Tag Archives: innovation

Redefining trends

I thought I’d return to this subject, with a slightly different skew. Reviewing trends as “solutions” to help shape your path forward begins at the wrong point and may lead to bad results. Understanding and analyzing trends that shape what you do and how you do it is an essential discipline in shaping and communicating vision and purpose, and in shaping and delivering services and products that have value to those you serve.

More specifically, shaping a workplace transformation program based on the trends you see in the actions of others may be more harmful than doing nothing. Shaping a new workspace around the trends and directions driving the value in what you do can be a powerful agent in sustainable leadership.

Transform, and activate

A major social services organization was facing challenges brought by the reduction of resources as a result of the economic collapse, and a corresponding rise in demand for their services. The leader of the organization recognized that they would have to begin to do more with less. He quickly realized that he could never accomplish that mission-rich but resource-spare agenda in the type of workplace where they had been working. Although a generous gift from a financial services company, it was generations out of date, compartmentalized, and walnut-paneled. And it dragged on their energy and purpose.

This leader researched trends in workplace design and spoke with architects, designers and furniture manufacturers. He began to form a vision of the workspace concepts that he believed would characterize the type of organization they would need to become – open, collaborative, agile, responsive. He then embarked on a major program to find and design the right type of space. He included in it all of the elements that he had been advised were the components of a more open and collaborative culture. He then moved his organization in and waited for the culture to take shape.

After several months, this same leader began to shape another program – this time to “activate” the workplace. Even though his organization’s workspace was at the leading edge of a typology for action-oriented organizations, the results he expected were not materializing. Returning to the recent reformulation of the organization’s mission, he put together a proposal to augment the earlier project with artifacts of the unique work his organization did, and more representative of how work is actually done in the organization. They are now implementing a tuning and amplification of the concept in place.

Touch down, and touch base

A leading consulting organization had an innovation culture and a staff who worked closely with their clients in modes that were highly mobile. They were able to design and implement mobile workstyles that progressively reduced demand for their own corporate real estate. Each iteration of the program brought the ratio of people to seats higher and higher, and the ratio of real estate to people lower and lower.

The people who worked for them had no problem with the evolution of these programs. They did their best work in close contact with their clients, and traveled around the world to deliver their advice. The company became a model and their workplace transformations became benchmarks for others, the influential origin of a trend toward aggressive mobile workforce solutions.

This company however, began to have problems with the results of these programs. They had so successfully supported mobile workstyles that their people rarely had contact anymore with the company or their peers. The knowledge they had when they entered the company was not expanding, and the experience they gained in their work was not being transferred. Their brand power, formed from collective intelligence, experience and expertise, was eroding.

One component of their solution was, oddly, a workplace transformation program. They developed a workplace that was so authentically responsive to the experiences and behaviors of their “road warriors” that it became their preferred place to touch down. These “offices” became the places where they found colleagues and traded stories, where they updated and sustained their sense of the brand, and nourished their intellectual energies before heading off on the next engagement. The company is now making headlines again, and the next wave in its business innovations currently under way.

Envision, and transform

A large creative services organization composed of several advertising and media companies recently began a lease consolidation program to bring all of the companies together in one place. These companies were fiercely independent, proud of their brand legacy and, in some cases, competitive with each other for clients and accounts. And they were very resistive to the program.

They participated, however, in a series of exercises that looked at the changing nature of the business they were in, the drivers of change for themselves and for their clients and customers, and the products and services they would need to develop to survive the change and to achieve and sustain leadership. This analysis led to insights that allowed them to envision the behaviors and experiences that would be essential to how they would frame and deliver those services. They then shaped a workplace and workspace transformation program around those experiences and behaviors.

Within a few months of moving into their new workspace, their principal customer, a global manufacturer, complemented them on the impact he felt to his business from the change that had taken place in theirs. Both the companies and their customers had survived a very challenging business context and today are leaders in their markets.

M-Shaped Strategies – A process inversion

These are the successful stories. In each case, these organizations shifted direction from initial intentions and achieved results from solutions that were original to their purposes. So many other organizations in these times, however, are starting with goals of “cost savings” and embracing workplace transformation trends and implementing programs that shed and minimize real estate but threaten the effectiveness of their mission.

The identification and analysis of trends is very important in the formation of a vision or development of a strategy for a robust and sustainable future. The trends to study in this context are not solutions, however, but problems. These trends are the weaker and stronger signals of emerging change, or of dissatisfaction with the now, or of a shift in value or values that provide the insight shaping the moves you want to make to be effective, or to lead, or to fulfill a purpose and meet a need in the future. They are what Roger Martin calls the “mystery.”

These trends define the context for what you will do as an organization. Clayton Christensen calls this the “job” you are asked to do, the root problem your customer wants you to solve, or the result they want to achieve through your products or services. In the examples I cited above, the social services organization’s customers wanted advocacy, the consulting organization’s customers wanted to trust in and receive the value of the brand, and the media company’s customers wanted integrated creative communications.

The role of the workplace in each of these “jobs-to-be-done” was influenced by considerations of functional, emotional and social experiences of both staff and customers in these organizations. People who worked for the social services organization or who had an interest to contribute to its programs could be moved beyond volunteering and donating to active advocacy by becoming immersed in the story of the community they would affect. People who worked for the consulting organization and their clients would progress throughout the exchange of experiences and knowledge gained in a global practice by its members. Customers of the organization composed of the media and advertising organizations would benefit from the creative and coordinated programs developed by in the collaborative and open culture of its agencies.

The jobs-to-be-done and the understanding of the experiences of staff and customers of these organizations were the underlying and salient considerations that then shaped their workplace strategies, programs, and designs. Each of these organizations, achieving and sustaining leadership through what they do are now effectively, trend setters, and have the potential to influence the moves that others make. But the strategies and concepts used by the agencies, for example, which could be seen as representative of a trend in design for “agile” and “collaborative” and “team-based” workplaces, would be inappropriate or insufficient for the jobs that the other organizations were trying to do even though they, too, wanted to support agile, collaborative teams.

A recommendation

I would recommend an inversion in the process and origins of the conversations we’ve seen as a trend in the quest for trends.

If you are an organization who also believes that the nature of your workspace influences the impact of your work, try inverting the conventional process. Try starting the conversation with your architect or designer by telling him or her about the trends deeply affecting your clients or customers – the “mysteries” in your scan and the “jobs” your clients want done – and how they might affect the direction you feel you need to take as an organization. I assume he or she will then engage with you in a conversation about the experiences that are at the core of your offering, and shelve the conventional presentation of the portfolio and the latest styles of workplace design.

I think you’ll be happier.

…..

Clayton Christensen, The Innovator’s Prescription

Roger Martin, The Design of Business

Dangerous and seductive curves

May 4, 2010

Design strategy, Strategy design, workplace design

3 Comments

Aircraft carrier in landscape, Hans Hollein

I may have referred to this before, but recent readings bring the idea back to mind.

In one of those influential lectures very early in college, Hans Hollein, an Austrian architect, offered an insightful illustration of the relationship between technology and society. I can not remember why he was speculating on this in his talk, in that long ago time when computers were kept in special locked rooms and run by punch cards, and chalk was used on chalkboards, and his own reputation at that time was shaped by a couple of small shop designs.

He drew a graph that looked like this –

His point, reinforced over and over since then by developments none of us could have foreseen at that time, was that technological development moves inexorably on, but social development lags. When the gap between the states of society and technology becomes too great, a social revolution takes place. Society adapts to technology.

That broad contextual reference reappeared when reviewing these two graphs in a recent post by David Sherwin in his very nice Change Order blog –

He called his S-curve the “Design Investment Curve,” and offered it to designers as a way to set client expectations about an appropriate pace of development of a concept and project. I think the offering is appropriate, yet I think his perspective, and the scale of the curve, may be shifting.

I many cases, the commissions that come to us as architects and designers are already on the acceleration portion of the curve in our clients’ minds. A corporate or organizational strategy has been formed internally, budgets have been developed and schedules set, the project has been formulated and moved into the workstream of an implementation team, RFP’s have been developed and a selection process executed, and then we get the commission. Client interest, anticipation and anxiety must be high at that point, and so, as Sherwin points out, are expectations. We are by this time, as in Hollein’s graph, “society” to our client’s “technology.”

It may be very appropriate for us to adjust our client’s expectations about the probable or possible pace of a project or program. But another graph appeared in my reading recently, and I wonder if it does not set a different tone.

I was watching a video of John Seely Brown presenting to a class at Stanford recently. His new book, The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion was about to come out making the argument for the need of new approaches and the rise of new institutions to meet emerging needs and be successful in emerging contexts.

His point, like Hollein’s, was that the advance of technology was inexorable. Brown’s graph illustrated technology with a very steep and very tall acceleration line and also served as a representation of the “flow” of ideas in our time. His argument was that survival/success/prosperity would mean that we get into that state of flow and adjust our strategies and programs to fit, like this –

So what does this mean for architects and designers, and their clients? Maybe this –

We are in the state of social revolution that Hollein represented by the vertical breaks in his graph
We need to adjust our own expectations, and get into the flow that our clients are in or trying to get themselves into
We may want to explore the power of small, smart moves, developed in collaboration with others, to uncover what matters and to sustain position in the flow
We need to understand how to quickly develop effective and powerful “creation spaces” for ourselves as well as for our clients

What are your thoughts?

Linknotes April 16, 2010

April 16, 2010

architecture, Design strategy, Strategy design, urban, workplace design

1 Comment

After a couple of weeks of travel and focused work, I am now catching my breath a bit. Linknotes provides me a way of getting back into the flow when original content is not yet fully developed.

Innovation redefined and relocated
A recent lament in the press on the unexpected consequences of globalization made the observation that as the US outsourced what it believed to be lower-content manufacturing tasks, it also was outsourcing the country’s industries’ basis for innovation.

Process improvements on the shop floor or in the call center naturally took place where the work was being done. Managers at companies who outsourced the work could no longer observe how work was being done and were outside of the stream of information that provided the data and insights that would support positive chain and improvement. Those outsourced jobs are now beginning to provide the base for innovation leadership by companies and industries in other places.

The Economist has a special report in its latest issue on the increasing momentum and character of innovation from sources in other countries. Observing that this is becoming a huge wave, they credit the phenomenon on bigger visions.

Why are countries that were until recently associated with cheap hands now becoming leaders in innovation? The most obvious reason is that the local companies are dreaming bigger dreams. Driven by a mixture of ambition and fear—ambition to bestride the world stage and fear of even cheaper competitors in, say, Vietnam or Cambodia—they are relentlessly climbing up the value chain.

In addition, the Economist notes that these are places where brainpower is plentiful and free from the burdens of legacy systems. As a result, strategic planning by multinationals now actively and intentionally locates major R&D efforts in these other developing countries – a practice called “polycentric innovation.” While enjoying the energies of foreign innovators, this may be led more by the need to comprehend, understand and market to the huge emerging markets that these countries hold.

Among the impacts of these developments are the reversal of the traditional global supply chain, the redefinition of innovation as incremental improvements provide accessible goods to the huge base of the market pyramid, and the redesign of management systems themselves.

The Rest saving the West
The week provides interesting correlations in items like the Dx1W competition – a competition for designers, artists, scientists, makers and thinkers in developing countries to provide solutions for First World problems.

We have been focusing our energy and resources on trying to solve our Developing World problems to become more like the First World. But perhaps it is time that we, the so called Third World minds, focused our energy and creativity on solving some of the First World problems. We will have a brighter future to look forward to, and perhaps this can help us rethink and approach our current problems from a different perspective.

Collapse of complexity
At an entirely different scale, we’ve become very interested in the way in which a more mobile workstyle is beginning to affect the way that space and place is planned or provided for work, and more specifically how new innovation may be arising from the casual interaction of free agents working in places that attract them. Laura Forlano, writing in the Urban Omnibus, notes that “coworking is rapidly emerging as a meme for the reorganization of knowledge work.”

This example of the increasing development of coworking spaces is one example. Our earlier comments on the concept of “scenius” are similar. And also this week, Hagel and Brown published their new book on the Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion, which also further develops their ideas about “creation spaces.”

The influences of space and place to creation were also explored in an Innovation Camp in Berlin reported on by Tim Leberecht of frog design.

Reflecting on the role of creative spaces for their innovations, they proposed three types of spaces: the mindset (brain space), the location and work environment (physical space), and the network (virtual space).

After reviewing both common practice and other studies on the types of space that support creation, Tom makes a case also for market space. He makes the observation that, “It often goes unrecognized that the innovator’s biggest creative accomplishment may not be to invent a new product or service but to imagine and create a new market.”

Also resonating this week was Clay Shirky’s considerations on the collapse of complex systems. While speaking more to the domain of media, Shirky’s reference to Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies might also have relevance in this context.

When ecosystems change and inflexible institutions collapse, members disperse, abandoning old beliefs, trying new things, making their living in different ways than they used to. It’s easy to see the ways in which collapse to simplicity wrecks the glories of old. But there is one compensating advantage for the people who escape the old system: when the ecosystem stops rewarding complexity, it is the people who figure out how to work simply in the present, rather than the people who mastered the complexities of the past, who get to say what happens in the future.

Whether innovation activity moves more fruitfully to a cafe in Kansas City or a company in Katmandu, there seems to be a trend of its moving from a context of complexity to one of self-organizing simplicity. The influences on organizations seeking creation and innovation may be emerging in these alternative places and spaces.

Scenius and workspace genius

March 3, 2010

Design strategy, workplace design

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Last summer in Sydney, Brian Eno, the English musician, curated “Luminous,” a festival of music, ideas, light and performance. As its finale, he and associated musicians performed an almost day-long improvisational suite called “Pure Scenius.” One reviewer, the blogger indolentdandy described the settling like this:

The stage design was fascinating. From the audience’s perspective, Eno and his assistant were on the left sitting on office chairs behind desks with laptops and devices. Towards the centre at the front was Karl Hyde with laptops, a keyboard and devices. Behind them were The Necks: pianist Chris Abrahams, drummer Tony Buck and bass player Lloyd Swanton.

In front on the right was a lounge area (above) and next to it was a cafe tables with electric kettle, tea and milk clearly visible. Behind this were Jon Hopkins on piano and devices and Leo Abrahams playing a chocolate coloured Gibson SG through a MacBook Pro.

When not contributing to a song, musicians would wander over, make a cup of tea and sit and watch. The ensemble also grouped there in the intervals rather than going to a dressing room backstage…

It was amazing to watch Eno implementing his famous oblique strategies live – brief notes written and shared (using a webcam at his desk I think that displayed his notes on the laptop screens of the ensemble) for the band to respond to. Notes included (as best as I can remember them) ‘quiet and warm like blood’, ‘approach the extremes of pitch’ and ‘introduce hot and cold’.

In place at Pure Scenius, via indolentdandy

The setting is interesting in the embodiment of “scenius,” a concept of place-based collective creation. Kevin Kelly describes scenius as “like a genius, only embedded in a scene rather than in genes.” He says that Brian Eno “suggested the word to convey the extreme creativity that groups, places or scenes can occasionally generate. His actual definition is ‘Scenius stands for the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius.’”

The concept has resonated in a significantly large and diverse body of theory and practice. This idea that the design of place can play a significant role in the formation, development and nurturing of communal genius and organizational knowledge development has been tested by political action groups, social movements, and creative groups, and its influence observed in serendipitous innovators and others. The concept moves in terms like “epicenters,” “third places,” “third neighborhoods,” “combined interactive intelligence,” “collective inspiration,” “social scene,” “community genius,” and Eno’s own references to “fertile scenes,” the “ecology of ideas,” and “an ecology of talent.”

A corporate profile

I got caught by the concept because of the very wide acceptance of the importance of place in creative collaboration, yet the resistance to the concept in the corporate domain by many who are nonetheless seeking ways to transform cultures and become more innovative, whether to contribute to or benefit from the achievement of a different sense of community.

In our work we have been called upon to develop, design or implement corporate facilities programs using newly developed “standards” or “guidelines” to transform a specific space or a portfolio of places to support, augment, or initiate other organizational change initiatives. These usually arise out of a finance function, most typically corporate real estate. Success is measured in terms of place and space (square feet per person, e.g.) and finally in terms of finance (cost reduction).

In best practice, the change initiative is cloaked in terms of cultural, operational or organizational change like “innovation” or “collaboration.” In many of these cases, the form language of the change is in “open” offices and smaller work stations, and measured, in the end, by the financial and real estate metrics of people per seat, square feet per person, and dollars per square foot, rather than operational, social, cultural or impact measures.

Among the key emerging tools used in these programs is a body of data collected in various direct and indirect ways. Depending on the tool used, the data can provide analysis and insight on a spectrum of occupancy metrics– whether a space is occupied, for how long it’s occupied, who is there, etc. I many cases the concluding analysis is, in effect, “look at how little of this real estate is used in the course of a day,” leading to a program to cut space by 40% or more. In the best cases, there is additional information and observation to advise on the efficacy of a space for its purpose or to illuminate why it is that certain places are chosen for certain types of work and why they might work so well.

The very real caution to take in programs like this is to understand that the subject of the study is the space, and not the people using the space nor the intention of the space. Poorly designed or inappropriate space will show low occupancy and will be cut from the program and portfolio. The question of what space would be better for people and purpose is not asked, and so is not planned, designed and implemented. The program then delivers space that potentially leads to the next round of observations that make the proof for yet another space reduction, and a disengaged staff and reduced organizational performance, while yet showing great financial performance.

Places where people want to be

So back to “scenius.” The concept that Eno outlines, the idea that the configuration or design of place and space is a significant and important component of creativity and innovation has been bubbling for a while.

Ray Oldenberg may have started this growing awareness of place-based creation and innovation with his book, The Great Good Place. It may have been Oldenberg who coined the term “third places” to describe the settings in the urban environment that nurture a sense of community and belonging. They are places that are informal, voluntary, and without the marks of status.

Stowe Boyd over at /message picks up the theme and talks of “third neighborhoods.” Boyd is something of an expert in what he calls “social architecture.” He speaks of the importance of social tools and settings for both startups and well established large organizations. He believes that “we are seeing a rethinking of work, collaboration and the role of management.” Scenius for him is what the calls “social scene” where “every aspect of our identity and psychology is shaped.”

The theme also resonates with Alex Steffen, editor of Worldchanging – A User’s Guide for the 21st Century. In his blog, Steffen suggests that the “art of courting genius” is an essential capability of those attempting to innovate and develop solutions to big problems. He points out that genius does not arrive on cue, but instead in “unruly clumps, in great non-linear spurts of changed thinking.” Without the right places and spaces, you’ll miss what you had hoped to achieve. Instead, you must “create a welcoming place for [genius] and increase the likelihood that it will show up.” Steffen uses the term “epicenters” to embrace the concept of scenius, places with the right ingredients to “set the conditions for a planetary explosion of new thinking.”

Design principles

Kelly’s reflection on scenius suggests that it is a concept achievable at many scales that allow this eruption of creativity to take place almost anywhere. He offers a succinct checklist for establishing the “geography of scenius” that includes conditions of mutual appreciation, the rapid exchange of tools and techniques, the network effects of success, and local tolerance for novelties.

We’ll reflect in a later post on some more specific guidelines for achieving the potential for scenius. In the meantime, the setting of the improvisational performance we quoted in the top of this post offers a pretty good guide in its informality, ease, casual hospitality, elimination of the affects of stardom, various settings for participants, and multiple forms of spontaneous communication. The impact on the audience was huge, calling for multiple encores after hours of performance.

Most interesting was the impact on the performers themselves. Karl Hyde, one of Eno’s collaborators said, “It was extraordinary! We all came off stage thinking, ‘I’ve never been with a group of people that were so open-minded, generous and ego-less.’”

Positive ideas for the world from Detroit – TEDxDetroit revisited briefly

October 28, 2009

Design strategy, Detroit, Strategy design, urban

Shop class and individual agency – disaffection and motivation

October 14, 2009

Strategy design

1 Comment

photo by Marvin Shaouni

I was in Detroit last night and had the opportunity to go to Matt Crawford‘s lecture at the College for Creative Studies. Matt is the author of Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work which has received a lot of recent attention.

By the time he was halfway into his theme, I was feeling a certain unease. His talk felt out of place, perhaps unsympathetic, and maybe even destructive on a campus of creative artistic and craft endeavor and in a community with a collapse of labor.

Although aware of Crawford and his thesis, I went expecting a connection between his appreciation of hand work and the craft basis for the local industry, the evolution of CCS’s mission, and the interests of its students. Matt, however, made no such connection. He presented, in effect, a restatement of his New York Times essay and, although denying he was the voice of a “movement,” he nonetheless repeated his uncomfortable segmentation of the white collar world and critical contempt for the paradigms of modern managerial practice. His presentation of the apparent nobility of “individual agency” and its qualities opposed to the experiences of mindlessness in corporations seems very much like a manifesto, and very faulted in the selective comparison.

Matt, although clearly capable of invention (he has a PhD in political science from the University of Chicago and holds a position as a fellow in the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia), seems to instead feel more comfortable in the domain of the disaffected. His first job after graduating was on K Street, in effect rephrasing the works and authorship of others and accepting rather than changing an inappropriate production-minded management at a think tank. Now, of course, he revels in his motorcycle repair shop, again withdrawn from a position of influence in innovation and engineering, and exploiting the fruits of others’ invention and cloaking it in apparent humble nobility.

The reason this felt so odd was, of course, his lack of recognition of the role that entitlement and opposition has played in the economy of the region where he spoke, and in its stark contrast with the transformational work of efforts such as the New Economy Initiative for Southeastern Michigan. Funded by the Kauffman Foundation, the initiative seeks to start-up more than 400 new businesses in the next three years and, in the process, transform the local capabilities and capacity from the diminished scope of the auto industry into innovations in newer industries such as aerospace, defense and alternative energies.

The goal of the initiative is to “accelerate the transition of metro Detroit to an innovation-based economy that expands opportunity for all.”

The initiative will sponsor and support activities in three strategic areas: talent, innovation and culture change. Working with other partners in the region and in the state, the initiative will work to:
1. Prepare, attract and retain skilled workers in southeast Michigan (Talent)
2. Encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in new and existing enterprises in the region (Innovation)
3. Change the region’s culture to embrace learning, work and innovation (Culture Change)

While Matt celebrates the nobility of working with your hands, the initiative seems a more effective voice and tool for converting that talent to the greater benefit of others. I have the expectation that the people engaged in these emerging enterprises will be the authors, as well, of a new way of working, engaging the talent they employ and amplifying the achievements and benefits of their work.

The superior power of approximation

March 22, 2009

Design strategy, Strategy design

1 Comment

I’ve been interested, tangentially, for a while with the rapidly developing discipline of data visualization. I think my interest has been piqued mostly by the cleverness and beauty of the graphics that are generated to express what matters in a mountain of data.

There are so many variants on the form, and more developing daily. I have seen samples that are just great graphics in the Edward Tufte discipline, great interactive and interactively dynamic models, data-based furniture, and even architecture. All of them provide enough fascination to not only get interested in what is represented, but also to dig into the discipline and to become immersed in the art.

As my interest increased, I also realized that I was beginning to learn new things. And as I reviewed these graphic representations, I began to inform my own business discipline, motivate my own actions, and use data forms more in my work with my clients.

But what was most interesting was the feeling my own actions and those of my clients accelerating as a result of the visualizations. That is, the representation of an idea, with the implications of data behind it, engaged discussion, built confidence, and moved action. Once again, the visualization was the motivator, not the data behind it. Sorry, one more time—the visual representation of data, even in the absence of specific data, was a powerful motivator of action in cases where conventional data representations, or no data, clogged the flow of decisions and action before.

I do not mean to imply in this a lack of discipline, a misrepresentation, a telling of untruths, disrespect for data, or lack of professionalism. Every time I approach a subject with a diagrammatic representation of “data,” I am doing it with care, transparency, and a deep interest in the intelligence that provides the insight that generates innovation.

But I am finding that, perhaps in the “Blink” sense, I know enough data to represent it without a table, spreadsheet or database behind it. I find that my clients are apparently seeking a way to see things in a different light, and a clever visually approximate representation of data that we mutually sense and understand is what is valuable to them.

In most cases, the visual representation of an approximation of relative values is the device that moves the team to action. In one recent meeting over very critical market strategy, I saw staff members feverishly paging through data binders while their leadership, discussing very simple diagrams I had prepared based on assumptions, were making decisions and selecting options to take to their board.

It appears that the most important thing in these tough times is to overcome inertia and to get moving. Once in motion, we can all correct our path by further investigation and analysis. Less may be more now, and an approximate visualization of an idea can inform strategy in the most powerful ways.

Postscript 3/22/9: a couple of related ideas?

To dig each other out of the current economic morass, a fundamental integration of the arts and business worlds is urgently needed.

We select the kind of news and opinions that we care most about.

—archizoo

The blog of MEREDITH Strategy & Design

Archive

Tag Archives: innovation

How place makes space for employee-generated innovation

The latest workplace design trends

Redefining trends

Transform, and activate

Touch down, and touch base

Envision, and transform

M-Shaped Strategies – A process inversion

A recommendation

Dangerous and seductive curves

Linknotes April 16, 2010

Scenius and workspace genius

A corporate profile

Places where people want to be

Design principles

Positive ideas for the world from Detroit – TEDxDetroit revisited briefly

Shop class and individual agency – disaffection and motivation

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Redefining trends

Transform, and activate

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M-Shaped Strategies – A process inversion

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A corporate profile

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