized, surface heights, lighting design.  For me it was extremely gratifying to see the translation of the Models of Innovation spectrum into physical form.
     The presentation led me back to re-examining the white paper more closely as I'm working with a variety of work cultures now located on various parts of the Innovation Model Spectrum.  I want to be sure to guide them to workplace and workspace design aligning with where they are today and where they hope to be tomorrow and years to come.  This research I believe will help me help them.  Maybe it will help you too!
     Thanks Rich and the team at Business Interiors, an Office Environments of New England company for this learning opportunity.  The experience satisfied my back to school needs for learning and helped to build greater awareness how I can best help our customers in the coming months.  I say be sure to focus on understanding how they tick and why and then take this learning to work together to shape appropriate high performing work spaces helping their organizations to soar in years to come!




 

BBBD 2011 - Bill Reed on Integrative and Regenerative Design

Almost a week ago at the annual Efficiency Vermont Better Buildings by Design Conference Bill Reed opened the conference Wedensday, Feb 9th with a galvanizing keynote address.  He spoke about how important it is to start the design process back out at the water ecosystem not on the perimeters of a project site. I've seen Bill speak before at AIA National conference in San Antonio in 2007 and at the USGBC 2008 Greenbuild in Boston. He's inspirational as a keynoter.  Here as then he reminded me and the likely 500+ in the room of the importance of seeking to understand the interaction between natural systems and forces on and around a site in our design work.

As a founding member of the USGBC, Bill also reiterated his view the LEED rating system is not an end unto itself but rather a means to the end point of creating sustainable places and communities.  Often as he said "In

Dream Pre Fab Home

Color Rendering  - South Elevationf

A new prefab home design

Over the last few months, I've been developing an idealized pre-fab-ready small home.  Architects and designers are always designing their ideal home, that rustic retreat we've always wanted.

Of course, this exercise was also an excuse to do a couple of other things. First, was to provide a southward tilting roof for possible solar electric PV's to contribute towards a low energy or net zero use footprint.  

Design Details

The home is sited due south to maximize solar orientation for passive solar heating within the home and solar energy generation. Second, to keep the

The Value of Design Thinking

Design is an active participatory and collaborative process. It is a verb not a noun. Design is really design thinking applied to problem solving or creatively surmounting challenges we face in business. Design and design thinking equals value creation. It's participatory because the design process does not operate in a vacuum.

The design thinking and doing process means engaging with others in value setting conversations and active design sessions of brainstorming, sketching, prototyping, pricing. These cycles of design move from the fuzzy blank paper stage to the implementation, creation, building, roll-out stage and finally into the living and using stage which is why it's so much fun.

It's also why it is so much work. So many factors effect design thinking on one hand it seems extremely complex and the other it is beautifully simple. The idea of honing down, clarifying, editing of design concepts into functioning, attractive and sustainable realities keeps me coming back for more. It is a process which builds upon itself. Good ideas become richer for it. So does the conversation and the learning!

If you think about it the action of design involves identifying something missing, whether it is designing a new workplace or home or better yet, redesigning an existing one, re-purposing and renewing it for a new chapter of living or working.

Marry the design thinking process with sustainable green design and game changing results can happen. A new re-energized future awaits you.

Address wherever you can in your process consider energy flows and usage, water conservation, resource conservation and recycling, creating long-term effective behavioral interactions, create and preserve healthy indoor air quality. Re-direct choices people make when using your product, service, building or software into greener more long-term value's driven decisions.

Iconography and weathervanes

I found this weathervane a few years ago atop a barn in Vermont where I live. It is a truly unique object. I appreciate the multiple readings it provides. Yes it is a weathervane. Yes it identifies rather strongly its place from other places. It could be an owl, a wizard, a frog. But no it is a cow in silouette. The strong graphic character is unmistakable against the sky. It is both weathervane, symbol, utilitarian object and storytelling device. The visual onomonpheia of the image and implied function and connection to farming is exact and unmistakable.

By learning to look at the everday object such as this and wonder why it is so powerful, we can use this lesson in seeing to communicate meaning and symbolism intrinsic to creating design which connects to the emotions and resonates with the subconscious.

Another reason not to look down at your feet, but rather up to the sky, out of your ordinary field of view.

Sunday Poem

The sounds of the cello vibrate

loosening the chords of memory

bringing painful moments gingerly

to the open air

With gladness I greet them

finally able to see what I was missing

the darkness so obscured

the simple answers overlooked

Now what to do but to move on

with a knowing, tired smile

a warmer heart for sure

the music strenghthens dampened spirit

The dawn beckons with its light

here in the quiet darkness of night

oh, what to do but to write

bringing forth insights long dulled

Fingers on the bow poised for flight

The Ten Faces of Innovation, Tom Kelley and IDEO

AN INFLUENTIAL BOOK

About a year ago I found this book. It was after I had read The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley, an earlier book published in 2001. The first book took me a year to finish. The Ten Faces of Innovation, published in 2005, took me a month. Tom Kelley wrote it over a period of many years while working within IDEO, a unique and transformative, multi-faceted internaltional design consultancy.

The book opens by reviewing how damaging the devil's advocate process or activity is to innovation and suggests offers alternatives to the dreaded devil's advocate. What I like about the book is it sketches Ten very useful character traits helpful, no essential, for innovation. The motivation for this is the fact no organization can rest on its laurels of past successes but keep aspiring to capture or embody innovative concepts or ideas or work processes which might propell their business forward. The ten faces are organized into three rich categories: Learning Personas, Organizing Personas, Building Personas.

• LEARNING PERSONAS - Organizations need to constantly grow and develop their knowledge base and enrich their informational context to serve their customers, thus learning personas are super critical:

  The Anthropologist -

  The Experimenter -

  The Cross Pollinator -

• ORGANIZAING PERSONAS - Individuals in organizations who like to pull together information, factors influencing a design or operational challenge and enjoy helping to orchestrate strategic and/or tactical interactions to achieve results and stay focused.

  The Collaborator -

  The Hurdler -

  The Director -

• BUILDING PERSONAS - They pull together insights gained from the Learning Personas and Organizing Personas into a rich tapestry of experience in innovative combination together and unlikely, unique value added outcomes.

  The Experience Architect -

  The Set Designer -

  The Storyteller -

  The Caregiver -

WHY YOU & YOUR ORGANIZATION MIGHT NEED THIS:

Innovation is a collective, collaborative activity. The character traits or personas identified in the book taken independently, while still valuable, are no match for their power in combination together. Think about your work teams and your role(s). You wear many hats over the course of an average work week don't you? Tom Kelley renames the hats we wear. The personas are poignant descriptors of activities essential to building innovative processes within your workplace. What would happen if you read together this book as a team, discussed the various personas together and reflected on your work process together and asked how could it be redesigned or incorporate these ideas. You might quickly identify yourself with a number of the personas, but also realize you are a collection of personas which at various times rise to the surface to meet a specific need. It really helps to see the proverbial hats you wear through these characterizations. So often we try to be everything to everyone. The next time someone speaks up in a meeting and says, "Let me be the devil's advocate here", you'll have a shared background together and say, "Hey, rather than trying to burst the bubble on the idea right now, let's look at this like we're an anthropologist, or experimenter and try this out for a bit in conversation and see where it goes, it might lead someplace unexpected for us."

SOME INNOVATION APPLICATIONS

Fact finding / Data Collection Activities

Brainstorming / Design Charettes

Strategic Development Meetings

Connecting Values & Brand Inseperably

Workplace Design and Interaction Between Work groups

Product & Services Development

Enriching Your Customer Experience

Public Relations and Marketing your Business and Your Story (I really like that)

The book's website has reader stories sharing how the book influenced their worklife. It's really provacative reading to see how the book inspired other readers interested in further developing their worklife design strategies and work culture.

SO WHAT'S NEXT:

Transform your creative practice by exploring ideas such as one's in this book. Add value to the clients or customers you serve by growing your abilities to think strategically about their needs, how they operate and how they could be better, much better, perhaps even astound and amaze in the arena they operate. Explore and expand your strategic thinking abilities and alternate ways to see the big picture while knowing how to dig deep and really understand what motivates your customer, their stakeholders and move things forward. Most of all enjoy the process of trying new things and learning from what works and what does not!

Kitchen Pattern & Texture Inspirations

Tonight I was fascinated with the textures and patterns of everyday objects and equipment in our kitchen.

A ball of yarn evoking interconnectedness, intertwining.

Patterns on a 1960's era Stove Top

Vestigal Space underneath a collander lit from stove hood lights above.

It's interesting the inspiration laying around. The ability to re-interpret the every day, mundane things into something else entirely.

Necessity is the Mother of All Invention...Creativity and Seeing the bigger picture

Necessity is the mother of all invention.  Sometimes it's good not to have enough time, not enough resources, not enough education.  A challenge or problem often times fuels creative efforts to meet the need or solve the problem.  Clear limitations aid creativity.  Sometimes our best work comes after we've slept on a design problem overnight, perculating on it while resting, dreaming...stretching the mind.      

I made this fibonacci diagram to remind me of how the parts and the whole are completely interconnected in the creative process.  This roughly emulates the spiral of shells we find walking on the beach and other patterns surrounding us from nature.  

Creativity is a looping, spiraling process, starting at an initial necessary point where the answering process, the doing process is more akin to a spiral than a circle or a line.  While you often come full-circle on a design problem, i.e.  you return back to the beginning, it's not really the beginning but a widening of the curving arc which is the creative process.  The circle doesn't close on itself.  It continues to open up.  The spirt of invention is a spiral.