Fresh Takes on Innovation

For the start of 2009, here is an organisation that is truly inspiring and important: All Day Buffet is an incubator for social innovation. They connect, develop and launch purpose-driven ventures. Last October they organised “The Feast”, a conference for social innovators. They also do a lot of work in New Orleans, which will become the Capital for Social Innovation thanks to the fact that after Hurricane Katrina everything had to be built there from scratch, and a lot of people took this as a wake-up-call to reinvent how things can be done. The next Feast conference, is, infact, taking place in New Orleans on February 6, 2009, so hurry there if you are a purpose driven entrepreneur or just interested in seeing exciting projects that deal with social innovation.

The hamster wheel powers the paper shredder on top of the cage. This way the hamster creates his own shredded paper in his cage.

Source:tomballhatchet.com

The current economic situation is probably bringing a completely new approach concerning innovation in the future. As a historian, you may postulate that systems normally innovate when facing crisis. Times, when a fast development into a certain direction is seen as the only possibility to survive, normally bring fast and ground-breaking ideas - which in fact are highly depending on luck and the right decision under pressure.

It is said that one should never change a working system. Using the very same working system for a longer time brings additional fear of failure and a conservative ethos. Closing eyes, ears and mind to anything new and risky may, speaking of the worst possible case, cause complete “idea-blindness”. Because a system never works ceteris paribus, a complete blockade of the system in a constantly changing environment is unavoidable - unless the change is not forced from in- or outside (looking at Europe: this mechanism, indeed, made the triumph of concepts like democracy and liberalism possible!).

Speaking of economics, the free market normally makes innovation happen. Enterprises survive by adapting fast to market situations, which makes them way more flexible. If the framework stays the same or develops in a predictable way, innovation may be looked at as a relatively slow but constant process.

The current unbillable situation of the world economy has to be looked at as a chance as well. An emphasis on new ways and possibilities in innovation will give companies and hopefully even nations the possibility to establish procedures, which allow fast reactions but also long-term innovations. In times of globally linked economies, innovation culture and capacity has to be looked at on a bigger scale - the output of companies and societies on global markets is not only defined by the production of goods and services, but also by the production of - yes - ideas.

Here at BrainStore we believe that good ideas are created in unusual surroundings. During our workshops we try to encourage this by enabling our clients to step out of their everyday life and try something new. However, if you aren’t exactly looking for a particular inspiration and aren’t in current need of ideas or solutions, you might still be in search for some everyday surprises. This can be done quite easily. Why don’t you try one of the following suggestions?

1. Swop to the other side of your bed. Believe me, you and your partner will be surprised how interesting it is to wake up on the “wrong” side of the bed. It’s going to make your day!

2. Change the order of your kitchen drawers once a month you. It will take you a while to get used to the new setting. Once you start grabbing the saucepan automatically again it is time for a new arrangement!

3. Use a different deodorant. You will be reminded of the change of routine about a hundred times a day. This helps your brain setting up new neurological “highways”…

4. Change the setting of your living room furniture. A bit like the suggestions above, it includes a physical workout at the same time – never bad, always inspiring and above all, lots of fun!

5. Go flying, climbing, diving, bungee jumping… For the more courageous among you it can be extremely inspiring to try something completely new – such as a tandem paragliding jump, rock climbing, diving, a bungee jump – whatever you always wanted to do and never dared. DO IT NOW. I cannot explain the inspiring potential of my first flight and the adrenalin when I was a few hundred feet above the ground for the first time, all by myself… Tempted? Look here: http://www.chilloutparagliding.com/

General rule: Once you discover routine in your everyday life – CHANGE IT!

All here at BrainStore would just like to express their elation, happiness and satisfaction with the outcome of the election in the United States. We wish the new President a good transition and first term. Sure, there is a lot of work coming, but for someone who showed so much perseverance and patience during a long and tiring election, nothing is impossible!

And if he or his administration ever are in need of fresh ideas: We can help!

Here is another proof of how small things can make a big difference in our everyday lives: Efrat Gommeh, an industrial designer from Israel, has created such innovative tableware that one is tempted to go shopping for Christmas gifts early this year. To give you an idea of her work, here are two examples of her unpretentious and beautiful collection.

The Lock Cup: imagine a morning in your office without a missing coffee cup… The cup can only be used if the key is in the lock, otherwise it leaks.

 And here comes my personal favorite, The Info Tray:

Love it or leave it, the tray is a helpful accessory when you are suddenly overwhelmed by great ideas and need to brainstorm in the most unexpected moments.

Btw, according to Gommeh’s self-definition you might assume she’s worked at BrainStore before: «The studio is characterized by an innovative and fresh approach, attention to details and a broad perspective which incorporates the point of view of the user, the manufacturing limitations and marketing considerations».

If knowledge is power, personal newsfeeds are your weapons. A newsfeed customized to your information needs allows for professional news monitoring and information retrieval like previously only news services and professional communication agencies could.
If for instance you wished to be constantly informed about your clients, suppliers and competitors, then an aggregated newsfeed could be an interesting solution for you.

In the following example I’ve combined selected data sources to process them with different methods. Eventually the outcome is a helpful aggregated idea-feed.

This is comparable with the concept of a search engine: finding what one is looking for via queries from any number of sources. So instead of constantly dealing with complicated Google scanning on a certain subject, you can continually inform yourself of a predefined field.

In this aggregated newsfeed example, articles of selected sources on the subjects of trends, ideas, innovation and future are displayed on a daily basis. For instance, you can subscribe to the Yahoo! Pipes aggregated feed as badge for iGoogle or Netvibes.

Have you already heard about shnit? It’s the famous Swiss short film festival. This year, shnit came up with its 6th edition with a firework of short films, covering reams of topics and genres. I had the honour to present a special prize at the shnit Awards Night 2008.

BrainStore’s special prize was an IdeaPackage, worth 30′000 Swiss francs. The winner is Lisa Blatter with her short-film «Nachglühen» (Afterglow) which was chosen to be the best Swiss production in 2008.

Already busy with a new project, she couldn’t appear in person, but was completely overwhelmed when she received the message that her film was chosen. Being asked how she feels and what she is going to do with the prize she answered:

«I’m an observer of beautiful, sad, funny or just spontaneous moments. A collector. But still on search for a story to keep my protagonists grounded. They are still roaming. Together with BrainStore, I’d like to get an impulse for my next major film project.»

BrainStore will help Lisa starting up her next big project. Together we will develop 10 great ideas in a half-day workshop with 12 participants. Cut!

Once again, the versatility of our mobile IdeaFactory was put to the test. After Kuala Lumpur, Düsseldorf and Addis Abeba, its latest mission was Hamburg. Once again, we left Biel to make the seemingly impossible possible.

We captured the Cap San Diego, the largest sea-worthy museum freight ship worldwide, and renamed it without further ado BrainShip. The pop-up feature being part of our mobile IdeaFactory, this proved to be the only right name for the ship.

During two days, we produced ideas for OTTO, the largest mail order business worldwide.

The ship has never seen anything like that before: smoking heads, animated discussions and OTTO’s decision makers racing against teenagers – what a sight!

After these two successful days aboard the Cap San Diego, we’re already planning the next step, the BrainPlane: idea production in the Airbus A 380.

Markus, Lena and I just spent an exciting week in Moscow, where we met with several big and medium-sized players from mining to micro technology in order to promote the notion of BrainStore and our IdeaProduction method. With a very positive feedback from the audience, Markus and I headed back West to Switzerland while Lena stayed in Moscow to lead our negotiations for several projects in Russia.

What a vibrant and high-contrast metropolis! Russian upper class Babushkas blending in with construction workers in the majestic subway stations of the cramped Muscovite Metro and ad-hoc Rolls Royce displays announcing luxury goods right next to historic socialist buildings.

And us, running through this urban jungle from meeting to meeting, dazzled by the blatant controversies and thrilled by the frenzy of Muscovite business customs… Spassiba Rodina!

Biel, Frankfurt, Long Beach… next stop Moscow!