COMMENT, Global – One of the trends I have noticed amplified whilst updating my book the Global Innovation Review 2007, is a return to the figurative in art and culture.
Why is this important? It shows direction in art. Away from post-modernist ‘I am a painter so why do I bother to paint?‘ thinking that typified the 90s. The 90s were however that kind of decade perhaps…!
Even moreso it shows a return to seeking meaning. It’s tiring looking at noir films, drinking black coffee and talk about meaninglessness.
Remember the artist …

ANALYSIS, Global – We have a lot of goods. Cars, books, stereos, DVDs, printers, computers, Walkmans, toys, clothes, kitchenware, etc.
Even jeans (I don’t know about you, but I’ll never fit into them again!)

When we are finished with goods we throw them out. Doesn’t have to be that way…

COMMENT, Global – Often that is just too much information. Cell phone users in public often have little discretion.
Cell phones on trains.
Cell phones (or mobiles if you prefer) in restaurants.
Famously, I once heard a man chatting up a woman in a toilet cubicle with the door closed at a cinema. I first thought she was in there with him, then he came out holding a phone.
I wonder what she thought of the loud ‘flush’?
The Market Opportunity for Quiet
Expect a pendulum swing back to quiet and focus.
In the meantime expect a …

COMMENT, Global — We’ve have been in a post-modernist age for some time now.
But someone forgot to tell those 1950s-loving industrialist neo-cons.
The innovation zeitgeist is with the Creative Age.
Let’s look at where that innovation is for a moment.

COMMENT, Global — The modern world seems complex.
That’s because we’re trying to understand it with modernist 1950s metaphors from the age of the soon-to-be-gone Oil Economy.
The Neo-Cons were really the last hurrah, and just look how well Iraq is working out for them.
That’s despite all the freedoms they managed to crush in Western countries by invoking a straw man of terrorism and turning a blind eye to some desert-dwelling nutcases.
But the fact is they don’t get it. The modern world. The internet. Or trends.

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 …

COMMENT, Melbourne, Australia — Most of you are aware that I am constantly researching global innovation for 2thinknow.
This can be as broad as current global themes of: environmental or climate change issues, food supply, public transport, air travel, activism, business, new technology, Web 2.0, library 2.0, social networks, Social ideas, creative ideas, art & cultural ideas.
In short, ideas & inspiration for the intellectually curious with a global mindset.
What you may not be aware is I bookmark all sorts of industry and general innovation resources in a place where they …

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 …

OPINION, Melbourne — We all keep hearing how difficult Generation X & Y are to work with. (Mainly Gen Y).
Well I’d say it has something to do with those “oh so demanding baby boomers” who were their parents.
Truth is:
if you dose a bunch of kids up on sugar, …
chauffeur them around to every single hobby that might interest them, …
tell them that all viewpoints are culturally equivalent, …
teach them to question all authority figures, …
give them what they want with no discipline,…
smoke dope yourself but lecture them on it/tell them …

COMMENT, Melbourne, Australia — First of all let me say I am not partisan. I vote right, I vote left.
Personally, I think Giuliani, Gore, Clinton and McCain would all make good presidents at different times. Professionally I think Gore, Giuliani and Clinton may all lead to good outcomes for innovation.
The Left/Right divide is increasingly irrelevant, in any case. In a prior analysis from 2thinknowTM I made the case that the real contest is between Engaged and Not Engaged. See: Election innovation: why Left & Right don’t matter.
How Bush happened:
The people …

ANALYSIS, Melbourne –I loved rail as a kid. That trip from the small town I lived in to the ‘big smoke’ always took a 5 hour bus and a train trip.
And there was something inspiring about the rattle of that train.
Nostalgia aside, railways now are once again are on their way to leading the innovation zeitgeist in transport.
Railways – Back-to-the-Future Innovation
In cold hard fiscal terms railways have a bright future with some caveats.
Most importantly, trains have a very long-term future mainly due to the fact that trains carry more passengers …

ANALYSIS, Sydney, Australia – Too often too much of what we buy is too disposable.
The innovation zeitgeist is to be found in returning to an old paradigm.
Innovation is the old sensible paradigm
Buy goods that last and are reparable. That is the paradigm.
For environmental and quality of life reasons, this is now an emerging innovation trend in the infancy stages of innovation.
But I’m not saying that this is now easy.
Remember our grandparents repaired what they bought?
Our grandparents saved and purchased long-term value goods. We may think we are wealthier, but …

OPINION, Melbourne, Australia — The ‘do-nothing’ leader of Victoria Steve Bracks has resigned from State Parliament, in a surprise announcement.
The Premier of Australia’s second most populous state, and home to Melbourne and Australia’s leading agricultural regions, today resigned. Good riddance.
Remember it’s not personal, it’s outcomes. We don’t vote our best mates, we vote in the best leader. That’s the theory, more observed in the breach ….
True innovation vs. Do-nothing
Since his surprise win over the true innovator Jeff Kennett, Bracks has single-handedly done nothing for the future of the state.
In the …

COMMENT, San Francisco, USA — Coffee is important. To world trade, yes. But it’s not all money, coffee is also (more importantly) critical to culture.
How many good ideas have been conceived over a cup of coffee?
How many intellectual battles have been fought in a coffee house until the wee hours?
Voltaire, Franklin and Napoleon all frequented the same Parisian coffee house (at different times)… there must be something in that brew.
Napoleon once left his hat for security whilst he fetched money to pay for the check!
The whole of WordCamp over the …

NEWS AND ANALYSIS, San Francisco, USA – Matt Mullenweg, founding developer of leading blogging platform WordPress, spoke at WordCamp 2007 today, Sunday July 22, 2007.
For the Agenda of the Matt Mullenweg’s presentation: http://2007.wordcamp.org/schedule/state-of-the-word/
NOTICE AND LICENSE: This story is copyright © 2007 2thinknow.This story is licensed for reprint in full or excerpt under copyright in any print or online media, under the terms that it includes the following byline within the reprint:Source: Christopher Hire, 2thinknowTM : http://www.2thinknow.com/innovation

Innovation: Past and Future of WordPress, according to Matt
Mullenweg …

ANALYSIS, San Francisco — From WordCamp 2007. Podcasting will be a new media, and will grow in revenues. By then it may not be called podcasting.
It may be called something new and snappy, and will be in some ways more like TV/radio.
Marketing, including naming (eg. iPod is sexier than media player and is now the generic name) is important to product development and adoption (see Apple…)
Thanks to Dan Kuykendall, of www.mightyseek.com for an excellent and well balanced presentation of the what, why and how of pod-casting; and despite being first …

ANALYSIS, Sydney — Prague proves the point. Culture determines innovation.
Markets do not, not in isolation.
The Czech Republic has one of the least basket-case economies in Eastern Europe and key investment destination of the former Eastern European business investment destinations.
Walking the streets of Prague, we can see all the consulting firms, and major corporations, who have established offices here.
Remote analysis is useful, but research-including-walking-around and observing is often invaluable in pointing out flaws in statistical analysis.
The Balkan problem with Innovation – dogma
Croatia, a very beautiful place, and Slovakia its former sister …

OPINION, Leeton, NSW — There was a knifing in Melbourne last weekend. There is a knife, drug and violence epidemic in the Australian cities. There are severe infrastructure problems in Sydney, and emerging infrastructure problems in Melbourne.
The answer however is simple, and something State Governments avoid.
The answer is to do something.
As most governments are rewarded when they do nothing, less criticism from public & media, then the incentive is to do nothing.
Or as one leading government figure stated when asked why he didn’t do something: we don’t make …

ANALYSIS, Business — China story is high-risk, high-return business story.
Longer-term it can be big, but as usual, the risks are being understated. Here’s why…
7 reasons why China -story on innovation is risky:
7. China is a large nation of nation-states, much like the EU. There is no single ‘China’ nation, something missed on Westerners.
6. Legal protection may be improving, but observation and enforcement of laws varies province by province
5. Cultural differences under-estimated, as well as no single ‘China language’
4. Lack of cultural freedoms in mainland China. Communism!
3. Grinding poverty in much …

ANALYSIS: McLaren Vale, South Australia — Writing from South Australia, outside Adelaide in the McLaren Vale wine region. Been researching innovation in food supply in the region.
Food supply important to innovation?
Yes. Definitely. Community and food (never eat alone) are crucial to the development of ideas, and understanding the point of life.
Community and food are a large part of life. French people don’t view food as ‘fuel’ this is an English-speaking (largely big city) definition.
Food and company are to be savoured an enjoyed.
In the community conversation, good ideas grow, bad ideas …