Inspiration
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Faced with disruptive innovation, you can be sure any possibility for innovation dies when a company forms a committee for an “overarching strategy.” I was reminded how innovation dies when the email below arrived in my inbox. It was well written, thoughtful and had a clearly articulated sense of purpose.
Why Innovation Dies
This article titled “Liverpool goes nuts over ‘smart’ Fair Trade goods” was written by David Ward, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 3rd April 2012 14.00 UTC So you like a cup of Fair Trade coffee. But do you know where your coffee comes from? You might know that you prefer Kenyan to Costa Rican for your espresso but what do you know of the farmers across the world who grew the beans that went into the pack with the familiar Fair Trade logo? Pick up your smart phone, run it over the QR (Quick Response) code on the packet and the screen is filled instantly with a map showing the location of the cooperative that produced the coffee, plus detailed information about its growers, their beans and their work, its Fair Trade credentials and contribution to the local community.
How QR Codes Make You Feel Like Part Of A Fair Trade Cooperative
5 Reasons to Build Platform Technology
Google, Facebook, and Apple all went from single products to entire ecosystems. Five reasons why you should be just as ambitious. 213 in Share
6 Lessons From Millennials on Acting to Innovate Melissa Waggener Zorkin, CEO, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide The hive of creative thinkers, innovators, marketers, entrepreneurs and other collective brain power that “innovate” is mighty enough to give anyone a bit of pause when considering what insight could be offered up that can help frame thinking around the opportunity that exists when creativity, passion and inspiration converge. I have witnessed the role communications and effective brand positioning should play in bringing an idea that becomes an invention and in turn transforms into an innovation once it reaches those who can benefit from it most. “… If you are an innovator you have some level of power because you change the way people live.”
6 Lessons From Millenials On How They Define Innovation
The Magic of Doing One Thing at a Time - Tony Schwartz
by Tony Schwartz | 8:53 AM March 14, 2012 Why is it that between 25% and 50% of people report feeling overwhelmed or burned out at work ? It's not just the number of hours we're working, but also the fact that we spend too many continuous hours juggling too many things at the same time. What we've lost, above all, are stopping points, finish lines and boundaries. Technology has blurred them beyond recognition. Wherever we go, our work follows us, on our digital devices, ever insistent and intrusive.
At the beginning of 2011, Fast Company set out to spend a year in China, documenting the transition, transformation, and innovation in that country. Our reporters spent time with people from many sectors of Chinese life--a nouveau-riche tycoon, high school students, up-and-coming twentysomething techie types, merchants and traders , immigrants from the Middle East, prostitutes, assembly-line factory workers who make New Balance sneakers . And what our team emerged with was a picture of China that is far more complex than we expected, a portrait of a nation that is complicated and searching collectively for its future. Sometimes China is portrayed as the new superpower, this Asian economic titan that will inevitably sweep past America. It's immense and increasingly influential--and its elites are determined to keep building their nation.
Fast Company's 2011 China Project: An Introduction
Bicycle gardening has made its official return for 2011, in a totally primped up green vehicle including tufts of wheat on the fender and handlebars, as well as a classic spinning garden in the center of the wheel. After bicycle gardening took first place in the chef category of Earth Day Canada's How did you do that? contest, mobile microgreens were certainly bound for a second run this summer. Differences from last year's experiments in bicycle gardening?
Bike gardening = sock gardening
Greenslinging: Recycled Shoemaker Not Perfect, Says Newspaper
As the rising buzz around "green" easily gives way to the static of "greenwash," a report in London’s middlebrow The Mail on Sunday last month slamming recycled footwear maker Worn Again has raised some eyebrows around these parts. The piece claims that the shoes—made out of recycled materials and lately made famous by eagerly green Tory leader David Cameron —are “actually made in a vast shoe factory in China where workers, who live in grim dormitories, are so unhappy with their pay and conditions that nearly one-tenth of them walked out on their jobs in February." The shoes are made out of recycled materials shipped from the UK to China's Guangdong province at a high CO2 cost. More locally, a nearby river "has turned black from industrial pollution, and massive landfill sites are overflowing because of a proliferation of shoe factories."North Face Steps Up To Responsibly Manage an Invisible Waste Stream
Photo credit: Jason Cartwright / Creative Commons If you're like a lot of people these days, you know that avoiding plastic use is a good idea. You ditch the single serving water bottles for a good steel one.
Category Archives - Case Studies
Login for subscriber content and advanced search Magazine / Case Studies Safaricom / Case Study / By Chloe Markowicz Issue 34, March 04 2013Google, Cadbury, New York Giants and Coca-Cola / Google +
When Google 's social network Google+ launched last year, it managed to amass 10 million users in just 16 days. This is astounding considering that it took both Twitter and Facebook two years to hit that many users and that Google+ now has more than 90 million users. Since Google opened the network to brands in November, they have experimented with how to best to use it to engage with consumers and one tool that has so far been adopted not just by brands including Coca-Cola , but politicians including President Barack Obama and even The Muppets , is Google+ Hangouts .Safe Haven Library / TYIN Tegnestue
Architects: TYIN Tegnestue Location: Ban Tha Song Yang, Thailand Project team Professors: Hans Skotte & Sami Rintala Project team Students: Pasi Aalto. Jan Kristian Borgen, Mari Folven, Ragnhild Førde, Sunniva Vold Huus, Olav Fåsetbru Kildal, Lene M. N. Kværness, Oda Moen Møst, Ørjan Nyheim, Karoline Salomonsen, Anne Sandnes, Ola Sendstad, Kristoffer B.date: 2011 location: China China, especially in the Shenzhen area, has always been known for the bluntness of its copying. With the current rise of creative industries in China, the country is undergoing a mind shift. Its aim is to replace the “Made in China” image and to follow the Western model of creativity and originality. At the same time, in the West we see the rise of the open design movement, which is underpinned by a strong criticism of copyright.
Projects - collaborations | Drooglab.com
Toen Bikker als 20-jarige nog student was aan de Hogeschool Rotterdam, gaf hij al zijn spaargeld uit aan een Chinatrip waar zo'n veertig ondernemers aan deelnamen. "Ik ontmoette toen de oprichter van Energize, managing director Klaas Weima en Bas Bergmans, investeerder via Battersea-park Investment Group. Er was een klik tussen mij en hen en toen ontstond het idee om een vestiging in China op te zetten. Ik had twee jaar eerder Chinees gestudeerd in Beijing, dus de taal en cultuur waren mij al bekend
'De Chinese staats-tv wilde ons ineens als klant' - Internationaal | NL in buitenland - Internationaal - Mijn bedrijf
Founded in 2006, Mater is a Danish design brand with a strong vision to create timeless and beautiful design based on an ethical business strategy. Mater combines exclusive high end design with working methods that support people, local craft traditions and the environment. "For every one of the millions of products we use to improve our lives, there are associated environmental, ethical and social consequences. Some products have a small environmental bearing while others consume finite resources in vast quantities. We strive to avoid or minimize the adverse impact on society, focusing on ethical criteria's while creating sensual, timeless and durable products that will both stand the test of time and inspire consumers to cherish and maintain". Henrik Marstrand, CEO & founder of Mater.