head back to ideacouture.com
Noodleplay Login

Ethnography, Experience Design, Featured Articles, Strategic Innovation

Think like a three year old

Posted by: Maryam Nabavi, at 12:39 pm on October 17, 2011

We recently had a learning zone workshop with a group of kids in our office. They were in two separate groups of 3-5 and 6-8yrs, each group with unique exercises to complete. Not to mention how exhausting it was running after the younger ones, I also realized how much more imaginative they are comparing...

Articles, Ethnography, Experience Design, Strategic Innovation

What does an innovation strategist do?

Posted by: Patrick Glinski, at 7:31 am on August 15, 2011

Ask a person what an Innovation Strategist does and they usually give you blank stares or buzz words. So who are you and what would you say you do here? Here’s a quick list of responsibilities from the inside of an innovation firm.

The opportunity to become an “Innovation Strategist” catches people’s attention. Since our initial posting for the role in Toronto, we’ve received over 120 resumes from dynamic, brilliant young individuals all interested in joining the Idea Couture team. From the outside looking...

Art and Culture, Business Models, Consumer Electronics, Economics, Experience Design, Explorations, Industrial Design, Organizational Design, Retail Design, Service Design, Social Change, Strategic Foresight, Strategic Innovation, sustainability, Technology, Transportation Design, Uncategorized

An evolution in the making; from designing things to designing experiences.

Posted by: Jesse Diephuis, at 1:42 pm on April 19, 2011

Conditions are ripe for collaborative design to take place in creating solutions beyond Industrial Design programs and outside of traditional R&D centers of Automotive OEMs.

The phenomenon of cheaper, faster, better (better in terms of having more options) is more a result of global economics than it is a corporate mandate.  If you think about Bauhaus (the origins of Industrial Design) and how it was intended to provide a social service of making houses and household product...

Articles, Experience Design, Industrial Design, Service Design, Social Media, Strategic Innovation, Technology

Digital people are the world’s best innovators

Posted by: Patrick Glinski, at 7:17 am on March 18, 2011

I’m not trying to discount the capabilities of industrial designers, researchers, or architects who’ve found their way into the innovation space, but the qualities of digital innovators put them in a unique position to solve some of the world’s biggest problems.

Idea Couture has its roots in digital innovation. Frog, Adaptive Path, my good friends at Normative Design, and many other leading innovation firms also have amazingly strong foundations in the digital world. Three years ago, I left the interactive industry to pursue innovation consulting, and while...

Experience Design, Featured Articles, Service Design, Social Media, Uncategorized

48 Hours. 1,236 Service Designers. 60 Locations. 203 Service Design Concepts.

Posted by: Nicole Chen, at 3:10 pm on March 16, 2011

48 hours. 1,236 service designers. 60 locations. 203 service design concepts. Mix these all up and what do you get? An global event demonstrating what immense creativity, collaboration, innovation, and an aggressive time crunch can produce — Global Service Jam 2011! Participants from San Paulo,...

Articles, Ethnography, Experience Design, Service Design, Strategic Innovation

The relationship between Design Thinking & Innovation

Posted by: Patrick Glinski, at 9:06 am on March 3, 2011

Innovation and Design Thinking are inherently linked. A night on Quora led me to try and make a tangible connection between the two.

As you might expect, the terms Innovation and Design Thinking come up pretty often at Idea Couture. It’s not very often I have to intellectualize the terms, but earlier this week, I ran an internal workshop outlining the foundations of design thinking as it relates to facilitation [side note -...

Articles, CSR, Experience Design, Social Change, Social Media, sustainability

In Defense of Voting Platforms

Posted by: Patrick Glinski, at 7:26 pm on January 26, 2011

Vote now has become is the new charity call to action. But cause voting competitions are not without their critics.

It’s hard to dispute that voting platforms have quickly become one of the most popular tools in the cause marketing playbook. As with any new marketing method, these platforms have been a lightning rod for criticism. This week alone, I’ve had several healthy debates with thought leaders...

Articles, Experience Design, Explorations, Industrial Design, Retail Design, Strategic Innovation, Transportation Design, Uncategorized

Pack the bags for a new direction

Posted by: Jesse Diephuis, at 12:11 pm on January 3, 2011

There are 365 days in the year and our travel luggage spends most of that time buried away in the closet.  When luggage is not being used, it takes away valuable space, and adds to the frustration of clutter creating awkward surfaces that are difficult integrate with other items. After 100 years in...

Articles, Ethnography, Experience Design, Featured Articles, Industrial Design, Service Design, Social Change, Strategic Foresight, Strategic Innovation, Technology, Transportation Design, Uncategorized

Bygone Nostalgic Design VS. the Emerging World.  Part 2

Posted by: Jesse Diephuis, at 8:03 pm on May 20, 2010

To address better ways of integrating Transportation in Urban environments requires a very wide-angle perspective lens in order to view the whole scenario of life in an urban environment as well as those in and around the  emerging world. It requires that we put ourselves on the same streets of the...

Articles, Experience Design, Explorations, Featured Articles, Industrial Design, Service Design, Social Change, Strategic Foresight, Strategic Innovation, sustainability, Technology, Transportation Design

Bygone Nostalgic Design VS. the Emerging World.  Part 1

Posted by: Jesse Diephuis, at 10:01 am on May 18, 2010

Traditionally, the notion of Beauty and Elegance is what makes classic examples of automotive design, which is designed to encourage observers to dream about an irreverent future.  In the early days of the 1920’s and 1930’s these notions of dramatic proportions were predicated on people who lived...