From the category archives:

Design

Launch Week: Centre for Social Innovation, Toronto

February 10, 2010

Launch week continues on Cashewman. Yesterday it was Saving Darfur, a new book by Rob Crilly. Monday it was Ethical Ocean, a rad new ethical online store.
Today it’s the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto. Well, here’s the catch: they already exist. And it’s not that they’re launching anything yet, but that they’re trying t:
CSI [...]

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Idea Blast

February 5, 2010

I never thought the idea generation part of my brain would be so exhausted. It’s been basically 24 hours of idea generation and collaborative problem solving around start up ideas and The First Drop. It’s completely invigorating.
It’s that point in a 3+ hour problem solving/brainstorming session where one piece of the puzzle drops, smiles flick [...]

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Alex Roman’s The Third and The Seventh

January 8, 2010

(Naoshima Benesse House Museum by Alex Roman)
Just watch this:

(The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo)
Architecture has been a theme for me recently. We stayed in an Arthur Erickson designed house over Christmas. It was a treat, as he was an idol of mine when I was younger. These shots are from the [...]

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Excessive Packaging from Creative and Lexar

January 5, 2010

Two recent purchases.
First, this Lexar SD card. The packaging is 28 times the size of the product. Many consumer electronics segments are becoming commodified. Memory tops that list: there’ s little to differentiate Lexar from Sandisk and others beyond branding and advantages such as packaging design. I understand the need to convert browsers to purchasers [...]

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Phone Power

January 3, 2010

A powerful, reoccuring theme for me recently recently has been the growing importance of mobile technology. This is as profound a shift in many parts of the developing world as it is in the richer nations. Mobile adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa is ocurring at staggering rates. The International Telecommunications Union puts out a report each [...]

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Threadless.com: 4 Reasons for a Great Shopping Experience

January 2, 2010

I just got my first Ts from Threadless. It was a great experience, all around. Enough to make me write about it. What did they do right? Everything.
1) The site is clean, well-designed, easy to navigate and simple to shop. There’s a good balance of promo links, standard navigation and links to popular content. Shop [...]

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Shot of the Day: The Rice Machine

December 11, 2009

Technology development and teting can be messy. But usually pretty fun stuff. Here we were trying to build a portable rice dehuller to process local rice in smaller villages, back in 2006 in Senegal. I was working with EnterpriseWorks, an organization that is particularly good at this type of thing. The idea was that entrepreneurs [...]

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3 Unrelated Thoughts on the Financial Times

December 4, 2009

This is today’s Financial Times.
1) I’ve always wondered about the pink colour. Is it for readability or differentiation from other newspapers? Is it really the latter, but do they claim it’s the former?
2) It’s important to speak the right language. If you want to get into industrial design, you need to learn how to speak [...]

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‘We need to educate them on…’

December 1, 2009

I’ve heard this used more than a few times.
I’ve heard it in development: ‘We just need to educate them on the benefits of clean water, then they’ll buy our pumps.’ ‘If only they’d understand how immunizations can help them be healthier, they’ll come in and get them.’
I’ve heard it in marketing: ‘We have a killer [...]

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Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford - The Quick Version

November 23, 2009

This is how my brain, perspective and ambition feels after 2 days in Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford. More later.
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