However, we are now experiencing another evolution in Industrial Design as it appears to be reaching the end of an evolutionary plateau, with emerging industrial economies such as China and India set to take over  the way things get made (for better or worse).  It is important to note that Industrial manufacturing will continue to exist, yet it must evolve to keep up with emerging needs of society and the new rules of global responsibility.  In a similar way that Industrial processes in Europe became focussed on premium quality rather than mass-quantity, North American manufacturing will need to re-examine and re-evaluate where their strengths are and what long term potential exists based on examining holistic risks and opportunities.

Since the 1950′s manufacturing expertise in North America has been systematically reduced to ever more efficient assembly lines with ever increasing regulations and manufacturing processes with more emphasis devoted to marketing and advertising.  As a result of this, manufacturers have become increasingly more clever at reducing the number, complexity and cost of manufacturing.  However as we look forward to the next phase of evolution in our emerging world economy, the core Industrial Design skills and manufacturing expertise appears to be set for going open and experiential.

It is this technical know-how that is gradually being re-distributed throughout the Internet and it is allowing new micro-assembly methods for independents, proving a way to bypass traditional investment heavy processes and procedures.  This is proving to be most beneficial for the emerging economies and independents start-ups.  Fisker Automotive and Tesla Automotive are both companies who are touting their independent green credentials, and yet they using the same supplier base from larger OEMs to create their more sharply defined and powerful Premium Electric or Plug-in Hybrids vehciles. Most important to note however, is that these are still early days for these type of innovators.

Already there are other new (smaller scale) business models which are begining to pop up.  As with many innovations, it is not always the originator of an idea who benefits from an idea or technology first.  Sometimes the groundwork that has been laid down by previous business experiments and prototype models leads innovators to other business models with separate and an un-intended technologies and they are able to realize a novel new approach for use in a new type of product.  An interesting example at this end of the spectrum is BPG Motors; an small start-up company born from a highschool science project in which the technology of Segway’s personal transporter was reformatted to fit into a motorcycle style package.  After only a few short years, the company is now experimenting with a fold-up scooter prototype, the UNO III, which can transform itself to save space to be taken indoors and up an elevator.  None of this would have been possible if not for the accessibility of open-source know-how and shared technologies (such as the out-sourced rapid prototyping of aluminum parts).

Are brand names, badges or marques of a manufacturer more important than what the physical product is?  These are questions that I often think about.  I think automotive manufacturers also need to address these kinds question before taking their brands into the realm of experience design.  If a manufacturer of a brand cannot impart a more compelling story beyond what the end customer picks up from their  dealership, then perhaps it is time for an investigation  around what kinds of experiences, journeys and alternative narratives can be provided to consumers.

Industrial Design has often been criticized as one of the most destructive professions due to the resulting industrial waste,  shortened mid-cycle enhancements and associated pollutants with the entire socio-economic, industrial and commercial program.  There are several leading minds in  transportation design and automotive design experts who acknowledge that the only way to improve current and emerging issues related to transportation and mobility is in collaboration with non-automotive sectors.  More importantly there is now an industry awareness and emphasis on designing experiential brands, that take consumers beyond the realm of “yes or no type offerings” or other stand alone products, and instead focuses on delivering a participative experience.  This is the next evolution for Industrial Design as it requires a breadth of knowledge of both product, process and positioning.

So what does all this mean to brand-name manufacturers?    Manufactures can do much more for consumers, and  there are real needs that can be addressed right now beyond simply offering more products.  The short answers could be in developing alternatives to car ownership, and alleviating time wasted for commuters stuck in traffic.  There are many forms this could this take, most obviously transit buses and ride/share programs.  But how could an automotive brand use experiential marketing to provide a premium service?  Would there be anything from a brand to add to the experience beyond simply being an “outstanding, compelling or gotta-have-product”?   Imagine an autonomous limo that picks you and and delivers you your destination, that is piloted by Google, co-branded by Apple and offers passengers an engaging experiences designed by Universal Studios.  Or how about stopping off at Starbucks to recharge your electric hybrid while you enjoy your favorite cup of coffee?

The path forward is not yet clear, and there is still much deliberation about what vehicle architectures, electric infrastructure and vehicle servicing that will be needed in the future.  However, industry already knows about the more immediate and frustrating issues of traffic, pollution and insurance premiums.  If foresight indications are correct, then the R&D groups of large OEM’s need to begin re-evaluating what mobility means, and what role their brands will play in a service oriented economy.   Creative technology environments are generally reserved for work in manufacturing R&D silos, however I know from experience that they can be quite flexible in accommodating new types of design and engineering (see my earlier post here).  In order for OEM brands to gain access to the next evolution economy, the Researching-of and Designing-exercises for consumer experience based offerings, must be opened up beyond the silo of transportation designers.  What is needed now, is a new platform to engage policy makers, urban planners and non-automotive businesses with those in the Automotive Corporate world.

Two weekends ago, I had the privilege of representing Idea Couture at the Compost Modern conference here in San Francisco. Organized by AIGA SF, “‘Compostmodern’ engages designers, sustainability professionals, artists and entrepreneurs to collaborate in realizing a more environmentally, culturally, and economically sustainable world.”

While you can read many recaps on the conference that have already been published (check out posts on Cnet, Dwell, and Core77, and moderator Alissa Walker‘s fantastic summary-in-a-poem), I’d like to take the conversation a step further. As a product designer turned MBA and now innovation strategist, I’d say I’m as much a realist as a idealist, and I strongly believe that one of the greatest challenges we face as designers is balancing inspiration with solid and thoughtful execution. In my day-to-day, I work with leaders and managers in large corporations who are not as far along the design-thinking and “good business” kool-aid as we as a community are. We have to ask ourselves some hard questions in order to, as Christopher Simmons said during the conference, earn a seat at the leadership table.

So after some reflection on the event, I’d like to share some of my thoughts and comments on the ideas presented (and not presented) at the conference:

Tackling Sustainability as a system: Beyond materials and packaging

The conference kicked off with Yves Behar showcasing much of his latest work, which yes, of course, was beautiful and clever. But my eyes and ears didn’t perk up until he showed his work with Puma, called “A Clever Little Bag“, an alternative to cardboard shoe packaging. It wasn’t the design that caught my interest though. It was the photos of a distribution center and his mention of the challenge of coordinating the design concept with Puma’s supply chain. I waited to hear more about how he navigated that very-real business challenge, but unfortunately, he breezed right by.

We need to hear more about those challenges in order to push our awareness as designers beyond materials and packaging. Yes, there is a lot of potential there for designers to reduce material use, and I applaud it all. But while we design thoughtful and less-wasteful packaging, we have to consider the entire supply chain and the constraints it presents – how the product is manufactured, loaded up in to freight, stored and moved around in distribution centers, presented in retail stores, and finally taken home by the consumer who then owns its end-of-life fate. And how is that information shared between numerous stakeholders and how does that dynamic affect adoption? It’s not as simple as designing an object – but imagine what impact we can have if we addressed all of this complexity as part of our design challenge? It was a missed opportunity for the entire audience to not hear the more implementation-heavy side of the Behar-Puma story.

As an aside, I’d like to point out that evolving into system sustainability designers (imagine that on a business card!) means we may have to give up some of our own thirst for recognition. We as designers love pointing to tangible evidence of our contributions – a designed object, a space, a poster, a website.  No awards are given out for thoughtfully changing a distribution strategy or tweaking a process in a factory to be more sustainable. But if we want to elevate our impact, we need to be willing to accept the (perceived) diffusion of our contribution. Are we ready for that?

Success Metrics for Healthy Work Cultures.

Given my involvement with the founding of Idea Couture’s San Francisco team, I was very excited to hear Janine James, president of The Moderns in New York City, talk about what she’s doing at her firm to build a healthy and thoughtful work culture. Beyond chemical-free cleaning products and healthy, catered lunches, she also supports “personal development” Fridays, where client work is put aside and the day is devoted to workshops, retreats, lectures, yoga, and other activities that stimulate both mind and body. I absolutely love this idea and the focus on fostering the creative development of employees as individuals. It’s just lovely.

However, these amazing work culture practices are more easy to implement when you own the company (and thus the company’s purse strings!). What if you don’t have that privilege – how might one make a strong case for fostering this type of work environment to upper management? Are there proof points that show the benefits of these practices in a language business leaders might better understand.? Concrete success metrics like increased productivity, reduction in employee turnover, lower energy costs, or, the most powerful, reduction in health care expenses, would have been nice to measure as a before-and-after. Put simply, what’s the business case for work culture investment and its potential ROI?

Yes, turning human good into impersonal numbers is no fun and not sexy at all. But it can be very compelling and powerful to the higher ups. We must remember that we operate in a world of skeptics, which means we have to be smart and thoughtful about the language we use to talk about meaningful change.

Supporting Others to Take it All the Way.

Two highlights for me were talks by Kate Daughdrill of Detroit Soup and Debera Johnson of the Pratt Design Incubator. Both were stories of supporting others to bring inspiration to reality – from Detroit Soup’s $5 dinners with proceeds going to the most-popular local art project to Pratt’s Design Incubator’s work in bringing the most promising student work to market with innovative new business models. Scott Thomas‘ story also speaks to this point – micro-donations from individual supporters  on Kickstarter.org allowed him to raise the money he needed to self-publish his Designing Obama book. So he benefited from the “micro-help” of others, and now we benefit from his work as a public.

Sometimes, it takes just a little something to ignite a wave of action, and we as designers can encourage that. Our opportunity isn’t just about what can we do, but what we can do to help others do what they want to do (you still with me?). By nature, we as designers are fantastic do-ers, so how can we be thoughtful and generous in how we might support others to become do-ers too?

Inspiration is Easy. Execution is Hard.

I loved Scott Thomas’ slides on what it actually took for him to get Designing Obama published. Countless revisions, numerous phone calls and emails, lots of small decisions, thank you notes, individually filling out paperwork and wrapping books for mailing,…as an audience, we laughed but we got it. Turning an idea into an actual, real-life thing, whatever it is, is really really hard, and takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears. I worry sometimes that we as designers get caught up in the elegance of our ideas and inspiration, and then denounce others that “just don’t get it”. Why wouldn’t someone love what we’re working on and take it upon themselves to make it reality?

Sometimes, if you want something done, you need to do it yourself, or assemble a team of people to really carry an inspiration forward. That means a lot of work, much of what you won’t be familiar with and much of what seems like petty menial labor (Scott Thomas had to fill out 400+ postal forms by hand to get his book to his supporters – how boring is that!). Are we ready to do that grunt work, fight the hard battles, and do the political maneuvering that has to be done in addition to the beautiful, inspiration-fulfilling work we designers love to do? The answer to that question is hopefully a resounding yes!

I truly and deeply believe in the potential that design can have in making this world a better and more sustainable place. But we must balance inspiration with hard work and execution. I left Compost Modern feeling inspired, yet more determined than ever to make things happen. So let’s do it.

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 in the CSR and Social Innovation space about their value for communities:

“They waste precious, limited charity resources”,

“They tick off the donor list”,

“They celebrate popularity, not good ideas”,

“etc…”

Yesterday morning, I was up at 5AM to attend the Year 2 Aviva Community Fund winner’s event. After another year overseeing Canada’s most successful social media and cause marketing platform, I felt inspired to share a bit more of an insiders view of how these competitions work, and why they are an extremely good thing for causes when used strategically. I have no doubt, there’ll be plenty of disagreement regarding my point of view, as I already hear it on a daily basis. I look forward to some healthy discussion.

“only a few ideas win, everyone else loses”

As someone who curates competitions and sits on the board of a charity, I’ll be the first to say that the allure of a big pot of money is seductive. You’ll be hard pressed to find an organization or school that’s overfunded, so inevitably some organizations are disappointed or angry  when they don’t win.

But to look at these competitions with the singular view that the prize is the only outcome is extremely short sighted. Well designed cause marketing platforms are marketing assets that can leveraged by both sides of the equation. Some organizations are disappointed by the outcome, while others recognize the opportunity that is presented to them the whole way through.

These programs are about marketing, and that marketing is symbiotic. Yes, brands like Aviva and Pepsi win by associating themselves with causes. But charities also win trough promoting their needs through national platforms. Having spoken to many, many, many organizations who have participated in these types of programs, far more ideas get funded than the ones announced. Smart causes use these marketing platforms as a way to bring their needs to national attention. They organize themselves to “win”, whether they get funding through the program or not, by using these programs to educate interested individuals about their needs.

Most importantly, they build a new and expanded audience, which in and of itself is an asset asset.

“they’re just a popularity contest”

Voting, and especially social media voting in a cause marketing platform, is a popularity contest. That popularity brings people to a branded site which creates exposure to the contest organizer. The formula is pretty standard there. Ultimately, a degree of any competition has to do with the ability to rally support – be it a student council vote, or voting in the AMEX Member’s Project. Inherently there’s a hope that a democratic process like voting yields a valid outcome.

The way that I view the Aviva Community Fund is in two phases – the marketing phase, and the cause phase. The marketing phase (up to selecting the finalists) is 100% participant chosen, and 100% the result of an idea’s ability to rally voters. The cause side (judging) narrows the finalist ideas to the winners using detailed criteria designed to identify the most deserving projects with the biggest impact. I reiterate, we find the best idea from a sub-set selected based on popularity. The most deserving ideas get funding.

One final thing to remember. If there’s issue with the popularity contest, we can’t forget that the dollars for programs like this come directly from the marketing budget and not a CSR budget. The result is money (which would normally go to advertising) being directed to causes.

I sure can tolerate a popularity contest if it means $1,000,000 goes to deserving ideas.

“they take a lot of work to enter”

The rationale that these competitions are a distraction is an uninformed rationale for why these platforms are bad.

First, from a pure mechanics perspective, user experience practitioners design these competitions to be as easy to use as possible. For example, in designing our idea submission forms, we deliberately made our forms as simple as possible with the recognition that good ideas come from anywhere. That means our submission process needs to be as easy for a major not for profit to complete as it is for a grade 2 student. To enter the first round of our competition, we’re talking maybe 15 minutes. Add in voting, creating a few images, and shooting a video, maybe 2 hours? The mechanics alone are a negligible distraction.

In the case of the community fund, we also built in a philosophy of progressive disclosure into our submission process, which basically means that the further you progress into the competition, the more we ask you. We needed to balance the needed for judges to evaluate an idea with the amount of effort required to enter the competition, and we didn’t want people to go through the effort of developing complex budgets until they saw the light at the end of the tunnel.

“they’re a distraction to the focus”

Aside from the mechanics, what people are probably really upset about is the effort it takeout to collect come up with ideas, market the idea, and collect votes.

On the ideas creation, I would say it’s the role of charities and community leaders to come up with new and innovative projects to help people. If anything (and I’ve been told this), we’re giving organizations a reason to think about how they can help serve their communities better. I think that’s a pretty positive outcome.

On the marketing side, perhaps one of the best outcomes of these programs is their ability to act as an educational tool. On one hand, we embed marketing education in all of our program design to help causes capture as large an audience as possible. On the other hand, idea creators and supporters are learning about how to market their charities in the age of digital media. I know from first hand conversations that participation in the Aviva Community Fund, for example, has taught a number of organizations about how to use social media.

On the votes point, see my next section.

“we’re draining our database”

If you have issues with these programs creating a distraction, perhaps you should reframe your thinking a little. Maybe a distraction is exactly what these organizations need in order to realize the level of commitment, passion, and interest out there by people who don’t have the means or desire to respond to the one tired message in the marketplace, “Donate now”.

While some people struggle with the burden of the vote, I actually think it’s refreshing to hear charities ask for help in a way other than from my pocket. Voting competitions allow charities to tell a different story, and to get people to act in a different way. Since there is less commitment in giving a vote than a dollar, I think (and have heard) that these voting platforms allow smart organizations to collect new donors as opposed to disenfranchise them. And meanwhile, any smart marketer knows to segment their database.

Voting platforms are an opportunity, and an option

Maximizing the potential of voting-based cause marketing platforms is hard work. I doubt anyone, including this year’s amazing Aviva Community Fund winners, would disagree. But to criticize them without assessing why they exist or what their potential is can be a really short sighted perspective. While it’s easy to make sweeping generalizations, if you actually take the time to analyze how some communities take advantage of these opportunities, you’ll see that they benefit as much as the brand putting on the competition.

And of course, if I still haven’t convinced you, just don’t enter. But I promise you, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.

That’s a big question that I don’t think the world of crowdsourcing community has quite figured out yet.

Cause Marketing is Not CSR

Here’s an important level-set in the discussion of these platforms – branded cause competitions are a form of cause marketing, not CSR (corporate social responsibility). The difference is small but significant. Cause marketing is a marketing relationship where there is an expected brand benefit, where CSR plays in the realm of philanthropy. In cause marketing, it’s corporate first, cause second.

One of the big debates against these programs is that, “If these companies are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, they shouldn’t make people work for it”. This is a classic example of confusing CSR with CM. I couldn’t disagree more. Cause marketing is not a replacement for existing CSR programs. These programs aren’t just a re-allocation of philanthropy dollars, they result of net new new dollars being contributed to causes from a marketing budget. There needs to be positive brand return, or the program will disappear. So if a little charity work means a lot of new dollars being made available for causes, I’m all for it.

So why does CSR vs. CM matter?

Beyond executing against a program’s rules, cause marketing initiatives have no real responsibility to go any further than giving away a stated prize. Community idea competitions usually result in hundreds or even thousands of new ideas being submitted. Some of those ideas are unnecessary or impossible to implement, but many others represent a bottom up voice for what’s needed in the community.Whether intentional or not, these platforms have given a voice to ignored communities, marginalized populations, and scrappy causes. They have the ability to bring attention to there needs in ways that used to be reserved for behemoth not for profit organizations.

But as with any competition, there are winners and losers. Cause marketing idea competitions make plenty of ideas come to fruition. As a marketing competition, it can’t be reasonably expected that the marketer take responsibility to manage and push forward every idea submitted. In the case of the Aviva Community Fund, we partnered with Benevity in 2010 so that registered charities can use the platform to connect donations as a way to migrate from CM to CSR platform and to let the ideas live on. But we can’t expect that a soft drink or credit card company follow up on every idea – it’s not good business.

The result is that many important ideas get forgotten once the next round of voting starts.

Government and community idea competitions
Idea platforms showcase community needs. So nothing could be worse than a community need being flagged in a competition, then going unfulfilled or un-evaluated. The crowdsourcing competition model uses voting as a way of making idea evaluation manageable, but just because an idea isn’t popular or because the idea creator doesn’t know how to use facebook doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good idea.

In a previous blog post about classifying crowdsourcing platforms, I introduced a concept called Crowdsourcing Researching -using crowdsourcing as a tool to articulate previously unknown or unmet needs. These ideas platforms are an amazing Crowdsourcing Researching tool to understand community needs. FixMyStreet is a great example of how this can work in government, and with many municipalities moving towards philosophies of open government, listing to the crowd has to be a vertical of activity.

My hope (dream, aspiration) is that in the long term, these competitions find ways to formalize their relationships with government as a way to ensure that all ideas receive the attention they deserve. For the winning ideas, they get a fast-track to implementation under the Cause Marketing program rules. But for all other ideas, they find a formalized way to be reviewed by government agencies to ensure there’s an opportunity for implementation. Idealized, yes I know, but important.

What are your thoughts?

Having spent the better part of the last two years working on the  Aviva Community Fund and MIT Global Challenge platforms, and working on ways to see ideas live beyond the length of a competition, I can tell you that this new form of bottom up innovation represents an important evolution in how problems are solved in the world. And as long as they continue to be brand building powerhouses, private organizations are going to continue to collect important community ideas. What do you think should happen to private competition ideas?

On a related note about karma, BP is at the top of the bad karma list for sure for its oil spills in the Gulf. During moments like this, it’s usually the true test for the public relations department to come out and perform some kind of crisis management or publicity “clean-up”. Check out @BPGlobalPR on twitter – after reading a few tweets I realized that their PR strategy is to be truly honest. In fact, BP is admitting that they are the bad guy and they are also selling “BP cares” t-shirts to benefit healthygulf.org.

If twitter activism is not enough to keep you informed and entertained, JESS3′s oil spills Firefox plug-in will certainly put a smile on the face – If you visit the site, your screen page will be covered in oil whenever the word “BP” appears. While the above mentioned might not have immediate impacts to the act of bad karmas, it sure is a great outlet for more public awareness and engagement.

However, striking this balance in the modern world, and more importantly the emerging world must take on a different meaning.  As the old notions of luxury are challenged, they must make way for a new set of user dynamics and offer solutions to the people who live in the growing Megacities (cities with populations over 10 million).

In 2000, there were 18 megacities – conurbations such as Mumbai, Tokyo, New York City, and Mexico City had populations in excess of 10 million inhabitants. Greater Tokyo already has 35 million, which is greater than the entire population of Canada.  (source: Wikipedia)  2015 and beyond will also  see cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, added to this list to name a few.

Transportation on the whole is beginning to splinter into many different value streams such as delivery-on-demand, hub-to-hub services and deliveries, international condo cruisers, executive coaches, virtual garages, post-materialistic neighborhood eco-cars, shared-public vehicles, super-budget-sub $3000, and also new derivatives of personal mobility leading to even more avenues.

As Mega-cities become the norm, consumer attitudes will shift further away from the traditional aspiration of commuter vehicle ownership.  The costs associated with owning, insuring, driving, navigating, re-fueling, re-charging and parking will begin to unravel the notion of investing in one single mode of transport.  In its place, we will see more services based types of transportation.  All it will take are a few entrepreneurs who can splice together on-demand services with real-time users who consumers who are looking for more than just a taxi.

We must search out new ways of mobility, in terms of prestige, convenience, adaptability, affordability, dependability, the “raison d’etre” …… and we must find them quickly.  For consumers, they must be offered some form of tangible incentive, be it joy from the sheer act of being mobile, entertainment, price or convenience.

In terms of Engineering and Design, there are studies currently taking place around the use of robotics in the transportation industry; GM EN-V is one example of a technology demonstrator, and is now on display now at the Shanghai World Expo. The EN-V operates on technology borrowed from Segway, and the entire vehicle is half the size of a Smart car, fully electronic, has a top speed of 25 mph, and is capable of making turns 360 degrees in-place.Another example is the T.25 concept from Gordon Murray (Designer of the famous supercar; McLaren F1), which demonstrates foresight for government regulations, and fuel economy mandates, which are expected by the year 2020.

Transportation technologies have the ability to facilitate change, but ultimately adoption of this will rely completely on the behavior of how humans move about.  Metropolitan cities are more fashion conscious, and urban dwellers are more interested spending money on others things rather than to automobiles.  These people have other desires for items; shoes, purses, headphones, jackets etc…  But human behavior is not an engineering subject and neither is fashion. Therefore, the future scenarios of personal mobility will be less about pure Engineering, more about Ethnography and Designing towards consumer tastes and their unique interests.

Soon, consumers will not care so much about who manufactured their product, but instead they will be more interested in what Designer, Stylist, Co-creator or Theme Artist customized their mobility.  As this scenario evolves it will begin to see an over-lapping of transport services that combines with fashion design, product design, and experience design.

Coconuts- Eat The Meat, Use The Shell

Coconuts are a superfood when its comes to physical activity- coconut water for example, has all the essential electrolytes your body needs to keep nerves firing and muscles moving. One cup of cocunut water has more potassium than a banana, 15 times more electrolytes than most sports drinks, and also prevents cramping, promote recovery, and re-hydrates the body. Coconut shells are usually discarded, but they are now being used in exercise clothing. Recycled coconut shells are roasted, turning them into activated carbon and they are then combined with polyester fibers to enhance their performance properties. The result: a greener, softer, quick-drying apparel that provides both UV and odour protection.

Drink Your Coffee, Wear Your Coffee

A cup of coffee before my workout definitely gives me the energy boost I need- in fact a new study suggest that caffeine also kills some of the pain of athletic exertion. Now coffee has another use- the usually wasted ground coffee beans are being infused into the thread of fabrics.  The Coffee grounds are perfect for sports apparel because they control moisture, absorb odour, and are most often concentrated in sports bra’s cups.

Wearable Corn- Grill It, Wear It

Freshly picked corn-on-the-cob is often synonymous with summer- loaded with many essential nutrients including dietary fibre and vitamin C, corn is a summertime BBQ staple. Corn however, is not only great on the grill- it is now being used in exercise clothing. Using corn in fabric is not only environmentally friendly but the fibres wick away sweat and increase sun protection. Also, as your body temperature rises, the fibres let in cool air and post work-out they retain heat.

These active ingrediants are good for you and the environment too.

The Clever Little Bag by Puma

Recently Puma announced the Clever Little Bag that will reduce their environmental footprint. As a shoelover, a shoebox is not only an environment problem but a space saving issue that involves all shoelovers who live in small condos. The Clever Little Bag not only solves the bigger problem at hand such as sustainability and carbon emission but it also reduces cluster in everyone’s home.

The R3 Green experiment by Petz Scholtus and Sergio Carratala

I stumbled upon this article on ReadyMade magazine and its about a Spanish couple in Barcelona who turned their own home into a green experiment. The couple used as many recycled materials as they could to create a carbon neutral home that follows the 3R principles: Reduce, Recycle, Respect. One of the coolest things in their apartment is the Wine Crate cabinets in the kitchen. You can follow the instruction and make one yourself with this check list.

Obsessive Consumption by Kate Bingaman-Burt
Obsessive Consumption started out as an art project by Kate Bingaman and it’s a project that I have been following for a few years. Kate, the artist, started out by creating a personal record of what she buys everyday and she draws out credit card statements for every single item she buys. The collection of drawings is getting bigger and bigger and she has finally started a blog to document this project. Why is this project green you ask? The drawings of what we consume serve as a reminder for all of us to think twice about how much we consume on this planet and by looking at the colourful drawings of these consumptions you are able to reflect on your own. When everyone is doing it- that’s a good starting point for reducing waste.

Happy Earth Day!

Rubber boots and metal sheers in tow, I was ready to heave and hoe (and all the other farm-appropriate gestures) my way along the learning curve – my green thumb had previously been limited to some potted basil and a few house plants. I expected organic farming on a large scale would be complicated. I didn’t realize it would be so inspiring.

This farm used permaculture, a design method that mimics the architecture and relationships in natural ecologies to develop sustainable agricultural practices. In other words, the organic ‘food forest’ (which requires zero fossil fuels) was bursting with diverse produce, wild flowers and life, thanks to the network of ecosystems nurtured within it. With a bit of nature-inspired design, a sustainable and rich ecosystem was created and did an unbelievable job at contributing to its own maintenance.

I was fascinated and unbelievably curious – farming is an obvious place to mimic nature’s design, but what about business? What about manufacturing, packaging and services? After all, 3.8 billion years of R&D later and we can’t deny that nature is the authority on the design of sustainable systems.

The interwebs led me to Bio-Mimicry, a design discipline committed to developing sustainable solutions by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies.

What can inter-species cooperation and competition teach us about building communities? What can the butterfly’s wings teach us about self-cleaning material? What can wind-turbines learn from flying birds? How would nature heat and cool a home? These are the kinds of questions BioMimicry seeks to answer – and with cool open-source projects like The Biomimicry Institutes’ AskNature,, the answers are right at our fingertips.

At a time when the often-daunting task of designing for sustainability is a top priority for many businesses, this is especially intriguing. Biomimicry can be a powerful tool for innovation on the road to more sustainable designs and processes. Nature can demonstrate the underlying simplicity of seemingly complicated processes – so take another look, what can you learn from your own backyard?

Ps. Intrigued? Check out this great TED talk video for examples of how nature is already inspiring design.

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 – and particularly at Idea Couture, we have strong group of dedicated cyclists. So – for all the devoted cyclists out there who have cursed when unable to find a decent parking spot for one’s 2-wheeler, this innovation from Japan will delight in its ingenuity – solving practical problems such as theft, space constraints and weather.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2009/nov/05/bicycles-japan-bike-tree