Mark Whiting’s posterous

I am not sure if these will be any good but I am excited because they look like fun. What really draws me to respect B&W however is the fact that many years ago a piar of rather expensive B&W speakers set up with a Bryston amp and some other components were the first speakers which really moved me. The memory of that experience has stayed with me as a baseline for what speakers should do, how much they should fool your brain into comprehending the sound stage and what makes me consistently smile with the rapture of entertaining audio. Since then I have of course heard better but it was then that my perspective changed.

Anyway, I hope these headphones are good. I suspect they are not designed for the really top end market but they look like they may be fun anyway.

10. Change Your Idea

To benefit from engaging with users you have to be willing to change your idea. We've always encouraged founders to see a startup idea as a hypothesis rather than a blueprint. And yet they're still surprised how well it works to change the idea.

This is an excerpt from a rather good pice by Paul Graham on startups.

I think this point is rather crucial. Change is such a big part of actually creating value. Pushing and pulling too hard are not. I would almost say that change is a key innovation strategy.

Icebergs and iceland seem to both be great things to photograph. Why is this?

This image was used by Jan Chipchase to note Ritualised Luck, situations where rituals exist which aim to increase someones luck. In this image a prayer card is shown which the driver touches before every ride.

I think however, this speaks about a greater source of luck, valuable rituals strategically designed to enable luck to integrate into your life. What I am suggesting is a bit like a serendipity strategy, a strategy designed to expose you to conducive situations, new information, creative ideas and extraordinary people to help you find great opportunities regularly.

I think some examples are: watching TED, taking part in community building, regular and diverse reading, enforced seclusion and bordom, and continuous context shifting such as traveling.

Any ideas about other such strategies?

Recently, in my classes at KAIST we have discussed fundamental definitions of key terms, like research, knowledge, and of course design. This process is quite interesting and has occasionally led to some really interesting perspectives. However this process has also repeatedly reminded me that we can not make good definitions and clean models for everything, and sometimes it is not worth it to try.

In the Tim Brown article this image comes from he discusses what design thinking is really about and interestingly, in doing so, lets us see a fundamental notion of design... one kind of design.

What he has done is good however it reminds me that I think there is a better model than always trying to know and trying to put things in their place. I think that a lack of understanding and a vagueness of notion allows growth and for areas like design, that can be important.

Today, in a discussion on this matter I claimed that Design is sometimes a little like Religion. If we try to know too much it stops being important and becomes something else. Both have had significant roles in society and human development.

This is of course just one perspective, but I think it might be an interesting one for some kinds of thinking.

What do other people think about this?

For those who do not know, I am working on my masters in Korea at a university called KAIST. The topic I am looking at right now (still being in early stages of the overal degree it is still not fixed) is related to the methods of integrating and working with external creativity from users and other external components of a company. With a strong interest in Design Management and Innovation Strategy, I want to think about how we can optimally integrate and facilitate this external creativity.

In any case, today, while reading through Google Reader and stopping at an interesting peice from NussbaumOnDesign, I was introduced to what seems to be a great success in the construction of a creative communities.

Lookbook.nu is a simple site that lets young fashion thinkers show their work in a simple yet integrated community. I particularly like how Nussbaum discribes this setting in his post.

Anyway, I am interested to think of how to make good communities and good integration between companies and external creative communities. Any ideas would be treated with kindness.