Innovation CHEF

Crowdsourcing meets ethnographic studies in the true emerging markets of the world. Nokia asks the question: what would you design for an 18 year girl in India? A young man in a refugee camp in Ghana? A family in Rio? 

In this incredible video from the LIFT08 conference Younghee Jung talks about how Nokia explored the different usages of their mobile phones by customers to gain valuable insight on future products design. In a project called Nokia Open Studio the company recruited local teams to run a design competition in the Shanty towns of Rio, Mumbai and Accra.

The products that people design reflect the lives they lead in floods, limited electricity, gunfire and police confrontations. The designs are original, honest and often heartbreaking.

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A Good Idea is not Enough? Interesting little video from Dan Heath talking about what makes ideas Sticky. What Dan and his brother Chip talk about in their book, Made to Stick is that a good idea, even a great idea might not catch on on it’s own merits.  In fact,  we have no difficulty at all in remembering the details of, say, a dodgy scare story, but can struggle to recall information that may be vital to us.  In kind of a TRIZ exercise the brothers Heath identify the six key factors in making a story memorable:

•  Simplicity (any idea over one is too many) 
•  Unexpectedness (a surprise grabs our attention) 
• Concreteness (the more dimensions of details the more hooks our minds use to create a memory) 
• Credibility (even untrue stories don’t stick unless there’s a hint of truth) 
• Incite Emotions in Listeners (we remember emotional experiences much more than anything else; we care more about individuals than groups; and we care about things that reflect our identities) 
• Combine Messages in Stories (information is more memorable and meaningful in a story form ) 

Listen to Dan talk about the six factors using online dating as an example:

The 24 Hours of Innovation is a non-stop, online marathon of innovation initiatives around the world. The event takes place during a full day and night on May 15-16 from 10.00 am to 10.00 am (CET).  The InnovationChef Blog will be contributing a special post to the  “My half time pep talk for 2009″ blog action.  We will also be contributing our talents to the program as well as trying to take in as many of the innovations on display. This should be a great event. You can confirm your interest and participation on the LinkedIn event page.

The 24 hours are divided in time slots, each one featuring an exciting innovation ranging from an innovation award to creativity sessions, an innovative auction, start-ups, and interviews with global thought leaders. Everyone can follow and join the 24 Hours of Innovation on www.boardofinnovation.com, from where theevent will be covered cross-media on blogs, traditional media, twitter, slideshare, ustream, coveritlive, flickr, scribd, vimeo,…

A new Irish Innovation is going to bring Viking ghosts back to life on the streets of Dublin. The NDRC has a exciting hyperlocal game in development called Viking Ghost Hunt. In the game players equipped with Google Android phones will track down ghosts to real locations in the city and become realife ghostbusters.

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Locations will be found using google maps and using the camera on the phone as a window into the spirit world, ghosts will appear on the screen. Communication with the ghost will be also possible through the phone.

This kind of blended reality has a lot of practical uses too but could really change the nature of MMRPG games.

Quoting from the project page:

The technology developed by Viking Ghost Hunt will allow mobile phone users to play games that are based upon a player’s physical location in, for example, Dublin City. The game itself will be an engaging mystery adventure, bringing users through some of Dublin’s most exciting and historically significant Viking sites. Compared with traditional gaming, which is essentially sedentary, a central aspect of the project will be to evaluate the health benefits arising from users movement around the city.

It is fantastic that this kind of creativity and development is getting a chance to grow. All the best to the project team.

You can listen to George Hook getting his head around the idea here:

The Right Hook Technology Podcast

This is a simple, effective and yet revolutionary approach to a bane of the modern world: slide making! I got tired of endlessly changing font sizes, fighting with formating and  trying to draw simple shapes. All this was for company internal memos to limited audiences for a limited time. I skipped out on Powerpoint, and have saving myself a lot of time and frustration!

One of the most commonly used applications in the modern world is Powerpoint. Tastes vary but it is pretty much the standard tool for visual presentation making. An excellent deconstruction of the dangers of slide only communication is in Edward Tufte’s book Beautiful Evidence
. I love the guys work and recommend all his books very, very highly. They are expensive but are a combination of Art, Design and Elegance in a way rarely seen in text books.

How do I save time with my slide making? I use felt tip pens. I draw out the slides. It takes much less time and is every bit as effective for your internal presentations. I then scan them in for email distribution and archive. Easy as that.

There are a few drawbacks – editing can’t be done easily, collaboration is more difficult & I don’t recommend it for external customer presentations or for looking for funding.

80% of the time I can get my message across with markers. I have really nice Stabilo Pen 68 Tin of felt tip pens that have lasted a couple of years and are always open on my desk.

I think this presentation took me 15 mins. including making the silly graph!

Try it for your work group!

After recent posts on different perspectives; I got a chance to experience to different views of the same thing. The Cliffs of Moher are a pretty famous tourist attraction in the west of Ireland. These are 200m high cliffs in Co. Clare. Looking over the edge is one thing – but going out on a boat a completely different and incredible experience. The height and beauty and best appreciated when you can get the right perspective…