innovation playground Idris Mootee

Apple iPad Is More Than A Tablet, It Is A Window To New Behavior That Has Yet To Fully Emerge. And I Want A New MacBook Pro With A New Design Before The Summer.

Microsoft and Apple are both great companies for different reasons and operate under very different philosophies. The interesting thing is as Apple grows bigger and bigger, will it begin to behave like other large mature organizations such as Microsoft or IBM? Ever since Apple market cap surpassed Microsoft, it signified an indicator that the investment community was sending a message to the industries..

But Microsoft is still a much bigger company from both topline and bottom as well as other measure. What it means, now Apple is given the currency and blessing to go out and play the next game. Who’s the next big target? I don’t think is Microsoft, I don’t even think Apple sees Microsoft as competition. They are onto the next game.

I have three companies in mind that I think Apple will be out there trying to push out. Apple was set out not to beat Microsoft, but IBM. Are they still on that mission? Apple is still a fraction of IBM’s. Both companies have significant customers lock-in for different reasons and both are tied into the fabric of our economy. Let’s face it, the primary reason for Apple's stellar growth and valuation was due to their track record of repeatedly innovating and creating new products while at the same time maintaining a long-range vision – most companies do one at the expense of the other.

Apple's advantage is that it has a good view of the end game and driven by strategic foresight – not by today’s balance sheet and they can afford to be strategic. The iPad is not important not as a tablet, there are enough tablets out there. It is the first member of a growing family of 21st century computing appliances from Apple that co-creating a new behavior. Much like the first generation iPod. I think there will be a wave of innovation from the industry as people realize this is not just another computing device to fit between a phone and a computer. Many still don’t get it when I talked to people in CES. Tablets are dead, iPad is an appliance.

I am looking forward to the next gen MacBook Pro and I hope we will see something in 3 months. For sure it will be thinner, Light Peak will replace firewire, and the DVD drive will disappear (it should) and equipped with solid state drive. he next update to its MacBook line to make way for Intel's Sandy Bridge processors. There is 90% chance that Sandy Bridge processors will be used on the 13” MacBooks Pro, it is the first to feature a graphics chip grafted atop a processor. I hope they provide a choice of different colors (unlikely) such as silver, white and black. I will take black. I don’t think they will upgrade the 15’ and 17” until later in the year. I don’t think MacAir will survive long when the MacBookPro gets thinner. It is too pricey.

I am interested to see when the revenue stream from the iPad will eventually overtake the Mac's -- much as the iPhone did a few years ago and the iPod did before that. MacBook will eventually become just be a small business unit of Apple.

We Have Proved Once Again That Brand Marketing Can Drive Social Change, Further Customer Engagment And Build Brands. And Won A Gold Award For Best Financial Service Marketing.

Aviva Canada just announced winners to Aviva Community Fund with half a million dollars payout to programs across the country. This is the second year of a very successful campaign created to use brand to drive social change. The Aviva Community Fund, a unique competition designed to lead, empower and support positive change in communities across the country, was first launched in 09 when we presented the idea to the client.

The idea is an open source idea platform for people to submit and decide how to use the money to drive real social change and provide positive impact to their communities. We are grateful to our client's team who worked with us side by side and our design and development team working day and night to accommodate the evolving needs of the program. This is year two and we won a gold award for this campaign. Great work team!

The sustainable impact of the idea or campaign is another proof to show that the world has changed so much since the early days of advertising. The events of the last decade and the Internet has made us aware of the challenges around us.

Advertising has always been the primary mechanism to create awareness and build brand equity, but it is not a question of which 50% of the money is wasted, it is a question of why 80% of the money spent is not building brand equity and merely creating awarness?

Our research shows that 79% of consumers are willing to change the brands they buy or if they believe their actions contribute to making our world a better place, and over 67% would help a brand “promote” (by using Facebook or other social media) if a good cause were behind it and is credible. Also, 73% of consumers (under the age of 35) said it is their mission to contribute to a better society and environment.

Among all respondents, “helping others and contributing to their communities” was cited as the second-most important source of personal contentment, after “spending quality time with loved ones.” Over 54% respondents are not fully convinced that corporate social responsibility advertising is credible when they cannot associate that with real action. The power of PR is diminishing when the program is not designed to engage consumers. This study was part of our ongoing research to look at how social causes can help brands which are low involvement in nature to drive engagement.

One interesting take away point, 67% of consumers are comfortable with the idea that brands can support good causes and improve our societies and make money at the same time. When is Wall Street ready to factor in a second or third bottom line into their valuation of companies? It is time.

Art Is Like Viagra For Science. Art And Science Complement Each Other In All Forms Of Sense-Making. The Magic Formula For Innovation.

“If you’ve never been lost you’ll never end up getting anywhere new”. That was a great opening line when Dan Widen tried to sum up his observations on day one of the event. It was the first time I met him in person and I must say I really like him. Not only of his achievement but his personal style of reflections. Also met with his colleague John Jay, also a great guy and honestly I was a little surprised to see them at the event, a nice surprise. I was expecting to meet with only scientists, artists and policy makers.

The STEM to STEAM workshop was hosted by RISD and funded by the National Science Foundation, the idea is to bring together thought leaders to come together to develop strategies for enhancing STEM education through the integration of Art and Design thinking. "STEM to STEAM pedagogy integrates a broad range of learning methods and learning ecologies from the empirical studies in the science lab, constructive critique in the design studio and creative discoveries in informal learning settings," according to Dr. Pamela L. Jennings, Program Director, Computer and Information Science and Engineering, National Science Foundation. "Creativity and rigor are rewarded and STEM learning in formal and informal settings is transformed from 'we have to learn' to 'we want to learn'."

On my flight home, I was thinking, what is the difference between an artist and a scientist? Or the artistic process and scientific progress? This was the closing discussion we’re having on the second day of STEAM. It is never easy to have scientists and artists (I don’t know which group I belong to, I am a management scientist and an artist) sitting together to talk about the integration of art and science. There is no question that there were differences in opinions in terms of what’s the definition of an artist?

The commonalities seems to be that both requires extreme curiosity, certain expertise, experimentation and ability to deal with unknowns, and using various methods of inquiries etc. And the key differences the science progress requires validation and repeatability (other wise it is not a science experiment). On the other hand art can often be done as a one off. Art is more process oriented and science has more consideration for the outcome or goal-oriented (there are also a lot of science research that I don’t know what they’re trying to achieve). The process (may be process is not the right word) of art requires artists to deploy observational skill which allows them to see beyond the surface, recognize what the eye sees and interpreting them as they see it, and constantly experimenting with organizing colors, textures, patterns, shapes, space and form.

Artist is best in asking question and sometimes these questions seem to be irrelevant they are trying to make a point. And when art is applied in science, it is becoming part of the scientific process, it is a powerful subjective aid in enriching the objective world of scientific evidence. But when science is applied in art, suddenly it has become the “rapid prototyping of truth.” Instead of algebra equations and statistical charts or applying Multivariate Statistical Process Control when several related variables are of interest are collectively known, we can make a powerful piece of visual that brings all the data together added with a subjective richness to help viewers to see things otherwise they may not see. Art is like Viagra for science (or even for scientists) to help them to keep up with the crazy world out there.

Another interesting idea is for several decades, investigations into consciousness has always been a muddy area in the scientific community. Artists and designers have always believed that art can impact our phenomenological experience of the world - via our central nervous system - through artistic stimuli, which thrill, question and captivate, for centuries. The sensations from art, whether it comes from an art installation, a painting or a digital simulation can help us to experience the immediacy of the things happing (whether it is 50 years ago or now around us) and provide a truly phenomenological experience of our world. And thereby open a T1 connection into our consciousness.

I know a scientist/artist that uses her knowledge gained in biology to explore relationships between cellular form and function and she was showing people amazing visuals of how the double helix structure is telling us what makes us who we are – an example of science meets arts. When art infuses into science opens up possibilities for artists that have the scientific knowhow to use scientific knowledge to create works of art.

I must say I very much enjoyed the event and I had the opportunity to meet with lots of scientists and artists and a lot of great discussions about the value of crossing over. Art and science provide a complementary way of making sense of the every increasing complex challenge around us, it allows data to have emotion and help us to see (and sense) the past and future. A healthy dose of subjective enlightment can give scientific knowledge a richness and depth beyond that which our senses can perceive. They complement each other in sense-making which is really the comprehension of meanings, and projection of our future. And science cannot do it alone without art.

Powerful And Affordable Real Time Data Mining, Visualization And Interactions Are Powering Up A New Culture Act - And Enabling "Infovation".

Just landed in Rhode Island and spendin the next 2 days in Providence, long working sessions ahead, expect to some productive knowledge exchange. The topic will be around where arts meets science, design meets technology.

We talk about how information changes our life and how it affect the way we make decisions both as individual and as a team or society, I think we are still unaware of the true power of change information visualization can have and the impact when applied in an interactive and social mobile settings.

Imagine a scenario everytime a politician suggests an idea and you can see realtime information in simple graphics visual data to confirm his/her coment or when a company makes a statment you can see how other respond with an instant trust index? That's a very likely future, an idea which I am working on. Can't say more.

And I don’t mean just data visualization such as bar chart and 3D chart etc, primarily it is the study and application of the visual representation of quantitative data, meaning "information which has been abstracted in some schematic form, including attributes or variables for the units of information."

Infodesign of infographics is actually different (it is like when I was trying to explain the differencne between customer experience and user experience/usabiity 10 years ago) from data visulaization. Information graphics (or so called infographics) instead of visualizing data, it is the strategic use of data by incorporating interactions, icons, charts, diagrams, graphs, tables and maps to present information that could bring new knowledge and sense making. Not only it helps to explain oterhwise difficult to understand data, but also illuminate and explain system complexities or system relationships in an easy to digest manner.

This is not new, in our human history our ancestors created cave murals and giant paintings to show us what was happening including what their understand of the the world, an event or even the universe. The power of infodesign lies in its effectiveness in simplifying complex data into understandable visual representations that can be universally interpreted.

The power of real time interactions with live data brings the potential to a whole new level. The human minds are real time computing machines that works to constantly changing and creating value and meaning of objects; the interactions between human brain and semiotics is conducted every time we see a visual representation of a scenario and makes possible of expanding our human cognition to absorb large amounts of data at just one single glance or click.

Here comes the most interesting part, infodesign is powering up an “infoculture” where massive real-time socailly digitally distributed (useful and useless) information is enabling a new form of cultural act. It is where science meets arts, and will continue to power up new possibilities as we learn how to use them. I will be the first one here to call it “Infovation.” Remember you hear it here first. Will write more about it next few days.

One more thing, how many schools out there actually teaches information design? Not many. We are still training people yesterday's skills for yesterday's job. No wonder it is hard for designers to find work. I think design schools should be paying for the continuous education of their graduates, becasue they never trained them enough or properly in the first place.

The State Of Design Thinking And The Future Of Management (And Education)

I’ve a lot of requests to speak to the business and design communities iabout the state of "design thinking" and how it is being practiced. Talking about what that means is one thing but practicing it in the real world is a different thing. Idea Couture is probably the first large scale experiment that was built in day one to apply design thinking in the most sophisticated setting. Here's photos of our SF office. I am really liking it. Still a lot of work needed and new talents to add.

I see Idea Couture as still a work in progress (and will be for another 3 years) and serves as real world laboratories in fostering collaboration between the information design, engineering, foresight, visual art and industrial design in applied complex business problem solving. Our firm practices reflective collaboration – bringing interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary teams tegether to visually model complex systems and industry structures to yield new insights and foresights, the results improve the quality of our thinking in a predominately right-brain biased world of decision-making.

I like to think of our offices as a global network of "encounter spaces” that design thinkers from differing disciplines are assembled together as teams to work on specific projects and share insights, uncover foresights -- it is a collaboration among the arts + design + economics + technology in support of clients who are looking to create meaningful differentiation, economic value and strategic impact through design thinking and design doing. It is basically the future of management. And the future of education.

I see serious challenges with people coming out from design schools (as well as business schools) and I wonder what are they teaching these people at some schools today. The missing interdependency of broader functions and the lack of visual sensibilities are impacting the quality of graduates.

Through art, students can learn to have alternative contact with any kind of knowledge or information about different thematic topics. When a student is interacting with a piece of art, he/she can live a holistic experience, with his mind by the symbols, with his/her body by the senses and with his/her heart by the emotion evoked. A piece of art is a very special because it carries the human history and provoke ways of developing perspectives, which is lacking in MBA education.

Teaching is an art, engineering is an art, urban planning is an art, photography is an art, business is an art, and design is an art. All have form as well as content, like a piece of art; therefore, a business person, a technology architect or a school teacher can be an artist, too. Both jobs can be creative, imaginative and communicative.

A new generation of hybrid-thinkers (art+business) is extremely valuable to companies and they will be hot potatoes. Why? They are hard to find and they are best positioned to solve many complex or wicked problems that are way over the head of people trained with one skill set. These hybrid or design thinkers (design doesn’t mean design as a craft taught in many design school) are the creative forces behind creative industries. They are not the creative types from ad agencies; they are real strategic creative thinkers.

At IC, our jobs are solving complex problems, helping our clients to deal with massive changes in consumer behavior, technological disruptions, global competition and many will face extinction unless they figure out how to innovate their way out of hyper-competitive landscape. That’s why we are recruiting people that we can train to become hybrid thinkers or design thinkers. I use the term interchangly. At the root of hybrid thinking is the ability to transfer - to use knowledge from one discipline in another. That's what I teach them to do everyday.

With The Tablets And E-Readers Race, Wonder How Many Of Those Will End Up In The Landfills Before They Were Actually Being Used.

This week in San Francisco is action packed. New people starting, more furniture coming, a few projects in final stages and magazines. Scott and I were doing some street bodystorming between meetings (photo above).

Since I wrote about tablet last year at the CES, it is still the main battlefield this year as everyone is not only jumping into it, but most have no clue of how to play or win this war. Yes iPad is now the common enemy and this one is not easy to beat, you have to beat them on hardware, software, human factors, interface, and most of all the Apple brand and integration with iTunes and iMac.

The biggest surprise is Motorola, beaten to death in the mobile space and now entering the tablet game in far better than shape that others The Motorola tablet is by far the best tablet, it runs on NVIDIA Tegra 2 and Google's new Android Honeycomb.

Motorola Mobility, the new Motorola spinoff that went live as a separate entity on the NASDAQ. This new company focuses entirely on consumer devices, in partnership with Google and Verizon they just announced the new the Motorola Atrix, a smartphone that doubles as a legitimate PC replacement with both desktop and laptop docks. This company is coming back big time.

The Motorola Xoom tablet and the HTC Thunderbolt were especially impressive in performance and usability. Both are the only two serious threat to iPad, at least until Apple comes up with iPad2 or iPadthin or iPadsports. With the tablet race, Nvidia looks like is becoming the Intel of the next great wave of computing. Where’s Intel? Samsung and LG folks are sleeping and eating in their war rooms thinking about fighting this tablet war. Both are committed and determined to be a key player, but could use a lot of help.

Where’s Sony? The once mighty consumer electronics giant? What’s the coolest thing from Sony? And when’s the last time you heard about a breakthrough product from Sony? When’s the last time you heard about a market-leading product from Sony? They spend too much time trying to win back the TV war by going full throttle on 3D. I know for them, losing the TV war is hurting them deep, as they have always been the kings of TVs, that is until Korea joined the game.

Sony deputy president Kunimasa Suzuki, "We'd really like to take the No. 2 position (in the tablet market) by 2012. At this moment, the timing of (those tablet) announcements versus (their) availability today is a different story. iPad is the king of tablets for sure. Who is going to be (the) second player?" Aiming for the second is not exactly a good strategy. They are missing the boat already.

The not-so-secret thing is most new tablets are still in design stage and most don't come out until September, if it all--take. And by then Apple will be another 12 months ahead of the game.

Unfortunately for those other 500plus e-readers I saw at the CES last year, most of them are so last season. Since the launch of the iPad early last year, it doesn not make sense not to merge the idea of e-books onto tablet devices that also surf the web, play games, play videos, and do a lot more. What I hate to see is that all those ebooks become ewaste in the landfill, let’s figure a way to do something with them.

We Need To Change The Way We Use Trash, One Imagination At A Time. It Is About Behavior As Much As Economics.

We all love shopping and some do more than other. We love to buy shoes, clothes, electronic gadgets, toys and cameras. We all know we can’t continue on like this, the stuff we buy today is way worse than what we were buying a decade ago, everything has tons of electronic components inside which is really hard to recycle.

I guess if I try to name the top three most frequent purchases outside of food and other necessities, it would be 1/ shoes 2/consumer electronics (cell phones and laptops) and 3/clothing and accessories.

We don’t buy and throw away a TV every 12 months, but we do these days for cell phones. Thanks to Nokia, Apple, Sony Erickson, Samsung, LG and Blackberry. Shoes are probably something that we can rethink. Not by changing the habits of buying less shoes, but the way we manufacture them and discard them. Every time you walk pass a Camper shop (they are nice), you feel like you need to pick something for the season.

Sustainable shoes is not something new, the above is the Nike Dunks made out of old skate decks. Very cool. I remember visiting a Spanish company 15 years ago and they used recycle tires to make shoes. Not sure if they are still around. So how do we reduce the footprint of shoes? Whether it is your Pradas, UGHs or Nikes or Campers.

Company such as Simple shoe has an environmentally holistic approach to their business design. Simple uses recycled and sustainable products such as hemp, bamboo, car tires, wool, silk, plastics and crepe rubber, in their shoe manufacturing process. They also have an Ethical Supply Chain Guidelines that spell out the fair practice that Simple’s manufacturing and distributing partners must adhere to. Companies like Nike and Patagonia have been doing that that for a long time.

Or take a look at Novacas boots. From their mission statement, “Novacas is a vegan owned and operated business that produces, manufactures and distributes leather alternative cruelty-free shoes and footwear.” I like the cruelty-free one, not exactly sure what it means. I think they can use some help in the design.

Nike has something cool to offer, and they have rediscovered a new life for the print media after death. Nike just released the Women's Premium Print Pack, a limited edition set of three shoe styles, all made using shredded magazines. I hope they used the right magazines such as Vogue, Good Company, NY Times and may be Wallpaper. The pack contains the Flash Macro Premium, the Blazer Mid Premium, and the Air Rift Premium. Unfortunately they are only available in Europe and China. Let’s hope you won’t get caught with your shoes made from recycle banned magazines in China.

Idea Couture brings design thinking to sustainability big time. And not in a simplistic way of using recycled material. It is not that simple. The real economics of sustainability is still a work-in-process. Some desiners are naive about sustainability. But we need to start somewhere, Idea Couture just launched a site called Use2, the idea is to inspire young designers and design students (and high school students) to rethink the after life of objects. Thank you IC Use2 team (Sady, Jessica, Simon, Paul, Lily, Emma, Cheesan) for making this real. Please share that with your friends.

Use2 has lots of DIY ideas for people to use in class or to inspire designer to think about the second life of their designs. It is a designer’s responsibly to make sure that even old products can create value and until they become absolutely useless then they should go into being recycled. Recycle is also a costly thing that people are not aware of. It costs us more environmentally to recycle many products than to throw them away. The problem requires real d-school and b-school thinking. It is as much as about behavior as about economics.

Have a Happy and Green New Year!