Design & Innovation resources- March 2010

Hey Everybody
Here are some of the links I found both Interesting & Useful being posted in the month of March. I have divided them into the categories of Innovation & Design Thinking, Basics, Reframing/Rethinking, Competition & Resources.


Innovation & Design Thinking

1. Check out the Ten Innovations that will Transform Medicine in an article on HBR (Check Link)
2. Jocelyn Bailey posted 4 visions on the world tomorrow & how to shape your company around them (Check Link)
3. Here is the list of 15 design tips you can learn from Apple (Check Link) Nice read.
4. Learn about how mobile phones are transforming economy, society & lives of people in Africa (Check Link)
5. Jane Fulton Suri of Ideo authored an interesting paper titled - Informing Our Intuition: Design Research for Radical Innovation. (Check Link)
6. Paula Thornton takes a critical look at the books by Tim Brown & Roger Martin. Check the review. (Check Link)
7. Now, What do U.S. President Jack Kennedy, snowboarder Shaun White, and Indian tycoon Ratan Tata have in common? Check out the article by Vijay Govindarajan on BusinessWeek (Check Link)
8. What does it takes to come out with a winning mobile phone. Check out as Izwan Ismail talks to Nokia designers & finds out. (Check Link)
9. Do Improv comedians make the best design thinkers. One professors beleives so. Check it out. (Check link)
10. How banks can do better. Here is a post by Ideo's Ryan Jacoby. (Check Link)
11. Learn how to get noticed in a crowded market in this FastCompany Article. (Check link)
12. Bhagwan Chowdhry's FAB Campaign Aims to Put $100 in Bank Account for Every Baby. Learn How. (Check Link)
13. How Web 2.0 might foster & enable an Innovation revolution. Check it out. (Check Link)
14. Roger Martin and Jennifer Riel wrote about the decline of Miramax films & what we can learn. (Check Link)
15. Materials driving product Innovation in 2010. (check link)

Basics
1. Paul Thurston & Nick Marsh posted a brief guide to Service Design. (Check Link)
2. I found a special report by MIT Sloan on Design Thinking which includes couple of articles. (Check Link)
3. Although it has been posted in Oct 08, still like this video of Roger Martin explaining what is Design Thinking & Integrative Thinking. (Check Link)
4. Thinking & doing Ethnography in Service Design. (Check Link)
5. Here's ten steps of becoming the designer you want to be. (Check Link)

Reframing/ Rethinking
1. Check out the article on Redesigning the Concept and Role of the Automobile. (Check Link)
2. Check out the article by Dr. Jay Parkinson on How to redesign healthcare. (Check Link)
3. Rethinking washing machine. (Check link)
4. Rethinking the C-Suite. (Check Link)


Competition
1. IIT- Kanpur is holding the NEXT50 Innovation Challenge. (Check Link)

Resources
1. Lots of papers from the DMI conference 2008 - Design thinking : New Challenges for Designers, managers & organisations. (Check Link)
2. Check out the 10 essential design tools for Social Media pros (Check Link)
3. A dedicated channel on service design on Guardian. (Check Link)
4. Free Design eBooks. (Check Link)
5. Love This talk by Gary Vaynerchuk. (Check Link)
6. Check out the cool Infographics. (Check Link)
7. Experientia Design is on Vimeo. check out their channel. (Check Link)


Thanks
Neeraj

Picture Source: Check Link

Who cares about Brands?

ideas-innovation.blogspot.com/

Have a look at above video posted by Trendwatching.com (part of their latest breifing) showcasing what do people think of Brands.

Does brands mean anything to consumers.........

What approach brands should follow to stay relevant.

Thanks

Neeraj

Video Source : Trendwatching.com

Design & Innovation Resources -Feb 2010

Hey Everybody

Its been an eventful month with lots of happening in the design world. Here are some of the links that i found interesting from the world of design.

1. Jan end saw the launch of Apple I-Pad. Robert Fabricant provides his views as to why the Ipad is the GAMES changer. check link

2. FastCompany is out with its list of World's Most Innovative Companies. Check Link

3. Design Observer posted an Inspiring interview with Anil Gupta of the National Innovation Foundation highlighting his initiatives to discover & help Grassroot Innovators in India. Check Link

4. Seth Godin posted a good post on 'Random rules for ideas worth spreading'. Check Link

5. BBC website is in the midst of revamping its website. Here is the story of the creation of its new global visual language . Check Link

6. Ideo came out with a new mobile application of their method cards. Check Link

7. Stanford D School uploaded a talk of Prof. Bernie Roth, one of the d.school's founders talking about how design has changed over the years from design of objects to design of almost everything. Check link

8. FastCompany in its latest magazine has couple of great articles. Check out this one 'Business advice from Van Halen' (Can we set up systems wherein problems would surface automatically before they actually occur. Reminds me of Poka Yoke system in my Kaizen Class). Check link

9. The Finance Minister of India recently presented his budget. Here is a Infographic of the budget. Check link.

10. I found this useful article about Ten ways to measure Design Success by DMI. Check link

Thanks

Neeraj

Image Source: check Link

Design & Innovation Resources

Hey Everybody

A lot has been going lately in the design thinking & Innovation fields.

Following are the sources which I found to be extremely useful.

Don Norman's post questioning the importance & relevance of design research for breakthrough Innovation has caused quite a spur.

Here is the link to Don Norman's Article (Check here)

Some replies to Don Norman can be read at

1. Adam Richardso (Check here)

2. Bruce Nussbaum's reply (Check here)

In addition there were very interesting articles explaining design thinking & its role.

1. Check this amazing post by Brian Collins explaining the role of a design through a tale of a donkey & a banjo (Check here)

2. Venessa Miemis wrote about what is design thinking. check her article here (Check here)

3. Bruce MacGregor (managing partner IDEO) wrote an amazing article on how does design thinking give companies a competitive advantage? (Check here)

4. Darrel Rhea at Cheskin wrote about the Backlash - Designers vs Design thinking (Check here)

5. Tim Brown talked about Why we all need Design thinking in an interview with Forbes Magazine (Check here)

6. AIGA posted videos from The AIGA Design Conference 2009. (Check here)

7. Business week listed best design/Innovation books of 2009. (Check here)

Apart from these there were couple of Interesting posts & articles highlighting trends & events going on.

1. JWT Intelligence posted a list of 100 things to watch in 2010 (Check here)

2. Interesting talk by Kiran Bir Sethi on Ted about the Riverside School in India explaining how the school is teaching kids to believe in themselves & take initiative.(Check here)

3. CES just got over. Here is a link highlighting some of the main features at this year's CES (Check here)

Neeraj

Photo source : JWT 100 things to watch in 2010 (link)

What's common between Aravind Eye Care & Rocket Singh movie

Hi there everybody...

Now what is common between Aravind Eye Care & a new Hindi feature film Rocket Singh.

I recently saw the talk of Thulasiraj Ravilla from Aravind & also happen to catch Rocket Singh.

Happen to notice things which were very similar in both of them.

Here are the common points :

• Having a Sense of Purpose
• Being User Centric
• Having a Passion to excel
• Persistence to face challenges & Innovate
• Challenging the current industry mindset

I believe both of these are unique case studies in Design Thinking. Below is the talk Thulasiraj Ravilla from Aravind eye care recently being posted on TED. For Rocket Singh you can catch the movie at a theatre near you.

Thanks

Neeraj

Video source: http://www.ted.com/talks/thulasiraj_ravilla_how_low_cost_eye_care_can_be_world_class.html

Photo source: http://images.google.co.in

Opportunity amidst underperformers

ideas-innovation.blogspot.com/

"Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful."—Warren Buffett

I guess the quote by the great man says it all. Mtv & Ipod, both were born during recessions. What is it that make some people view a difficult situation as an opportunity while to others it’s a dead end. We all have heard of the glass half full & half empty expression signifying optimism to some while others being pessimist by it.

So where am I heading:

Check this out. If you look at it, the general tendency of most business channels, newspapers, magazines is to discuss sectors & companies which are growing & promise to offer better returns. In short, such sectors/ companies offer returns which can be reaped.

Hang on…. but what about the companies which are in declining sectors & are being looked as unattractive. Do they offer any opportunity.

Let s take an example of Circus Du Soleil. In a time when the circus industry was being looked as an unattractive industry with a wide variety of alternative entertainment options (TV, playstation, multiplexes) available, Circus Du Soleil re-wrote the rules of the game. Inshort it made circus cool again.

So whats the point.

I think Industries/sectors/companies which are not performing well or are being written off offer a greater incentive & opportunity to Innovate & re write the rules. I think the problem is not that people don’t need goods & services of companies which are not doing well but in most case it’s the conflict in the alignment of whats the company is offering & what people wants. Through Integrative & Design thinking one can relook the value that is being desired & what the company can offer & thus think of models which satisfy human needs &rewrite the rules.

Thanks

Neeraj

PhotoSource: http://www.corbisimages.com/Enlargement/Enlargement.aspx?id=42-20908001&caller=search

Cultures

Hi everybody

Writing in after a long time..........

So what i have been upto.......

Well been to my hometown in Delhi. Its been around 4 years since I have been staying away (Mumbai & Pune) from my hometown. In past couple of years, I have had the privilege to experience different cultures of these two cities (Mumbai & Pune) which I find are quite distinct as compared to Delhi.

Immediately after landing on Delhi airport, I felt a change in culture. Although it wasn't alien to me as Delhi is my hometown, but somehow I felt certain change in the environment, sounds, behavior.

I started thinking about culture & began to ponder over questions like

- What constitutes a culture of a city/company.

- Can we define culture of a city/company.

- Is it possible to recreate the culture of the city/company.

Although I am still finding answers to the above, but I truly believe that culture of a company/city play an important role in deciding its success. While on a visit to Toyota's factory in Japan, I noticed their culture embracing user centricity & continuous improvement. One of the senior manager of Mattel once told me that it is culture that differentiates the good & great companies.

But how cultures are created & for that matter what constitutes a culture.

I think culture of city/company originates from a Purpose. Some call it vision but i think its the purpose which clearly shapes the culture of the company/city.

A company whose purpose will be to Innovate & bring new products/services will have a very different culture from the one focused on efficiency.

I guess HR managers pay a lot of attention in developing & harnessing a culture of their company which is aligned to their company's purpose.

But can we analyse a culture of a city/company.

Ethnographic research provide excellent tools for analyzing culture of a city/company & determining whether it is aligned to the purpose.

Some of the areas in which I think one would want to analyze a culture :

- Post merger/acquisition inorder to align cultures of two companies

- Company undertaking a new vision

- City, wanting to bring social change & improve image

I think culture is an important aspect of city/company & the right culture can channelize the energies of people to fulfill the higher purpose.

Got this ad of HSBC describing importance of understanding different cultures. Check it out.

Thanks

Neeraj

Video Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK_NinOmFWw

Photo Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rzs/1452117214/

Competing in Commoditized Market- Learnings from Indian Fruit & Vegetable Market

ideas-innovation.blogspot.com/

Hi Everybody

Recently couple of my friends & I visited the local fruits & vegetable market (picture above).

One of the Interesting thing I noted there was that the fruits & vegetable market (pic above) somewhat reflected the same condition prevalent in any other sector (Aviation, Retail etc) with many sellers selling homogenous products which are commoditized. Now of course the scenario of a Perfect Competition in the fruits & vegetable market is slightly more as compared to being present in other sectors due to advertising & branding efforts being used in other sectors to differentiate.

But this got me thinking..............

If you look at it, as a customer when I visit to the fruits & vegetable market, I am not dedicated to one vendor (as there are many sellers & everybody is selling the same thing). Since there are many vendor, as a buyer I can negotiate the price to a very large extent. I look for quality, but almost all sellers have quality fruits & vegetables.

Then the big question is:

How does vendors in the fruits & vegetable market differentiate themselves (remember everybody is selling the same thing with no branding/packaging)

I spent couple of hours trying to understand how do these vendors differentiate themselves & attract customers.

Here are some of the observations:

Being Different ('stall design')- As people passed from one fruit stall to another, I noticed that they tend to stop at stalls which were designed differently from others. It may be product placement/ certain items being kept. Notice in the below picture a stall is designed using decorative bulbs & shiny disco balls!!!. Notice how the products are cut & displayed.

At Vendor's cost- Haggling is a way of life in India. I guess in India we tend to be satisfied when we have gained something at vendor's cost. I think vendors understand this & they are pretty smart at it.....so instead of keeping a fixed price policy, they offer high prices & let the buyer negotiate. After some hard bargaining they finally sell items generating a profit at the same time providing a feeling to the buyer of having gained something at vendor's cost.

Reflecting Freshness- People look for freshness & quality when buying fruits & vegetables. In order to ensure the items on display reflect these, the vendors sprinkled water on them to generate a feeling of freshness. Water also ensured removal of dust from the items.

Generating a feeling of limited time availability- I get a feeling that the fear of loosing out on good deal adds a reason for the buyer to buy something. Similar thing was observed in the fruits & vegetable market. Vendors told buyers of the limited time availability, seasonal effect, limited stock. The idea was to generate a feeling of limited availability so that buyers fear of loosing out on good deals & can buy.

Now if you look at it, the Fruits & Vegetable market is not a scenario that any company would like to be in (as it is a highly commoditized market, a state of Perfect competition, no investment on branding & advertising methods to differentiate). Still the vendors who are operating in this market understands nitties gritties of Indians & Indian Culture so well that they have successfully integrated their understanding into their business to earn a profit. I believe companies/industry sectors (OEM's, FMCG etc) can learn so much from these sellers about India, Indian consumer & how to compete in commoditized market.

Thanks

Neeraj

Photo Source: Girish