The Curious Case of Common Craft

What would you think if you heard the phrase “You’ve got some explaining to do!” ? Something like “Oh, no #%#&!” maybe...Well not for Lee LeFever and his wife Sachi, owners of the Seattle based company called Common Craft. They thought “What a great business idea!”.
Common Craft was founded in 2003 as a consulting company, but in 2007 the LeFever couple began making videos explaining certain tools and trends emerging online, like RSS, wikis, and social bookmarking “in plain English”. They tried using white boards and other methods, but the result was boring and disappointing - until Sachi thought to put the white board on the ground, cut out some simple cartoon figures and use a stop motion method of animation. The Common Craft Show was born. The unique paper-and-whiteboard format quickly attracted the attention of bloggers, as well as innovative businesses. Today, their voice is been heard by millions of people around the world, making strange new applications feel easy to use and offering some of the clearest explanations of how the Internet is changing.

The company is activated in the field of e-learning and e-training. As stated on their website, they place themselves in the business of “Explanation”. They visualize their lessons in a simple and fun way, that addresses everyone from a curious 6-year old to a preoccupied CEO…The company’s business model (see table for more details) was built upon this inspirational and innovative style of giving lessons and then expanded by having quick response times to market changes and identifying opportunities. All of Common Craft content can be freely shared on-line. The company’s revenue stream is based on the licensing of their high-quality, downloadable versions of the explanatory videos to individuals or corporations. The website and the videos are ad-free. Lee and Sachi are the only employees in their business and they want to keep it that way. They also have time to travel all over the world…and blog about it!

An amazing website

www.findtutorials.com
One of the best tutorial / learning resources I have come across. FindTutorials.com is a Web index and search engine that searches for tutorials and online courses on the web. It Features a huge categorized database (700 categories, about 4000 tutorials) FindTutorials.com allows you to search for free tutorials on practically any subject, ranging from photography to gardening to psychology. The site claims to guide you directly to written, certified tutorials carefully selected from all over the Web.




It is an e-learning site and I believe that it best fits in our blog, because through this website we can find tutorials, videos and courses which will be related to creativity, brainstorming and innovation.
Enjoy: www.findtutorials.com

Brainstorming and Brainwriting

I recently read an article, written by Chauncey E. Wilson, in which he elaborates on the term Brainwriting and explains how this technique for generating ideas, complements Group Brainstorming sessions.

Chauncey says that when time is limited or the group of participants is large, Brainwriting is "a method for generating ideas about products or processes by asking participants to write their ideas on paper rather than shouting them out, as they would in a traditional Brainstorming session".

Chauncey refers to interactive Brainwriting sessions, where all participants are asked to write down their thoughts and ideas and then pass the paper to the next person in the group. Again, this person is now expected to read what the previous one wrote and add something new. Then the paper passes to a third person and this process ir repeated for several times, until there is a good amount of information depicted on the papers.

Then all papers are posted on a board, where all participants can see and comment. According to Chauncey one main advantage of Brainwriting (altough not a common technique yet) is that "the blocking effects found in face to face brainstorming are reduced when people write their ideas privately".

You may read more on Brainstorming Pitfalls and Best Practices at:
Wilson, Chauncey E. (2006). Pitfalls and Best Practices, Interactions, vol.13, no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 2006), pp.50-53

Mind Maps

During my school and university years, I always found simple note - taking as a boring way to keep information provided in class...let alone that most of the times, my notes were not clear enough to understand or remeber what was taught, when I was returning back to them to study! I had then found a way of keeping notes and elaborating on them, by writing the main subject in the center of a paper, circling it and then, when major subdivisions or subheadings of the topic were discussed, I used to draw lines out from this circle.
I was actually creating something like a Mind Map, in each of my courses!
The term Mind Map was coined by Tony Buzan, who popularized it. According to Buzan, a good Mind Map 'shows the 'shape' of the subject, the relative importance of individual points, and the way in which facts relate to one another. Remembering the shape and structure of a Mind Map can give you the cues you need to remember the information within it'.

Mind Mapping is a useful technique that improves the way you take notes, and supports and enhances your creative problem solving. By using Mind Maps, you can quickly identify and understand the structure of a subject, and the way that pieces of information fit together, as well as recording the raw facts contained in normal notes.
More than this, Mind Maps encourage creative problem solving, and they hold information in a format that your mind finds easy to remember and quick to review.

Keep reading on Mind Maps and how to Draw them at: ttp://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newISS_01.htm

Google Bus: Ready, Steady, Go!

Though most of the Western world now breathes online oxygen as freely as the elemental kind, that's not true in other parts of the globe. Recognizing that fact, Google has launched an effort to demonstrate the Internet to citizens of India who may not otherwise have access to it.

Launched just last week, Google's Internet Bus aims to educate Indian people about what the Internet is and how it can benefit them in multiple ways. To do that, the customized, Internet-enabled vehicle is bringing the online experience to where people live, visiting several towns and cities across India's Tamil Nadu region with demonstrations of the Internet's uses in education, information, communication and entertainment. Content is provided both in English and in Tamil to familiarize people with services including search, email, social networking, online maps and others. Since beginning in Chennai, the bus has already travelled to Vellore, Krishnagiri, Salem, Erode and Pollachi; on Saturday, it will arrive in Coimbatore. Twelve cities will follow before the effort wraps up in mid-March; in the meantime, photos, videos and updates are available on the project's website.

The Internet Bus initiative is part of Google's overall strategy of "organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful," the company says—its efforts have also included localizing and translating multiple Google applications. Prasad Ram, head of R&D for Google India, explains: "We are passionate about empowering users with information, and the Internet democratizes access to information. With this initiative we want to take the power of this medium to people who will really benefit from it. We believe that if we can get people to experience the Internet even briefly they will find the means to go back again."

And that, of course, is the ultimate goal. If people do go back again, it will bring benefits not only for them, but for Google too—and for the legions of advertisers dying to reach new markets. That sound you hear is the global online marketplace getting even bigger!

Source: http://springwise.com/
Links: http://www.google.co.in/intl/en/landing/internetbus/

Creative Thinking

12 Reasons to Study Creativity

Creative or innovative thinking is the kind of thinking that leads to new insights , novel approaches , fresh perspectives, whole new ways of understanding and conceiving of things. The products of creative thought include some obvious things like music, poetry, dance, dramatic literature, inventions and technical innovations. But there are some not so obvious examples as well, such as ways of putting a question that expand the horizons of possible solutions , or ways of conceiving of relationships that challenge presuppositions and lead one to see the world in imaginative and different ways.

Why should we want to be creative? What are the benefits?


12 REASONS TO STUDY CREATIVITY

Because your brain will thank you.....

• Develop your potential beyond the boundaries of intelligence


• Rapid growth of competition in business industry


• Effective use of human resources creativity is a human resource which exists in all organizations


• Discover new and better ways to solve problems


• Development of society


• Building on the nature of knowledge


• Natural human phenomenon


• Important aspect of mental health


• Growing body of interest


• Builds on all disciplines


• Contributes to effective leadership


• Enhances the process of learning.

''Discovery is the ability to be puzzled by simple things'' Noam Chomsky

Success Story

A story of how start-up Nouveau Cosmeceuticals goes up against the big firms within the industry

“Redefining the industry” is how CEO and co-founder of Nouveau Cosmeceuticals, Ace Hawkins, characterizes the direction of her company. And that’s a pretty big statement for someone who a little more than a year ago responded to an idea that her co-founder and trend watcher, Mike Fitch, offered up over a phone conversation. But redefining an industry is exactly what they are doing.The idea of a simple skin care line with ingredient formulations as strong as dermatological lines was the challenge before renowned chemist and Nouveau’s chief scientific advisor, Clifton Sanders.
Nouveau Cosmeceuticals’ challenge was to create packaging which would appeal to men as well as women of from age 8 to 80, and would contain products that are beautiful with universal appeal conveying a message of clinical efficacy.
It was a mere 5 months before the some of their biggest competitors took notice. But more importantly, consumers were buying the products and loving them.
“We needed to have an image that could stand up against the other big guys”, said Ace, “and because our business model is direct sales - we had to create effective tools for our consultants to use in their sales and marketing.”
“When I came to One Creative with a product and a prospective market.” One Creative sat down with me and we invented and shaped our companies personality and identity. What came out of these brainstorming meetings was a “total brand message." One Creative set out to package the spirit of Nouveau. The only term Ace was insistent on was the cobalt blue bottles. “The initial meeting and brainstorming time that we spent with Ace was invaluable to our creative process. We were able to get completely into the companies foundation to craft an identity that was inherently true to its founders’ goals and business objectives.” says creative director Wendy Spalsbury. “We seek to understand our clients’ objectives and gain a clear sense of the direction they want their company to go - it’s why our tag line asks the question “where are you headed?” The single best way to achieve these desired results is adequate face to face time.
One Creative’s solution for Nouveau’s brand development involved the creation of several applications. We designed Nouveau’s packaging to provide a unified brand appearance. We created informational brochures to provide education and application information. We designed a web store front to inform potential customers and to facilitate sales. The web site was complimented with a monthly electronic newsletter. which keeps customers and consultants informed about Nouveau’s interests and achievements. Finally, we created a three part interactive DVD designed as a consultant training and selling tool.

You may read more at: http://www.onecreative.net/success/

Visual Brainstorming

Apart from the 'traditional' brainstorming sessions, there are other ways to create innovative ideas. Visual brainstorming, that is brainstorming with images, objects and actions frequently works spectacularly well.

'The ugly truth about brainstorming is that more often than not it leads to mediocre results. In fact, if you've been involved in brainstorming sessions, you've probably experienced more than your share of events in which few truly creative ideas were suggested.
There are several reasons why a brainstorming session might fail to generate great creative ideas.
1. Badly formulated challenge. Any proper brainstorming event starts with a creative challenge that is the focus for idea generation. Unfortunately, few people appreciate how important a well formulated challenge is. They'd rather go right to the idea generation part of the brainstorming. Unfortunately, if you get the challenge wrong, the best ideas in the world probably will not solve your problem.
2. Poor facilitation. Even trained facilitators who do not understand creative problem solving (CPS) are often unable to manage properly a brainstorming event.
3. Squelching. Criticising ideas during the idea generation phase of brainstorming demotivates everyone. It tells participants that wacky ideas will get you in trouble. The thing is: the wackiest ideas are the most creative. So, any squelching basically communicates to participants that creative ideas are not wanted. And participants oblige by suggesting uninspiring and predictable ideas.
4. Dominating personalities. If one person dominates the brainstorming session, her ideas inevitably become the focus and other participants' ideas are pushed to the side. Unfortunately, this means that only one person is really doing any brainstorming - and that makes nonsense of bringing a brainstorming group together. Worse, dominating people are usually more interested in power than in discovering the best ideas.
5. Topic fixation. When someone suggests an obviously good idea in a brainstorming event, other people tend to focus on similar ideas. The result is that other avenues of possibility are ignored.
6. Too much noise. In a good brainstorming event, a lot of people are sharing ideas loudly. That means everyone has to listen to other ideas before sharing their own. The result is more time and energy is spent on listening and interpreting than ideas than on generating ideas. Worse, quiet or shy people tend to keep to themselves when brainstorming gets noisy - so you lose their ideas.
The bad news is that one any of these flaws can spoil a brainstorming event and lead to poor, unimaginative ideas. The good news is that non-verbal brainstorming -- based on images, objects, actions or any combination of these -- not only avoids almost all of the flaws listed above, but seems more reliably to result in better, more usable ideas. '

Visual Brainstorming
'Visual brainstorming is about collaboratively generating ideas without using the spoken or written word. You might use objects which teams put together to solve problems. You might use arts and crafts materials such as coloured construction paper, tape, string, card, pens and the like. You might use people to create improvisational role plays.'

Read more at: http://www.jpb.com/creative/visual_brainstorming.php

Individual and Group Brainstorming

Any one who wishes to perform a Brainstorming session should ‘Welcome Creativity’. I perceive the term creativity as a classmate of the term brainstorming; and this is true, because one should be creative in thinking in order to develop new ideas and indulge in brainstorming sessions.
Brainstorming is a useful and popular tool that you can use to develop creative and effective solutions to a problem. It is particularly helpful when you need to break out of stale, established patterns of thinking, so that you can develop new ways of looking at things. This can be when you need to develop new opportunities, where you want to improve the service that you offer, or when existing approaches just aren't giving you the results you want.
Used with your team, it helps you bring the experience of all team members into play during problem solving.
This increases the richness of solutions explored (meaning that you can find better solutions to the problems you face, and make better decisions.) It can also help you get buy in from team members for the solution chosen - after all, they have helped create that solution.
Individual Brainstorming
When you brainstorm on your own you will tend to produce a wider range of ideas than with group brainstorming - you do not have to worry about other people's egos or opinions, and can therefore be more freely creative. You may not, however, develop ideas as effectively as you do not have the experience of a group to help you.
When Brainstorming on your own, it can be helpful to use Mind Maps to arrange and develop ideas.
Group Brainstorming
Group brainstorming can be very effective as it uses the experience and creativity of all members of the group. When individual members reach their limit on an idea, another member's creativity and experience can take the idea to the next stage. Therefore, group brainstorming tends to develop ideas in more depth than individual brainstorming.
Brainstorming in a group can be risky for individuals. Valuable but strange suggestions may appear stupid at first sight. Because of this, you need to chair sessions tightly so that uncreative people do not crush these ideas and leave group members feeling humiliated.

Read more at: http://www.mindtools.com/brainstm.html

Honda History


Honda Motorcycles - A Five Decade JourneyBy Staff WriterHonda has grown to become a top manufacturer of motorcycles. Its history can be considered a journey through five decades of forward thinking and technological innovations.Soichiro Honda's success parallels the classic rags-to-riches fable - the lone individual starting in a humble setting, battling odds and succeeding, through talent, ingenuity, and good fortune. In a nation noted for reserve, Mr. Honda was and is often direct, frequently exuberant, sometimes hilarious, and always confident. He preferred getting his hands greasy in the shop over shuffling papers in the office. He chose learning on the job over academic paper chases. Yet when he realized that there was a deficiency in his technical knowledge, he did not hesitate to enroll in a technical high school - at age 29. The year was 1935. The motivation: learn why he was having problems manufacturing piston rings.Before his venture into piston rings, Honda was employed as a technician. Automobiles, rather than motorcycles, were his first love. He dreamed of racing. After completing eight years of schooling, he joined an auto repair shop at age 15. Two years later, he became a Harley owner and then an Indian rider.He opened his own auto and motorcycle repair shop in 1928 while pursuing his hobby, building racing cars. That same year, he applied for his first patent, for casting automobile wheel spokes. He organized Tokai Seiki Company, Ltd. to experiment with manufacturing piston rings. After initial failures, he sought further education which enabled him to successfully produce piston rings for automobiles, motorcycles and airplanes.In 1945, Honda sold his stock to Toyota and took a year off. His sabbatical included music-making and merriment. Refreshed, he launched Honda Technical Research Laboratory in October of 1946. His new venture added war surplus Tohatsu and Mikuni generator motors to bicycles to provide basic transportation for the war-torn nation.In November 1947, the 1/2 horsepower A-Type Honda was being manufactured and sold as a complete motorbike. Because the motorbike gave off a lot of smoke and a stench of turpentine it was known as the "Chimney".Soichiro Honda started Honda Motor Company in 1948, at the age of 41. Soon after, he hooked up with financial whiz Takeo Fujisawa and together they built an empire. Honda enlisted 13,000 bicycle shops in Japan as Honda dealers. This move, combined with a decently reliable product, catapulted the company forward.In 1948, Honda introduced a 90cc version of the A-Type known as the "B-Type".By 1949, Honda came out with the "D-Type". Mr. Honda was involved in every step of the two-stroke D-Type Dream's design and manufacture. This was Honda's first motorcycle. This was far from simply slotting a motor into a pushbike frame. Honda called his machine 'The Dream', because his dream of building a complete, motorcycle had come true. Soichiro Honda was an engineer and was always looking to produce better and more sophisticated machines.Honda had another dream and it turned out to be the 146cc, OHV, four-stroke E-Type Dream. A powerful machine producing 5 1/2bhp capable of 50mph. It had a steel frame and proper suspension front and rear. By October 1951, the new Dream was in production at the rate of 130 units per day. Sales success allowed Honda to focus vigorously on two key ingredients: quality and design.In 1952, Honda produced the first "Cub" F-Type, a 1/2 horsepower, 50cc, two-stroke engine that was produced in huge numbers. You could get one to fit to your pushbike or buy the complete red and white Honda "Auto Bai". Less than a year after its introduction, production was 6500 units per month, at that time it was 70% of Japan's powered two-wheeler market.Sales continued to boom, but the end of Korean War in 1953 triggered an economic depression in Japan that almost ruined Honda. The company survived, bolstered by the sale of Cub clip-on motors that were attached to bicycles. Healthy again, Honda produced the 90cc, four-stroke single, a motorcycle of even greater sophistication. This was known as the Benly; in Japanese this means "convenience". The J-Type Benly had a three-speed gearbox, produced 3.8bhp, a pressed steel frame, rear suspension with the engine and swinging arm on a sprung pivot, and telescopic front suspension. Before long, they were selling at a rate of 1000 units a month.

keep on reading : http://motorhelmets.com/htm-service/resources-motorcycle-articles-honda-history.htm

Tom Peters: Innovation is actually easy!

Google Recipe : 20% pure Innovation...

As IT budgets threaten to follow the same trend lines as financial markets, it's a natural impulse for managers to circle the wagons, concentrate on core projects and put off innovation for another day. Natural, but wrong.

One important policy has increased both employee satisfaction and innovation at Google: the "20% rule," which allows engineers to spend one-fifth of their time on corporate projects of their choosing -- creating something new or making something work better -- even if the project isn't part of their job descriptions.
For one day each week, Google's engineering staffers get to work on projects they think are important for the business, not what management has prioritized for them.

Keep on Reading: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=332900