Category: Uncategorized

What Good Does Design Do For Business? | Co. Design

There is nothing like using the sensibilities of design to unpack wicked problems.
viafastcodesign.com

What Good Does Design Do For Business? Here Thomas Lockwood proposes the Design Mix, a set of principles that define how design adds value to business.
Have you noticed how similar some products are becoming? A Tesla and a Lotus, that’s an easy one. But I’m talking about the similarities between seemingly disparate objects, like an Audi car and Oakley sunglasses, a 3M stapler and an Alessi teapot, or a Starbucks café and your bank lobby. Consumers love cool design, and, in case you haven’t heard, companies are catching on.
Investing in the design process can be a sustainable business advantage, because it tends to lead to five things: creative collaboration, innovation, differentiation, simplification, and customer experience.
For starters, designers tend to collaborate with each other, other disciplines, and users to generate new ideas, explore alternatives, and create new stuff (products, websites, brands, stores, etc.). The process of design thinking, co-creation, and design as creative collaboration can help companies move beyond their norms and create new markets. Companies like Intuit and Four Seasons have changed their corporate culture and how they compete with other market players by encouraging such collaborative processes.
Intuit created a Design for Delight process, or D4D, which they use for problem solving and has led to launching new mobile products and services quickly, based on employee involvement and nurturing a design-thinking culture.
This cross-pollination can be the path to innovation. Design helps bring innovation–whether in tech or customer-service–to market. Just take away the design part of any innovative idea and see what you’re left with.
What would a Dyson Airblade hand-dryer be without its unique usability? In addition to being a collaborative path toward innovation, design is a way to differentiate a brand’s products from its competitors’. This goes beyond logo, graphic design, and branding to enabling user and customer experiences that cannot be easily copied. HP has done so using their “D3” matrix of design value in their printer design strategy. And when P&G wanted to gain preference in the generic mop category, it asked Continuum Innovation to look into mopping.
Continuum developed a waterless solution–the Swiffer–now a branded product asset and nearly a billion-dollar business. We live in an experience economy, and design is key to creating meaningful customer experiences. Case in point: Philips Lighting wants to sell more light bulbs, but the products have developed to the point where differentiation is hard to achieve, so they’ve beefed up the retail experience by connecting with Engine Service Design to create new software and a service platform that helps their retailers manage their lighting and media assets across their stores.
The simple light bulb became differentiated through service design and the retailer experience. Lastly, design simplifies. We live in complexity, and there is nothing like using the sensibilities of design to unpack wicked problems. The data-storage company StorageTek used to have completely different parts for each of their different servers and data-storage product lines, mostly due to legacy issues and business unit independence. The design department created a common platform strategy using shared components–just as Toyota Highlanders and Sienna minivans share the same chassis platform. The move not only saved StorageTek millions of dollars in just a few years but was the environmentally responsible thing to do.
Design simplifies and should enable reuse and ecological solutions. It is time for the professional design community to promote the demonstrable value of design, as described above. In 1953, Neil Borden, the president of the American Marketing Association, helped define the value of marketing by coining the term “Marketing Mix,” which subsequently led to the famous 4 Ps of marketing (product, price, place, and promotion).
In 2011, as the past president of the Design Management Institute, I propose that collaborate, innovate, differentiate, simplify, and customer experience become the Design Mix. Let’s talk in terms of real business value, because design is now gaining a seat at the table, and the last thing any c-suite needs is another empty suit.

Brand New Windowfarms- Vertical Food Gardens by The Windowfarms Project — Kickstarter

About this project

Learn, Share, & Grow With Windowfarms

Windowfarms let you grow fresh vegetables at home by taking advantage of natural light and climate control indoors. The roots are bathed in nutrients from the sea, preventing food plants from getting root bound (as they do in traditional soil filled containers). You get healthier roots, and fresher, more nutritious vegetables without dirt in small spaces. 

By bringing edible gardens into living rooms and kitchens, you learn about where your food comes from while eating the freshest produce available.

We are offering Classic One-Column Windowfarms that can be hung or stood at a reduced price as an additional enticement, and to help us meet our production minimums. Normally, our One-Column Windowfarms cost $119.95, but if you buy on Kickstarter, you will get it for just $99 (plus shipping and handling).

Order your windowfarm today, and join our 22,000+ global community members at our.Windowfarms.org to share your growing experiences. Conversations center on identifying the “micro-climate” of your windows and finding a good match amongst the huge varieties of herbs, greens, vegetables, fruits, and medicinals available. You can also choose a reward that includes nutrients and baby plant delivery of our favorite, well-tested varieties to ensure that your Windowfarms are always producing fresh herbs, greens, and other edibles. 

HAVE QUESTIONS? READ OUR FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE. 

The new Windowfarms systems are made from environmentally friendly plastic and wire. The new design allows us to offer Windowfarms at a greatly reduced price, down from $249. It just snaps together, decreasing the assembly time from a full day to about ten minutes.

We are so excited about this simplified and lower cost option because it will allow us to include people in the windowfarms movement who just want to focus on the growing part. We believe in the power of our community to change the way that people grow and eat food.

If you order before November 30, you’ll receive your Windowfarm in March 2012. 

Holiday Gifts

Our new Windowfarms will not be ready to ship by the holidays, however, if you are pre-ordering as a gift, we will send a personalized welcome-to-the community card to your loved one before December 24. The card will include a link to a personalized webpage for his/her windowfarm. Your giftee will be able to begin customizing the page and learning about his/her window’s microclimate, going through Windowfarms 101, selecting plants, and meeting other windowfarmers. It’s like the Facebook game, Farmville, but tastier! By the time the windowfarm arrives, your loved one will be ready to grow for real!! 

YOUR WINDOWFARM REWARDS


One-Column Classic Windowfarm– $99 + shipping/handling (US & Canada) comes with:

International version does not include timer & pump but does include shipping (see FAQs below)

Four-Column Classic Windowfarm– $269 + shipping/handling comes with one special, slightly larger air pump that runs all four columns and one timer. All other parts come with 4X the quantity.  

Baby plant and nutrient rewards come at several reward levels. Some are for one shipment, others are for multiple quarterly shipments. Each shipment includes:

– Organic and natural sea-derived nutrients from Botanicare’s Organicare line, enough to last for one or two crops (about 4 months) and a measuring dropper.

– Disposable water testing strips.

– Baby plants, aka “seedlings,” raised by our chef-turned-hydroponic farmer partner, Greg Graft of Grateful Greens. You will have an opportunity to select your plant mix from a variety of fine herbs and salad greens after the campaign closes. Common varieties include: Genovese Basil, a peppery watercress, perfect-caesar romaine, red leaf lettuce, tangy red-veined sorrel, lolla rosa lettuce, arugula, rosemary, thyme, oregano, stevia, mint and much more. We are always trying new varieties.  Seedlings are about 3-4″ tall and their roots are grown in hydroponic root cubes. You just nestle them into the clay pellets and turn your pump timer on! You can harvest from the same plant for 2-4 months depending on the variety. 


SHIPPING INFORMATION

DON’T FORGET TO PLEDGE FOR SHIPPING, OR WE CANNOT DELIVER YOUR REWARD!  

If you order before November 30, you’ll receive your Windowfarm in March 2012.

One-column Windowfarm: Please add $15 within the continental US, $19 for Canada, Hawaii, and Alaska. International shipping included in the International Reward.

Four-column Windowfarm: Please add $35 within the continental US, $42 for Canada, Hawaii, and Alaska. Not available internationally. 

Baby plants and nutrients cannot be shipped internationally because of customs restrictions. See below about other ways to start your plants internationally. 

NEW YORK RESIDENCE  Unfortunately, Windowfarms will not be available for pick-up locally as the fulfillment will be done at the location where the new product are being manufactured.  Please add shipping cost to your pledge.

Disclaimer

The pictures of the Windowfarms systems are of prototypes. Small changes that will improve your experience may occur before you receive your Windowfarm! Please contact us if you have questions.


via kickstarter.com

Printrbot: Your First 3D Printer by Brook Drumm — Kickstarter

About this project

Finally, a 3D printer kit that anyone can build

Check out the FAQ at the bottom of this page. – Updated often!

I designed the Printrbot to be the simplest 3D printer yet.  There are some great kits out there – the Makerbot, the Ultimaker, the Prusa Mendel, and others – but none as small and simple as the Printrbot.  This all-in-one 3D printer kit can be assembled and printing in a couple of hours.  Other kits will not only take you many more hours to build, they will also have hundreds more parts, and they will cost more.  My design also does away with the finicky calibration and adjustment from which most 3D printers suffer.   This is the printer a kid could put together. We assemble the electronics, we assemble the hotend, and we put the connectors on all the motors and components… no soldering required!

Quality design and quality parts

The Printrbot is my original design, but borrows from many great designers in the open source 3D printer world (check out reprap.org).  This new printer incorporates some of the best practices out there.  We use the latest electronics and firmware,  linear bearings, smooth drill rod with tight tolerances, a lasercut print bed, the most popular extruder design, mechanical endstops, a manufactured PCB heated bed, a simple hotend with replacable tips, and it works with the latest open source software.  

Pictures of the Printrbot:
http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649
http://www.flickr.com/groups/1770156@N25/

Video of the Printrbot:
http://vimeo.com/printrbot/videos

More Info: printrbot.com

Authentic and Expandable

We could have (and will eventually) build this printer using all lasercut wood like Makerbot and others, or poured molded plastic, or even injection-molded plastic, but I believe in the original RepRap.org purpose: to build a self-replicating machine – one that anyone can build given time and materials.  If you’ve got a RepRap – you can print lots of useful stuff, and you can print another RepRap for a friend.  Printrbot is a true RepRap machine. 

Being a true RepRap means you will immediately be able to upgrade and modify the machine with parts you print yourself.  The design easily allows you to increase the print area, add stabilizers for rigidity, replace the threaded rods with plastic parts…. that is the beauty or RepRap!  Also worth mentioning is the fact that all the electronics and hardware could easily be repurposed to power a completely different model of RepRap.

We need your support to scale production

Anyone can research and build one of the larger 3D printers, but it WILL be time consuming, complex, confusing, difficult for beginners and expensive.  We have brought 3D printer kits down to the beginner level and a better price point simultaneously.  How?!  Well, that’s where you come in.  The only way to produce assembled, cutting edge electronics is to order a lot of them.  The same logic applies to all the parts.  We need your support to scale production.

The goal: a printer in every home (and school)

This kickstarter will do more than fund a single project.  This project will launch a business in pursuit of the dream of “a printer in every home”.  We have reduced the complexity of these printers, but will soon focus solely on pushing the price of these printers to the absolute lowest sustainable retail price for kits and fully assembled printers.  

Please, help us change the world. Every little bit helps.  

Thank you for your support!

Brook Drumm
printrbot.com

via kickstarter.com

Youth Programs at Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Arkansas | heifer.org | Heifer.org

SUMMER ACTION
Program Dates: 2012 TBD
Tuition Fee: $335 per person (includes all programming, shared lodging and meals)
Spend a week of your summer vacation learning how you can help Heifer end hunger and poverty while experiencing life on a working farm! The week includes Global Gateway, team-building exercises, service projects and more. Participants will spend one night in the Heifer Global Village and four nights in a modern climate-controlled lodge.

To book a program or for more information about Heifer Learning Center at Heifer Ranch, browse our frequently asked questions, email the Heifer Ranch Reservations Office or call (501) 889-5124.

via heifer.org

The Future of Media

As consumers increasingly personalize their media consumption there is no shortage of hand wringing about the implications from lack of shared cultural experiences.  Particularly in news, there is concern that consumer will choose to consume content that reinforces existing opinions hardening political discord.  Beyond news, one could argue that shared love for TV shows and […]

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Posted in Internet, Social Media

via blog.ipglab.com