posted by Anna Fleet on November 16th, 2010
As a relitively youthful person who is used to typing at a computer all day, I sometimes take my agilty for granted. Take, for instance, an elderly woman trying to change the channel with her TV remote, or worse, trying to play a DVD. Those remote buttons can be pretty small and hard to press. Well, RCA designs graduate, Tom Stables, thinks of these things often. So he designed a remote interface that can help elderly users interact with every day products, like the television or DVD player, with a lot less frustration and stress.
Check out Jane VS The Remote to see how Stables’ research of human interaction with every day items, like remote controls, led to design thinking and a very practical, and in Jane’s case, welcome innovation.
Tags: design thinking for small business, design thinking product innovation, design thinking strategy, human interaction with commercial products, Jane VS the Remotes, RCA, Tom Stables
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posted by Anna Fleet on November 4th, 2010
In this world of over-consumers, I think it’s safe to say that sometimes “less is more”. And I was so happy to get my hands on this video footage from a traveling exhibition, also aptly entitled, “Less is More”, that celebrates the work of renowned industrial product designer Dieter Rams, just to prove my point. Because let’s face it, Rams has been saying it for years.
The video was shot on the exhibit’s stop at the Design Museum London, England, where the museum’s Director, Deyan Sudjic, and Public Program Director, Michael Czerwinski, talk about their admiration of Ram’s simple designs and what makes them still relevant today—even though they were designed in the 1950s and 60s.
It seems that Rams’ 10 Principals of “good design” are still strictly observed by many designers today, and here they are…
Good design:
1. is innovative
2. makes a product useful
3. is aesthetic
4. makes a product understandable
5. is unobtrusive
6. is honest
7. is long-lasting
8. is thorough down to the last detail
9. is environmentally friendly
10. is as little design as possible
The exhibit, Less is More, has traveled to Osaka Japan, Fuchu Tokyo, London England and, recently, to Frankfurt, Germany.
Tags: 10 principals of good design, braun, design thinking for small business, design thinking strategy, dieter rams, less is more design, less is more exhibit, simple product design
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posted by Anna Fleet on October 15th, 2010
Many of us spend the majority of our waking lives at work, and gossip just naturally occurs in environments where human beings spend a lot of time together.
I’m not pointing fingers, but we’re all guilty of it…especially you unnamed ex-colleague, with that smirk on your mug, loitering at the coffee making, waiting to jump on anyone that will listen about you deluge dirt on the latest office romance…I’m simply demonstrating how damaging office gossip can be. The amount of energy that goes into people undermining others in the workplace, who supposedly work for the same company, with supposedly the same goals for business success—anyhow, you see what I’m getting at.
So, you bet when I read today’s Harvard Business Review, I paid special attention an article by Dan Pallotta on how office gossip kills productivity and possibility. Gossip kills the business by simply sucking attention and effort away from the greater goals of the company, or as Pallotta says, “or [the businesses] real potential, which is essentially the same thing. We end up working harder to undermine our fellow workers than we work to make the business work out in the market place. Competitors couldn’t possibly thwart the possibility of our success to the degree we thwart it ourselves. When we gossip about the leader of our enterprise, we create an organization more committed to her failure than her success…Honesty is the essence of leadership.”
We’re all aware how destructive gossip is. And Pallotta tells us to heed this advice: “Make ruthlessly honest communication, at all levels, priority number one.” Because otherwise, issues that are kept silent can grow to immeasurable offences in the eyes of the so-called victim—especially when they come to the surface with emotion.
Honest and healthy communication is powerful stuff, especially in the workplace, and you can create a culture of healthy communication in your organization by:
1. Getting everyone on board. You can’t simply outlaw gossip unilaterally—you have to get the whole organization to see it as a negative thing by nurturing a culture where gossip is unwelcome.
2. Helping staff see the unconstructive costs of gossip—on a personal and enterprise level—gossip can cost an organization happiness, harmony, success, fulfillment, teamwork and money.
3. Putting time, money and resources into healthy communication—hire experts to help develop a culture of healthy communication and allocate time for training on an ongoing basis.
Tags: creating health communication, creating sustainable culture, dan pallotta, design thinking strategy, gossip kills business possibility, harvard business review
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posted by Anna Fleet on October 13th, 2010
Gas, sex, constipation, indigestion…all of these are common social no-no topics that we tend to pretend don’t exist—and we especially don’t talk about them in the workplace. But how does ignoring these socially stigmatizing topics lead to positive results? Realistically, ignoring them more often leads to further heath problems and social isolation.
Well thanks to this six-part innovation series from IDEO, we are challenged to face and discuss social taboos out in the open, gasp! By forcing us to navigate forbidden waters, IDEO is saying businesses may discover untapped opportunities—ones that, yes, are unpleasant from the surface, but may just turn out to be rewarding once we dig deeper in these ways:
1. Acknowledging social taboos exist
- Listen and acknowledge social taboos in your particular industry.
2. Be sympathetic to embarrassment
- Do this by creating a safe haven for people to discuss, build trust, and share information around social taboo topics.
3. Challenge social stigmas
- By giving people permission to discuss taboo topics in new ways and ask, “Why are these taboo topics?”.
4. Offer alternatives – Provide language to kick off discussion and offer alternatives so folks can be engaged comfortably.
Reading this full article and afterwards take note of how your company can acknowledge taboos and turn them into business opportunities.
Tags: design thinking for small business, design thinking process, design thinking strategy, IDEO design thinking, IDEO innovation tips
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posted by Anna Fleet on October 12th, 2010
Smell that? At first you might mistake it for the smell of a sweet baked blueberry or peach pie wafting its way through the Greensboro air. However PieLab, the makeshift, brick café situated on Main Street in Alabama’s Black Belt, is serving up more than just pie a la mode to the surrounding 2,700-person cotton-producing community. In this area where about one-third of the residents live in poverty, PieLab aspires to make life better with “Pie & Conversation, Optimism & Design” (as the billowing flag out front promises).
Founded by the Project M design collective and created as part of their “design for good” movement, creator John Bielenberg says that PieLab “functions as a kind of incubator, where young designers are invited to two-week programs [in Greensboro] to generate solutions to social problems and enhance public life.”
So along with a hearty slice, the designers chowing down here are baking up ideas that, they hope, will improve life and create a sustainable community in Greensboro. Their most successful initiative to date was the Buy-a-Meter—which helped raise money to hook up area residents with running water.
Read the full article from the New York Times and discover how PieLab is helping to sweeten the design thinking process—by solving social and economic issues in poverty-stricken areas across the United States.
Tags: creating sustainable community, design thinking and poverty, design thinking strategy, John bielenberg project m, pielab greensboro, project m design collective, the power of design thinking
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posted by Anna Fleet on October 7th, 2010
I’m so crazy for Converse right now!
Do you know why?
Because I just enjoyed a fabulous 30 minutes of designing the look of my very own custom Converse high tops. Ha ha, check out my very own Anna Fleet designed beauties above!
This ‘design your own Converse campaign is what I’d call a brilliant move by Converse—engaging customers in the design of their shoes by allowing them to implement those designs is pure participation society. I’m going to track this campaign, but I bet this ingenious design thinking move will spread like wildfire over social networks. Why? Because it puts customers in control of what they are putting their hard earned money towards.
What do you think? Or have you already started design your own pair?
Tags: converse customer designed sneakers, converse design thinking, converse design your own shoe, converse shoes, design thinking for small business, design thinking strategy, participation society
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posted by Anna Fleet on October 1st, 2010
Amy Lamp, Design Director at Forty wrote a great post about why sketching is such an important aspect of design that I’d like to share with you non-designers out there. Now you may be wondering why it’s so important for you to understand why sketching is so important to design when you’re not even a designer. However, if you work at a company that makes anything, anything at all (be it products, marketing, consulting, or problem-solving of any kind), you need to check out what Amy has to say.
Please note: I’ve paraphrased quite a bit here and made it relevant to the folks here at Design Changes and our clients.
Your first idea is probably not your best
You know when you first begin any new project and you think of an idea and think to yourself, “I’m so freaking brilliant! What till they hear this. They’ll love it!” Well it’s probably not your best idea until you’ve sketched it out, thought about it, shared it with others and refined it. See, now you have a good idea.
It’s fast and doesn’t waste precious time
Sketching is a quick and dirty way to express ideas visually—great if you’re working in a group. And more ideas will come to you during the sketching process. Sketching also saves a lot of time with clients that aren’t sure exactly what they’re looking for. And lastly, it’s a lot better than wasting all those hours in Illustrator just to figure out you need to go back to the drawing board (they call it a drawing board for a reason).
You can sketch, I can sketch…
I know some of you might be skeptics. But believe me, I’m no artist. However, I can sketch an idea out on paper using basic shapes (circles, squares, rectangles, lines and arrows—and stick people) to get my point across to others so they understand. In fact, “The Back of the Napkin” by Dan Roam is a great resource for sketching newbies.
Sketching = fun!
It is fun, and it cuts tension. And when you stop worrying what do you get? A clear head, able to produce new ideas and new ways of thinking.
I think Amy is on to something here…what about you?
Tags: design thinking process, design thinking strategy, sketching tips for design, visual thinking tools, visualization tools
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posted by Anna Fleet on September 29th, 2010
The tale of “Green Jeans”, an inspiring allegory for opening our minds to Green innovation—as an innovative way to grow business and make money, from Dr. Mike Shipulski.
Now, for those who aren’t familiar with the name, Dr. Shipulski is a certified TRIZ practitioner. [Warning: I digress] Yeah, I know, I scratched my head over that one as well. But it turns out that TRIZ is the theory of “inventor’s problem-solving”. Yeah, I was still confused to, so I dug deeper. Well it turns out that TRIZ is a method based on logic and data, not on intuition that’s meant to accelerate creative problem solving. Ok, now I got it.
And you can understand why I (a person interested in design thinking) would listen when a guy like Dr. Shipulski says, “Grab Green by the throat and shake it…before your competitors do…[because] reluctant compliance won’t get us there…”
The overall point is that Green isn’t a passing fancy in business—it’s here to stay, and it expects us to think in new ways that will make us approach business problems differently, looking away from the old tried and true ways we’ve operated with in the past as we learn to develop new products and technologies…sounds a lot like this design thinking biz I’ve been going on about lately doesn’t it?
Read the full story on Green jeans—an earth-friendly product that saves customers time and money while flattering their backsides. Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it?
Tags: design thinking for business, design thinking strategy, dr mike shipulski TRIZ, earth-friendly design, green innovation
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posted by Anna Fleet on September 27th, 2010
If you’re looking for the secret to business success, forget everything you know!
The Globe and Mail urges us to Harness the Power of Design Thinking by asking us to try approaching problems like a design thinker—and that means without preconceived ideas of solutions and old ways of thinking.
I think they’re onto something here. “It’s about the way designers look at opportunities and problems…they approach [them] more holistically [and] with more intuition and a human dimension. They’re willing to take risks and be more exploratory…It’s about the act of creating something new and original,” says Heather Fraser, Business Design Professor and Director of DesignWorks, at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.
I know letting go of those traditional ways of doing things isn’t always so easy, but “If you trust your intuition,” says Fraser, “…and be willing to explore the unknown… regardless of discipline…you can think through things faster and more effectively.”
To read the full Globe and Mail article and to learn about some great examples of Canadian Design Thinking at it’s best in companies such as Umbra, Loblaws, Blockbuster, Indigo click the link…
Tags: design thinking for business, design thinking for business success, design thinking strategy, globe and mail design thinking, stages of design thinking
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posted by Anna Fleet on September 22nd, 2010
Nicolas Roope, the co-founder of the unconventional English electronics company Hulger, said, “It’s [ironic] that the light bulb, an object so synonymous with ideas, is almost entirely absent of imagination.”
Isn’t this the truth? And what’s more, how can those low energy light bulbs—you know, the spiral-shaped ones created to preserve energy—look so contrived and, well, ugly?
I guess Roope felt the same because he got Hulger straight on it. The company collaborated with designer Sam Wilkinson to create the “world’s first designer low-energy light bulb”, the Plumen.
Now the Plumen, was only released recently (on September 9, 2010) in the UK and Europe so don’t get too excited just yet (but it is rumored to be coming to the North America soon). The Plumen design is pure elegance—two intertwined fluorescent tubes—that use 80 percent less energy than your typical incandescent light bulb. And better yet, Hulger claims one Plumen bulb will last you eight years.
Gorgeous, energy-efficient and robust…an ingenious combination suited to the symbolism of imagination. Bravo! And remember to turn the lights off when you leave the room.
Tags: design thinking strategy, earth-friendly design, energy-efficient design, hulger electronics, plumen light bulb, the power of design thinking
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One Calendar with Social Networking Powers
