mo:no 2011

Open publication - Free publishing - More ebook

When one design improvement begets another...

I recently bought a new pair of earphones, after the old one simply gave away. What caught my attention was the improvement in the design of the wires, one example of which is as shown in the picture on the left.

I simply love the idea of making the wires a little flatter now, to reduce or even eliminate entanglement, compared with the old designs. And somehow locating the controls (mine has controls for volume and start/pause) on a flattened piece of cable just seems a little more...'designerly plausible' and apt, compared to what I used to have.

But one thing that I wasn't prepared for is the idea of storing this new piece of flattened cable. Being one who uses a messenger-type bag for his laptop and other accessories, it didn't dawn on me the need to get another piece of wire coiler, since the old one is designed for round-shaped cables.

What I thought is that updated design of the cable is better, but somehow the design flaw here is the need to also redesign the wire-coiler too, to cater to users like me. Perhaps this is where a reDesign exercise just stop short of actually enhancing the users' experience a little more 'perfectly'. I felt that having a coiler that complements this redesign would definitely make more converts out there.

What do you think?

When being Innovative is more important than being Creative

I had some time to think things through this 'debate' the last couple of days, on what makes somebody creative or innovative. And perhaps the debate on whether it is more important to be creative, or innovative. The debate seems to stem from the idea that I had that there should be a balance between the two, especially in my approaches towards teaching my charges this idea of 'creativity versus innovation'. But could there really be only one thing that one should focus on, in order to give that sense of value-addedness? 

I was reminded the other time about how Apple is not necessarily the most creative company in the world. A case in point was that they were NOT the ones who invented the portable digital music player, nor the mouse, and neither the tablet. But what they did to the idea of

• how a portable digital music player should be part of an 'ecosystem', 
• how a mouse should operate buttonlessly and 
• how a tablet should look like and be experienced with multi-touches and gestures...

now...these are indeed examples of innovation. Yes they were not original ideas, nor their overarching concepts of working totally original, but the very fact that they have managed to leverage on an existing design concept, and work on how to transform these elements into a 'disruptive' tool to the current status quo...now that's innovation at its finest.

So perhaps creativity does have its place in the whole scheme of things, but in order for things to get really moving, and exciting, the innovative piece of the puzzle must also be present, and in order. And then perhaps...just perhaps, things could move along along a more 'disruptive' mode!

The chance favours the connected mind...

When half a hunch is better than none...an enlightening clip.

A reThink on food sources of the future