From the category archives:

On Ideas

Design story: The Decanter from Landor Associates on Vimeo. My friends over at DOXA turned me onto this video. I am struck my a number of things in it: 1. There is nothing new under the sun. “At the moment of truth at the store” was spoken by Walter Landor in the film some 50 years [...]

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Just read: Scott Belsky’s Making Ideas Happen

April 12, 2010Books to Read

I met Scott Belsky last fall at a conference and then spent a little time with him in NYC recently. He was kind enough to send me an advance copy of his new book, Making Ideas Happen. I have not had a book lay my soul bare like this one did in a long, long [...]

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Now What?

March 5, 2010Lists

Been thinking about what to write next and have too many ideas, so I’ll just put them all out here, and see if anyone is reading and cares: 1. The Seven Brand Archetypes 2. How Ideas Take Shape 3. Communication Architecture (con’t) 4. The Top 10 Book & Thinkers on Ideas (IMHO) 5. Deconstruction (con’t) [...]

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Sifting my Dunbar number out of siloed data

February 22, 2010On Ideas

You’ve probably heard more than you care to about the Dunbar number – the idea in sociology that you cannot maintain more than 150 real friendships. I began to wonder about myself. How many people do I really contact in a given period of time – say a month? This started me on revealing a [...]

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If you are not willing to be bad at something, you’ll never learn how to be good.

February 16, 2010On Ideas

Image via CrunchBase Most of the people moaning about Google Buzz have not actually created a product of their own and put it out there. Five thoughts… 1) It was smart for Google to get into the space. 2) It was smart for them to integrate it into an existing platform. 3) It will be [...]

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Deconstruction instead of brainstorming

Thumbnail image for Deconstruction instead of brainstorming February 11, 2010On Ideas

Brainstorming is taught as the primary tool for creative thinking. The problem is it doesn’t work. Don’t get me wrong. There are some who do it well. IDEO is legendary for their ability to brainstorm. They have rules painted on the walls. Everyone learns them. It works for them. They are the exception, not the [...]

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Where Kevin Rose’s idea for Digg was born

February 10, 2010On Ideas

via img214.imageshack.us Just saw this on Bryson Moore’s blog, and think it is a great photo for a three reasons: 1. It shows the power of thinking visually. 2. It shows how to get ideas down on paper. 3. It shows that tools you love help facilitate #1 and #2. I don’t know Kevin, and [...]

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Sawhorse Media

Thumbnail image for Sawhorse Media January 29, 2010On Ideas

One of the “Professional Digital Curators” pointed out by @SteveRubel. As content continues to proliferate, we are going to need people (that we trust) sorting and sifting through all of this content and bringing forward the best of the best. There are semantic engines working on this (kosmix.com), and a great topical social network (dorthy.com [...]

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