I’ve just been watching Stefan Sagmeister’s Ted Talk on The Power of Time off, thanks to the lovely Julia from the NHS Institute who sent it to me. Every seven years, designer Stefan Sagmeister closes his New York studio for a yearlong sabbatical to rejuvenate and refresh their creative outlook. He explains the often overlooked value of time off, which I’m wondering if you can or can’t draw parallels with when you are on maternity leave?
Archive for the ‘creative thinking’ Category
May 4, 2012
I.AM innovates
On Wednesday night I was luckily enough to get invited to the RCA Innovation Night 2012, with Will.i.am – Musician, Entrepreneur and Director of Creative Innovation, Intel Corporation, as the guest speaker. Previous speakers include Burberry Creative Director Christopher Bailey, Apple’s Jonathan Ive, YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley and Sir James Dyson.
It was really interesting to hear how Will.i.am is using his fame and fortune to do so much great work in local communities across the US. Including launching I AM Auto, a car company that brings computer-programming and car-engineering skills to the deprived neighbourhood where he grew up.
The three tips I took from the talk included:
Don’t forget to dream, as dreamers mould and create the future, and right now we need to dream.
Being a palm tree right now is the best thing to be, as they have deep roots and after storms they are the last things standing.
We need to bring science and design closer together, which I think is really exciting!
April 16, 2012
saving for retirement
I have just been reading an interesting article written by PSFK reviewing a Stanford research paper that explores how you can increase people’s saving behaviors for the future, through age-progressed rendering of their future self!
As many people fail to save what they will need for retirement, because of a lack of belief or imagination, to identify with their future selves. The research studies showed people future images of themselves, all of which resulted in the tendency to accept later monetary rewards over immediate ones.
Looking at my own photography above, I admit it’s pretty scary!
February 24, 2012
furry hero
I’m loving the fact that one of my extended family members (somewhere along the line of Bearded Collies) has become a TV star overnight in the new Halifax advert the Furry Hero. Great choice of dog Adam and Eve London.
Just in case you need another hero I’m always available and I’m pretty good at football too!
November 4, 2011
Make Day
The second ‘Make Day’ on Friday has been a great success. We have designed and created a Scarf for Four, a Hug and Make Up cardigan, a Confidence Dress, and a Hold Me Jumper.
All outfits that help bring people closer together and bring a smile to more faces.
There will be more thinkpublic making days in the future so we will keep you posted.
October 28, 2011
The Mayan calendar ends today
So today is the end of the Mayan calendar and the World hasn’t ended (well not yet!). We’re fast moving into a time of massive change for how we live, work and be on the Earth.
There has been much written about how in 2012 we will start to experience enormous leap in consciousness, alongside dimensional shifts as in Hyperdimensional Physics, the end of money and a huge surge and multiple breakthroughs in technology. We can see how this is all ready happening in much of the social space!
I see it as the prompt for us to kick-start the engine of collective human consciousness that, once started, will run automatically.
Some say it is the real beginning of the Age of Aquarius, because we have been in the Age of Pisces for the last 2000 years. The Age of Pisces was about faith and the Age of Aquarius is about knowing. So we no longer require faith to connect to the divine, we will know we are connected because of the progress in sciences.
So regardless of your faith, belief or path, we need to find ways to work together to help raise humanity’s consciousness to higher levels of understanding and connectedness. This shift cannot be done by one person alone, it requires the passion and effort of each person, who feels strongly towards creating a better world.
October 17, 2011
The value of having time to think
I’ve just spent the weekend trying to avoid connection with all things digital as a quest to find the “creative pause” that’s talked about in the Fast Company’s article, What Happened to Downtime? The Extinction of Deep Thinking and Sacred Space.
It was so incredible hard, as I feel so programmed and drawn to playing on my ipad, to check what’s happening in the World.
I always try to disconnect and recharge my creative self at the weekend, letting my mind wander and play with ideas without interruption. I do find this then helps me start the week a fresh with new ideas.
The article talks about how now we crave distraction over downtime, and when we do get a chance to be alone with ourselves, how we search out connection to something digital. ‘Our insatiable need to tune into information–at the expense of savoring our downtime–is a form of “work” (something I call “insecurity work”) that we do to reassure ourselves.’
My worry is if we are always connected, how do we really deeply think about things and reach solutions that are well thought through. I don’t want to live in a World where we make important decisions as quickly as sending a tweet. When we have down time we need to develop the capacity to use it and protect it.
October 5, 2011
Designers as drivers of Entrepreneurialism
It’s about time someone wrote something nice about us designers and our ability to create businesses that can change the world. Thanks to @CassieRobinson I’ve just finished reading @brucenussbaum article about how designers are merging their ways of thinking with startup culture. I love it!!
My 3 favorite points are:
‘One key to entrepreneurs’ success is that they frame things differently, they connect existing dots in unique ways.’
‘The more important change from big business to new business is conceptual. We need new conceptual categories to deal with the new turn toward entrepreneurship.’
‘We also need to know a lot more about “meaning,” not just the data gathered by ethnography but knowledge that takes us much deeper into understanding culture.’
I can’t wait to hear more!
October 4, 2011
Lets write less and draw more!
I was invited to speak at the Business Analysis Conference Europe last week about the strategic importance of creative thinking and innovation for business analysis now and in the future.
After a long discussion on why we thought creative thinking and innovation was important, we ended up discussing the basics of bringing ideas to life by drawing. Which was prompted by a story from one of my panel members George Sadler, from Npower. Many years ago he had inserted two chapters from Moby Dick into a big report and it got signed off with no changes! I loved that story, for me it just highlights the importance of visualising your thinking to excite people and to make things happen. I then shared the simple tools we use like story boarding, journey maps and animation to bring an idea to life. Clive Holtham for the Cass Business School, who was also a panel member, then told us that they are now teaching all their MBA’s how to visualize their ideas too!
My personal action is now to sharpen up my drawing skills, to write less and draw more!
(This drawing is quite clearly not by me…I still need some practice, watch this space).
May 8, 2011
Prototyping made simple
thinkpublic has worked with Designers Front to produce a new animation, Prototyping made simple, to show public services how they can use prototyping to quickly and cheaply develop and test new services.
Although a well-established part of service design, prototyping has not been widely applied to the design of public services. NESTA believes that prototyping could be part of a strong approach to developing new services that deliver better outcomes for less money. Prototyping made simple offers a fun and creative way for public service professionals to learn about the contribution prototyping can make to tackling the big social challenges.
At present, public services face two main challenges. Faced with deep budget reductions, they must find new ways to do more with less. Longer term, the challenge is to radically redesign public services to meet rising citizen expectations and needs. By offering a quick and cheap way of developing and testing new ideas, prototyping gives public services the power to respond innovatively to both of these challenges.
Prototyping made simple was produced by Designers Front founders Sam Tripp and Chris Waggott. Sam and Chris set up Designers Front in 2010 after graduating from Goldsmith’s College. thinkpublic commissioned Designers Front as part of its commitment to supporting the best in new Design.
thinkpublic founder Deborah Szebeko said:
Animation offers a fun way to powerfully convey information. At thinkpublic animation is one of the techniques we use to share knowledge and inspire positive change. We hope Prototyping made simple will help bring the benefits of prototyping to more public services.