“We are a great believer that we can be pretty much all things to all people,” said Brett Godfrey, Virgin Blue, quoted in this Sydney Morning Herald article: Virgin Blue to put squeeze on passengers.

This statement leapt out at me when reading this article. Virgin Blue has finally lost its desire to innovate. Being all things to all people is a terribly anaemic vision, if we …

[In] a classic psychological study on group norms … students assigned [randomly] to … liberal dormitories became less conservative as the group’s norms seeped into their consciousness, [and vice versa.] …

Participants [in another study] equated creativity with following the group norm… The unwritten rules of the group … determined what its members considered creative. In effect groups had redefined creativity as conformity. …

When people’s individuality rather than their …

Someone in one of my MBA classes (years ago now) once asked me if I freely give away all my ideas and thoughts to each client, suggesting thus that holding back may be more beneficial financially in the long run.

I said yes. Every idea that comes is shared. He was not convinced of the prudence of that action. That question was raised again recently …

Design is by its nature innovative.

Design is a process of doing or making something better. The designer asks: How can I solve the problem at hand better? How do I do what I have to do better?

Every design process I have seen so far – be it from industrial, graphic, service or process design professionals – are variations on the same framework:…

The vagaries of what we as consumers want, and what we as producers produce, run in cycles.

The fashion industry understands and leverages this well. On a larger and less vacuous level, societies’ values/moral codes swing between conservative and liberal too.

A cycle change seems to be happening now with some products and services, which opens up great new opportunities for smaller specialised businesses. Here are two I have …

Over the years, I have observed two ways people ask “Why?”:

Learning/curiosity. Blaming/fault-finding.

These are different in their intentions and presentation. One is an open state, the willingness to accept new information. It is an exercise in curiosity, and engagement with the not-yet-known.

The other is a closed state. It is an act of dominance, so as to shut another person down. It is condemning, and can be used …

Sometimes it can seem like everything you can think of has already been done. Maybe this is actually the case.

Maybe the next bumper crop of opportunities lies in hybridisation. Hybridisation of business concepts, processes, product ideas, service ideas, product AND service ideas…

Café + cat patting access – Cat Cafe Calico, Tokyo.
Vegetarian restaurant + community-activity space for hire – Naïve in Singapore.
Traditional barbershop + …

Creativity is a double-edged sword. When channelled by a clear and compelling vision, it can create positive, constructive and amazing output.

When not directed by a purpose or cause, it can manifest doubt, festering worries and dark monsters.

Come to think of it, self awareness is also of a similar vein.

There is a recent Daily Good article on the link between curiosity and worrying. Our brains are wired to …

Hypothesis: if a culture does not possess an absolutely fluent command of at least one language, creativity may be impeded.

The two main communication methods in most brainstorming sessions are drawing/writing and talking. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it is often the spoken words that bring life to the drawings, tell the story, engage the participants, and trigger unexpected thoughts.

A strong command of the …

Three students, a iPhone app, 15,000 people inspired to do a small good deed a day.

Subscribers to the free application are prompted daily with a “DoGood”–a simple task from conserving water, to turning out a light, to beautifying the world. When they’ve accomplished their good deed for the day, they click the application’s “done” button.

The program tallies how many users are fulfilling that day’s deed, and users can …