A couple of weeks ago I was speaking with a former professor of mine about innovation. He characterized innovation not only as something original, but also as a novel juxtaposition. Its an interesting point and it got me thinking… Proust said “The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing [...]

Garr over at Presentation Zen has mentioned “the big duck” a few times. I love the metaphor, and it strikes me as rekated to Tufte’s cautions about decorating data. It seems that we designers need to check ourselves evey so oftern to make sure we’re not just making glorious big ducks, but actually doing what’s [...]

So I’ve been slowly going over a number of design project proposals from both small and big design firms. I thought I’d take the opportunity to list some of the faults I’ve experienced so far (and the big guys are just as guilty as the little). Avoid telling me what something is not, because I’m [...]

I’ve had it. I’ve had it with unsubstantiated hyperbole. I’ve had it with hackneyed metaphors. I’ve had it with shallow sound bites. I crave meaty insights, not the intellectual twinkies served up in lieu of. This means no more Bruce Nussbaum. No more Tom Peters. No more anything related to IDEO. And certainly no more [...]

Part 1: Definitions (10/23) Part 2: iNPD model (11/06) Part 3: Innovation Matrix – Categories of Innovation (11/24) Part 4: Innovation Matrix – Areas of Innovation Part 5: Innovation Matrix – Overall Part 6: Process I see 9 distinct areas companies can innovate in. These 9 areas organize into 2 broad groups I call Customer [...]

Like quotes, I normally don’t like to just link to other blog posting–but this is a particularly interesting posting from a particularly interesting blog (admitedly a lot of it often goes over my head, but I like that). Something strikes me about a lot of what Umair writes. It strikes me with a ring of [...]