Eight Dangers of Collaboration - Nilofer Merchant by Nilofer Merchant | 8:16 AM December 1, 2011 Most of what is written about collaboration is positive. Even hip. Collaboration is championed enthusiastically by the Enterprise 2.0 experts, as well as leading thinkers like Don Tapscott, as the crucial approach for the 21st century. Collaboration creates once-elusive “buy-in or “empowerment,” improves problem solving, increases creativity, is key to innovation at companies like Lego, Pixar, and Intuit. It slashes costs and improves productivity. So why is collaboration as rare as it is? The short answer is that collaboration is dangerous. Not knowing the answer. Collaborative work is not right for every organization, or in every case. According to recent research, collaboration has been proven to have a strong corollary to innovation; .81, according to research commissioned by Google.) But, let’s recognize, we can’t manage collaboration well until we acknowledge that it’s fundamentally dangerous.
The Key to Sustainable Product Creation: The Marriage of Engineering and Design, by Dawn Danby Posted by core jr | 1 May 2012 | Comments (1) Energy Strategy for the EcoFridge collaboration between UC Berkeley Engineering and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Design students "I don't know about this whole sustainability thing, anymore," a student said to me recently. "No offense. It seemed cool for a while. But a lot of the stuff I see is weak." These days I spend a lot of time with students and brand-new grads. Waste is money. Make friends with engineers Performance is an engineer's main priority, and is the key to their creativity. Many of the best sustainable design student projects I see come from interdisciplinary teams. Technical solutions can be dreamed up by scientists and clean tech engineers, but the viable projects incorporate beauty, form and human factors. Tell stories with numbers Stories that tell us where and how things are made: these are our currency. Interface has been moving towards reporting full product transparency to its flooring customers. Conclusion
Is your organization ready for a “work swarm”? « The Blend Gartner has published a fascinating list of how the world of work may change as we move forward. The ideas posed within the article were intriguing. But one idea in particular – the concept of a “work swarm” – caught my attention. Work must change to meet the world Borrowed from nature, Gartner describes a work swarm as a “flurry of collective activity” to deal with non routine problems at work. The ability to “swarm” or quickly assemble a cross-functional or cross-departmental team to problem solve, could be viewed as a key marker concerning an organization’s ability to innovate. Stretching the elements of organizational structure Removing obstacles to implement swarming can prove to be a challenge for many organizations. Work swarming should also allow needed experts outside of the organization to flow in. One other issue in facilitating work swarming, is capturing and communicating the skill sets of those within the organization.
T-shirts developed that could charge mobile phones 10 July 2012Last updated at 13:21 ET The researchers turned the t-shirt fabric into a 'supercapacitor' Scientists at the University of South Carolina have found a way to use a cheap T-shirt to store electrical power. It could pave the way for clothes that are able to charge phones and other devices. Experts predict that new technologies including roll-up smartphones and laptops will be on the market soon. These developments would spur on the need for "flexible energy storage", said the professor behind the project. Xiaodong Li, a professor of mechanical engineering at the university teamed up with post-doctorate researcher Lihong Bao to find a solution. The pair wrote up their findings for the Advanced Materials journal. They used a T-shirt bought from a local discount store, which was soaked in a solution of fluoride, dried and then baked in an oxygen-free environment at high temperature. Hybrid fabric "This created a stable, high-performing supercapacitor," said Prof Li.
The United States Of Design Early last November, Scott Wilson was feeling a little gloomy. The partnership in a startup he had worked on relentlessly for a year had fallen apart, leaving him with little but regret over the time he had spent away from his family and his Chicago design studio, Minimal. But this is the United States, a country famous for second acts. So after a few days of moping, Wilson, a serial entrepreneur with a corporate stint as global creative director of Nike's watch division, jumped back in. He had a new idea--and a novel plan for funding it. Wilson's brainchild was an innovative watch that grafted the body of an iPod Nano onto an aluminum case, turning the little touch screen into a cool, wrist-circling gadget that could wake you up in the morning, play your music, and even, with the help of a Nike+ chip mounted on the side, track your daily run. That's when Wilson turned to Kickstarter, the web-based funding platform for independent creative projects. Still, America is different. The U.K.'
What The New Patent Reform Act Means For Innovation Late last night the Senate voted 89-9 to pass the America Invents Act that would radically reshape patent laws, and President Obama is expected to sign it without delay. It's the first such significant bill in 60 years, and it has one key component: It moves the onus from merely "inventing" a patentable idea first to becoming the person who actually files for an innovation first. If the subtlely of this eludes you, then here's what the big hopes are for the act: By making this structural change about who gets assigned a patent, U.S. law will line up better with international law (which may simplify global-scale IP problems). It may simplify red tape, let the USPTO tackle a massive backlog of patent applications that're snarled in existing red tape, and it could disable a class of patent troll who documents an idea but never applies for a patent until someone else does, replicating their invention. Whew.
Measuring Innovation: Sustaining competitive advantage by turning ideas into value. “Sometimes it seems like money is being poured into creating solutions that meet no customer need.” Equally, what are often seen as mistakes and discarded because they have little relevance to the problem at hand can be of great value if only you can find the right context in which to apply them. Ideas don’t necessarily occur in the “right order” (or to the “right people”) and problems can jump up when least expected. Recognising insights when they occur and being open minded enough to give them air time brings us closer to having a “self-aware” or even “self-innovating” organisation. The challenge is to fully utilise our finite resource by managing Innovation towards the best outcome. Ideas from others may at first seem difficult to comprehend … but rejecting them out of hand could represent a missed opportunity that could set you apart. For every problem there is a person with an idea that if worked on could yield Innovation that solves that problem Key Questions:
New flat flexible speakers might even help you catch planes & trains A groundbreaking new loudspeaker, less than 0.25mm thick, has been developed by University of Warwick engineers, it's flat, flexible, could be hung on a wall like a picture, and its particular method of sound generation could make public announcements in places like passenger terminals clearer, crisper, and easier to hear. Lightweight and inexpensive to manufacture, the speakers are slim and flexible: they could be concealed inside ceiling tiles or car interiors, or printed with a design and hung on the wall like a picture. Pioneered by University of Warwick spin-out company, Warwick Audio Technologies' the 'Flat, Flexible Loudspeaker' (FFL) is ideal for public spaces where it delivers planar directional sound waves, which project further than sound from conventional speakers. He says: "We believe this is a truly innovative technology. All speakers work by converting an electric signal into sound. The speaker laminate operates as a perfect piston resonator. or Notes for editors: 1.
SiriusXM: Ready for prime time? Jenny Neill assesses the satellite radio broadcaster's chances of becoming the largest telematics service provider in North America. In this day and age, anything satellite seems like an anachronism, unless you live in some remote corner of the Earth, in which case having news and information beamed to you from space is still your only option. Not so in North America, where more than 25 million people are happy to spend $14 a month to listen to satellite radio, mostly in the car. Now Sirius XM Radio (SiriusXM), the company that controls this lucrative market with two satellites covering the entire United States, two thirds of Canada and two thirds of Mexico, wants to become one of North America’s largest telematics service providers (TSPs). The initial announcement, which was made in June at Telematics Detroit 2013, centered around the company’s plans to use its single-cell, six-megabit satellite broadcast technology to deliver over-the-air software updates to connected vehicles.
Rumor: Samsung Galaxy Gear Specifications Leaked We have seen a number of leaks in the past that points towards the possible launch of the mysterious smartwatch from the Korean giant – Samsung Galaxy Gear. The device is expected to see the daylight on 4 September at IFA 2013 but we haven’t really seen what it will bring at the table. A new rumor confirms that Samsung Galaxy Gear will debut on 4 September along with Galaxy Note 3 in Berlin and specifications it will bring at the table. The smartwatch is expected to feature a dual-core Exynos 4212 SoC with a clock speed of 1.5GHz with ARM Mali-400 MP4 Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) and 1GB RAM. On the connectivity side, the device will bring NFC and Bluetooth technology as well. Let me remind you, take this rumor with a grain of salt as we have not seen any official announcement from Samsung regarding this. Source: SamMobile
markburnett : Samsung Galaxy Gear running...
a book by Tom Kelly founder of IDEO by aliceheredi Jul 30