Noise Between Stations

June 2005

  • Job Search

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    1 min read

    I pitched an old colleague last year on a job search engine concept. He was working at one of the big job websites and I figured they were all threatened by Google. After all, if a “job search” is a form of search, then why wouldn’t Google want to conquer that? He wasn’t interested. But…

  • The New Heroes

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    1 min read

    The New Heroes tells the dramatic stories of 14 daring people from all corners of the globe who, against all odds, are successfully alleviating poverty and illness, combating unemployment and violence, and bringing education, light, opportunity and freedom to poor and marginalized people around the world. Also known as “social entrepreneurs,” they develop innovations that…

  • Inevitability or possibility

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    2 min read

    David Byrne on Mau’s Massive Change exhibit… It comes across as a sort of gee whiz science museum exposition, one that proposes that the solutions to many of the world’s problems are not only within our grasp, but that their solution is inevitable. And Design, with a capitol D, has the answers. If only we…

  • Motorola’s Zander leading the charge

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    2 min read

    Christopher Rhoads lobs some harmless questions at Motorola’s CEO Ed Zander ($) in today’s WSJ. Luckily Zander steps up and honestly assesses the company’s challenges, shortcomings and approach. Excerpts: On learning the importance of cool… When I came here on January 1, 2004, I didn’t think much about cool. I thought about making a quarter,…

  • Innovation in cartoons

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    2 min read

    New Yorker cartoon taxonomy The cartoon editor mentally classifies cartoons in a 2 by 2 of normal/abnormal setting vs. normal/abnormal caption. We just saw Bob Mankoff, New Yorker cartoonist and cartoon editor, talk about his job. I was happily surprised to see the magazine using both sides of its brain in figuring out which were…

  • Opportunity for handling a crisis: Guidant

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    3 min read

    Barry Meier of the NY Times reports the Guidant recall story… The Guidant Corporation said yesterday that it was recalling about 29,000 implanted heart devices because of flaws that might cause them to short-circuit when they are supposed to deliver a potentially life-saving shock. What makes the product flaw so important in this case is…

  • If you like coffee you might also like…

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    1 min read

    I was talking to a manager at one of the big ecommerce websites recently and she predicted that collaborative filtering is reaching the apex of usefulness. The below recommendation from Fresh Direct had me laughing at their clever suggestion. Are customer behavior and needs just as much if not more important than purchasing patterns in…

  • Columbia’s Ideas At Work

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    2 min read

    In a valiant attempt to connect research and industry, Columbia University Business School launches a new site called Columbia Ideas At Work. The first issue focuses on entrepreneurship. Here’s one interesting research brief from the site: People take more risks when they judge from experience rather than from other sources of information. Ralph Hertwig, Greg…

  • Race to the $100 Laptop

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    1 min read

    I’m seeing two different approaches to the $100 laptop. MIT is starting from scratch and — as you would guess — focusing on technology to simplify the current platform: …we will get the fat out of the systems. Today’s laptops have become obese. Two-thirds of their software is used to manage the other third, which…

  • Edge competencies

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    2 min read

    I’ve been thinking about how organizations today are more distributed and decentralized, relying on the performance at the interface to the customer. Compared to core competencies that power the creation of new products and live deep within the company, most companies have one or more particular capabilities that live at the fringes where organizations exert…

  • “Designer” of the year

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    2 min read

    Shaggy at Core77 reports that the Design Council’s Hilary Cottam has won the Design Museum’s (UK) 2005 Designer of the Year award and the resulting controversy around her selection. It illustrates the confusion and emotion possible when designers of the intangible mix it up with the traditional sort. The Observer reports two points. One is…

  • Design –> Business –> Culture

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    1 min read

    Fund culture Seen in the Vitra store in Manhattan.

  • More intelligent design blogs

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    1 min read

    Fast Company cited Noise Between Stations as one of seven smart blogs worth following for the latest insider thinking from the design world. Grazie! Link courtesy of Diego.

  • Business, design and class

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    1 min read

    This New York Times app allows you to determine your class based on your occupation, education, income and wealth. It looks like a “management analyst” is three times classier than a designer. Let’s ponder that and how business designers should be positioned to exert influence in organizations.

  • Kelly Johnson’s Rules for Skunk Works

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    3 min read

    I’m doing research on high-performance teams that can evolve how they work to changing environments. I see it in the best designers, agile programmers, engineers and others. And I’m not too surprised to see it in Skunk Works, a book about the famous Lockheed Advanced Development Projects group. The man who ran the group during…