In filmmaking and many other kinds of complex product development, creativity involves a large number of people from different disciplines working effectively together to solve a great many inherently unforeseeable problems. The trick to fostering collective creativity, Catmull says, is threefold: Place the creative authority for product development firmly in the hands of the project leaders (as opposed to corporate executives); build a culture and processes that encourage people to share their work-in-progress and support one another as peers; and dismantle the natural barriers that divide disciplines.
Good idea generation is like a muscle that you are constantly flexing. It’s a mindset and attitude towards the problems you face everyday and your ability to effect change. While some people are innately curious and problem solvers, I still think like any muscle, this skill is something that can exercised and improved.
Designing for many people doesn’t mean designing for the lowest common denominator. The best Google designs appear quite simple on the surface but include powerful features that are easily accessible to those users who want them. Our intent is to invite beginners with a great initial experience while also attracting power users whose excitement and expertise will draw others to the product.
A well-designed Google product lets new users jump in, offers help when necessary, and ensures that users can make simple and intuitive use of the product’s most valuable features. Progressive disclosure of advanced features encourages people to expand their usage of the product. Whenever appropriate, Google offers smart features that entice people with complex online lives – for instance, people who share data across several devices and computers, work online and off, and crave storage space.
She advocates not internalizing creative success (or failure), which in turn releases us from the pressure to perform and hence allows us to be creative.
But above all else, the whiteboard is a place for collaboration. It’s a focal point. Like a campfire in days gone by. Or a fireplace in your lounge. Most team discussions happen round the whiteboard. Discussions about progress. Discussions about issues. Discussions about design. All sorts, sometimes even when the whiteboard isn’t even needed. It becomes the hub of information for the team. The hub for communication and collaboration.
Interesting gesture-based UI for TV viewing. This would be nice as we would no longer lose the remote control, and would hopefully be more intuitive to use.
Potential problem: inadvertant use (waiving to a friend - turns on the TV instead or playing with children pauses the playback).
TED talk by Pattie Maes showing off her team’s work on wearable “sixth sense” technology. Will technologies like this add to the information overload we are experiencing or aid in our attempt to make sense of a world filled with so much information?
We think the 20 percent time is really the only way we’ve been able to maintain our innovation as we have gotten larger. What normally happens with technology companies is the initial founding team gets older, you bring in traditional management, and although it becomes a better managed company, much of the creativity and the flair and the joy did get lost in the process. By establishing the principal that engineers could spend 20 percent of their time working on whatever they found interesting, we created a culture where there’s this constant flow of innovation. Literally every day there’s another fun surprise.
I was just attempting to embed a video in an email (tried both Y! mail and Outlook), but couldn’t figure it out. Why isn’t this functionality readily available? And why not treat email more like micro-blogging?
I think email could learn something from blogging sites like tumblr that make it dead simple to post text, photos, quotes, links, audio, and video. It’s all a form of communicating and sharing so why not make them more similar? Instead email makes it hard to do anything except send a text based note. That needs to change, and companies like Zemanta are taking the first steps toward that, but there is still more that could be done.
Another thought: I wish blogging platforms (i.e. tumblr) would make it easy to share my blog content (selectively) with my contacts via email, twitter or any other way I want. I don’t want to send everything I post to everyone in my address book (or twitter follower), but I would like to do so for certain posts.
The company’s offer will focus on non-food related household essentials with a business model that is inspired by two key themes: 1) consumers lack a convenient, cost effective way to buy household essentials online today; and, 2) consumer packaged goods companies need a fresh alternative to the big brand, bricks and mortar retailer model that is supported by traditional mass market advertising.
Once per day, get up and walk over to the desk of someone you haven’t spoken to recently. Take two minutes to ask her what she’s working on. Once she’s done answering, respond “What do you need from me to make that project/transaction successful?” Message to employee: I know who you are, I’ve got high expectations — and I’ve got your back.
Animal researchers believe that play serves as a kind of training for the unexpected. “Play is like a kaleidoscope,” says evolutionary biologist Marc Bekoff of the University of Colorado at Boulder, in that it is random and creative. The bottom line, he posits, is that play encourages flexibility and creativity that may, in the future, be advantageous in unexpected situations or new environments.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=56a4d1b4-14bd-4f75-bdf7-5304310a9031)
