LOS ANGELES, Calif. – February 18, 2005 – Joining the ranks of celebrities choosing to bring an environmental conscience to the Oscars, Leonardo DiCaprio, Charlize Theron, Robin Williams, Orlando Bloom, Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz, Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins are among those arriving at the 2005 Academy Awards in high-mileage, low emission, Prius hybrids as part of Global Green’s 3rd annual “Red Carpet—Green Stars†campaign.
GE pledges to invest billions in being green:
“Ecomagination is GE’s commitment to address challenges such as the need for cleaner, more efficient sources of energy, reduced emissions and abundant sources of clean water,” Immelt said. “And we plan to make money doing it. Increasingly for business, ‘green’ is green.”
NYC school kids learn ballroom dancing, wonderful.
Google has acquired Dodgeball, a neato mobile social networking app. It was co-founded and developed by my friend and former mentee Alex, so I’m thrilled for him. Congratulations Alex!
I knew scented candles are incredibly popular because I have trouble finding the unscented variety, but it turns out scented pencils are also quite popular, based on some sales data I’ve seen.
I wonder if the flower trade is worried?
Innovation sometimes springs from crisis: a company sees a dire threat and takes drastic steps to recover. But what if one person perceives this threat before it becomes obvious to the organization? Can this person manufacturer crisis to initiate change?
It seems that’s what Thomas Friedman is doing with his book The World is Flat, changing the conversation about offshoring to one about fixing our national innovation capabilities…
And it is our ability to constantly innovate new products, services and companies that has been the source of America’s horn of plenty and steadily widening middle class for the last two centuries. This quiet crisis is a product of three gaps now plaguing American society. The first is an ”ambition gap.” Compared with the young, energetic Indians and Chinese, too many Americans have gotten too lazy… Second, we have a serious numbers gap building. We are not producing enough engineers and scientists… And finally we are developing an education gap. Here is the dirty little secret that no C.E.O. wants to tell you: they are not just outsourcing to save on salary. They are doing it because they can often get better-skilled and more productive people than their American workers.
“We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works. How do you recognize something that is still technology? A good clue is if it comes with a manual.” — Douglas Adams
It’s ironic that making simple products is difficult, but it is. It requires discipline to design simple products, discipline to focus on real-world use and experience of a product rather than guesses about use, and discipline to market the real value versus the sheen of extra features.
John Maeda’s seventh law of simplicity expresses a similar idea with an interesting phrasing, suggesting that the simpler thing becomes cognitively more…
The more care, attention, and effort applied
to that which is less, the more it shall be perceived
as more than it really is.