Endless Innovation

Now at Big Think: Endless Innovation, More Beautiful and More Wonderful

Starting February 22, the Endless Innovation blog is migrating over to Big Think, a global forum connecting ideas and people: http://bigthink.com/blogs/endless-innovation. Endless Innovation will be joining an absolutely first-rate group of bloggers who are writing on topics ranging from design and the arts to geopolitics and economics. In addition, Big Think has cultivated an amazing cast of editorial contributors that includes national politicians, senior business leaders, and iconic artists.

I'm excited about blogging for Big Think as a new opportunity to discover and share new ideas. Big Think is in the vanguard of innovation and creativity that has been made possible by the creation of new digital publishing tools.

In keeping with the Darwinian theme of Endless Innovation, I've selected an image from the recent "Endless Forms" exhibit at Yale's Center for British Art -- Robert Farren's Duria Antiquior -- to symbolize the blog's move over to Big Think. Farren's imagery suggests a Cambrian Explosion of highly diverse species and organisms, all competing within the same ecosystem, in ways that are nearly impossible to comprehend. Ideas - just like prehistoric life forms - have always fought for supremacy throughout history.

I'm hoping that you will follow me on this brave new journey to discover endless forms, most beautfiul and most wonderful, over at Big Think: http://bigthink.com/blogs/endless-innovation

[image: Darwin's Endless Forms via The New York Times]

The Design Republic of China: What Happens When the New Export is an Aesthetic?

What will it take for the Western world to change its mind about what "Made in China" signifies? Unfortunately, for most people, those three words - "Made in China" - carry all kinds of unintended economic baggage: cheap, shoddily-made goods; the loss of tens of thousands U.S. jobs; inhuman factory conditions in urban sweatshops; and a giant export machine that is causing a massive trade deficit for the U.S. But what if "Made in China" was associated with design, creativity and innovation?

In its February 2011 issue, design-savvy Monocle magazine recently explored several of the key players who are reversing long-held notions of Chinese design and creativity. Japanese design powerhouse Muji, for example, recently went on a design shopping expedition in China, looking for everyday household items that could be adapted into the perfect "un-branded" commercial goods. By the end of the process, Muji had settled on 31 Chinese goods that could be part of a new range sold within Japan: "Making a virtue out of 'Made in China' was something new for Muji and its Japanese customers. It wasn't so easy at first, but the image of Chinese products being bad is changing..."

What's changing is that it's not just "Western" design firms who are hunting around the Chinese market, looking for opportunities and inspiration. For perhaps the first time in history, homegrown Chinese firms are looking to export their design aesthetic to other parts of Asia, Europe and even the U.S. For example, Jia Inc. is trying to convince the world that it needs objects designed in China. Already, reports Monocle, Jia home products have been scooped up by five-star hotels, top chefs (including Alain Ducasse!), world-class museums, and even Le Bon Marche department store in Paris.

Now, China is preparing to show itself off to the world with the first-ever Beijing Design Week, scheduled to kick off in the last week of September 2011:

"Beijing Design Week is an international design event aimed at implementing the concept of innovative country, promoting the creative industries’ development in Beijing and building Beijing into a capital of design through design. In order to make Beijing Design Week a comprehensive design week with the biggest international influence in China, the event will be held during the National Day Holidays every year since 2011. Being positioned as a core part of the capital culture, Beijing Design Week is becoming a tribute from China’s design and creative industries to the National Day. Beijing Design Week is composed of five components, namely summit forums, design exhibitions, guest city of honor, design tours and design awards. In the meantime, Beijing Design Week plans to join hands with an authoritative design education institution every year to jointly organize internationally forward-looking high-end academic events."

So what happens when a country's chief export is really an aesthetic? First of all, it's easy to see that protectionists in the U.S. will have a lot less to be worried about. (Who's afraid of Muji, after all?) One could argue that China's economic engine, based on manufacturing and exports, has already reached its peak. As China grapples with (gasp!) single-digit year-over-year economic growth rates and continuing U.S. pressure to change the current yuan-dollar FX dynamic, it's almost certain that China's leaders will look for new ideas about creativity and innovation to prime the economic pump.

In a Q&A sidebar attached to the Monocle article, in fact, Liu Guanzhong, a Chinese professor at Tsinghua University, notes that leaders within the Chinese government are already working on new educational reforms and a brand-new industrialization initiative that rewards design and innovation. Maybe 2011 is the year we keep our eyes out for new China design & innovation icons as they make their way to places like Dubai, London and New York.

[images via: Beijing Design Week]

Global African Design Thinking: Reflections on Black History Month

When people think of Black History Month in America, they tend to think of famous African-Americans who managed to make a mark for themselves in American society despite conditions of severe inequality and nearly unsurmountable obtacles. As we head into the second decade of the 21st century, I would argue that some of the African-Americans we'll be celebrating during Black History Month in coming years will be the artists and designers who are exporting their uniquely African design aesthetic to the "developed" world.

When people think of Design Thinking, probably the last place they turn to for examples is Sub-Saharan Africa -- which is why The Global Africa Project at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City is so important and timely. This curated museum exhibit provides a comprehensive survey of the significant impact of African craftsmen, artists and designers on world culture -- while also raising questions about how and why these contributions of Africans and African-Americans are now being integrated (co-opted?) into the marketing of "Western" consumer goods and the "Western" way-of-life.

The exhibit includes some of the usual suspects -- like celebrated designer Stephen Burks -- who first burst into the mainstream with his vases for Missoni and has been featured in places like the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Likewise, there are contributions from the quilters of Gee's Bend (already featured at The Whitney) and Kehinde Wiley, perhaps best known for his Afro-centric Puma prints created for the 2010 South African World Cup.

The Global Africa Project also turns a spotlight on the likes of Goncalo Mabunde, creator of the symbolically-rich Hope Throne, who is challenging the way we think about how war-torn cultures recycle weapons and military hardware into items of beauty and elegance. It's the whole Swords Into Plowshares theme, with continent-wide implications.

With an eye toward technology and design, the exhibit also profiles Emeka Okafor and his brilliant Maker Faire Africa, which celebrates the ingenuity and innovation of Africans. Unlike their Western counterparts, African tech innovators in places like Kenya and Ghana start with a fundamental axiom: the scarcity of resources can be a source of liberation and freedom. Just think of William Kamkwamba ("The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind"), who's also featured in The Global Africa Project.

Finally, there are artists like Cuban-born Alexandre Arrechea, who is challenging our notions of urbanism and the path to sustainable development. His artistic work Elastic Metropolitan is, in itself, a wonderful example of how the shiny accomplishments that we associate with "development" (i.e. skyscrapers) are, in fact, also ways of limiting human expression.

That being said, The Global Africa Project exhibit at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City is a must-see for anyone looking for new insights into how the developmental trajectory of the African continent will impact Europe, the U.S. and the rest of the "developed" world.

[image: Global Africa Project exhibit via Pop Africana]

The Miracle of the Commons: How Simplicity Can Save Our Cities

"Creativity begins when you cut a zero from your budget..." - Brazilian architect and urban planner Jaime Lerner

With all the talk out of Washington this week about reduced federal spending, the immediate need for budget cuts, and swelling deficits at both the local and federal level, it's time to think about ways that cities can do more with less. In other words, how can cities of the future use simplicity to solve the most intractable urban problems in innovative, sustainable ways that won't break the bank?

In a recent Flash Interview with The Economist, legendary architect and urban planner Jaime Lerner describes his vision for the "smart cities" of the future:

"Creativity begins when you cut a zero from your budget. Sustainability, when you cut two. When dealing with “smart system” technologies, we must always remember to bind our solutions with a commitment to simplicity. Also, having in mind that sustainability is an equation between what is saved and what is wasted. If waste is “zero”, sustainability tends to infinity."

What's interesting about this is that Lerner does not see technology as a panacea for what ails budget-strapped urban planners. Instead, urban planners need to adopt simple, common sense measures that are possible to implement even when a zero has been lopped from the budget. As an elected official in Brazil, Lerner had an opportunity to implement some of his ideas -- with extraordinary results.

For example, how would you solve the problem of trash piling up on the narrow, winding streets of a city's slums? U.S. techno-bureaucrats would probably call for costly studies and lengthy administrative RFPs for high-tech garbage removal machines capable of removing trash from these slums. Lerner, however, proposed a much simpler, more cost-effective solution: offer residents of these slums the opportunity to carry out their own trash in exchange for bags of food and free transit passes. It's a win-win for both sides.

How would you deal with the problem of insufficient budgetary funds to pay for tractors and lawn maintenance crew members to maintain a city's streets? Lerner implemented the idea of "municipal sheep" which would graze on the park areas for free. Later, the wool from these sheep could be used to fund innovative children's programs throughout the city. Forget the Tragedy of the Commons -- this is the Miracle of the Commons.

This is precisely why "developed nations" might be able to learn from "developing nations." That trash-clearing initiative from Brazil? In a winter of discontent across New York City, when major blizzards and snow storms made trash removal dangerous if not impossible for city garbage trucks - and garbage piled up uncontrollably on New York City streets - what if New York City had provided a similar type of incentive structure for residents to ferry out their own garbage -- or reduce the number of bags they placed on city streets for a 48-hour period - in exchange for something of economic value, like heating credits?

[images: New York City trash and Jaime Lerner]

The Art of Creating Emotional Attachments to Digital Objects

The argument for or against e-books always seems to boil down to one central issue: e-books can not be touched, bookmarked and lovingly annotated in the same way that real books can (sorry, Kindle). The early adopters will always embrace digital content, on whatever device is offered to them. It's the middle- to late-adopters who need an additional emotional connection to that digital content before they will embrace tablets and e-books. The current approach to "flipping pages" on a tablet is a cute start, of course, but there's more that can be done to create emotional attachments to digital objects.

In fact, I would argue that one of the reasons why people love physical books is that they announce to other people -- friends, guests, or the nosy onlooker -- that I am a Book Person. Take, for example, this picture of Karl Lagerfeld posing in his apartment's library. He is, without a doubt, a Book Person. (According to Todd Selby, Karl even owns the bookstore next to this fabulous wall-to-wall book fantasy apartment.) If he had been holding an iPad tablet in this image, would you have thought the same thing? Think whatever you want about the man, it's impossibe to think about Lagerfeld again in the same way once you've seen these impressive walls of books.

With tablets, you don't get that impression. A tablet does not announce I Am A Book Person. Peek over the shoulders of random people on commuter trains or urban subways -- it's surprising how many people are doing something like playing Angry Birds rather than digging into some serious reading. So people who read serious books on their iPad or Kindle need to find other ways to signal to others what they're up to.

It's the same reason people buy "coffee table books" -- usually large, heavy-ish, picture-laded works so full and plump that you don't actually read them or take them anywhere -- you just leave them in places where people will find them and say, oh wow, I had no idea that he was such a fan of molecular gastronomy and might possibly be contemplating a trip to Spain to visit the wonderful chef Ferran Adria. Or, oh wow, that's quite interesting that he knows so much about the Bollywood film industry and might have been to Bombay recently. Coffee table books are - quite simply - a statement that you want to make to people.

How can Tablet users replicate these types of "statements"? One idea that a colleague mentioned to me involved the notion of "dynamic weathering" of applications -- the more that you use an app, the more that it would appear "weathered" and used. People would know how often you were reading by how "worn" your iPad's screen looked, for example.

Another idea might be new ways of creating emotionally resonant "signatures" for digital objects. During the Obama election disaster of November, one of the Internet memes for a short time was how one enterprising young man got Obama to sign his iPad tablet using an Adobe Ideas app. This is an important point about books and "emotion" -- if you've ever been to a book-signing, it never fails that people want to get a "personalized inscription" on their books to make them more special. How can tablets replicate this as well?

Finally, there's the whole idea of using books as a conversation starter. The classic example, of course, is the young man on the subway who catches the eye of a beautiful young girl and decides to initiate the courtship ritual through a casual, "Oh, I love that book, too." Or, think about the classic scene on a leafy liberal arts campus, where it's intellectually in fashion to wear black turtlenecks and carry around books by heavyweight foreign thinkers. Nothing gets a conversation started faster than peeking over your cup of espresso and seeing the person next to you reading a little Dostoevsky.

Who knows? One day, there might even be an entire industry devoted to "weathering" tablets, the same way that there's an entire industry devoted to creating ripped, torn, acid-washed and otherwise unwearable jeans that are meant to look as if the jeans have spent a few years being tossed around when the reality is that you just bought them new yesterday.

[image: Karl Lagerfeld's Library via The Selby]

Clean Energy, Bloom Boxes and the End of the Power Grid As We Know It

 

Walk down the street of any community in America and look up - what do you see? A mass of tangled wires that comprise the high-voltage tranmissions lines of the nation's power grid. If you're like most people, the wires are almost invisible to you in everyday life -- the only time you might notice them is when there's a down power line after a massive thunder storm. But the idea of buying electricity that has been stored and then transmitted over hundreds of miles of power lines by a monopoly power provider (i.e. your local utility) is, quite frankly, anachronistic.

What if there were a power source that was clean, efficient and relatively inexpensive that you could turn on and off as you needed it, without the need for wires? That's exactly what KR Sridhar of Bloom Energy has in mind for the future of clean energy in America. Each of his company's Bloom Boxes is powered by a stack of wafer-thin slices of silicon that have been specially treated. Two of his Bloom Boxes can power a single American home -- and one day they may be bought and sold the same way that you purchase electronics in a consumer retail destination like Best Buy.

In a recent 60 Minutes segment with the charming and indefatigable Lesley Stahl, Bloom's CEO KR Sridhar (named one of the Top 20 Most Creative People in America by Fast Company) gave the first-ever behind-the-scenes look at how the company is developing next-generation energy devices. Bloom is backed by hundreds of millions of dollars of West Coast VC money, leading to increased speculation about what the company is poised to accomplish. Already, corporate clients such as FedEx, Walmart, and Google are experimenting with them as ways to power their businesses at just a fraction of the cost of using traditional energy. Bloom Energy says that renewable energy sources  like the sun or biofuels could power their Boxes - not hydrogen or rich hydrocarbon sources.

If so, one day, Bloom Boxes may make the entire national power grid obsolete. Who needs wires connected to tree poles and ungainly electricity transmission stations when you have all the energy you need in a box, available in the comfort of your own home? At the end of the day, of course, it all comes down to cost. If it's cheaper to power your home or business with wind power or solar fuel cells, you won't be as likely to plunk down the cost for a Bloom Box.

For more on KR Sridhar and Bloom Energy, be sure to check out The Economist's upcoming Intelligent Infrastructure event, February 16-17 in New York City.

image via: CBS News/60 Minutes

The Digital Tablet: Creating an Alternative to "Lean Forward" or "Lean Back"

During the peak of the social media revolution, "lean forward" was one of the buzzwords that was bandied about quite often to explain the changing habits of media consumption. The term “lean forward” implied a deeper engagement with the content, rather than just passive consumption - the type of content that you'd share with your friends on Facebook, tweet about on Twitter and interact with in real-time. On the other hand, “lean back” content was all about watching TV on the couch and passively consuming content. Not surprisingly, the goal of every brand over the past 24 months has been to offer "lean forward" content (in a brilliant co-opting of the term, MSNBC now refers to itself with the tagline Lean Forward TV).

But is there a third way – an alternative to Lean Back and Lean Forward that we haven’t considered? The tablet computing generation seems to be creating just such an alternative. Consider the typical advertising for the Apple iPad -- what's surprising is how many of these iPad ads show people in a middle mode between “lean back” and “lean forward" -- a mode in which the tablet is positioned on the user's knee. Clearly, Apple seems to be promoting a form of media consumption that is more passive than "lean forward," yet more active than "lean back." (In the image above, for example, the user is clicking through the iBooks app on the iPad to download a new book.)

In perhaps one of the best long-form essays that I’ve read recently, designer Craig Mod explained exactly how he went around creating content for the iPad. He described the need to create tablet content that could be consumed in three different ways -- what he referred to as “bed, knee and breakfast.” These were the three distances (near, medium, far) in which people consume tablet media. “Bed” content is what you read on your bed, with the iPad close to your face. “Breakfast” content is when you prop up your tablet and watch from a distance without using your hands – think of it as consuming video during breakfast while eating a lox-and-cream cheese bagel. “Knee” content is the half-way position, where the tablet is propped up against your knee in a “half-way” mode: "Sitting on the couch or perhaps the Eurostar on your way to Paris, the iPad on your knee, catching up on Instapaper."

Obviously, there’s something going on here. The continuing evolution of digital devices is changing our media consumption habits – and there’s a whole new ecosystem emerging to take advantage. Think about apps like Instapaper or Flipboard, which make it possible to engage with content in new ways,  transforming "lean forward" content into "lean back" content that can be consumed later at greater leisure (e.g. riding on a subway train, without the need for Wi-Fi access).

It will be interesting to see how the next generation of tablet devices -- such as the Motorola XOOM and the BlackBerry PlayBook -- create new types of content experiences that play on the underlying tension between the "lean forward" and "lean back" mindsets.

Pandas, Smart Grids and the Power of Design Thinking to Change Behaviors

While a number of leading technology companies (IBM, Cisco, HP) have launched impressive Smart Grid initiatives, the broader public still doesn't really understand why the "Smart Grid" is so important to our nation's energy future. IBM has been somewhat successful in explaining the concept via its Smarter Planet initiative, but the concept is - I'm sorry - still a bit too wonkish for most people. (It's a bit like trying to explain Quantitative Easing to investors concerned about their portfolios - they know the concept is important, but their eyes glaze over as soon as you start mentioning the finer points of monetary policy.) So what would it take for the concept Smart Grid to really take off in the public mainstream?

The answer might be simpler than you think. With the support of the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative, frog design recently tackled the issue from a design thinking perspective. During an "energy think-in," the team at frog suggested creating a symbol, logo or image to "touch hearts and appeal to the head" -- it has to be "understandable to rich and poor, technical and non-technical folks," and have global resonance. Something along the lines of the Panda for the World Wildlife Fund.

When people see the panda, they immediately recognize what the WWF is all about, and why preserving endangered species is so important. The Smart Grid doesn't have that yet. There's a mix of competing messages in the marketplace, and a lot of different energy solutions from a mosaic of different utilities, tech companies and consumer-facing companies. So a few months ago, frog design gathered together 50 of the smartest people on the topic and tasked them with brainstorming a symbol for the Smart Grid. 

It was harder than you might think... After hours of debate, brainstorming and spirited conversation, the participants came up with five different "Pandas" - including a character called Pluggy the Energy Vampire: "Sunlight (solar power) melts him. Wooden stakes (composting) do him in, as does water (hydro power)." Other candidates included a "boiling kettle," an adapted "peace symbol," and all sorts of graphical arrows pointing up, down, and around.

In four more weeks, we'll have yet another chance to discover a possible "panda" for the Smart Grid. On February 16-17 in New York City, The Economist is gathering hundreds of the smartest thinkers out there for a special Ideas Economy event on the future of the smart grid. On Day 2 of the event, David Merkoski of frog design will be leading a workshop titled "Finding Your Panda," which will focus on the unique ability of symbols to change human behavior and create a deep emotional attachment.

So... What's your Panda for the Smart Grid?

 

image: Pandas in Paris via The Telegraph

 

Making Sense of the Retro-Digital Movement

We're experiencing a retro-digital (or is post-digital?) movement in the tech world: just today, I read about a gaming company (Discovery Bay Games) that has figured out to convert your bright, shiny Apple iPad into the type of tabletop board game that you played decades ago. That's not all: think yellowed-out Hipstamatic photos that look like they were taken with a Polaroid rather than a 6-megapixel digital camera; aggressively anachronistic smart phone ring tones that sound like old telephones; iPad and Twitter apps that duplicate the look and feel of newspapers (newspapers!); and modern videogames that re-create the look and feel of 8-bit games like Pac-Man or Asteroids. And, of course, my favorite - an iPad carrying case that looks like a big, dusty, smelly book. So what gives?

One explanation is that young digital hipsters are purposely embracing these analog anachronisms as an ironic cultural statement. Another possible explanation is that older Baby Boomers have embraced the Internet in sizable enough numbers that they are now directly impacting digital culture in the same way that they have impacted every other aspect of culture. The same way that it now makes perfect sense that 70-year-old musicians are playing halftime shows at the Super Bowl, it makes sense that digitally-minded Baby Boomers are waxing nostalgic about the good ol' days of land lines, wires and clunky floppy drives.

The final explanation is perhaps the most logical -- that the retro-digital movement is actually a sign that the digital and analog worlds, so long separated, are now becoming one. The Internet is no longer something that divides generations, or something that is somehow separate from our everyday life. When 80-year-old grandmothers are on Facebook and young kids are toting around Wi-Fi enabled iPads instead of backpacks you know that the Internet is almost as ubiquitous as electricity. There are no longer "online campaigns" or "offline campaigns," there are just campaigns.

image: Apple Store @ Frankfurt Hipstamatic via U1D2X on Flickr

How Live Performances Are Changing the Way We Think About Design

The current issue of Wallpaper* magazine - in addition to its feature on the global Design Awards 2011 Winners - has a wonderfully thought-provoking article about the growing popularity of "live performances" in the design world. In short, design is moving from a mysterious, tightly-guarded secret that happens behind closed doors to something that is performed in full public view:

"Designers used to be people behind the scenes. No longer... Designers are increasingly finding themselves in the business of a different sort of production - one that deserves an audience. While once, the drawing boards, the prototyping, the moulds, the models and the mess were all kept hidden, and the finished product unveiled in a 'ta-da' moment, these days it's the process that everyone wants to see..."

Perhaps the best analogy is the "open kitchen" now found at many of the best restaurants in the world -- instead of hiding their craft from the world, chefs now openly embrace public viewing of how their dishes are made from scratch. With that in mind, Wallpaper* cites a handful of interesting examples of the "live performance" concept being carried out in the design world:

(1) Neville Brody's Anti Design Festival in London, which featured real-time designing and printing in response to events as they unfolded in real-time

(2) Milan's Spazio Rossana Orlandi with James Plumb

(3) Craft Punk, a collaboration between Design Miami and Fendi

(4) Modern Primitives, a collaboration between Fendi and U.S. architects Aranda\Lasch

(4) Belgium's Z33 Gallery: "Design By Performance"

(5) London's design studio Raw-Edges

(6) Studio Glithero

(7) Total Trattoria from Martino Gamper

The obvious question, of course, is: To what extent will the world's elite design firms embrace the "live performance" concept of design? Certainly, opening up the design process will change the way we think about design:

"While a decade ago prestige was associated with closely guarded methodologies and highly developed techniques, design as performance is nothing if not open source. Intellectual property is also worth considering, then, especially as unlike art, craft or cooking, design processes are as much dependent on ideas as they are on skills."

The extent to which a designer should feel threatened, then, depends on how easy it is to imitate each step of the design process. That's where "design as performance" comes in -- any competitor not only has to steal your ideas and approach, he or she must also re-create each stage of the design process. 

Even if live "design performances" never catch on, they may serve an ancillary role - as a way of identifying the world's up-and-coming design talent: "A live performance is a sure-fire way to spot [raw talent]. Or the lack of it. While you don't want to be under the spotlight unless you know what you are doing, for those whose work might otherwise be an acquired taste, it is surely the best way to demonstrate why they do what they do and the way they do it." 

via: Wallpaper* and PSFK