The World's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies Dedicated To Social Good. 1. Bloomberg Philanthropies For doing good, methodically. Bloomberg Philanthropies prioritizes the most pressing global issues with the efficiency we have come to associate with its namesake, Michael Bloomberg. With data-driven solutions, the foundation homes in on the most pragmatic remedies for numerous social ills. A notable example: By focusing on combating global tobacco use alone, Bloomberg can address six of the world's top 10 causes of death, and aims to save the 14,000 people killed by tobacco use every day. 2.
For setting a sustainable example. 3. For recycling, reusing, and reducing. 4. For taking the oil out of plastic. 5. For lending its expertise (and money) to the next sustainable saviors. 6. For letting electric-car drivers zip cross-country with ease. 7. For putting us on the path to growing everything we eat. 8. For letting individual investors get a piece of the solar-power movement. 9. For providing affordable sanitation in African slums. 10. LA CIVILTA' EMPATICA - Jeremy Rifkin - SUB ITA - animated EMPATHIC CIVILISATION.
Conformity. Innovation: The Classic Traps. The Idea in Brief Most companies fuel growth by creating new products and services. Yet too many firms repeat the same growth-sapping mistakes in their efforts to innovate. For example, some companies adopt the wrong strategy: investing only in ideas they think will become blockbusters. Result? Other companies err on the side of process-strangling innovations by subjecting them to the strict performance criteria their existing businesses must follow.
To avoid such traps, Kanter advocates applying lessons from past failures to your innovation efforts. Your reward? The Idea in Practice To innovate successfully, replace common mistakes with potent remedies: Strategy Mistakes Rejecting opportunities that at first glance appear too small. Remedy: Widen your search and broaden your scope. Process Mistakes Strangling innovation with the same tight planning, budgeting, and reviews applied to existing businesses. Remedy: Add flexibility to planning and control systems. Example: Structure Mistakes. Mi teta izquierda. Cuando tenía diecisiete años y terminé mi bachillerato, en 1988, me dijo mi mamá: “De grado te voy a regalar unos senos. Ya te tengo la cita donde el cirujano que se las puso a mis hermanas –ocho de ellas– y apenas salgás a vacaciones te las ponés, para que entrés a la universidad y nadie se dé cuenta”.
Para finales de los ochenta se estaba empezando a poner de moda en Medellín el asunto de las tetas grandes. Primero se las pusieron las señoras pudientes que, como yo y parte de mis familiares, venían con un gen imperfecto que no les permitía desarrollar las glándulas mamarias estilo Cosmopolitan que se merecían sus maridos. Luego empezaron a ponérselas las más jóvenes: mis amigas que salían con comerciantes emergentes y pilotos muy prósperos. Con el nuevo mercado, bajaron los precios, y al poquito tiempo cualquiera que fuera una talla menor de 34 pedía, en lugar de viaje o una fiesta de quince, una cirugía plástica de aumento de senos. Todo se hizo con misterio. Why John Maeda Is Leaving RISD For A Venture Capital Firm. Rhode Island School of Design's visionary, digitally savvy president, John Maeda, announced Wednesday that he'll be leaving his position at the country's premier art and design school for venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where he'll be a design partner.
Maeda came to RISD from the MIT Media Lab with little administrative or fundraising experience in 2007. During his tenure, he has attempted to fold digital technology into the school's stubbornly analog approach to arts education, with mixed results. At one point, he earned a vote of no confidence from the faculty. At the same time, during the six years he's been at the head of the institution, the number of students applying to RISD has gone up, as have the number of financial aid packages offered, and tuition increases have been at their lowest in decades.
In 2012, the school had a 97% job placement rate for graduates. What led you to make the jump to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers? How Dali, Einstein, And Aristotle Perfected The Power Nap. What did Einstein, Aristotle, and Salvador Dali have in common? All three of these three great minds knew how to use a little bit of sleep to inspire great ideas. Take this appropriately absurd image for example: Salvador Dali, the master of surrealism, is slouching in his chair. In his right hand he holds a key. Beneath his hand is an upside-down plate. For Dali, the time between the release of the key and the clank of the plate (coupled with the drifting off beforehand) is more than enough to throw yourself back at the canvas. The moment the key drops from your fingers, you may be sure that the noise of its fall on the upside-down plate will awaken you, and you may be equally sure that this fugitive moment when you had barely lost consciousness and during which you cannot be assured of having really slept is totally sufficient, inasmuch as not a second more is needed for your physical and psychic being to be revivified by just the necessary amount of repose.
Clang. The Wisdom Of The 20-Minute Startup ⚙ Co. "What cool new products are you using? " We all ask this question. It's a common conversation starter, especially in the startup community. I'm particularly fond of this topic--I enjoy geeking out about products, writing design deconstructions, and swapping discoveries with smart folks. But these conversations provide more than just entertainment value: They are also a great learning opportunity. Understanding the subtleties of good and bad products is critical for product builders. As Paul Buchheit says, you must "live in the future" to shape it. 1Reaction This was the basis for Product Hunt. 2Reactions The Idea In Its Simplest Form The concept was simple: to build a community for product people to share, discover, and discuss new and interesting products. 8Reactions The 20-Minute MVP It was unusually chilly that morning in San Francisco when I walked to my office, Philz Coffee.
Create Product Hunt10Reactions Within 20 minutes, I had an MVP. The Results Now, For Building a "Real" Product Hunt. Stop Me Before I “Innovate” Again! - Bill Taylor. By Bill Taylor | 8:00 AM December 6, 2013 The Wall Street Journal is out with a funny (and brutally honest) takedown of a word that has achieved almost-mythical status among business thinkers like me. That word is innovation, and it’s quickly losing whatever meaning it once had. Journal writer Dennis Berman begins by citing Kellogg CEO John Bryant, the respected head of a well-run company, who was describing one of its “innovations” for 2013.
What was the game-changing, head-spinning new offering that Kellogg unveiled? Somewhere, Henry Ford and Steve Jobs are taking notes. Now I would never dismiss the virtues of sugary breakfast foods, and it’s hard to argue with the business performance of Kellogg over the last ten years. Words matter — in business and in life. It’s also a spirit, oddly enough, best captured in a famous tribute to the Grateful Dead rock band. That, to me, is what “innovation” is all about, and why the use of the word in everyday business life feels so empty. Sex and brains: Vive la différence! World trade: The Indian problem. How Architects Turned This Former Set From "The Wire" Into A Training Ground For Tomorrow's Designers. On the lower level of the Baltimore Design School, a city public school located in central Baltimore, there is a blown-up photo affixed to a wall.
The black-and-white picture shows the interior of a building in disrepair, with pools of water on the floor. It's a stark reminder of what used to be here: an abandoned factory so decrepit that the HBO series The Wire used the building as a setting symbolic of post-industrial urban decay. But today, with a major architectural intervention--and a grant from Adobe--this building has become a state-of-the-art public school for training future designers. Baltimore Design School--or BDS--is the first of its kind in the city, a public middle and high school dedicated to students interested in architecture, graphic design, and fashion. The school was founded a few years ago, but its permanent home in a mammoth, 110,000-square-foot former clothing factory only opened this fall after a $26.85 million overhaul.
Why Airline Food Sucks. As long as passengers have been flying, they've been disappointed by the quality of in-flight meals. But why? After 90 years of commercial air flight, why haven't airlines been able to design menus that can survive the scrutiny of diners at 30,000 feet? Is it because airline food really sucks, or is it because we just think it sucks? In truth, it's a little of both. Even before you take into account the other practicalities that come into play when you try to feed people in a pneumatic tube 30,000 feet in the air, a meal you serve on an airplane will always taste worse than a meal served on the ground. The cabins of airplanes are pressurized with an extremely low humidity level of just 4%, largely to reduce the risk of internal corrosion; the only humidity in an airplane cabin comes from other people's breath. But preparation is also a major issue. But there are psychological issues at play that make airline food taste worse to us, too.
Dehydration. De Syon agrees. How Does A Person Go From Believer To Atheist? Part 3 of the TED Radio Hour episode Believers and Doubters. About Julia Sweeney's TEDTalk hide caption"I felt so lucky to be Catholic and I loved the Catholic school and I loved the nuns ... then when it came to the belief part of it I was always a little bit skeptical" — Julia Sweeney James Duncan Davidson/TED "I felt so lucky to be Catholic and I loved the Catholic school and I loved the nuns ... then when it came to the belief part of it I was always a little bit skeptical" — Julia Sweeney When two young Mormon missionaries knocked on performer Julia Sweeney's door one day, it puts Sweeney on a quest to completely rethink her own beliefs. About Julia Sweeney Julia Sweeney is an actor and writer best known for her four-year run on Saturday Night Live and her solo shows. Her book, If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother, is about parenting and being parented.
American primacy: If I ruled the world. How Everyday Ergonomics Shape Your Behavior. One of Darwin's greatest insights came at the end of his 1872 work, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. "The free expression by outward signs of an emotion intensifies it," he wrote. Darwin simply meant that emotion and expression cut both ways: you can thrust out your chest because you feel proud, or you can feel proud because you thrust out your chest. Modern science has confirmed the wisdom of this perception time and again. People feel happier when their facial muscles are positioned into a smile. And they feel sadder when they're made to hunch over. And, sure enough, they feel a surge of power when their chests and arms are expanded--so much so that their testosterone levels increase. The expression of power indeed intensifies the emotion, all the way down to its physiological roots. Recently, M.I.T. management scholar Andy J.
"We don't need to stand like Superman or Wonder Woman to actually feel powerful," Yap tells Co.Design. [Images: Courtesy of Andy Yap] Espionage and America: Rules for spies. Free exchange: No need to dig. How Margaret Atwood Creates Scary-Plausible Future Worlds. Note: This article is included in our year-end storytelling advice round-up. A think tank composed of novelists and screenwriters reportedly convened at the Pentagon not long after the attacks on 9/11. Once assembled, the unlikely visitors began inventing scenarios for future attacks against the United States--the targets, the perpetrators, the methodology. It may sound like a desperate approach, but it's actually quite rational. Predicting what people might do next is what some of our greatest storytellers do best.
Sometimes the future in question is limited to specific individuals and situations. The sci-fi subgenre known as speculative fiction, however, is more concerned with broad swaths of society and the environment, and how they will fare in the years to come. Margaret Atwood is rather beloved around the world for someone who has repeatedly forecast its eventual destruction and the grim dystopia that follows. Ground Your World In the Possible. Follow Your Scientific Curiosity. If Silicon Valley Syndrome Is Killing Us, What's The Cure? Recently, I’ve been struck by the number of people who mindlessly fiddle with their smartphones, literally in any context. This really hit home when the other day I was at a restaurant waiting area, and instead of families and friends talking to each other (which usually is the point of going to dinner), they were all on their phones.
As I sat there, I observed a sad but poignant moment: a mother brushing off the questions of her 5-year-old daughter as she was completely engrossed in her email. While I walked to our table to be seated, I observed more of the same--people disconnected from each other, and fixated on their little screens. Then I saw a commercial from the "Designed by Apple in California" campaign, showcasing a young woman on a road trip, extolling the virtues of the iPhone that had her completely absorbed and distracted from the actual, real-world experience of the trip. We Have a Problem This is an inflection point for our society. The Future The Cure How do we fix this? How To Give Feedback That Actually Inspires Improvement. What's it like to work without any feedback?
To JetBlue chairman Joel Peterson, it's like "driving a car with no speedometer, learning to cook without ever tasting your food, or playing basketball without a scoreboard. " But simply giving feedback isn't enough: If the commentary is vague and constructively critiquing[]un-constructively negative, he says, then there won't be a path for improvement. Without specificity, the feedback will be for naught. 1) So get specific. The reason we suck at changing our habits is because we give ourselves hazy goals like "get smarter" or "eat healthier" rather than clear projects like "read one more book a month" or "eat a salad for lunch three times a week.
" The more specific we are with the actions we want to see, so research has found, the easier it is to change our behavior. This goes for things we're trying to change in ourselves--and in the changes we'd like to see in others. 2) Pick out the points of progress. Why? Slaying The Dragon And Other Ways To Create Killer Content Narratives. There is a system for successful storytelling. Actually, there are many systems. Sometimes we call them platforms. Sometimes we call them structures. Sometimes we call them strategies. It’s not surprising. Perhaps because much of social marketing and content marketing demands brevity (140 characters, anyone?) Smart content creators have, too. 1. An intrinsically human narrative, the Slaying the Dragon strategy is the platform for many of humankind’s most celebrated stories.
You can see the Slaying the Dragon strategy as Orwellian play in Apple’s groundbreaking Super Bowl ad, “1984,” directed by Ridley Scott. And here it is again, used brilliantly by Liberty Mutual Insurance in contemporary content marketing through their initiative, Responsible Sports. 2. Joseph Campbell coined it as “the call to adventure.” This strategy inspired the celebrated 1979 Coke commercial starring “Mean” Joe Greene, which won a Clio and a spot on TV Guide’s top 10 TV ads of all time. 3.
Culture in Ukraine: Signs of a hipster rebellion. Free exchange: Hot air. Marguerite Duras on Immortality, Life & the Art of Seeing, Illustrated. The "Bad Guys" Of Engineering: What Defines "Design-Centric" Companies Like Apple. How Hackers And Violent Soccer Fans Helped Fuel The Arab Spring. Meet The TomTato, The World's First Combination Tomato-Potato Plant. Watch The Final Video That Shows How To Solve The Problems From The Story Of Stuff. 8 Keys To Creating An Emotional Connection Between Products And People. Marihuana de Corinto: cien por ciento campesina.
Internet privacy: Difference Engine: Pay up or shut up. Se avecina una revolución más grande que la de internet, Internacional. Serge Latouche: "La gente feliz no suele consumir" - FILÓSOFO Y ECONOMISTA DEL DECRECIMIENTO. What To Think About When You Choose A Blog Tool ⚙ Co. The Companies That Are Doing The Most (And Least) About The Climate. The Ultimate Breakthrough In Time Management--Physics! Welcome To The Solution Economy. 4 | How Google Taught Itself Good Design. The American Economy is Not a Free-Market Economy - David Gordon. La más decisiva de las batallas El amor en los tiempos de, Especial.
Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy | Wait But Why. Manchester: The Manchester model. The Rational Choices of Crack Addicts. Do Markets “React” to Economic News? High speed rail: One direction. Go Fund Yourself: Sam Phillips Talks About Subscriptions, Crowdfunding, And Why We Still Need Corporations. What Old Family Photo Albums Teach Us About Creativity. How to Write A "Simpsons" Episode, According to Original Show Writer Al Jean. Are Star Performers The Only Employees Who Matter? How Three Non-Designers Made The Most Beautiful Weather App We've Ever Seen ⚙ Co. The Science Behind What Naps Do For Your Brain--And Why You Should Have One Today. Why Your Boss Cares If You're Happy. Wait, What's That? The Science Behind Why Your Mind Keeps Wandering.
Finding The Calories To Feed A Hungry World, Hidden In Front Of Our Faces. Non santo, Opinión. Curating the best in design | designguide.tv. Conferencia "Creatividad, diseño y generación de valor" impartida por D. Jordi Montaña.