Marco Tempest: A Beautiful Commentary on Creative Practice | Video on TED.com

Using sleight-of-hand techniques and charming storytelling, illusionist Marco Tempest brings a jaunty stick figure to life onstage at TEDGlobal. A beautiful commentary on creative practice!

The State of Uncertainty - Innovation Policy Through Experimentation - NESTA

An interesting new paper in the Provocation Series from NESTA UK entitled "The State of Uncertainty - Innovation Policy Through Experimentation" explores the notion of innovation policy and concludes rather naively in my view "the basic problem that constrains innovation, and the main resource that propels it, is uncertainty and its resolution. This should be the focus of innovation policy. Our proposal suggests both a more powerful strategy and potentially also a more cost effective one than the traditional approach. But it will require that innovation policy be introduced, and applied, in a scientific (learning-focused) rather than political (influence-based) frame of mind." Two problems with this conclusion.

Click to read more ...

Why Businesses Don't Experiment and How To Fail to Succeed

A few years ago, a marketing team from a major consumer goods company came to my lab eager to test some new pricing mechanisms using principles of behavioral economics. We decided to start by testing the allure of “free,” a subject my students and I had been studying. I was excited: The company would gain insights into its customers’ decision making, and we’d get useful data for our academic work. The team agreed to create multiple websites with different offers and pricing and then observe how each worked out in terms of appeal, orders, and revenue.

Click to read more ...

As the focus of design shifts from the production of finite goods to a practice of experimentation, ideas take precedence over products.

Earlier this spring, manufacturers and designers from all over the world were shipping their wares to Milan to prepare for the Salone del Mobile. Anybody involved in design knows this is the most important rendezvous of the year—or at least it used to be, when design meant mostly furniture and objects. Designers anticipate meeting new talent and inspiration; they seek out curators, writers, teachers, students, and, of course, each other—this is a chance to meet with their peers and trade war stories. It’s hard to tell in advance whether Milan will be blooming with wisteria or gray, rainy, and dreary at this time of year, but the event is inevitably alive with the sound of design. The Salone is to design what Cannes is to film: the most useful and most productive yearly trade meeting. But is the future of design here? Milan still represents a big red dot in the geography of design, but design is changing rapidly, and so are its maps. There are myriad forms of design, many of which don’t require movement of materials and artifacts; only curiosity, an internet connection, and the ability to seek, learn, and synthesize from other fields and cultures.

Click to read more ...