Filed under: Innovation | Tags: Google, IDEO, Pixar, TED, Tim Brown, whatif innovation
Here’s another little bit of mind candy from Tim Brown [of design company IDEO] taken from the brainbox TED. He talks about the link between play and innovation, how important it is to think back to the way creativity and imagination operated at a childhood level. We fear the judgement of peers.We’re embarassed about showing our ideas to peers. It’s this fear that causes us to be conservative in our thinking. If you looked at our children play, they don’t have this fear, they share their ideas. It’s only as they get older that they lose this freedom. Kids who feel secure and operate in a trusted environment are those most able to truly ‘play’ and take risks. The million dollar question is ‘how do we create this in a working environment?’.
Creative companies often have symbols to show how much they value creativity. At Pixar, animators work in wooden huts or decorated caves. At Whatif Innovation we used to have themed playrooms where we could hold meetings and play around with ideas and concepts. The Googleplex has volleyball courts and a fireman’s pole in the middle of their office. Whether these features actually cause more creativity to occur is kind of irrelevant, it’s what they signify that matters. Many corporates have taken on this ‘playfulness of space’ as an important factor in encouraging and allowing their staff to be creative.
Anyhoo, it’s a great talk and worth watching if you have 27:59 minutes to kill. Enjoy.
Saw these ads for Persil detergent on Brandon’s blog and had to share. Cute aren’t they?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: michael fantuz, sticky bar, table for 20, tablefor20, tablefor20.blogspot.com
In Surry Hills one guy is reinventing the idea of the evening meal by opening his space for a weekly gathering of friends & strangers. So grab yourself a seat, pass the wine & pitch in because this is neighbourhood dining at it’s very best. The project is called Table for 20. The idea behind this project is to create a completely new experience in the dining market. Bucking the trend of fancy restaurants & one hat wonders, this is family orientated communal neighbourhood dining at its best.
The idea behind Table for 20 is to create a space where Surry Hills locals can interact with others in their community with a percentage of profit going to the charity which owns the building the restaurant is in. The experience plays out as a neighbourhood supper where local people come & pay a modest set fee to dine at the communal tables. As is Michael Fantuz’s specialty, the food is festive Italian with a twist. Fantuz is a man who clearly loves his food and can constantly be seen running up and down tables dishing out a vintage olive oil or rare Buffalo Mozzarella or even a plum mustard which we enjoyed on the night we were there. The food is undoubtedly exceptional, but unlike other restaurants, Fantuz shuns the idea of food reviewers and would instead prefer them to come & make a contribution to the mission. “I have no need for fancy hats or stars” Fantuz says, “I’ve finally found an opportunity to do what I love and help out people along the way.”
The price includes three courses – a starter, main and dessert. If you’re lucky, you’ll arrive on one of the nights where Michael’s mother has been commissioned to create her famous homemade Tirimisu. It’s certainly worth the wait!
I admit it, this is a shameless plug for what I think is a great restaurant concept but if you haven’t been, you’re missing out. Check out the blog www.tablefor20.blogspot.com and do yourself a favour, make a booking.
There are thousands of normal restaurants in Sydney.
This is not one of them.
PS > If communal dining is not your thing, Sticky Bar upstairs [pictured above] is a great place to drop by for a drink and a nibble.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I saw this little post over at Tinsiders for a friends of the Earth campaign. The back of the car is printed on the lid with the straw in place of the exhaust pipe. As you drink from the cup using the straw, it’s as if you’re sucking down nasty toxins from the back of a car. Brilliant.
Agency: JWT Hong Kong, China.
Filed under: Advertising | Tags: advertising industry, BBC Four, Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe
A healthy sense of both scepticism and humour is required for those of us who work in the advertising industry or used to or occasionally dabble in it from time to time like a sneaky habit. Here’s a rather amusing video, check it out.
Filed under: Digital culture, Innovative stimulus, Social media, Thinking | Tags: Digital culture, Google, lynete webb, online
For those of you who don’t know Lynette Webb, the insights manager at Google – you can read the previous posts here and here. For those of you who do, here’s another doozy:
“The idea for this slide came from a recent article in the NYT about how the internet is impacting literacy:
“Clearly, reading in print and on the Internet are different. On paper, text has a predetermined beginning, middle and end, where readers focus for a sustained period on one author’s vision. On the Internet, readers skate through cyberspace at will and, in effect, compose their own beginnings, middles and ends. Young people “aren’t as troubled as some of us older folks are by reading that doesn’t go in a line,” said Rand J. Spiro, a professor of educational psychology at Michigan State University who is studying reading practices on the Internet. “That’s a good thing because the world doesn’t go in a line, and the world isn’t organized into separate compartments or chapters.”
It’s a nice thought. When you think about how you read, surf, scan, think and communicate online . . it’s anything but linear. In fact, there’s a sense in which much of the activity that happens online is about joining the dots and redrawing them, than it is reaching some tangible end or defined goal. I like Lynette’s pics because they also pick a poignant point and sum it up perfectly with a great quote and an emotive image. She’s a great resource for inspiration stimulus if you want to get people thinking differently, especially about the impact of the net.
Check out the live link here
I’ve been doing some research on the banking industry and came across this 1964 ad by Sheaffer. It seems they could imagine a time when your ring could project a credit card or cheque but could not imagine a time when pens would not be necessary. Interesting foresight and certainly not the only industry to miss the obvious…
Filed under: unbusiness, unconference | Tags: future of conferences, Get Shouty, katie chatfield, unconference
Here’s the preso from Katie Chatfield over at Get Shouty on the future of conferences. For those of you who went to Interesting South, Ignite or any of the other creative exchanges, this is worth a look. For those of you who didn’t, even more reason to check out Katie over at Get Shouty.
Filed under: FMCG innovation, Innovative stimulus, new product, Nice Design, Nice products | Tags: innovative packaging
I know it’s not fashionable in this eco-ridden-hessian-wearing-let’s-eat-organic-and-recycle-the-packaging-and-omygod-didn’t-you-bring-your-own-shopping-bag age but..I love a bit of fabulous packaging.
Don’t get me wrong I care about the planet and try to do the right thing. I have for instance a total of about 35 Coles eco shopping bags sitting in my kitchen as we speak [I keep forgetting to bring them so I buy more each time I go] which I get isn’t the point by the way, but even just walking to the car with those cheap plastic bags which are so eco terrible makes me feel less whole some how…
But I digress. The point here is that there is beautiful packaging in the world. You wouldn’t know it at Coles in Surry Hills and it sure isn’t on the shelves in my local Woolworths either but for those of you who are very much into package design, here are a few of my favourite links.
The DieLine site is without a doubt the best site I’ve seen for packaging porn. Look at the image above, who ever thought butter could look so good? Check out the sites and bookmark them for the next time you’re looking for a little eye candy or perhaps some stimulus for a preso or a workshop.
The DieLine is brilliant, full of good res packaging design images [free to search]
Global Package Gallery is another one full of product examples from around the globe [free trial then subscribe]
Another site is Under Consideration although not as good as DieLine [free to search]
Filed under: Advertising, creativity, Emergent media, Geek stuff, Innovative advertising, Nike | Tags: Nike
Speaking of Nike [see James Jarvis post below] and newfound blogger Bud [see post below], here’s another great example of Nike digital advertising. If other companies took a more considered thoughtful approach to digital conversation rather than literally attempting to “take over” our pages while we’re surfing [hands up who thought the page takeover was ever going to be a positive consumer interaction?] the digital advertising world might just move towards the personal, interactive, conversational medium it promised to be. Check it out. Bloody great. ps. thanks Bud.
