New blogs I'm in - somehow

Just a shout out to get some Linklove for a couple of blogs I'm participating in:

100idears (in danish)
My brothers new blog about ideation, ideageneration, innovation - how do we do it?
He's involved in a lot of different innovative projects in his job, and i kindly asked him to start blogging about it! It's still new, but it should be interesting to get an insight in the idea-process of the danish library.

Jeg gjordet det selv - bloggen (in danish)
A new blog I started a few day's ago - it meant as a help to self-help (if you can say that in English). I'm not an expert in the home improvement department, but I've done my fair share of house renovation - enough to share some insights weather it be about making your paintings stick to the wall or fixing the radiator before it gets too cold out there.
You can submit a question, issue or whatever you want me and others to help show and tell - all in the name of making you go "Jeg gjordet det selv!" (I did it myself!).

SHARE A BRAINWAVE
This is pure linklove, because i find this a very intriguing concept - and I would suggest you participate in what ever way you would like.

A free Blog "news" paper - project (in danish)
This is a project which is gaining momentum - and I'm very exited in where it might end - go have a look, read the whole thing - especially the comments, that's where the juice is.
I'm taking part - so could you.

It doesn't take a degree to be innovative!

I've been saying this for a while - with no backup but my own network to look at - the true innovative ideas is not (only) coming from the well educated portion of the employees. Without finding a paper to support that idea but a lot of other voices in the blogosphere, I tried to do a picture search on flickr on "innovative" and this picture came up.


It has a slightly different approach to the sources to innovative ideas (as the title says), but interesting fact here is not that employees are top scores here. What's more interesting is that the second, third, forth, fifth AND sixth place are EXTERNAL sources - something a lot of companies have not realized yet.

I think today this list in most companies (if asked) would read: Employees, Internal sales and R&D (in that order)
Where the Sales dep. by historic reference is taking the "external vibes" into the company... well it does to some degree i guess, but i doubt it does so in the amount of ideas combined in the external sources listed.

Reasons for not recognizing (some of) the external sources:

Customers - "They don't know what's good for them?"

Competitors - "They would just steal our ideas!"


Do you have "quotes" for the other external sources ??

Read the article related to the picture here

Powered by ScribeFire.

The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun

Watch the one hour long presentation Scott Berkun did at Google - found the link at Classy's Kitchen

Scott Berkun is talking about his new book Myths of Innovation, and it's actually a greate story about how old innovations is, and how it's understood.


Update: I found this 10min. version - if the time is of essence ;)

The most important factor driving innovation is a company’s internal culture

New ways of measuring innovation points to internal company culture as one of the lead factors in defining a company as innovative.

I know there has been discussions weather beanbags and such could spur the innovative culture in a company - which it still can't !! But rather it's the overall mindset of the people working in that company which defines the culture.

This is also interesting when it comes to talking about idea-generation and management systems such as Dell's Ideastorm and Idéoffensiv - a danish county's idea generation tool made by Socialsquare.

Because one thing is setting up the physical collection of ideas from various sources, another is actually qualifying those ideas into use full information and in turn projects/solutions.

This is where the culture of the company comes to play - if the ideation is not supported in the company, a lot of ideas won't make the difference. They have to be matured...


Read the whole article on Innovationtools

Powered by ScribeFire.

Decentralizing your social network to multiple network services

I had read about it some time ago, and was very interested to hear that there actually was some thought put into the growing problem of multiple social networks like LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook and so on...

Each compeeting each other on different user-expierence/ social angles; business, hobby or some other form of category - Leaving the users in a bit of a predicament, since using only one network-service rule may rule out a lot of friends not associated with that network.

In effect that means you would have to join any networks your friends are using, and/or making them join yours.
Getting your friends to join a network like LinkedIn, if they are not in the business of professional networking but maybe active on MySpace, can be quite hard - and will eventually just leave you and your friends with a lot of networks to update.

Seperating the basic metadata from the network part gives you the ability (in the future) to have friends on multiple networks, but not forceing you to activly join each and every network yourself.

XFN does exactly that - Defining the social relationship between people through simple linking - an advanced blogroll if you will.

Read all about XFN here, and join!!!

Which i found through this post on Scobleizer

Powered by ScribeFire.

Why Mindmap when you can Wiki?

... or why Wiki when you can mind map?

I should hurry to say that I'm not for one and against another - they are two powerful tools in their own way. And that is exactly what I'm wondering about - when is one better than the other. I remember to have read some comment somewhere (typical of me to forget), about using wiki's as a mind mapping or brainstorming tool.

In lack of a mind mapping software installed (like Openmind og Mindmanager) I'll do it on a simple and also powerful manner... a list:

Mind map pros:
- creates overview
- quick to use
- generates a lot of keywords
- visual image of complexity
- related keywords

Mind map cons:
- lack of information
- a screen is only that big...
- hard to use on the Internet (i know there are some online mind mapping tools around - just check out the tools section on Innovationtools.com)

Wiki pros:
- all the information in one place
- related information
- links to non-existing information (wiki pages)
- born to be used on the Internet

Wiki cons:
- lack of overview
- not quite as fast (despite it's name)


Sum of it all
I think it's not all black and white... i all ways miss the nice visual overview whenever it's not there - and it could be in a lot of places in the business world today. We are so busy making lists and so on, but they aren't well perceived in peoples minds and aren't that easy remembered...

The ( ) stuff in my list above might suggest a wiki would have giving me more space and structure to elaborate, while the shortness and quickness of the list (aka. the mind map) gave me the overview to go in depth with each and every keyword - if i witched to do so...

I would say that a wiki with a mind map overview would be a killer app. - anyone with some Apollo (or adobe air) knowledge up for a challenge?

Comment
There are definitely more pros and cons to put on each of the above topics, so pls. do so if you feel the urge...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Buzan

Microsoft Surface

Microsoft Surface

I remeber seeing or hearing about something like this a couple of years back... it's was a vision about mobiles becomming so powerfull that their small dimensions of screens would become the biggest obstacle. Therefore some guy og group forsaw that in the future mobiledevices would be able to lend screen-space on large table-top or whiteboard like screens.

And now Microsoft went and spoild it all by saying something like... i love you ;)
Naa, just kidding - that is pretty cool - that's my new cofeetable right there!!

Codeless creditcard

I keep forgetting the code on my creditcard - it's actually so bad that i forget where i write the code on the "rember-your-code"-helper wich comes with a new credit card....

Recently i got a new laptop, with a thumbreader... and that got me thinking: Why not combine the two!??

Put a thumbreader on the creditcard, and you'll never have to remeber a code again.
- powered by the card-reader it should work just fine...

But then i just saw this article:
http://www.comon.dk/index.php/news/show/id=31071

It'a about a personal card wich uses biometric data to lock and identify you... enabling the card as not only a creditcard, but also as digital signature, key to personal information like medical info etc.

Small storage rooms free to use

You know the storage rooms on trainstations and some shopping centers, where you drop a coin (10-20 DKK) to store your bag for a period.

I never have coins on me, so I though, why not let me store my stuff for free in exchange for some info...

The process:
1. I put my bag in the storage room
2. Closes the door
3. Locking the door by typing a password of my choise
4. Leaving....

5. Comming back, wanting to get my bag.
6. typing the password
7. If the password is correct, then I'm asked to answer a questionnaire of some kind.
could be:
- Polls about Politics or city plans
- Popular music/art...
- Semi personal: What was your purpose of your visit to this city
- Product related questions

The cost of having the storagerooms are sponsored by the questionnaires.

The questions shouldn't take too long to fill out, and should be anonymous.

Advanced comfort zone

You all know the feeling. The hazel of setting the aircomdition just right in your car. When first entering the car, sweating because of the hot summer weather you crank up the airflow and setting the degrees to freeze!

After a few minuts you are in sub zero temperatures, and now you have to turn the temp. To the prefered 20. Putting it to 20 from the begining is of course also a possibility. But your skin temperatur changes all the time and 20 may not be the correct temp. for long. So you have to change the settings again.

The idea:)
In house inspections, they have surface heat debtors which can register temperatures on surfaces. Connecting such a device to the aircon. In a car could automatically set the temp. Most optimal relative to your given skin temperatur.

DK| Get your ideas stolen

Et rigtigt godt indlæg på cw.dk af Kenny Munck "Sæt en ære i at få stjålet din ide", som jeg også har kommenteret lidt på.

http://www.computerworld.dk/art/39050?cid=1&a=cid&i=1&pos=9#first

Et af de links jeg nævner :

http://opencoffee.ning.com/

passer godt i tråd med en tidligere post:

http://imaginatory.blogspot.com/2007/03/cafemiljer-stimulerer-it-innovatrer.html

da de netop holder cafe-møder.

Deltag i deres næste her:

http://entrepreneur.meetup.com/1122/

DK| Cafemiljøer stimulerer it-innovatører

Cafemiljøerne danner infrastruktur for en helt ny innovationsbevægelse af “high-tech-nomader”.

Jeg har kommenteret på bloggen fra CW på bla. nedenstående aspekter.

Disse cafemiljøer er i dag alle udstyret med high-speed wi-fi (trådløst internet), og danner en helt ny underliggende infrastruktur med top vibrationer, for en helt ny innovationsbevægelse af “high-tech-nomader”, der primært bekender sig til mobile teknologier og web 2.0-tidsånden.


Hvad, den nye high-tech nomadebølge i San Francisco-området også viser, er, at infrastrukturberebet til stadighed bliver bredere og bør forholde sig til potentielle brugsværdi-optimeringer af eksisterende fysiske rammer, mobilitetsadfærd, de praktiske rammer omkring nye arbejdsformer og sociale netværksdannelser.

Open-space brainstorming

Imagine if a brainstorm was not carried out in a closed office-spaced, only for the invited...
Imagine an open-space - hallway space, where brainstorm topic and boundaries are posted on the walls, enabling the team brainstorming to get even more input from people passing through... what if that one person that came by your brainstorm was the one with the key input to launch you to the next level ?=!

One topic at a time of cause
The brainstorm owners present of cause
And an active core of people brainstorming, making it into an active environment...

Rape repellent pants

On my way home i heard about another rape attempt on a girl... got me thinking if there was somekind of way to make it harder to actually getting to the rape part - something that would give the girl time enough to react, get away or call for help.

Thoughts:

• Nano tech. clothing
  
• Belt lock-buckle
• Panick button pants
• Auto-call mobile nr.
  

Ambient photoframe on your desktop

I don't have the money for a real frame, and I don't have an office where I'd put up a frame... I'm not the kind of guy who has such things on my desk.

But nonetheless i'd like to have a picture of my girlfriend on my computer desktop, having the same features as the real life photoframes... does it exists ? I havn't found one yet...

closest was this guy:
Coin-operated

Public idea-bank...

Why is it companies keep their ideas so tight that they tend to die or get overtaken by others before they are developed into quality products ?!

I've meet more than one person that was good at brainstorming and getting bright new ideas, but only one or two had the same passion for DIVERSITY as I do.

It's with ideas as it is with solution-solving and development in general - it only gets better if more eyes look at it.

So why not have a simple public idea-bank ? - Imaginatory if you will ;)
The thing is - I know that most of my ideas might never develop much further than what you see on core.makebelieve.dk - BUT having a public idea inventory where ideas flourish and idea creators are complemented on their ideas, now that would truly set the scene for an innovative country...

Thinking i Creative Commons can be used to controll use of ones ideas ?

Is this what i mean...
http://www.globalideasbank.org/site/home/