Innovation: The Who's Where's and How's

The concept of blending things and ideas is one with a long history, of course. It probably started during the stone age as our brains matured. Perhaps then, an enterprising soul deliberately blended cooking meat with some sort of wild berry deriving a new taste sensation that empowered him or her to experiment further. Likewise now in the age of digital and adoption of innovation-based frameworks for the purposes of discovery and economic development, the ability to blend existing trends, products and movements to derive new insights is paramount to the development of new businesses and society.  Generating new ideas that can be discovered via an aha! moment or as part of a more structured approach, such as design thinking, does happen and the value of those participating in these endeavors cannot be denied. Many new innovations come from these sessions that have given rise to companies such as IDEO and Jump Associates, for example. These companies facilitate the cr...

I am a car guy and I absolutely love the new 2015 Mustang. It really is a design with Soul (yes, capitalized). An amazing and seductive blend of European and American design cues. Simply gorgeous. I was able to recently experience the Mustang at the Washington DC auto show. A shadow of the auto shows in LA and Frankfurt but hey, this is DC, the land of beige and black sedans and soul-less minivans and SUV’s. In any case, cue in the real-life Mustang I experienced at the show.  I was instantly smitten. So much so that I gave them my email so that I could be notified the minute it is for sale. Following up with me via email Ford was kind enough to ask me for my opt-in to future advertising.   Attached to the email was also  a link to their site. I never, ever say yes to these things but, hey, I am in love.   Upon checking the web site for the car I was given the choice of languages and for kicks I opted for Spanish being fluent in that language. ...