Noise Between Stations

September 2005

  • Better management at younger, more competitive, freer companies

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    1 min read

    Management Practices across Firms & Nations is a survey of management practices in over 700 firms in France, Germany, the UK and the US with interesting results and implications for innovation capabilities… …We also find a surprisingly large dispersion of management practices across firms with a long ‘tail’ of poorly managed firms. This presents a…

  • Designing a new New Orleans

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    2 min read

    “Just as it was important that Broadway not remain in the dark after Sept. 11, it’s important that we start thinking about the future despite all the very depressing news around us.” — Bill Hines, managing partner of a New Orleans law firm, on plans to revive parts of that city quickly. New Orleans was…

  • Mondo list of idea generation techniques

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    1 min read

    http://www.ideagenerationmethods.com/ The methods have been drawn not just from the worlds of creative problem solving and innovation, but also from other worlds such as organisational change, strategic planning, psychotherapy, the new sciences and the creative arts.

  • Your personal connection to Katrina

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    1 min read

    Lou linked to an inspiring report of Alan Gutierrez’s wiki set up in the wake of hurricane Katrina… When I awoke, I found that the Xavier families, has simply kept the Wiki page going without me. I cleaned up the their markup, buth the information is there. Now, I’m finding the page gets updated, nice…

  • Madelon Evers on learning from design

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    1 min read

    I added another quote — notably from a woman — to the Design Thinking and Business page, courtesy of Madelon Evers… “…To achieve superior design thinking in business, we need to facilitate learning from design across organisations.”

  • Gladwell on why focus groups suck

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    2 min read

    Malcolm Gladwell recently gave the keynote at the American Association of Advertising Agencies’ Account Planning conference in Chicago. It’s excerpted on Advertising Age ($). If you’ve worked in design or product development (or read “Blink”) you know the drawbacks of focus groups. But what Gladwell does here is describe the solutions as ones of management.…

  • Decision design

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    1 min read

    Two recent thoughts on designing decisions, one good semantic point from my partner John in the RSA Journal… John Zapolski, a San Francisco-based principal of the Management Innovation Group, believes there is “increasing importance in using design as a framework for organising decisions that people make”, citing, alongside the work of his own company, that…

  • A culture like good improv

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    1 min read

    We hosted an informal discussion on innovation the other day, and lucky for us Harry Max attended. Harry is good, and I don’t employ those italics lightly. He talked about those elusive aspects of a culture that nourish innovation, that are mirrored in improv… Trust Listening & self-awareness Accepting and making offers (Yes, and…) Moving…

  • Malcolm Gladwell and Steven Johnson at the Strand in NYC

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    1 min read

    Malcolm Gladwell (Blink, The Tipping Point) and Steven Johnson (Everything Bad is Good For You, Emergence) will be at the Strand in NYC to read from their books and discuss economics, social trends and other topics. September 21, 6:30 – 8:30PM