At Fast Company's
Innovation Station, a new part of the magazine's web site, there's a fun article by Australian Richard Watson, CEO of the Global Innovation Network. He talks about why it's so difficult for companies to keep innovating:
one of the defining characteristics of business is a preoccupation with orderly process ("If you can't measure it, you can't manage it."). So it's hard to imagine corporate cultures embracing randomness
Watson is also co-author of a wonderful trendwatching newsletter called
brainfruit. Their main publication is expensive, but they also put out a fun little free email called Brainsnacks. Here are some excerpts:
Image convergence: Here’s a good example of product convergence – Bushnell instant replay binoculars. As well being a fine example of 8x magnification, the binoculars capture digital stills and give 30-second video replays. Source: Popular Science (US).
Job of the future #1 – Bio-prospecter: Making predictions about the future is tricky but one certainty is bio-prospecting. This is the ‘mining’ of areas like rainforests for unknown plants, compounds and microbes. Top of the pharmaceutical companies’ wishlist are compounds that fight cancer or are antibiotic , fungicidal or anti-parasitic. Source: New Scientist (UK).
Tight knit crowd: We mentioned the knitting craze before (the new yoga apparently) so we were interested to hear about the Knitting Café in New York. Yes, sip a skinny latte while you knit one and pearl one. Source: Celo (Aus).
# posted by Theresa @ 6:26 AM
