What is design cultivation about in 2024 and beyond? The new Singularity

 

Braking cars on the interstate, copyright Stephen M. Frey

What are we waiting for? 

What does cultivating design mean today as compared to over ten years ago about the time the last DC blog post appeared here? 

Can I say I do not really know except I know a few things remain true. 

Cultivating design or design cultivation as I call it here means seeing to learn and learning to see. For me design means reflecting on the who, what, where, why, and when of things and experiences we have everyday. What lies underneath the pen or pencil, or stylus we use to write, draw, sketch or muse in a sketchbook, an iPad, or touchscreen notebook. 

It means asking questions about why something is the way it is. How did that something come to be the way it is today? In 2024, different forces come to play on the everyday that didn't exist in 2012 in the way they do now. In 2012, we were just two years into the last singularity event that occurred, the iPhone which truly ushered into the world unfathomable changes in everyday life. 

The singularity event then changed how we communicated, amplified the effects of emerging internet based applications and standalone programs, social media as we know it today. The portability of the smartphone and iPhone untethered us from our laptops, desktops and more. It also fed the media streaming revolution and millions now more than a decade later, cutting big Cable with ad free services, only to transform in the last few years to streaming services with adds again. 

But now, over a year ago now, another singularity came along that will no doubt transform our lives like the invention of the Smartphone and iPhone, those are large language models like ChatGpt, Dall-e and all the artificial intelligence enabled assistants and guide by the sides in all aspects of everyday life. Now we have new 'friends' we can ask advice, questions or tell them to draw pictures or make illustrations, do coding, answer phones and replace people performing routine jobs.  

What does this mean for cultivating design, with this AI enabled assistants by our side? What does it mean to be original and come up with ideas when now we can brainstorm with the help of AI pretty respectable ideas and more? Hopefully, we can use these tools to cultivate better design outcomes that more solidly solve today's and tomorrow's challenges.  But what do you think? 

(A note, this was not enabled by any AI tools in any way. I'm sure it shows. But it is authentic that way. My writing about cultivating design is authentic and not assisted.)  

Moving Others: Reviewing Dan Pinks "To Sell Is Human"

      

Courtesy Image

Daniel Pink's now not so new book "To Sell is Human, The Amazing Truth about What Motivates Others" connected with when I first read it in early 2013 with it's ideas reverberating with me everyday since.  I'm serious. Reading it confirmed something I knew intuitively, that "we are all in sales" and that selling isn't a dirty word, rather a reflection of basic human activity we do each and every day. 
      Pink shares how day in and day out we spend "40% of our jobs seeking to persuade others to act, choose, decide, select an idea, in some way to behave a certain way to achieve a desired outcome"  As Pink says, this is called "Non-sales selling". This behavior is basic to our existence. We all do it. Reading this rang true to me as a sole-proprietor architect and business person. 
      Everyday I seek to move people in my work, engaging in non sales selling and yes sometimes selling, and what better way to improve I found is reading Pink's book and acting on the ideas and research he shares.  Whether you realize it or not, everytime you post on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn and the like you sell yourself, your ideas, the things you find interesting.  
      You can continue doing so without clarity or understanding of this basic fact or recognizing you do it harness the aha moment and put it to good use. As Pink says, "It turns out that we are all natural salespeople. Each of us- because we're human--has a selling instinct, which means that anyone can master the basics of moving others." He goes on to say how the traditional catch phrase ABC, "Always be Closing" no longer applies, rather could be replaced with a new ABC, "Attunement, Buoyancy and Clarity." 
      Attunement is fascinating to me for a number of reasons. Pink says "Attunement  is the ability to blend one's actions and outlook into harmony with other people." He believes you increase your power by intentionally reducing it, beginning each new encounter or interaction believing you are in a position of lower power or authority. Doing so helps you empathize with the other's viewpoint.  You walk in their shoes, understand their perspective better.
      Attunement is strengthened "by using your head as much as your heart - Top Sales people have strong emotional intelligence but they don't let their emotional connection sweep them away." You need to connect and empathize with your coworkers but not get sucked in too far, finding a balance and objectivity.
      A very direct way to explain attunement which I continue using daily is mimicking others in a self-aware, observant, respectful way.  Pink goes on to share many examples of this but for me I explain this as keenly observing those around you, picking up cues from them about how they're interacting with you and blending with them by interacting similarly rather than in sharp jarring contrast to them.  This blending translates to figures of speech, body movement and position, energy level together and more.

Sometimes What Falls on the Ground is the Most Precious

Petals on the Pavement, Copyright 2013

      Walking this morning I came upon these fallen blossoms.  Like grains of sand individually they may be attractive, intriguing and such as individuals. Collectively laying there they form a pattern of interwoven beauty. 
      However, it is often what you can not see which is most revealing. The petals together created a wafting sweet spring like aroma on the wet pavement.  An interesting juxtaposition of the natural and the man-made.
      Spring brings to the forefront senses which lay dormant in the winter as growing things burst onto the scene.  This moment is an unlikely example of design cultivation.  Do you have ones to share?


   

A Growing Self Awareness of Technology Overload

A Word Cloud  Explaining How I feel

     This holiday season I am really overloaded by technology, so much so it's making my head hurt and I feel both annoyed, confused and conflicted by the media messaging coming at me from all directions.  I see and feel all the beautiful images and implied lifestyle of ultmate media experience.  I see families sitting in contemporary styled living rooms watching large flatscreens, heads bent down looking at tablets, laptops.  All together they appear it seems, but in actuality so far apart from one another.  I don't buy what I'm seeing in the advertising because I'm living in a media overload nightmare.  I think it's a tip of a proverbial socio-cultural iceberg. 
     I'm surrounded by screens of various sizes and shapes.  I'm uncomfortable seeing so many friends and family uncontrollably it seems bent over tablets, itouches, laptops vaguely interacting with one another, not making clear eye, mumbling answers to questions down to the screen but not across the room to the person asking the question.  If this is togetherness and family time why does my skin crawl ever so little sometimes when I look across to see a loved one head down on a screen, body in place, mind and focus elsewhere.
     I can't be the only one feeling a little weird about this can I?  I know all of this great cool tech at least in the commercials, web and multi-media advertising has us all living in a super happy fantasy world of better lives etc.  But is it really making us better people?  Do we know how to do things like basic communication, like....talking to one another?  I know that after a long day working on my architectural work surrounded by screens at my desk, where I frequently post strategic updates to my LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, flitting around doing work related research I feel a bit scattered. 
     In the last year or so, have you tried reading a newspaper article or picked up a magazine and tried reading an indepth piece, quickly realizing you can't because you're still scanning the pages like they were on a screen and you can't settle down to actually read like you used to.  I have.  Often.  I feel all of this tech and my unwitting behavior with it has led me to a self-created attention deficit disorder.   
     Backing up a little, let's set some context. In our home bookshelves we have an old children's book from the 1950's or so espousing the glamourous miracles of the technology then called television.  Looking at its simple colored illustrations showing how the technology worked, explaining the complex and mysterious ideas of programs of various kinds being beamed over airwaves into people's living rooms seems quaint today.  Often books like this or Norman Rockwell paintings depict entire family's sitting around a living room, a barber shop, restuarant or bar looking at a single TV or listening to a radio.  
  

Reviewing "A Foreign Country" by Charles Cumming

     I usually write about design, innovation and many things green but I'd like a timeout for this short post about a spy thriller I read recently.  It's named Foreign Country by Charles Cumming, a youngish UK author with a reputation comparing him to a John LeCarre or Grahmn Greene. My advance copy came to me via Bear Pond Books in Montpelier, Vermont as a thank you for helping them consider some design options for their children's area help desk.  They shared a thank you book in the spy thriller genre with me from their advance copy stack and Foreign Country the one I selected from it didn't disappoint.
     The fast pacing, twisted filled plot, middle age ennui of Kell, the protagonist and ultimately the design of the book with its flashbacks and disconnected happenings at first all added up at the end to a superlative redemptive finish.  Visually the books design and structure echoed spiraling strands at the outer ends of happenings to the major characters intertwining tighter and tighter closer to the heart of story and its heart-pumping ending.

     Here's an excerpt from Cumming's book website which sets the stage:


.....from Chapter 4, A Foreign Country


"Six weeks before she is due to take up her position as the first female head of MI6, Amelia Levene vanishes without a trace. "


 "Her disappearance is the gravest crisis MI6 has faced for more than a decade. There has been no ransom demand, no word from foreign intelligence services, no hint of a defection.

Should news of Levene’s disappearance leak out, the consequences would be catastrophic.  But for disgraced MI6 officer Thomas Kell, the crisis offers a chance for redemption.  He is approached by his former employers and ordered to find her.

Kell’s search takes him first to France, then North Africa, where he discovers an extraordinary secret hidden deep in Levene's past.  It is a secret that could fatally compromise Britain’s national security – and for which Kell himself could pay with his life."

      The first chapter opens with a vicious double murder in Tunis of a vacationing just retired French couple.     It moves on to establish the situation of Thomas Kell, how he was ousted from the SIS (Secret Intelligence Service) better known as the British M16, taking the fall for a joint intelligence operation with the Americans gone bad eight months earlier.  Adding to Kell's middle aged angst was his crumbling sexless marriage.  This sets the tone for the lonely double life of a spy who knows no true identity, only cynical allegiance to long ago ideals and long time friends in the service who at any moment are capable of turning on him.  But in the end, Kell misses the action of a life of spy craft and would do anything to return to it while seeking to redeem himself in the eyes of his peers and get back in the 'game'. 

     A Foreign Country is about Kell's journey searching for his friend Amelia Levene the new soon to be first ever female Chief of M16, while ultimately leading to him rediscovering his courage, faithfulness and true character.  My advance copy said it was going onsale August 2012 but apparently it's already for sale in the UK.  If you're looking for summer read to take to the beach or on a plane do be careful.  Once you pick it up you won't want to put it down.  Look for it in August in US booksellers near you! 

     Let me know what you think?  I think this story could easily be made into film.  James Bond watch out! Thomas Kell is the seasoned hero of our age for readers like me to identify with and champion.  I know I always wanted to be a spy down deep inside and with A Foreign Country I find myself a little closer. 

Biophilia and Nature Near, The Sounds and Sight of a Stream

     I share this video made recently while walking the hills around Montpelier with our new puppy and family members.  This is for those of you near and far who appreciate the sounds of nature and especially this one of spring time in Vermont.  I believe in the importance of embracing nature in design, especially well defined by the word biophilia. 

     Championed by noted biologist E.O. Wilson, it means "an innate and genetically determined affinity of human beings with the natural world." Oxford Online Dictionary.  Too often natural elements such as the sounds of water, the oxygenated aroma's of plant and the texture of river stones, other natural materials are absent from our daily experience inside our homes, workplaces, where we shop and worship.  

     Much of my work as an architect and workplace designer involves bringing the natural back into the everyday experience inside.  What better antidote to the cacophony of cell phones, sirens, sounds of everyday cosmopolitan life than soothing sounds of water, smells of plants and textures of materials. Where possible I believe it intrinsically valuable to creating a sense of well being to include water features and ample  plantings into interior environments.  So many of us spend the majority of our lives inside these days working long weeks whether at the office or as mobile untethered workers at home, coworking spaces, libraries, coffee houses etc.  

     Smart business people who want to create welcoming environments for work, play, shopping, learning, worship would do well to bring nature near. 

      

Light Snowfall

Early Morning Sun - Dec 2011

Last December I captured a nearby neighbor's tree in early morning light.  The sun was coming in and out of the clouds highlighting, then dimming on the spindly branches.  A visual treat against the blue sky. 

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?

Keeping Posts Simple

A Simple Line -Winter's Frosting
copyright Stephen M. Frey, 2011

Is writing a blog post a good idea with an Apple iTouch? Or a similar smart device? I think so.

Here's why.

Maybe it maximizes the reader's experience of whatever I'm sharing and is respectful of their time. Writing from such a device ensures I say only so much as I am not fluent in typing on such a small screen.  Yet.  Or maybe never.  So the device helps focus the writer's attention on saying only what matters most.

The small size also means it's portable so it can go with me wherever I go.  Perhaps having it around will make it easier to post more frequently about ideas, trends, people influencing designcultivation.blogspot.com.

The small form factor shapes how you respond to the urge to write about something essentially.  Here's a question; what if you adopt this mentality using a laptop or writing an email?

See the recent Email Charter or the movement to keep emails short with voluntary following of the three sentences or five sentences rule (see threesentences.com, foursentences.com, fivesentences.com)?  In the interest of promoting quality time away from email you can do your best to adhere to the policy of writing and responding in 3-5 sentences.

Writing in the active rather than passive voice while using simple verbs and adjectives, energizes your text not deadens it.  Maybe this will activate the conversation?  Can't hurt?

Over the last year I have steadily seen people write emails to me with much simpler language.  Usually they    have only one or two ideas they're focusing on.  Maybe I'm a little slow but I figured out recently they're writing from a smart phone or texting from a cell phone.  Detail is out.  Brevity in.  They don't have a choice. The device drives the communication style.

They also might be using their intuition when they realize they're writing something very detailed and recognize its better to cut to the chase and call someone or visit them face to face about what you're writing about or responding to.  Try it, especially before you hit the send button, before you inflict irreversible pain on yourself and others.  Life is too short.  I have learned the hard way, believe me.

So since I'm not very bright but catch on after a while I'm thinking this is a good idea.  So look for simpler communications of all types from designcultivation, Stephen M. Frey on LinkedIN, @designcultivate or  @arocordisdesign on Twitter, or arorcordisdesign on Facebook.

I include an image from last Winter in keeping with the spirit of this post.  "A Simple Line".  That's my mantra for 2012 and beyond.  What's yours?

Do you have any communication tips and suggestions balancing the needs of short and long form online media, paper media, especially as it relates to the design fields?  Please share!

Some Visual Thoughts about Steve Jobs, the Biography by Walter Isaacson

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.  

An Artful New Sign For Montpelier's Drawing Board

Note the picture frame and paint brush blade sign
at upper left, note 4th of July banners aren't
always there!

         About a month ago, our local artist materials and framing store, the Drawing Board in Montpelier, VT installed a new decorative sign supplementing the tasteful sign band already in place above the store.  The sign intrigued me with its artful whimsy and simple yet complex design.  

         Exterior store signage design can if done right serve to really extend the brand promise of the  business.  Done wrong it does nothing but drive people and business away on the street. Your store sign is the first thing many see about your business.  It's your symbolic front door.  It should be memorable and unique while tastefully designed and communicative.

       In the case of the Drawing Board, their new blade sign protrudes out of a corner brick pier in line with their sign band further enhancing the original signage in three dimensions. 

        Being a cultivator of good design, I took pictures and promised myself I'd ask the owners about it later and share what I found out.  So I sent them a few questions which Judy Brown, a co-owner of the store with her husband Ray Brown kindly answered.  

Blade sign depicting the essence of an art
supply & framing store

So here goes....

DC: Why did you add a new sign to the front of your store?  Who designed your sign?  What was the process you and the store went through. 

DB: Ray and I always liked the idea of a blade sign but it was not an option until Montpelier changed the rules fairly recently. My decision was based on a desire to draw attention to the store from the street, particularly to pull people from the center of town down Main Street. I also wanted to add an element of action and fun to the very classical, professional look of our logo and signage.

DC: Who fabricated the sign for you and installed it.

DB: We worked with Sparky Potter and his team at Wood & Wood in Waitsfield. They are incredibly talented and professional. It was a joint design effort. The design that they first came up with felt too conservative and so we came up with the angled frame and color idea.

Cycle of Creation - Framing the View

Today I burned an early painting done my freshman year in College under the tutelage of professor Frank Hewitt, a noted Vermont painter who inspired me during my years at UVM where I majored in Studio Art. It's cleansing to let go of old artwork, watching it burn in a fire seeing paint strokes disappear. 

Reflecting back while watching canvas curl I remembered a time of exploration of new ideas, new friends, of learning about color, form, shape coalescing about a point of view, a framework of thinking.  Whatever the media it always seemed then to be about how to frame a viewpoint while listening to the medium speak at the same time.  

Whether painting, drawing, sculpture or later in the last fifteen or twenty years, architecture and designing environments for many people, this framework and point of view has remained critical.  It's inspirational actually watching an old painting perish in the flames knowing in my heart a new one is soon to be born with a new story to tell.  

It speaks to the cycle of creativity we all experience in our lives where endings are always beginnings.  It's not easy to always see and understand but it's a fundamental part of our existence.

Net Zero House Watercolor Sketch, Work on the boards

Watercolor rendering by Stephen M. Frey, AIA

Design Process

I've been working on a house for a friend over the last half year.  Here's a recent watercolor sketch snippet of it. This post focuses on the design process of the watercolor sketch. 

3d Rendering by Bensonwood Homes

3-D to Watercolor

The 3-D perspective massing was built from a basic model from Bensonwood Homes which is collaborating with the owner and I on the project. They built it from the 2-D drawings I had created in AutoCADLT.  I imported it into Sketchup where I used it as an underlay with shade and shadow.   I created a pencil sketch where I embellished the finished materials such as siding, windows, and heavy wood timber framing followed by landscaping around the building showing how it fits generally to the site.  The building is partially about how it is situated in a clearing on a gentle mountain ridge with great views to the West.

Part of the fun of this kind of presentation sketch is creating a sense of heart and soul for the project through the act of rapidly synthesizing by hand site plan information, building orientation, and traditional architectural drawing info.  This avoids excessive computer modeling time noodling around with plantings, topography, contours, and model lighting within the computer.  For me, it's also about bringing the design idea, in this case, a home, to life through the hybrid actions of 3d modeling, hand drawing, and watercolor painting.

After creating the watercolor, then comes scanning the image into Photoshop and adjust the scan to match the liveliness of the watercolor work on paper.  I do this by manipulating contrast and tonality.  You can also touch up the image with color fills which I didn't do to help with shade and shadow.  Once you've scanned the image into the proverbial "box" there's lots you still do.  ....Or not which is the case here.

I'll be creating additional watercolor rendering images in the coming weeks of this project and sharing some of the backstory here.  What do you think about this drawing though?  Any suggestions on areas to improve?  Other techniques I should try?  Tell me about your favorite architectural illustration and why it was successful...or not so favorite.  What do you think about this composition?  Does it convey the idea I was hoping for?  Don't be shy.  I want to continue to learn and cultivate these abilities and compositional strategies. 

Interested in learning more? 

You can find us at www.arocordisdesign.com, the website of our Montpelier, Vermont-based residential architecture firm practice. If you want to contact us there, click on this link. 

#netzero #homedesign #arocordisdesign #vermont #vermontarchitect #architecture

Collaborative Consumption, A third way out of over consumption?

Watch Rachel speak about Collaborative Consumption and the potential power to transform our everyday excess capacity of the stuff which surrounds us, our skills laying dormant with the powerful forces of sharing and trust building.  My family and I are ideal candidates for this game changing shift in thinking...  "What's mine is yours, what's yours is mine".  You probably are too!  Take 15 minutes, watch and shift your thinking!

I first heard about this on Treehugger radio on a podcast a few months ago and have enjoyed replaying it often.  The concept stuck in my head so solidly I mentally noted to check out www.collaborativeconsumption.org later and learn more.  Go there and see for your self.  It's genuinely heartwarming stuff.

There's a book you can buy or seek out in your community to read about Collaborative Consumption movement in detail.  It operates like a library book.  There's a library card in it which shows the path of those who've read it and passed it on to others to read.  If there's anyone in central Vermont who has a copy to lend please let me know.  I would like to read it and pass it on.  Meanwhile, enjoy Rachel's presentation!

After you've watched tell me what do you think?  Have you read the book yet? Do you have anything you'd like to share in your garage?  Would you do this in your community?  Share your thoughts with dc and other readers.  Don't be bashful.  It would be delightful to hear from you.

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

Idea Paint - Leads to Creativity and Collaboration

What if you could paint your office walls with dryerase paint to enhance your visualizing and brainstorming at work, school at home?  I just recently learned about an innovative formaldehyde free water based paint product which does just this.  My brother Jim, an Osram Sylvania Market Manager in Lighting Controls sent me this link.  Thanks Jim!

It's called IdeaPaint.   It's a single application rolled on paint product which costs $30 for a home kit which covers 6 square feet or $60 for one which covers 20 square feet.  You can go to the website to learn more about installation, costs and where to buy.

Whether you paint your office walls, your menu board overhead of checkout, worktable surface or your creative studio here's an interesting way to leverage individual and team creativity.  There are galleries on the website which show uses in offices, schools and the home with plenty of ideas on how and where to use it.  

I can see applications for this for businesses which promote an innovative work culture and community valuing visual thinking, brainstorming and organizational transparency.  What a great way to cultivate a creative minded and acting work community.  And for kids, watch out! I can see elementary schools eating this paint product up applying on kids desk and tables, walls instead of blackboards etc. What fun!

Cre-8 is their product which costs $175 per kit and covers 50 square feet.  It comes in 8 standard colors.  It's not just white, but light green, an orange, beige, offwhite among others.  So it can be coordinated with interior color palettes a bit more flexibly.  

It's also environmentally friendly having achieved Greenguard certification.   It's PTPA tested as well.  It received a best of NEOCON award as well!

I haven't personally tested this yet but I will ask Santa for a test kit to try out.  I have a perfect place in mind in my home office!  Or better yet, my son's new desk we made.  I bet he may like to draw on his desk and illustrate it with his crazy pokemon characters.  Watch out Picasso!

  

Green Innovation - Look to Existing Technologies, Products & Services

Innovating Green

Stream - Rumney, Vermont. 2010

I was reading the HBR blog, The Conversation this morning and found a great post, "A New Approach to Green Tech Opportunities".  The authors Marc Gruber, James Thompson, and Ian MacMillan offer a surprisingly simple yet powerful suggestion for companies and entrepreneurs seeking to come into the "Green Space".  They suggest instead of spending untold resources on R&D on innovating new ideas, products services look first at what your company is already doing for kernels of possibilities.  "Our studies of several hundred technological innovations tell us that we can benefit hugely if we stop equating innovation with new R&D effort, and instead revisit the buried potential of already existing technologies. "

So examine fallow technologies that perhaps dormant now could with a little brainstorming and outside-the-box thinking, be reapplied in an environmentally beneficial manner, helping both your bottom line and be a positive contribution to the sustainability conversation. If you think about it, following this course also conserves resources beyond the time and money already invested in past offerings.  

Workspring and the benefits of Third Places

Last summer while attending NEOCON 2010 in Chicago I visited Workspring just a few blocks away from the Merchandise Mart.  Prior to visiting I had been talking on and off with Mark Greiner Workspring's General Manager and the Chief Experience Officer (CXO),Steelcase Inc. and a Senior VP. 

 Entry looking into reception area 

He told me how the business developed out of an idea he and a group of  others at Steelcase's Workplace Futures consulting group had, how they found support within Steelcase and Venture Capital funding to build a functioning prototype of research work to test ideas on the value of collaborative work experiences in and  off-site from traditional workplaces.  As Mark and others I've met at Workplace Futures have said, this projects comes out the Steelcase business ethos of Understand, Observe, Synthesize, Realize, Prototype and Measure.   The purpose of the space, equipment and people providing services there are to assist businesses in having memorable and valuable collaboration experiences bettering their organization.  The space has been online for over two years now and the positive reviews are coming in as seen from customer testimonials on the website.

I'd missed seeing it the year before and wanted very much to see Workspring, "a high-performance for fee work experience".  Or saying it another way, a "Third place" to hold collaborative off-site meetings whether for an intimate group of 2 or 3, a large geographically dispersed project team working on rolling out a new product or service, or renting the whole space for a large multi-faceted multi-day work experiences. 

Christo is Coming to Burlington, VT

View of the Gates in Central Park

The artist Christo has an exhibit at the Fleming Museum one of my favorite places in Burlington.  It's called "Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Tom Golden Collection" opening 9/21 and going through 12/18/10.   It's a collection of mixed media works assembled by Tom Golden who worked on and off with them for years.

Detail of the Fabric Hanging from "The Gates"

The last time I experienced a project by them was the Central Park project, called "The Gates" a series of curtains and gateways planted in a very interesting manner along paths and walks near reflecting ponds.