Fresh Takes on Innovation

You know Open source software, and we at BrainStore love open source innovation – but did you know that there is open source Cola? Now you do. Feel free to copy the recipe and try this at home!

Design by Hwang Jin wook, Jeon You ho, Han Kuk il & Kim Ji myung

At BrainStore we were pretty excited a few years ago when a defense contractor asked us to create some ideas on how their existing technologies could be used to make the world a better place.

They wanted to know what the scenarios of future threats to mankind were and how to respond to them. We came up with many ieas to tackle themes like modern piracy, desertification, world hunger, water poisoning, terrorism in cities, deluge and many more.

One concept took into consideration to build a kind of “seed bomb” that you could drop over territories that cannot be reached easily. The bomb would carry seedy to grow vegetables and could be used by the local farmers to grow produce.

I found a similar concept on Yanko Design Magazine. The seedbomb consists of a biodegradable capsule that contains soil and seeds. Once the capsule reaches the ground, the plant first grows in the capsule and produces moisture, which then melts the biodegradable capsule. I like the design and the way the concept is thought throug. Bravo, Yanko Design.

While researching this topic, a friend pointed out that using seed capsules is not such a new idea after all. The technology exists since the 70ies in some way and was used by Guerilla Gardeners, wo try to claim back a piece of nature within urban space. I am truly amazed at the idea of Guerilla Gardening. It opens a whole new world to me! And here is one very nice example of a Guerilla Gardening blog worth reading!

Look at this video about a project for Zappos Showroom done by Stanford design students. What I like about this way of showing an idea is that it actually shows the full interactivity of a future website by using simple, everyday materials and a narrator. The idea is immediately understandable and you can much better understand it than if it were presented with stills or screenshots. And I bet that doing it was fun, too!

Have a look at this wonderful idea from Saatchi & Saatchi for T-Mobile. It has perfectly captured the “social media” mood of 2009. Want to know more? go to Saatchi & Saatchis web site and read the whole story.

Thank you, Hazel Swayne (@hazeliz) and Inaki Escudero (@inakiescudero) for the tweet!

(courtesy Pia Schatzmann, who took this picture during her holiday in Bali.)

In our daily work at BrainStore we get to use a lot of image material, be it for inspiration or illustration. Searching for a specific picture can become a drag sometimes, switching between different image hosting sites and scanning the content in the traditional way. It takes up time, lots of it, time that could be used better to focus on how we can further improve our IdeaMachine.

So these days, when it comes to searching for images, I turn to Cooliris (free download at www.cooliris.com ). It is a plug-in for your browser that turns your screen in to a customable “3D Wall” to display your search results, be it pictures or videos, in a stunning new and slick way. It has a very intuitive handling that an averagely gifted person should understand within a minute. Also available in an iPhone version, Cooliris takes full advantage of the touch screen technology to create a unique picture and video viewing experience on the go.

At present, the software is compatible with Google Image Search, Yahoo! Image Search, Ask.com Images, Live Search Images, AOL Image Search, Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, Fotki, FotoTime, deviantART, SmugMug, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, hi5, Friendster, YouTube (for videos), Gallery, and any web site that implements mediaRSS <link> tags in their HTML pages. The software places a small icon in the corner of an image thumbnail when the mouse moves over it, which launches into a full-screen photo viewer when clicked.

This little gadget is exactly the kind of software we expect when we think of the web of tomorrow. The only difference is: It’s here already.

For the start of 2009, here is an organisation that is truly inspiring and important: All Day Buffet is an incubator for social innovation. They connect, develop and launch purpose-driven ventures. Last October they organised “The Feast”, a conference for social innovators. They also do a lot of work in New Orleans, which will become the Capital for Social Innovation thanks to the fact that after Hurricane Katrina everything had to be built there from scratch, and a lot of people took this as a wake-up-call to reinvent how things can be done. The next Feast conference, is, infact, taking place in New Orleans on February 6, 2009, so hurry there if you are a purpose driven entrepreneur or just interested in seeing exciting projects that deal with social innovation.

All here at BrainStore would just like to express their elation, happiness and satisfaction with the outcome of the election in the United States. We wish the new President a good transition and first term. Sure, there is a lot of work coming, but for someone who showed so much perseverance and patience during a long and tiring election, nothing is impossible!

And if he or his administration ever are in need of fresh ideas: We can help!

If knowledge is power, personal newsfeeds are your weapons. A newsfeed customized to your information needs allows for professional news monitoring and information retrieval like previously only news services and professional communication agencies could.
If for instance you wished to be constantly informed about your clients, suppliers and competitors, then an aggregated newsfeed could be an interesting solution for you.

In the following example I’ve combined selected data sources to process them with different methods. Eventually the outcome is a helpful aggregated idea-feed.

This is comparable with the concept of a search engine: finding what one is looking for via queries from any number of sources. So instead of constantly dealing with complicated Google scanning on a certain subject, you can continually inform yourself of a predefined field.

In this aggregated newsfeed example, articles of selected sources on the subjects of trends, ideas, innovation and future are displayed on a daily basis. For instance, you can subscribe to the Yahoo! Pipes aggregated feed as badge for iGoogle or Netvibes.

The Internet includes an elusive quantity of information. If we visited each existing URL on the Internet for only 10 seconds, we would be busy doing so for roughly 317,098 years.

Google and Yahoo search engines let you browse through this enormous amount of information as quick as lightning. And by using social bookmarking service providers such as Mister Wong and Delicious clever discoverers can find the information looked for in no time.

Based on a content analysis of social bookmark service providers, I have listed and summarized the most interesting websites on the subject of ideas, trends and future in a Google Custom Search. That is about the same as analyzing how many guests go to which restaurants. The best results however are not compiled in a list but in a search engine based on Google’s technology!

The result is a niche search engine to track trends, future and innovative ideas!

I suggest you begin searching for new business trends right away or start your discovery of exciting ideas from a land faraway.

Niche Search Engine to Track Trends, Future and Innovative Ideas:

Custom Search

For more informations see:
- We knew the web was big…
- Google Custom Search Blog