Thanks to Niti’s Monday Morning Must Read, I clicked into these pics of whiteboards summarizing ideas from creativity and innovation sessions at Davos.
While the whiteboards are fascinating, the session descriptions, workshop material and photos are the real treasure trove.

In the early 1990’s my uncle invented the first successful plastic cleat for golf shoes. Softspikes changed the golf shoe industry as courses across the world started banning metal spikes. Today, plastic spikes are the industry standard, and metal spikes really only show up on the tour.
In the mid-nineties, Softspikes was looking for new product […]

One of the aphorisms I work to help clients understand is that until you define the right problem, you cannot design the right solution. That’s why I see framing as the pinnacle of design maturity.
Luke Wroblewski has been thinking similar things, about how design can be a more strategic player. He’s recently posted more […]

It’s become commonly accepted wisdom that innovation requires T-shaped people. And I’ve come to appreciate more how the T-shaped pattern applies to both skillset and mindset.
Another thing I’ve come to appreciate is how being T-shaped is really a fractal sort of existence: Each stem of a T pivots to become a crossbar for a new […]

There’s something completely surreal about the drone of bagpipes suddenly assulting the suburban quiet. The first time my neighbor played the pipes in his backyard, it completely took me by surprise. Now, instead of it being bemusing, it’s an unpredictable bonus of the neighborhood - piping seems to break out at odd intervals every week […]

From notes on the Games Developers Conference, Jesper Juul brings us this concentrated recap on prototyping:

The really recurrent topic was prototyping. Chaim Gingold and Chris Hecker (both at Maxis) made an excellent “advanced prototyping” lecture. Here are some characteristics of good prototypes:Testable, falsifiable (must make a claim), quick to make, relevant, surprising (feedback, upside, downside, […]

So, co-creation is cool. And there’s a certain kind of valuable market research from criticism. But Chevy’s new Tahoe / Apprentice tie-in might not be the co-creation Nirvana that some poor brand manager imagined. Imagine a Tahoe commercial, where anyone can choose the words that cut between product shots…now imagine if that tool was made […]