The nature of innovation is shifting, but our society is stuck in old paradigms of innovation. Our Executive Director, Christopher Hire, examines what a Creative Age of innovation may mean and the opportunity it gives all of us, …

VIDEOS, USA — Some interesting ideas from nature. From TED 2005. Janine Benyus speaking on “12 sustainable design ideas from nature”.
The Shells Story is very interesting, and there are opportunities.
Da Vinci got his ideas from nature. Many designers do.
Where do you get your ideas from?

COMMENTS — Airlines have been decorating their planes for some time now. Below is a slide-show from Reynolds on SlideShare. Well done!
The Trends. 2thinknow view.
Handmade, hand-painted, decorating mass-objects are key trends of the 21st century.
This is a nascent trend of modifying mass-produced objects.
Decoration & personalisation by hand, not machine, will be a strong dominant theme of the 21st century.
Once we were impressed by the modernist metallic sameness of airplanes. Now we are impressed by their uniqueness.
The mass-produced object is losing it’s 1960s gloss, at the cutting-edge. And has been replaced …

This morning noticed these excellent slides on slideshare, of creative workplaces.
Well done to Serdar Belbag.
The 2thinknow view is that companies seeking to become employers-of-choice, need creative workspaces as an element of their strategy.
What do you think? Would it inspire you to work in these offices?
Or is your work or dream office more creative?
Post the photos in our new flickr group: Creative Companies

About Creative Companies
Creative workplace. Employers of choice. Ethical corporations. Nice seats. Micro-finance projects. Creative Capitalism. Innovation Teams. Inspiring workplaces. Not cubicle farms (unless they are cool). Cool.
The places you …

From London, to Singapore to Berlin and Melbourne a Ferris Wheel was the city ‘must-have’ in 2008. and yet, no city has ever branded itself by copying others so intensely – read why in this piece from the vault.

VIDEOS, Youtube — This one’s been attracting quite a lot of attention on Youtube.
OK it’s an advert, and they’re not saving the world, but it’s worth a look from a design viewpoint.
And corporations like BMW should be encouraged to improve automobiles and other products by engaging with designers.
Besides, BMW are one of the world’s best crawling, no … driving, machines…. Watch. You’ll see what I mean.

COMMENT, Korea –A design agency in South Korea exploring new materials have arrived at a new design incorporating green ideas into the design of a shop.

The basis is a French botanist using a light material on the skin of a building, on which various plants can be grown.
From the site:
“Mass Studies was founded in 2003 by Minsuk Cho in Seoul, Korea, as an investigation of architecture in the context of market-privileged culture of mass production and intensely over-populated urban condition. Mass Studies explore building materials/techniques, space matrixes and building typologies …

The Big Question: Do you have a blog that is art or design based?
You can be a painter, designer, critic or follower of art… or a student.

This is a list of interesting, different art and design blogs.
I am hoping to get over 1000 here, so I will be adding them to get us started,…

TRAVEL, Austria — Culturally Vienna, like Paris, is one of those cities you must visit for artistic and cultural depth.
Of course, many European cities have great museums and art galleries and hidden treasures.

Vienna has a secret museum though. Well secret in the sense few people visit it as tourists. If you are arts-minded though you will enjoy it. …

ANALYSIS, Global — Our town, our world, is drowning under a flood of cheap sub-standard products. Products that we can and did once live without.
This is because our modernist global economic system in English-speaking countries largely runs on the manufacture and mass consumption of cheap low-priced goods made from oil-based plastics.
Think about that for a second. What really happens?
The following chain of events was loosely based on media reports of the China pet food story, Fisher Price scandal, and recent other events.
Here is one average scenario:
A company in your city …

ANALYSIS, Melbourne – Where you work is important to how you are inspired to create & then implement innovation.
Do some of these describe your workplace?
Concrete, gray, drab, cubicle, boxed-in, noisy, mobile phone ringtones from hell, low barriers, bombarded with email, ‘no door’ policy, jokes, noise, prison-like gulag?
Or is it more interesting?
Post-modernist refugee camp for cultural relativists?
Weekend-after recovery center?
Creative desert?
Angst-ridden pit of teenage romance?
So what works for innovation?
One of the perks of having worked at so  many corporations (more than 350) is you get to see what works and what doesn’t …

ANALYSIS, Melbourne, Australia — My recent visit to the Guggenheim show at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne was most informative. But not about art.
The Guggenheim was informative about positive social change (innovation) and our society.
Art of recent years allows us to view the world through artists eyes. And great artists often have eyes and insight ahead of their time.
The most enlightening Guggenheim pieces were from the last 40-odd years. The well-curated Guggenheim exhibit of modernist & post-modernist art; informed visitors like me about inspiration & innovation.
Understanding Modern …

ANALYSIS, San Francisco, USA — Airline Qantas recently announced that internationally in the new airbus A380, first-class passengers will have their own suite and their will be a new dedicated business class domestic lounge areas in Sydney, Melbourne & Canberra for super-premium frequent flyers.
Now Qantas lounges are already among the best in the World, and better than any single American lounge I have been in both internationally or domestically.
They have included at no charge food, wine, decent range of drinks, magazines, free wireless, plenty of work cubicles, leather sofas, big-screen …

Melbourne has some pretty great food. Food that can inspire good ideas and with a cleansing beer or wise choice of red the occasional flight of fancy.
Melbourne World leader in Food Inspiration & innovation
The world’s best pizzas. The worlds best coffee. And some of the worlds’ best Greek and Italian food, as well as fresh cheeses, hams, dairy and delicatessen food.
Other cities (NYC, Paris, Vienna) might have individually greater restaurants. But for general consistency of greatness in food, you can’t beat Melbourne, especially with a local on your arm…
Of …

On the lighter side, whilst working these last few days I particularly enjoyed a link I found on digg.com to Calvin & Hobbes 25 greatest comics. An avid fan of Calvin & Hobbes, I won’t reproduce my favourite out of ‘IP respect’ so follow the link here.
Calvin the Innovator: a Parable for Innovation 
What is so great about Calvin & hobbes is that it is a strip that operates on an intelligent level for adults, and underlying is a strong current of the innovator (Calvin), the realist (stuffed tiger) and the …

It’s Melbourne. It’s Cold. 4-13 Celsius today. By Swiss standards tropical, even Bostonians might take off their scarves, but by Melbourne standards C O L D.
I am happy. Why? In my experience cold days (in doors at least) are the best thinking days. Our office has air-con/heating, but as we have 15 feet ceilings and a heritage sandstone building it is not obtrusive like the typical 8-10 foot foam-core ceiling tower.

Modernist Sins for innovation – no longer the Innovation Zeitgeist

One innovation in building design I don’t like is the Office …

People are worried about Greenhouse pollution. The polls say so. Yet look at the mid-morning traffic.
1 person per car, many gas guzzler SVU/4WD (the Australian term) or high-octane V8 sports cars.
Australia, has a car culture, people feel superior when they zoom past those faithful souls like me catching a tram to work. They feel superior – look at me in my car. … my flash new sports car or SUV. It shows how much money I owe… sorry have.
Dumb Math: No car …