The Economist on design thinking

A nice article in the Economist that highlights design thinking in business and philanthropy and Embrace (the baby incubator company):

http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15060706

BMW’s Electric Mini Rollout Yields ‘Painful’ Lessons

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aeQwon7TV3Fo&pos=10

BMW has begun to rollout it's electric mini in select cities. Several major problems including having a battery in the back seat and day long charging times became immediately apparent to early adopters. After reading the article, it seems as though executives expected this. Executives don't seem to be worried about damage to the MINI brand with a crappy initial launch. I'm looking forward to when BMW works out the bugs and this product becomes as mainstream as the Prius.

Cool product blog

As in, a blog of cool products (rather than a cool blog of "eh" products):

http://www.kk.org/cooltools/

the blog covers lots of stuff outside of just products, too, if you look on the menu on the left.

Tirzah

Flowboards and the Multiplication Template

Flowlab is an interesting company built completely around the "multiplication template" of ideation. They took a traditional skateboard and added 10 additional wheels (14 total) in two arcs. This new configuration allows the rider to "carve" with the skateboard in a motion more reminiscent of snowboarding and surfing.

Much like the rollerblade (originally designed as a crosstrainer for hockey players), the flowboard has the potential to become the next big thing in extreme sports - assuming the start-up's owners and investors can figure out an advertising and distribution plan that will actually be able to get it off the ground. (note* when I worked for them back in 2004, they had basically no clue what they were doing, but they seem to be figuring things out now with the help of a more engaged board of directors).

http://www.flowlab.com

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/sep/08/business/fi-flowboard8