Design Thinking Driven Building Design

Here is a fascinating TED talk by Ole Scheeren sharing how his firm design iconic building in Shanghai, Singapore, Berlin and London.

What surprised me was his empathic human-centered design approcah (also known as Design Thinking) to create memorable buildings.

Enjoy

Building A Company Steve Job's style

This video documentary shows how Steve Job was building his NeXT computer (after leaving Apple). Notice how keeps saying 'let us build the company from our hearts'. There are other insights about how Steve Job's facilitated the company retreats and how he handled strong team members viewpoints.

7 Tips To Sharpen Your Creative Senses

Shattering the myth that creative people are born that way, you can learn to be creative in your own way. Creativity is all about breaking our daily patterns. All you have to do is to set your mind to it and practice some of the following tips:

1.       Learn to read, make a habit out of reading regularly. Start small: pick a book and aim to read one paragraph every night or early in the morning (before your start your work). If you have a really hard time picking up a book, then pick a book about a subject that you absolutely detest. Once you finish the book, you will learn one new thing that you did not know before!

2.      Read widely: Read outside of your area of expertise. In particular, read outside of your technology focus. Perhaps read about behavioral psychology (Book examples: Freakonomics or Black Swan). Why? Great ideas do not emerge from domain experts! Great creative ideas emerge when you connect different dots from wider fields!

3.      Break your daily patterns: If you wear a watch, switch wearing your watch on alternate wrists every day. If you carry a wallet, put the wallet in left or right pockets & switch every day. If you wear your employer badge on the left side, alternate to the right side every other day. This is not a recommended habit with your shoes (i.e. flipping your shoes: right shoe on the left foot & left shoe on the right foot), however. J

4.      Take a different route home at least once a week! Why? You will see different neighborhoods, hear different sounds, as well as different bill boards that will break your daily patterns and sharpen your creative senses.

5.      Learn to doodle & draw. Here is an excellent source www.napkinacademy.com (can’t beat the $39 / year to learn how to draw your creative thoughts). Or download Paper app on your iPad; you will be shocked to learn the ease of drawing & doodling!

6.      Actively volunteer to a non-profit cause. You will find many opportunities to learn and help the people who appreciate all what you will do for them. This is a fertile ground for lots of creativity in order to improve people’s lives.

7.      Take long walks amongst nature at least 2-3 times a month. Why? There are no two similar trees in nature; there are no two similar leaves in nature. Did you know that all great creative people take regular long walks amongst nature? (Read biographies of Newton, Graham Bell, Benjamin Franklin).

If you have your own habits, then please do share them by adding comments here. 

9 Tips To Enable Innovation.....Change the physical environment.

9 Things You Can Do To Create a Climate of Innovation At Companies

1.      Design spaces where people can get away from their desks. This may involve the creation of ‘focus areas” where employees can concentrate on their work

2.     Make sure the idea evaluation group panel is gender balanced: 50 women / 50 men

3.     Create opportunities for employees to run ideas past others with same interests (not sure about this one…..as you need opinion diversity)

4.     Create opportunities for idea people to actually get vicarious experience in their idea space (for better than research). Use Design Thinking techniques to see, hear, and observe their idea space. Utilize the experience of your team to create something new.

5.     Safe spaces should be considered whereby controversial or divergent ideas can be researched.

6.     Utilize outsiders who have no agenda to push to offer fresh perspective

7.     Avoid “group think” by working individually or in very diverse teams

8.    Innovation happens when there is least pressure on the group or individual. Avoid targets or goal setting in order that it may occur naturally

9.     Utilize skills and know-how of external stakeholders, customers and suppliers. They will want your business to thrive and may have insights not already seen

Have you considered the link between employee engagement and innovation?

Do you think if your teams were more closely aligned to your organizations vision and values that they could be more innovative?