Zen quotes

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few" 

"The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction. " 

Sustainable and Cheap Housing

Instead of spending millions for rain screen projects costing millions in North American cities, here's an example of earth quake proof, sustainable, cheap housing made of bale straws. 

http://www.paksbab.org/gallery/

An example of great innovation by Civil engineer Darcey Donovan.

Design for the Masses

It has always intrigue me that designing for people with disabilities can be beneficial for the masses. Take this example of a concept phone designed a person with MS (multiple scirosis), the phone is a touch screen panel that has LARGE buttons of people's photos to call.

A great comment from Jenn of Kicker Studio "Projects like these remind us that while it's important to do what you're good at, it's equally important to do what moves you." Her phone concept is quite intriging indeed and if people in the industry are doing primary research based on user centered approached then they should be able to come up with a similar prototype.

Getting the Job Done

As the words of marketing guru Ted Levitt "People don't want a quarter-inch drill; they want a quarter-inch hole."  

We should keep this in mind when we deliver products and services to our clients/customers.

Give examples on how you provide the following actions to your customers:

Solving a Problem
Filling  a Need

Samsung or LG should Buy Palm WebOS

Palm, the maker of much heralded Palm Pre but lack the marketing
splash when it debut last week is in financial crisis. They were only
able to sell 50,000 phones during the opening weekend. The market cap
for this company is about 1.9 Billion US but this can be had for less.

Besides a nice hardware, the new OS called WebOS is considered on par
with the iPhone in user interface and technical sophistication. In
order for Samsung or LG to penetrate the smartphone market in Europe
and North America they need a software platform that can match that of
the iPhone.

BTW. Palm is now mostly run by ex-Apple employees including their
current CEO Jon Rubinstein (ex VP of Hardware Engineering at Apple)