Passive and Active Creativity

In the September 07 issue of Report 103 is a very interesting article on creativity. For many creative involved people, this might seem as just a precision of something they all ready know, but I especially like this paragraph:

Although the exact process is not clear, it seems that the biochemical process of the brain restructures memories before storing them during the night. This restructuring most likely allows our minds to see problems in new ways and so bring new solutions to them. (Ref: http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/01/21/sleep.creativity.ap/index.html)

As stated in the article - sleeping on a problem is not exactly new, though this gives me a clue as to why i often describe my "most creative" period as being in the shower each morning.

The article also touches another interesting creativity-issue - the space or beeing-space. Getting out and about, changing the setting in which you think is a powerful but yet overlooked tool in today's company culture. (No IKEA been bags is not enough - an article about where your ideas come from in Danish)

Future vendor of silence...

Just read about NOSO (=NOSOCIAL) which is quite interesting from a workspace point of view.

Of cause it's a bit extreme to have a (social)network to support you in your non-social efforts... but from my point of view, the facilitating of noise-free environment's might be a future commodity.

The trend is all ready forming in work spaces today. The big open office spaces are no longer the main trend. More and more social spaces, meeting, relaxing, thinking spaces find their way into the general office space. We all ready know that the mind needs "quiet time" to filter and form inputs to new meanings and ideas. So why not offer a place with complete silence for your thoughts to be heard?

Personally my imagination runs wild under the shower, and (sorry) on the toilet during the day...
When you think about it, where else are we granted complete solitude?

Where do you go to think?


Where do you get the next good idea?

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RFID tagging the city bicycles to make them geosearchable

In Copenhagen, just like a lot of other big cities - we have free to use bicycles which is located around the city in special bike-racks. You get one by putting a 20kr - coin into the release mechanism, a coin you'll get back when you put the bike in one of the special bike-racks in another part of town.


The problem

There are never any bikes when you need them... partly because they are simply stolen, I think someone once told me that 50% of the bikes disappeared every year... that's a lot!!!


I don't think that this idea will solve that problem... or maybe it could help relocate the missing bikes if proper geo tagging is implemented.



The spark that created this idea

You take:

- City bikes concept

- An idea about RFID tagged umbrellas called Dutch Umbrella

- An online metro map, showing the current positions of all metro trains called Byens Puls (=City pulse, you know the nerve line of the city)



The Idea

Well it all most spells itself out - adding the 3 together, you get an online map showing where the city bikes are located, so you can decide where to go an pick one up, or don't bother at all. Also enabling the geo tagging /GPS, could enable a return-bike-crew to find lost bikes and put them in to use again - I know they have a crew finding lost bikes in Aarhus, but they rely on common sense - as to where people usually through the bikes after use...


Take a bit more from the Dutch Umbrella idea; I read some place (innovationlab.dk) that they are giving store owners, who offer a so called raindrop (a pick-up and drop point) valuable information of the umbrellas way around town, making interesting data on the whereabouts of your potential customers. So for example a candy-store owner can see that 60% of his customers come from the nearby cinema - making it possible for him to focus marketing and so on.

Another angle on this idea is that it provides some social public awareness. "where is everybody?" is not a question you have to ask anymore, you can check to see where all the bikes are - maybe there is a concert you didn't know about...

Where the Dutch Umbrella works well if it's raining a lot, the bike concept is better during the summer - maybe the two should co-exists...

CowParade - Do some Cow catching with your mobile

This summer in Copenhagen a bunch of cows are invading the city space - read the official explanation here.




At the moment they are moving the cow's out from their "storage" and that is actually a funny thing - because it makes the cows much more alive!! Suddenly a cow is standing in your way...

I don't know exactly for how long the cows are staying, but that is not the important thing here... the focus is the public space, and making people see and interact with it.

On the http://www.cowparade.dk/ they came up with the idea that if you saw a cow, you should take a photo of it and send it to them... that's great, but i thought if they kept moving the cows around making it more live - the competition would be all that more exciting, also encouraging people to explore their own city in new ways.

Well for now - if you spot a cow - take a photo of it and send it to: konkurrence@cowparade.dk

Inner city beeing space for D-I-Y people

I recently moved to the "big" city of Copenhagen. Comming from the comfort of a house with adjacent garden, toolsheet and plenty of room for my powertools, i suddently found myself having trouble dooing the simplest things. No room for my workbench, and no place where i can make a bit of a mess without the girlfriend gooing through the roof.

Then i remembered this:

http://www.springwise.com/lifestyle_leisure/sewing_cafe_in_berlin/

The idea i simple, in this sweing cafe you get multiple things: Social network, help, machinery (if you don't have your own), space and storage.

Projecting this idea onto my missing garage/work-space i'm thinking of a Work-café where you can come in to make the new shelf, fixing your bike, reparing the chairs and so on.

The place should provide:

- Storage space for your projects and own powertools

- Crowd ordering of materials to get good prices

- Ordering from house-suppliers to get special deals

- Tools to lend if you don't have the rigth tool for the job yourself

- Community workstations for everybody to use (maybe book online)

The cafe will provide a social network you seldomly get in your own garage, and the comfort and safty of collective skils to ensure you in undertaking large/new projects.

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| Den digitale arbejdsplads

Jeg beskyldes ofte for ikke af kunne huske, og måske til tider virke en anelse perpleks. Det kan for så vidt også være sandt nok. Og det skal jeg ikke bortforklare og undskylde – Jeg er nu en gang som jeg er.

I forbindelse med læsning af Microsofts hvidbog om den digitale arbejdsplads gik det op for mig, hvorfor en del af min manglende huske evne kommer til udtryk som den gør – små (ligegyldige) detaljer. Ligegyldige er mit indtryk af dem, og altså mit filter der således sortere disse for mig uvæsentlige informationer fra. (Tryk på overskriften for at komme til den engelske version af hvidbogen - som egentlig er en Bill Gates tale - Jeg har også en pdf...)

Når jeg skal forklare en af de evner jeg selv syntes at besidde – at skabe overblik over ellers komplekse ting. Så er en indre visualisering oftest svaret. Da det jo foregår inde i hovedet og jeg ikke selv har de grafiske evner til at lave en tegning der kan vise det, må jeg henlede opmærksomheden på det udmærkede program MindManager. Programmet danner mindmaps, og de representerer et logisk billede at mit indre overblik.

Dermed er det ikke sagt at min hjerne er som MindManager og omvendt. Hjernen fungerer langt mere komplekst end noget program nogen siden kan modellere, og programmet kan også ting med det elektroniske mindmap som jeg ikke kan med mit indre…

Jeg tror at evnen til at kunne skabe overblik til dels fås ved at ofre lidt af detaljerings niveauet.
Det kan lyde som en dårlig handel, men hvis man tænker modulært og vælger at fokusere på det rette niveau på det rette tidspunkt, så får man alligevel detaljerne med. Eller som en gammel lærer sagde til mig ”En elefant spises en bid ad gangen”.

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...

The Leftovers Restaurent

Inspired by a Springwise spot regarding a restaurent with no kitchen, but a collection of menu-cards from the nearby fast-food supplyers, I though of having a restaurent where you brought your leftovers - for others to enjoy while you enjoy leftovers that are not your own.

Now i know a lot of health issues is envolved here !!! And I'm not a judge when it comes to the reality of implementing such an idea.

Because of the health issue, i thought that the main issue for most people would be trusting the other "food supplys" so i came up with the idea that the food your shared should be with your friends, so the restaurent should support both a eat with your friends get togeather to eat, and a get offered what your friends might have submitted ... and only what your friends have submitted.

Food should ofcause be free, only paying for any heating or preperation nessasary.

Now again i know the idea is loos, so i put a charity angle on it - make a leftover restaurent for the homeless. People would then donate last nights leftovers to the restaurent, wich would then serve it to the homeless anytime of the day.

Again donating dry-goods would also bee a good place to do this, dry-goods has the quality to stay fresh for a long time, and homeless would be able to carry it with them to the streets. Dry-goods can also be sent to poor countries.

Central USB/memmory readers in-house

As more and more homes becomes equipped with media centers, external hard disks and such, the traditional home computer becomes a thing of the past. Synchronizing and transport of documents, files or programs on usb-keys or other memory sticks becomes widely used.
There for this small idea of having a central placed memory stick/usb wall plug - just like you might have a place for your keys when you come home, you might have a place for those portable data storage's.

Read a danish blogpost about why the car in your driveway was so old-fasioned. Why can't we update the onboard HD with movies for the kids, songs from your playlist. Sorry in danish