Innovation feeder


Toyota . . so hip it hurts

633419795420916763.jpgWell Scion have done it again. After being the first car manufacturer to stage a virtual care launch in Second Life in 2006, this time they’re letting users design their own crests for the car. A new campaign put together by Strawberry Frog [based in NY & Amsterdam], lets users pick from a range of graffiti inspired symbols designed by Triston Eaton and put together their very own coat of arms. Users can print out the images, save them to a gallery or [for for a few thousand dollars] actually get them customised for their cars.

Check it out at scionspeak.com



The next frontier: Design Thinking

Here’s another little ditty from Andrew Tan’s blog WhatIf which covers innovation & design from an Asian perspective. And no, he’s not part of the global outfit Whatif Innovation, he runs his own innovation company and this is his personal blog.

Design thinking is tnanobiker1.jpghe latest and hottest methodology talked about to help a company innovate. GE calls it CENCOR (calibrate, explore, create, organize and realize). The Mayo Clinic calls it SPARC (see, plan, act, refine, communicate). Andrew’s new company calls it GIP (Gather, Ideate, Prototype). Its most obvious and direct power is in the creation of new products and services. Design thinking allows an organization to differentiate its products and services in an avenue other than pricing.
Andrew’s method is not dissimilar to the IDEO method of industrial design, one which has nurtured some of the most popular innovations of the past few decades. Apple’s first mouse. Prada’s ultrahip Manhattan store. Stand-up toothpaste tubes that don’t get icky. The Palm V.
In the Ideo universe, great design doesn’t begin with a far-out concept or a way-cool drawing. It begins with a deep and empathic understanding of the human condition. The first step for any Ideo team on any project is to try to empathize with the people who might use whatever product or service that eventually emerges from its work. Ideo has crafted a set of systematic research methods for understanding what the firm calls “human factors.” It then goes on to develop ideas and from those ideas, prototypes which can be tested for real responses on real people.
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Gamers enjoy dying in first person shooters

In his blog CollisionDetection, Clive Thompson who writes for Wired and the NY Times has posted a great piece about about the pleasure and release MMORPG [massive multiplayer online role playing gamers] feel when they get killed  [as opposed to when they kill others]. His findings are based on a  study by Niklas Ravaja at MIND Labs, who wired up a bunch of gamers with biosensors and found that they gave off strong pleasure signals whenever they died in the game Super Monkey Ball.

The rest of his post is here and if you haven’t checked out his blog, it’s worth a look in:

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