Malcolm Gladwell talks about his new book, Blink, at Barnes and Noble Union Square at 7pm on January 13th. Free.
Jared Diamond lectures on his new book at the 92nd St Y, 7:30pm on Jan 16. $25.
The editors and writers of a new magazine called Plenty discuss the mag’s view on the intersection of business, products and environmentalism, at my local The Half King, 23rd St west of 10th Ave, at 7pm on January 17th. Free.
James Cobb of the New York Times generates the latest praise for the Chrysler 300 and adds,
It also melds Stuttgart engineering with Detroit style, providing a rebuttal to those who were skeptical – we know who we are – of Daimler’s takeover of Chrysler. Beneath its audacious design, the 300 is packed with well-engineered parts shared with the pricier Mercedes E-Class. The old Chrysler Corporation could not have produced such a well-rounded, well-engineered, well-made car on its own. Nor could Mercedes have designed such an audaciously American car or sold it such an accessible price.
That’s good news for them when you see how competitors like Renault and Scion aren’t afraid to take chances.
There is now a species of Razorfish called Victor, or Xyrichtys victori to be precise. I know this because the man who discovered it off the coast of the Galapagos, Benjamin Victor, just wrote to say Hi. He sent a picture too, of the male and female:
Cute little bugger, yes? Benjamin compares it to the company of the same name: “why they chose that name I cannot understand, since razorfishes dive into the sand when disturbed, not a good image!” But hey, these are the survival techniques that evolution teaches.
In all the bruhaha on business innovation and creative thinking, the focus is often on new ideas, and by extension how different the ideas are. I very rarely see an important dichotomy represented, that of developing ideas that work both inside and outside the organization. In companies, this translates into making money while also serving customers well.
Cheskin’s page on design and innovation touches on the dichotomy:
“Design can also be more effective than traditional consultation, again because consultation works from the inside out. Though they’re very good with internal processes, they don’t know how to connect with real customers through real products.”
In the realm of product design, I’ve written about this before in terms of balance in the user interface [ 1 – 2 ]. But how this gets done is still an unknown. Jeanne Lietdtke describes a sequential approach in Strategy as Design:
Strategic thinking accommodates both creative and analytical thinking sequentially in its use of iterative cycles of hypothesis generating and testing. Hypothesis generation asks the question what if…?, while hypothesis testing follows with the critical question if…, then…? and brings relevant data to bear on the analysis. Taken together, and repeated over time, this sequence allows us to generate ever improving hypotheses, without forfeiting the ability to explore new ideas.
But the ideas themselves must express both constraints: service to the customer and service to the company, all while being novel. I’ve worked with people highly skilled in generating balanced ideas and from what I’ve seen they don’t alternate between the two, they conceive of both simultaneously. Such people are directed by a moral compass and a pragmatic embrace of amoral economics, blended seamlessly. I’m reminded of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time.”
I sympathize with the folks that rail against the word user to mean the visitor, reader, etc. of a computer system, but it’s so widespread and useful a term it seems a lost battle at this point. Still, I had to laugh this morning when my wife — who had been using a system called something like the personal career profile — received an email that began: “Dear PCP User,“
I’m so glad Christina wrote what I was thinking: “dudes, can we collectively move on now? …read businessweek instead of alertbox for a change.“
Mike Lee just told me about John Maeda’s new Simplicity blog (where John is coincidentally blogging about Mike.)
While simplicity is a noble pursuit, we live in a complicated world and I was curious to know how Maeda could suddenly pounce on us with such a manifesto while surrounded by the complexity of work at MIT. The blog refreshingly shows his work-in-progress as he figures it out himself, such as by distinguishing simplicity from simplistic.
Also, Jess has revived interactionary.
Nooch is a new Japanese and Thai restaurant in my hood of New York, a chain originating in Singapore. I was skeptical, but I must admit Karim Rashid’s interior works well, balancing modern with comfortable through comfy seats and colorful but subdued lighting. The food is yummy and surprisingly inexpensive. The drink menu focus on martinis evades the tired martini rut with an emphasis on fresh fruit juices. Recommended.
FC Now lists a few creative problem solving techniques.
…are at the 92nd Street Y, along with an impressive roster of classes and events. Start with the list of lectures.
A private French firm spends somewhere in excess of 300 million Euro to build the highest bridge in the world. It’s located in Millau and designed by British architect Norman Foster. Slideshow
I hadn’t realized Richard Saul Wurman extended his Understanding book — which sumarizes an entire subject with information design — into a series, first with a volume on children and now one on healthcare.
Bruce Nussbaum’s Redesigning American Business for Business Week identifies what my company is doing: “Designers are teaching CEOs and managers how to innovate… They pitch themselves to businesses as a resource to help with a broad array of issues that affect strategy and organization — creating new brands, defining customer experiences, understanding user needs, changing business practices.”
It’s interesting that a year ago only a handful of people were talking about applying design thinking to business management, and now the mainstream media has caught up.
They say the fish will be the last animal to discover water. Walking down the street the other day I wondered about the meaning of my own name. Victor means winner, but in my case I was simply named after my maternal grandfather. And Lombardi, especially when I was born in 1969, was synonymous with winning because of the coach by that name (people still occasionally slip and call me Vince). This pairing never occurred to me, and now it suddenly strikes me as quite odd. I wonder if this occurred to my parents at the time, but they were probably too busy with the other four kids to give it that much thought. I’ll have to ask my father at Christmas.
Actually, no. But not so far off when you learn a rat brain has been taught to fly a jet.
Gibson extends: “…Thunderbolt IIs have Night Vision Imaging Systems (NVIS), rat brain compatible cockpits forward of their wings and a large bubble canopy which provides the rat brains all-around vision. The rat brains are encircled by titanium armor that also protects parts of the flight-control system…“