The Art of Innovation – 5 Step Process

I’m currently reading “The Art of Innovation“ by Tom Kelley.Tom and his Brother David are head honchos at IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm. 
Through the years, they’ve developed a simple strategy for unleashing innovation at IDEO. It boils down to this:

1. UNDERSTAND – not only the market, the client and the technology, but also the perceived constraints on the problem. 
2. OBSERVE – Real people in real life. Not focus groups. Real people trying to tackle the problems you want to help them with. 
3. VISUALIZE – The brainstorming session. If I was faced with the problem, what challenges would I be weighed down with and what are creative ways to solve that problem.
4. EVALUATE & REFINE – What works, what doesn’t, what confuses people, what they seem to like. Test, Modify, Retest.
5. IMPLEMENT – If the idea is great  and you can’t implement it, than the idea is of little value.

It’s not rocket science. It’s just about having a managed approach to Creativity and having a roadmap to take the next big thing from beginning to end.  Any thoughts?  

My kids are cute.

So take a look at them,

but also notice how amazing this web gallery is that I made with iPhoto.
I didn’t even try. I just put the photos in an iPhoto album and clicked “web gallery.”

It automatically synced with my .mac account and created the webpage and gave me a link to share. You can preview the photos in multiple ways, including in “CoverFlow” style ipodesque.

You can also download the high-res version to go make your own prints.

I just pushed one button.

Leopard – Top ten tips

Guy Kawasaki posted a top ten leopard tips post from Take Control Books.

He added a few.

And i would add another.

#13 Stop opening files to see what’s in them.
Highlight just about any file, click the spacebar and let Leopard give you a preview without slowing down your computer by opening programs.

Leopard – Feature Love – To Do List and Notes in Mail

I love how Mail in Leopard now has “To Do Lists” and “Notes.”  

Special Features of Mail/iCal’s To Do Lists: 

• Synced with iCal
• Categorized by iCal Calendar (home, work, soccer schedule, etc…)
• Deadlines on to do’s (pick up milk for the cake batter by Wednesday at 4pm)
• Alarms (Little reminders through email our alarm beeps that remind you to do what you told yourself you need to do. 
• All shared over .mac or your network so they sync on multiple systems.

Leopard – Feature Love – RSS in Mail

One of my favorite new features in Leopard is the ability to have RSS Feeds in Mail. Mail is the mac equivalent of Outlook – Though both have features that the other should dream of and aren’t really equals…
When new items post on a blog I’m following, it will come into an inbox in my mail program just for RSS. Now, it’s almost like bloggers are sending me mail, even though they don’t know they are…. 
I love it.  

I barely have to hop into Safari.

Leopard is running. fast. not like cheetah fast. but definitely faster than a tiger.

Leopard has been running on my mac for about 2 hours now.
It’s a beautiful thing. The first thing I noticed is that safari is screaming fast. The animation of everything is absolutely beautiful. Not sure about the new Finder yet.
Stacks are my new best friend.

Absolutely love the simplicity of them and the look doesn’t hurt either.

Safari all of a sudden has a fantastic RSS reader. No need for bloglines. 
I’m going to keep playing this weekend. 

I love blurbs.

I just want the most relevant infomation as fast as possible and I’ll dig for things I’m “interested in.”

That’s why my favorite part of our website is the “blurbs” section. It’s quick, easy access to info without having to dig for it.

What’s new and happening this week?
It’s right there when I hit the main page. Info goes in and out of there reletively quickly, though our web stats seem to show that a relatively high number of visitors click a blurb on every visit.

Are people able to access relevant info quickly on your site?

What’s Next

I’m just not satisfied unless I’m asking this question.

It’s never enough. It’s never enough in a good way. One idea leads to another. What’s the next venture. I’m horribly tired right now…but as I was talking to a friend the other day as we we’re trying to plot the next year of his life, I left asking myself the same questions.

Am I more interested in starting the next idea than actually carrying it out…? I’m skilled. I can generally accomplish whatever I put my head to. I’m not saying that to be cocky, I just have a track record of determination…But what I’m realizing, is that it often ends when I know I can accomplish my goals. Even if it’s early on.

I want to start things, but I don’t want to be the one doing the nitty gritty work to finish them.

I have a few more ideas, I just want to launch them onto a team and watch them be carried out by people who love the execution…

So I ask myself, What’s Next?

A few things I’m interested in:

Starting a Non-profit to help people fundraise for major medical issues.

Launching a building campaign to move Sanctuary to the next level of ministry in north minneapolis.

Becoming a Genius at an Apple Store

Get my new Xserve up and running with no experience and 4 days of training.

I hate mediocrity, yet, I don’t want to do the work, just think about it.

Sarah’s New Back – Blog is now live

The place to get up to date information on my wife Sarah’s Back Surgery Fundraising is now live. Check it out at: http://www.sarahsnewback.wordpress.com

One more time…Props for Caleb

It seems since I posted the last link to his site, he updated his portfolio a bit.

This is impressive: (It’s a slow download, but worth it)

Graphite Audio Drawings