YakShaving

Yak•Shaving (noun) Any apparently useless activity which, by allowing you to overcome intermediate difficulties, allows you to solve a larger problem

Month: November, 2006

Where’s the ubiquitous computing at when you need it?

A vision for a convergent alarm clock Originally uploaded by quami77. Dearest Consumer Electronics Manufacturers,   I know you, collectively, have a hard time playing in the same sandbox, but I beg of you, please, please solve this problem soon.  You can’t blame it on the bully anymore, Microsoft is being nice now (but whatever happened [...]

Massive Change Global Visionaries Symposium Notes # 4

Wealth & Politics Panel: Gregg EasterbrookHazel Henderson *   Milton Friedman (who just passed away recently) was the first to hold the notion that standard measurements of economics only tell half the story.*   Hazel Henderson grew up in patriarchal society (Britain) and realized that her mother was producing the basic fabric of wealth– but was not [...]

Massive Change Global Visionaries Symposium Notes # 3

Information Panel: Jimmy Wales, wikipediaAmy Czerwinski, Microsoft *   Amy referenced attention economy (buzzword alert *   Microsoft is doing research about user interruption– When is the best time to interrupt someone to alert them about something?  (an email, an impending task, etc)*   Don Norman:  recognized that interruption during a task is worse than an interruption later.*   [...]

Massive Change Global Visionaries Symposium Notes # 2

Energy Discussion:Gunther Pauli & Reginald Modlin *   The first person to write about “healthy cities” was Leonardo Da Vinci*   Da Vinci talked a lot about “flow”.   He saw the importance of flow in cities, the flows of people, and even the flow of joy in the body.   Leonardo was also known for the integration of [...]

Massive Change Global Visionaries Symposium

Massive Change Global Visionaries Symposium Originally uploaded by quami77. This weekend, I skipped the Michigan-Ohio State football game to go to the Global Visionaries Symposium put together by the MCA and Bruce Mau’s Massive Change campaign/exhibit.   It was well worth it. I’ll be posting notes from the conference over the next few days. Squatter citiesStewart [...]

Artificial Artificial Intelligence (Mechanical Turk)

There is a Bizweek article about Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com’s "Mechanical Turk" which aspires to be a platform for "human intelligence tasks". There is huge potential here… but… why Amazon? I have trawled around and can’t really seem to place my finger on why here, why now  (apparently Mechanical Turk has been up for a [...]

12 Consumer values to Drive Technology-related Product and Service innovations

I always used to be wary of books that read “N ways to ______”. That is, I guess, until I read Tom Kelley’s book, the 10 Faces of Innovation. Here is a list of 12 consumer values to drive tech related innovations– This comes from Social technologies, a company that I was introduced to at [...]

What’s going to happen to the travel industry?

With the advent of low cost video chat, faster bandwith and connectivity, and now haptics on the horizon , I wonder how long it will be until retailers don’t need to travel to manufacturers to “experience” different choices in materials. I know some meetings still might require face-to-face, real time ineraction, but how much of [...]

GSB New Venture Challenge Kickoff

Tomorrow is the kickoff for the University of Chicago GSB’s New Venture Challenge.   I’m leaving class early with a team of design students to make it there on time.   I’m a little apprehensive of a swarm of MBAs thinking I’m some sort of "decorator" and ask me to "design something cool" to sell (pfft). Also, [...]

The Social Web: Empowering People and Communities [Net Impact Conference]

Participants:Nick Aster – Treehugger.comDavid Geihufe – CivicSpaceJustin Perking: Care2.com , movingideas.orgMartin Kearns:  Green Media Toolshed Key takeaways: *  On average, the # of social ties that internet users have is greater than non-internet users by 4 (37 v. 33). * Where has the time come from to connect with other people?  Two places:  Sleep and [...]

Hot off the presses: EngageID Issue #20

I typically wouldn’t link to the student newsletter, but this week has some interesting BOP bits in it from Anjali and John Paul’s lecturette. Check it out here: engageID | 11.03.2006 | Institute of Design’s student newsletter

Andy Lock, Herman Miller Corporation [NetImpact conference]

The closing keynote for the Net Impact conference was given by Andy Lock.It was fantastic- Andy is a guy who truly "gets it" when it comes to CSR and values-based leadership.   Here’s what he had to say: *   Meaning MATTERS.    *   In the coming war for talent, people have tremendous choice over where they’ll [...]