Our giving in 2008 was in support of two organizations. Locally, we gave to Coastside Hope

the “primary provider of safety net services,” providing a “monthly food harvest, emergency shelter and rental assistance services, crisis intervention and referral services, clothing vouchers, Christmas Adopt-a-Family program, [and] citizenship services.”)

We also gave to the American Cancer Society, acknowledging a loss in our firm’s extended family.

Previously: Portigal Consulting Philanthropy, 2007

• Dean Kamen: Be A Genius and Get It Wrong – This Esquire profile of Dean Kamen nicely supports with what I wrote in a previous interactions column (Some Different Approaches To Making Stuff).
  "A process that usually begins with Kamen fixating on a pressing human need and following his nose with little regard for precedent or practicality. One day he saw a man in a wheelchair struggling to get over a sidewalk curb. Instead of trying to build a better wheelchair, he asked himself what that man really needed. To be able to go up stairs, to cross rough terrain, to rise up and look normal people in the eye. [The solution:] Wheels that could spin back and forth so precisely and so fast, you could balance on just two of them.
  He made the iBOT come true. It's an amazing accomplishment, but the practical issues still dog him — at $26,100, it costs way too much for most wheelchair users. Same with the Segway, which he put $50 million of his own money into before giving any serious thought to the problem of selling it."

At the dawn of the new year, Business Week’s Bruce Nussbaum announced that Innovation was dead and that Transformation is the new buzzword. I can’t help but think of a classic Wayne’s World sketch, where Bruce Willis plays Rick, the cool kid at school.

Wayne: Excellent! Excellent! Well, if you don't mean my being so bold, Rick, are you ready to unveil the new cool word for the school year? [ to camera ] I should explain something, alright? Last year, Rick's new cool word was “pail”, or “bucket”.. as in, “So what did you think of the new substitute teacher?” “I think he's 'pail', he's 'bucket'!” And, Rick? Rick, this year the new cool word is..? Go, Garth, go!

[ Garth pounds on the couch as though it were a drum]

Rick: The word is.. [ thinking ] ..Sphincter.

Wayne: Excellent!

Garth: Wow, that's the greatest word I've ever heard in my life, Rick! How do you do that?

Rick: They appear to me, as if in a dream.

Wayne: Unnecessary Zoom!

• Wired on the big big money being made selling virtual items in online games – With about 30 workers on staff, Liu was able to keep a gold-farming setup running around the clock. While the night shift slept upstairs on plywood bunks, day-shift workers sat in the hot, dimly lit workshop, each tending three or four computers. They were "playing" World of Warcraft, farming gold at an impressive clip by hunting and looting monsters, their productivity greatly abetted by automated bots that allowed them to handle multiple characters with little effort. They worked 84-hour weeks, got a couple of days off per month, and earned about $4 a day, which even for China was not a stellar wage.
• Wired on Ray Ozzie and cultural change at MSFT: At first, the skunk works-like nature of Ozzie's operation engendered suspicion and resentment – Previously, a big part of any development team at Microsoft was making sure its new product worked in lockstep with everything else the company produced. While that approach avoided annoying conflicts, it also tended to smother innovation. "This philosophy of independent innovation…is something Ray pushed very strongly," Ozzie's approach was to encourage people to rush ahead and build things. Then he'd have a team of what he calls the spacklers fill in the gaps and get things ready for release.
  He spent a lot of time on the physical workspace for his team. He had workers rip down the labyrinthine corridors on one floor and called in architects to create a more open design. Now, walking into the Windows Live Core group is like leaving Microsoft and visiting a Futurama set. Office windows open onto hallways so that quick eye contact can trigger spontaneous discussions. Whiteboards are everywhere. Pool tables, mini-lounges, and snack zones draw people toward the center of the space.

• Toilet seat covers, upgraded – Dora Cardenas, Toletta's cofounder and VP of communications, explains: “The product concept came to me and my husband while we were trying to find small travel packs of disposable paper toilet seat covers to use ourselves. Not only was I shocked to learn that travel packs are hard to find, but the products we did find didn’t have any ounce of style or quality tissues. All the products we found looked and felt like something you would find in a camping supply store—not exactly something retail stores and supermarkets would be proud to carry on their shelves.”
• TOLETTA – Because you never know – TOLETTA is the world's first premium brand of paper toilet seat covers. From the funky music to the edgy and stylish packaging, it's easy to see that we're not your ordinary toilet seat covers. Not only do our products look great, the premium tissue helps women feel better about using public washrooms. So for all you señoras, señoritas, and diva fashionistas, you'll never have to settle for those cheap and flimsy paper toilet seat covers again.
• John Maeda's mini-manifesto in Esquire – I don't convulse with joy every time Maeda utters something, but I did enjoy this brief piece (despite his use of "the consumer"):

  "Technology is outpacing our ability to use it. And it's the job of designers to restore balance to this equation. Technological advances have always been driven more by a mind-set of "I can" than "I should," and never more so than today. Technologists love to cram maximum functionality into their products. That's "I can" thinking, which is driven by peer competition and market forces. (It's easier to sell a device with ten features than one.) But this approach ignores the far more important question of how the consumer will actually use the device."

• Nussbaum says "Innovation" is dead but "Transformation" is the new black – The conflation between talking about ideas and discussing their labels is kinda frightening. Glad to see someone cited my latest interactions articles about the power of words to clarify our interactions.
• Dan Pallotta, author of Uncharitable, on KQED Forum – What I heard was very exciting; Pallotta considers the unquestioned framework (and its history) around how charities operate and challenges these principles. He's extremely knowledgeable, thoughtful, and passionate. This was one of the best discussions of innovation – and its barriers – that I've heard in a long time.
• Katherine Bennett explores design research methods and find the journey is at least part of the reward – "I'm two-thirds through with my MSID in design research at Art Center, and I feel the need to take stock of where I am. I've been teaching design research to product design students at Art Center since 1991, but since my journey down the path of getting this additional degree I have been traveling over some interesting ground."
• I only started a blog because steve portigal told me to – "My name is Bria and I am a designer." Nice to see my writing having impact

Stephen Anderson’s musings on collaboration and attribution reminded me that a project we worked on for BIC has gone live:

From Business Week

[BIC is] designing disposable cartridges for fuel cells, a kind of power supply that could someday eliminate the need to constantly recharge mobile phones or laptop computers. Electronics makers are drawn to fuel cells because today’s rechargeable batteries can’t keep up with the demands users place on portable gadgets.
…
Bic’s big adventure with fuel cells began in 2002. Ken Cooper, the company’s U.S.-based director of strategic business development, was in a New Haven (Conn.) drugstore and spotted a cordless travel hair dryer with a tiny motor that ran on butane. This got Cooper thinking about fuel cells for handheld gadgets-a hot topic in consumer electronics circles. Few companies in the world package as much fuel every day as Bic does in its butane lighters, he reasoned. So Cooper decided Bic should take a gamble and develop fuel-cell cartridges that are “lighter-like, pocketable, yet safe.”

I know Ken worked with a series of small consultancies over that period. From our workshop, I remember strongly that fuel cells

were a key takeway. But was that concept extant before the workshop, or did we generate it? I honestly can’t remember, and ultimately, (as Stephen addresses) it’s not a worthwhile pursuit to frame it that way. In most of our engagements we are trying to inform and inspire talented business people to develop and refine ideas and move them further along, and seeing this story in BusinessWeek 6 years later confirms that indeed we did.

Inspired by my interactions column Hold Your Horses

, I was interviewed for a Lunar Design podcast.

How do speed, creativity and innovation intertwine in the design process? In this Connections episode, Gretchen Anderson and Lisa Leckie talk with Steve Portigal of Portigal Consulting about getting results through design research.

Listen to podcast:

Every drummer knows, it’s hard to find a place to practice.

Drummer, Highway 9, Santa Cruz mountains

So when I drove by this guy rocking out on the side of the road, I thought, “yes, that makes so much sense.” Plenty of space, no neighbors around to get pissed off at you.

So how come the roadsides aren’t dotted with drummers?

Even though it’s a great solution, it takes a certain degree of chutzpah to go drum in the woods.

Lots of seemingly innovative ideas never take hold. Some of these concepts may be asking customers to “drum in the woods”– to behave in ways that might stick out, feel weird, or refute what they’re comfortable with.

Nicolas Nova further explores why ideas do and don’t take hold in his visually rich Inflated/Deflated Futures presentation.

Related posts:
Minding Manners
Open Carry

I signed up for a webinar but was unable to attend. But I got a copy of the presentation, and although I’m sure it made a lot more sense when the presenter was explaining it, I had to laugh at this screen

The source is Productscan

, so one can assume it has something to do with the success of new product introductions. But a product launch and an idea are not the same, are they? And how are they using innovative vs. not-so-innovative? And what’s the vertical axis, exactly?

Coca-Cola is running a three-page ad in the Sunday paper.

As part of our ongoing commitment to finding new ways to suit your changing tastes and needs, we’re always working to develop innovative options. We’d like to say thanks for the inspiration. And please stay tuned, because it’s just a taste of things to come. To learn more about our latest innovations….

image adjusted to fit your screen

I noticed the use of innovation twice in their copy and as much as I like to throw the word around, I’m often troubled when I see how it’s being used by others. I think most of us find new brands or new products or new packages interesting (granted, some of us more than others!), but the small can (for example) isn’t new.

Mini cans of Pepsi, Burlington, ON, 2004

The ad also reminded me of an image from 2005, showing just the diet beverages sold by Pepsi.

That’s a lot of choice! But good luck trying get a handle on how many different things Coke sells. It’s impressive and overwhelming. Their huge list of brands (worldwide) is here and a virtual, global vending machine is here.

Meanwhile, Oroweat is doing their small-packaging bit with new smaller bags of bread.

I wondered what has changed that necessitates this new package? Are breadboxes getting smaller? According to their site

, the smaller bread package came out at the beginning of 2007 (emphases mine)

New Smaller Loaves Fit with Industry Trend of Reduced Size Options

The unique line of mini-sized variety breads are perfect for smaller households or families that like to buy several different varieties of bread. Although the loaves are smaller in size, they deliver the flavor and quality known from Oroweat.

“We all like the freshest bread and many consumers have told us they cannot finish a full size loaf of bread before its expiration date. Oroweat Mini Loaves are the perfect solution for smaller households that typically toss away a portion of a loaf of bread,” said Dan Larson, Oroweat Marketing Director. “Mini Loaves also make it easier to enjoy a variety of breads for different occasions; including 100% Whole Wheat with whole grain nutrition, and Country Buttermilk, a favorite for the perfect grilled cheese sandwich! Now you can have both. This is one more example of Oroweat’s innovative thinking to offer new options that are important to our consumers.”

With the average number of people per household just over two in the United Sates, smaller size offerings are gaining attention in the food industry. Keeping an eye on trends and listening to consumers, Oroweat is one of the first bread companies to introduce smaller loaves. Last year, Oroweat successfully introduced premium buns in four-count packages.

Oroweat confirms it, then. Small packaging is innovative thinking.