May 25, 2012
How Can Companies Copy Cities Successfully?

Jonah Lehrer was an entertaining presenter at the 99% Conference, and he flagged some particularly fascinating research, from Geoffrey West, of the Santa Fe Institute. A theoretical physicist, West’s interest in “general scaling phenomena” led him to study cities. Lehrer then outlined the difference between cities and companies, which might seem rather dull but was actually quite thought-provoking. For instance, Lehrer described, while the two might look somewhat similar on the surface, there’s one critical difference: cities never die. “They’re immortal. You can nuke a city and it’ll come back. You can burn it to the ground and we still have San Francisco.”

Companies, in contrast, die all the time. Lehrer cited a fact we’re all too quick to forget (or fail to remember) when we’re bemoaning the death of another industry icon: the average lifespan of a Fortune 100 firm is only 40 years; 25% of Fortune 100 companies die every decade. And when they’re gone, they’re gone.

According to West, the reason for this is that as cities get bigger, everyone within its confines becomes more productive. “That’s why urbanization is the great theme of the 21st century,” said Lehrer. “We cram ourselves together; we have more ideas.” The design of the city keeps us all on our toes. 

Companies enjoy the opposite effect. As a company gets bigger, everyone becomes less productive. Bureaucracy happens; meetings happen; management happens. There’s less profit per employee; they’re no longer able to innovate at the same rate; people get in the way of creativity and innovation.

“The magic of cities is that they’re freewheeling and chaotic,” concluded Lehrer. “It’s a bunch of strangers bumping into each other. Cities don’t try to maximize creativity which is precisely why they do. Companies on the other hand micromanage, we chain ourselves to desk, we don’t drink beer in the afternoon, we brainstorm when we don’t want to brainstorm.”

I love this insight. Now the question becomes: how can companies better imitate cities?

[Photo: Julian Mackler]

March 29, 2012

For the slick launch of its first 2 SIM card smartphone, Samsung created a film in which they mapped projections onto a human face. It’s slickly done, though for the life of me I can’t tell what it has to do with either Samsung or its products. But, as Superflux’s Justin Pickard put it on Twitter, “Human as screen. Even as a publicity stunt, that’s legitimately crazy.”

February 24, 2012
For A Creativity Boost, Think Outside The Box… Literally reveals results published in Psychological Science magazine in which researchers tested whether *actually* working outside of a box might have any impact on creativity. On the basis of this admittedly small-scale experiment, it seems to. 
Of the three groups being tested, one sat in a 5’ by 5’ cardboard box, another sat outside the box, and the third group performed the task without there being a box being in the room at all. I know, it sounds slightly ridiculous, but those sitting outside the box performed much more ably than the other two groups. 
This article doesn’t give too much detail, but we know that the design of space has a huge impact on creativity, and we’re always looking to improve them, so for me this provided an interesting thought to mull for the day. 
[“Super Cool” cardboard box image by Tuppus on Flickr. Story via Audrey Clarke.]

For A Creativity Boost, Think Outside The Box… Literally reveals results published in Psychological Science magazine in which researchers tested whether *actually* working outside of a box might have any impact on creativity. On the basis of this admittedly small-scale experiment, it seems to. 

Of the three groups being tested, one sat in a 5’ by 5’ cardboard box, another sat outside the box, and the third group performed the task without there being a box being in the room at all. I know, it sounds slightly ridiculous, but those sitting outside the box performed much more ably than the other two groups. 

This article doesn’t give too much detail, but we know that the design of space has a huge impact on creativity, and we’re always looking to improve them, so for me this provided an interesting thought to mull for the day. 

[“Super Cool” cardboard box image by Tuppus on Flickr. Story via Audrey Clarke.]

February 23, 2012
"The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution."

The above quote, c/o Bertrand Russell, is quoted in Innovation for the People, by the People, a solid overview of open innovation initiatives being considered/implemented by the various branches of the federal government. The author, David Bornstein, highlights the quote as a way to show the importance of asking the right question when trying to spark the most inventive and useful submissions to a wicked challenge. As he puts it, “the question needs to be open-ended enough so that it does not restrict creativity, or imply a method of solution, but it has to be defined sharply enough so that someone who doesn’t understand your whole mission can still solve your specific problem.” It’s a really tricky balance to get right, but absolutely critical, nonetheless.

[Story via Catherine Tomezsko.]

February 10, 2012
It’s a nosecone, silly. This one was customized by the ridiculously talented artist (and friend), Eric White, and featured in an *amazing* sounding show currently on at the PIMA Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona. (I am already trying to figure out how I can get there.) The Boneyard Project involved artists such as Nunca, Retna and Faile using retired World War II airplanes as their canvas, while it also includes another collection of customized plane nosecones from the likes of Shepard Fairey, Futura 2000 and Ron English. Eric also gave a (perhaps unwittingly) brilliant insight into the highs and lows of the creative process with this emailed description of his contribution:

I picked this cone out of the six I was shown months ago because it was the strangest one. The entire thing was covered in that white, shimmery fabric; the outer layer was peeling off. For some reason I kept picturing it pink, and I decided to go for a flat, opaque pink surface being revealed by the torn away fabric. I was tempted to leave it there, but one of my best friends said he thought it needed something else, so I developed the idea of one little window, maybe another level existing beneath the pink. Time was running out, the pickup had been scheduled, so I was frantically trying to come up with something. The night before it was due I settled on something that I thought was great: I found a picture of a little kid with an asthma inhaler that was hilarious to me, and seemed like the perfect meaningless and absurd image that would put it over the edge. I finished about 5am on the day it was due and realized it was terrible. So I then scrambled through 10 different ideas and landed on the “Love Crazy” thing, taken from a title card from an old film. I worked on that for the next three hours and finished. I couldn’t believe I pulled it off. The other thing would have been lame. The text works with the obvious phallic shape and sexual connotations of the pink etc, and I thought the black and white fit well aesthetically… I hope it doesn’t sell. I want it back!”

I hope it doesn’t sell too, so that I can arm wrestle Eric for it. Gorgeous.

It’s a nosecone, silly. This one was customized by the ridiculously talented artist (and friend), Eric White, and featured in an *amazing* sounding show currently on at the PIMA Air and Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona. (I am already trying to figure out how I can get there.) The Boneyard Project involved artists such as Nunca, Retna and Faile using retired World War II airplanes as their canvas, while it also includes another collection of customized plane nosecones from the likes of Shepard Fairey, Futura 2000 and Ron English. Eric also gave a (perhaps unwittingly) brilliant insight into the highs and lows of the creative process with this emailed description of his contribution:

I picked this cone out of the six I was shown months ago because it was the strangest one. The entire thing was covered in that white, shimmery fabric; the outer layer was peeling off. For some reason I kept picturing it pink, and I decided to go for a flat, opaque pink surface being revealed by the torn away fabric. I was tempted to leave it there, but one of my best friends said he thought it needed something else, so I developed the idea of one little window, maybe another level existing beneath the pink. Time was running out, the pickup had been scheduled, so I was frantically trying to come up with something. The night before it was due I settled on something that I thought was great: I found a picture of a little kid with an asthma inhaler that was hilarious to me, and seemed like the perfect meaningless and absurd image that would put it over the edge. I finished about 5am on the day it was due and realized it was terrible. So I then scrambled through 10 different ideas and landed on the “Love Crazy” thing, taken from a title card from an old film. I worked on that for the next three hours and finished. I couldn’t believe I pulled it off. The other thing would have been lame. The text works with the obvious phallic shape and sexual connotations of the pink etc, and I thought the black and white fit well aesthetically… I hope it doesn’t sell. I want it back!”

I hope it doesn’t sell too, so that I can arm wrestle Eric for it. Gorgeous.

February 9, 2012

How amazing is this? Greek multimedia artist, Petros Vrellis converts Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night” into a swirl of animation and interactivity. The music and the movement are perfectly matched to the spirit of the original painting. As Local Projects principal Jake Barton wrote of the project, it’s “a startling flow of lines, color, sound and interactivity.” Wonderful.

February 6, 2012
"In my early job at Vogue, and now at Teen Vogue, you’re managing creative people. It’s very different from managing people who are doing quantitative work. It’s all qualitative, and it’s all you judging their work. And it becomes very emotional."

Loved this weekend interview with Teen Vogue editor, Amy Astley. She nails a problem for those looking to instil creativity and innovation into their organizations… the qualitative aspect of the work can mean that developing meaningful metrics for assessing its effectiveness is a real issue. Where quants can be judged on the accuracy of their algorithms, creative ideas are much harder to manage. That doesn’t mean methods don’t exist, of course, but I think Astley is smart to recognize the potential minefield (and brave to admit where she got it wrong in the past… would that more were strong enough to do the same.)

On a related note, I just logged my votes for this year’s Catalyst Awards, a scheme organized by the IDSA to reward design that demonstrates its impact on business. Many of the entries showed that a lack of accepted metrics is a continued problem for designers, who either haven’t internalized the language necessary to demonstrate their own impact, or haven’t found a way to persuade clients to share the salient details. Thing is, such data are not merely “nice to have”; they are imperative to anyone wanting to make the case that design really can make a difference. Otherwise, designers and creative folks will have to continue to rely on those executives who intuitively “get” the power of design. I think the industry can do better.

January 18, 2012

Wayne White is one of those polymath creative types whose genius knows no bounds. Totally disinterested in and unfazed by the nominal partitions between artistic disciplines, here’s a man who’s dabbled in everything from comic books to sculpture to fine art to set design. Funny, infectiously enthusiastic and razor sharp and smart, White is now the focus of a new biopic, Beauty is Embarrassing, which will premiere in March at this year’s South by South West Film Festival. And what better message to apply to our lives, but White’s conclusion here: “Do what you love. It’s going to lead to where you want to go.” Swoon.

[Video via Eric White.]

December 9, 2011
"Intense psychological stress tends to shut down the part of the brain responsible for innovative, creative thought. Instead, we tend to revert to the familiar and the well-rehearsed."

What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 is the chilling story of the cockpit conversations aboard an Air France plane that inexplicably crashed into the Atlantic in 2009. Turns out the accident wasn’t so inexplicable after all. Instead, it’s a sad story of confusion and miscommunication. Innovation projects don’t tend to have quite such high stakes (lives are rarely at risk, though millions of dollars might be) but it’s interesting to think about the conditions necessary to nurture creativity and the idea that too stressful an environment might biologically impair those looking to innovate. See also designer Stuart Karten’s piece in Fast Company about innovation’s “secret sauce” — friendship.

October 3, 2011
Neal Stephenson on Innovation Starvation

Great piece from science fiction writer Neal Stephenson in the World Policy Journal. Innovation Starvation is a lyrical lament to the loss of imagination that Stephenson feels has accompanied so many of the technological developments in recent years. He writes:

Most people who work in corporations or academia have witnessed something like the following: A number of engineers are sitting together in a room, bouncing ideas off each other. Out of the discussion emerges a new concept that seems promising. Then some laptop-wielding person in the corner, having performed a quick Google search, announces that this “new” idea is, in fact, an old one—or at least vaguely similar—and has already been tried. Either it failed, or it succeeded. If it failed, then no manager who wants to keep his or her job will approve spending money trying to revive it. If it succeeded, then it’s patented and entry to the market is presumed to be unattainable, since the first people who thought of it will have “first-mover advantage” and will have created “barriers to entry.” The number of seemingly promising ideas that have been crushed in this way must number in the millions.

I’d write this off as beautifully written, thought-provoking overkill were it not for the fact that only last weekend, I ruined a perfectly good conversation by resorting to Google and an Internet search to resolve a question that came up. By now, this is pretty much standard practice for the smartphone owner. But the thing is, it would have sparked a lot more imagination and doubtless been a funnier, more memorable and interesting (though perhaps rather less accurate) discussion had we all continued just to make up answers to the question at hand. Surely the real challenge is to find a time and a place for both free-spirited invention and buttoned down application. Still, plenty of food for thought about the state of the innovation world we live in, while I also love the fact that according to his bio, Stephenson is committed to seeing that “BSGD” (“Big Stuff Gets Done”). 

September 28, 2011

Shared mainly in the name of celebrating animated creativity (I co-authored a book about experimental animation once, and it’s still a topic that’s dear to my heart) and in the name of celebrating old friends, here’s the latest video from British electronic musicians, Plaid. This video, for track At Last, was created by Set in Sand of Abandonbuilding Pictures, with illustrations by Thedreambox.

September 19, 2011
"Make it creative rather than dutiful."

— Writer Alexandra Lange has six pieces of advice for Bill Moggridge, the newish director of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Smart thinking for anyone looking to refresh a somewhat fusty brand, including her thinking (above) in relation to creating a digital strategy.

September 15, 2011

“Big Bang Big Boom” is “a short unscientific story about evolution and his consequences” by the Italian street artist, Blu. It’s also the most incredible thing I’ve seen in an age. Breathtaking. Holy wow.

(Video via Sean Rocha.)

July 12, 2011

You can see the more polished trailer for upcoming animation feature Henry Waltz, along with its faked approval green screen. (“The Limeligt Motion Picture Assosiation?” I don’t think so.) But even more than the finished thing, I loved this behind-the-scenes look at how the animation is being made. The creator, Emil Goodman, who’s based in Hungary, describes: “In this footage I captured my body-motions with a really cheap home-made motion capture system, and that’s how I move the flying vehicle’s wings. The green-screen footage was captured with a little compact camera in 720p. I have a beauty-dish on my head :) That’s my hat :)” The results are testament to what’s possible when you combine commonly available technology and tools with a large helping of creativity and imagination.

(Video via Geoff Manaugh.)