Older posts
Older posts
“Innovation” is Dead
January 3, 2009
Bruce Nussbaum wrapped up 2008 with a post on his BusinessWeek blog titled "'Innovation' is Dead". Most of the follow-up commentary revolved around whether "Transformation" was better/worse than "Innovation" as a focal point for 2009, given the apparent overuse of the word "innovation" throughout 2007/2008.
Design Thinking and Work
July 17, 2008
Over the past several months Bandit and I have written extensively about coworking and what it reflects in the larger economy. Theoretically we are writing a book about it, but that is proving to be rather slow going. Our interest in the topic/movement, though, is not waning.
I wake up this morning, once again, with design [...]
Excuses and Constraints
June 19, 2008
Holy bat-shit Batman, I hate the excuses! - Bandit, on the rant...
If you want to avoid doing something, invent an excuse. If you need an excuse, pick something outside of your control and call it an impediment. Extra points if you cite financial reasons. Double your score if you mention "regulations" or [...]
Type 2 Session Experiment
June 14, 2008
InnovationCamp #1 is two weeks from today! Being a first, there will inevitably be loose ends, chaos, and some pesky problems on the day. Without risk, though, there is no reward...
One of the ways that InnovationCamp will differ from other camps will be in the differentiated sessions. We will run two types of sessions. One will [...]
Design Methodology
June 10, 2008
Tim Brown's recent article in Harvard Business Review- Design Thinking- might be one of the most important management articles written in a very, very long time...Why do I say this?
Desgin thinking is important because it brings discipline to innovation. Many busy managers rightfully dismiss 'creativity' and 'innovation' because it is a willy nilly, romperoom type [...]
InnovationCamp Update
June 9, 2008
We will continue to post updates on our progress towards InnovationCamp, which will be on Saturday, June 28, at GSD&M Idea City, in Austin. More details and info coming soon.
As we get closer, I want to periodically remind folks what we are up to. There are now several different places to dial in to iCamp. [...]
Why Business Needs Anthropology
June 6, 2008
In most management schools the closest thing to a humanistic perspective that is ever talked about is social psychology. Don't get me wrong, social psychology is cool stuff. However, when it comes to trying to make business organizations more humanistic, more conscious of tangible consumer needs, and more sustainable, the discipline of psychology (whether social, [...]
The Design of Coworking
May 31, 2008
Over the past couple of days I've been writing about some of the financial-business constraints that coworking faces as it evolves. I've expressed a clear set of opionions on this, and have significantly raised the blood pressure in a few folks out there. As I see it, the process of devising a working coworking model [...]
Design This!
May 14, 2008
Bandit and I are now deep into the writing part of our book project, and every now and then I surface to look down on what it is we are doing.
We are trying to make sense of the unfolding relationships (plural, because there will be many) between independent/independent-minded Millennial technologists and creatives, on the one [...]
Communication Across Borders
April 29, 2008
The Irish Times' weekly business magazine, Innovation (pp.48-50) finally published an interview that I did with them a few weeks ago. I was talking with them about my book, The Innovation Acid Test and, interestingly, the conversation quickly moved beyond that to our (Butcher and Bandit) current book about the rapidly emerging ecology of innovation among independents [...]