About a month ago, I attended my graduate school reunion and was struck by two observations. The first was simply how quickly time flies. It’s a mundane thought but in pausing for a minute to think about the implications of passing time, its finite nature drives our world. Whether we’re working towards a project deadline [...]

I’ve traveled to many a cycling loving city including Amsterdam and Copenhagen and they live in stark contrast to our city’s bicycle culture. With few dedicated bike lanes, sparse parking facilities and a passive aggressive car vs. bike culture relationship, it’s amazing that people in this city even cycle at all. But we do – [...]

Innovation is not a random event or some intangible initiative. It is a practice and a process. More specifically, innovation is best defined as “the process of creating economic value devising business ideas that addresses consumers’ unmet needs”. But there is a dilemma in understanding how ready firms are in embracing and executing on innovation. [...]

Every day I walk through a parking lot to get Idea Couture. The lot is sandwiched between a dance studio and a Starbucks and is, for the most part, flat and dreary. Most parking lots are like this – purely functional without any personality. Houndstooth Pattern in Parking Lot, at Disney World, FL by Alex [...]

I’ve just come form the Apple Store Genius bar where much to my disappointment, they could not fix the crack – yes crack – in my Mac Air. Never having dropped my computer, regular wear and tear for just over a year, my Mac Air, once a cherished jewel, has become the bane of my [...]

Yesterday, I wrote about the demand side of sustainability and how serving consumer need and meeting expectations are the driving force to of purchase choice. Today, I want to explore the flip side of the coin – the efforts of corporations to design products and services that are inherently sustainable AND cost effective. It’s not [...]

When thinking about sustainability, a few questions come to my mind time and again is – why are sustainable, green, environmentally products and services more expensive? Do they have to be? Do the economics of sustainability make sense for consumers? I don’t mean this from a “save the planet” perspective – environmental economics and the [...]

Every time you spend money, you are casting a vote for the kind of world you want (Anna Lappe)

Kiva Tea Gallery bridges the distance between investor and entrepreneur by extending the relationship from lending to spending.

How many ways are there to draw a circle? What about building a chair? Or architecting a software application? There are a thousand ways to reach any of these ends. But which one is right? This is likely the reason there often argument and debate between collaborators on choosing a method – the means often [...]