Off Course-On Target

Inventing the Future?

I've been a big fan of Jane McGonigal ever since I had the chance to talk with her at the Learning 2007 conference where we were both speakers. One of the many reasons I so like her work is her focus on what is called “alternate reality gaming” or ARG (gotta have an acronym or it ain’t real right?).  While Jane is a very fun person (who else would carry the title of  "Head PuppetMaster"?), trust me when I say that her work on games and their consequent results has been very “serious” indeed. Harvard Business Review called her theory of "alternate reality business" one of the "Top 20 Breakthrough Ideas of 2008".  Check out Jane's company AvantGame and her blog for more information and I think you too will soon be a big fan.

I’ve been promoting augmented reality over virtual reality for a long time, and Jane’s unique approach of adding gaming to the equation is brilliant. I believe that Jane and her games are the best examples that I know of for showing off some of the true power of applying game theory. I especially appreciate the truly unique approach and out-of-the-box thinking she has brought to gaming. Jane’s games are also great examples of a common theme here on OCOT—the power and beauty of simplicity. Unlike most game examples, which typically involve a lot of hardware and software technology and are highly dependent upon the game developers and platforms, Jane's games are an extremely “low tech” model that puts the game players in charge. It all starts with and is based upon a simple opening statement or premise and is then left up to the players to provide all the excitement and direction online, usually with simple tools such as e-mails, blogs, and IM. You can see this for yourself by checking out some of her past successes such as World Without Oil, Cruel 2 B Kind, and I Love Bees.

Superstruct is Super!

All this is just an introduction though to a new joint venture that I'm intrigued by and which Jane is leading with the Institute for the Future called “Superstruct”. They describe it as “the world’s first massively multiplayer forecasting game. It’s not just about envisioning the future—it’s about inventing the future.”  As with all her alternate reality games, this one starts with a scenario. In the case of Superstruct, it begins with the following:

"Humans have 23 years to go:  Global Extinction Awareness System starts the countdown for Homo sapiens. PALO ALTO, CA — Based on the results of a year-long supercomputer simulation, the Global Extinction Awareness System (GEAS) has reset the "survival horizon" for Homo sapiens—the human race—from "indefinite" to 23 years."

You can read the rest of the details in the link above and this Superstruct FAQ.  Highly recommend that you take a few minutes to check out the link to Superstruct to learn more. Although the game doesn’t officially start until September 2008, they have already started a precursor in the form of comments to the announcement and an initial premise of:

"It’s the summer of 2019. Imagine you’re already there, and tell us a little bit about your future self. Where are you having dinner tonight?"

For more on Superstruct and other AR games check out the ARGNet for more alternative reality games.  While it is obviously still early in the process, I was struck by the degree to which the initial comments seem to see and predict a very negative future, and it's all the more reason for us to all take a role in changing this by envisioning and designing one that is positive. If you believe as I do that WE are ultimately in control of the future, then why would we design and aim for anything less? PLEASE be sure to check out the comments and add some of your own!

Forget Predicting the Future. Let's Get Busy Designing It!

What I'm most passionate about, and my reason for alerting you to this new glimpse into the future, is the whole idea of not predicting the future, but "inventing it" as Jane has also been known to say. This of course parallels one of my favorite Alan Kay' quotes:

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it."

This hands on, get involved, take responsibility and action approach has always spoken to me loudly, and so I’m struck by the increasing number and diversity of ways that this is actually happening and how we collectively can and are creating the future. It sure beats the more typically fatalistic attitudes I seem to run into so often that "they" are causing everything or that technology is somehow in control of our future. I'm desperately hoping and sincerely believe that as these recent examples show, we are seeing the turnaround of the "victim mentality" that seems to have become so prevalent and we are going to seize both the opportunity and the responsibility to make the future one that we want to live in and be a part of. 

Game on!

Spontaneous Creative Combustion?

"Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." – Scott Adams

Cultivating Creativity?

In my previous post “Future Sources of Innovation, Discovery & Design” we looked at the growing number of examples of great innovation and creativity that are to be found in developing regions of the world.  I’m interested in looking at these developing regions, not only for the innovations and ideas emerging from them, but also to study these unique environments to better understand their essential elements.* By understanding them, we might be able to replicate and share, and thus raise the volume of creativity, innovation, and invention to all new highs. We certainly have plenty of problems that are begging for creative solutions!

So I’m pondering this with you because I’m anxious that we pay attention to the characteristics of innovation, invention, and the like, so we can work to find more ways to increase exponentially the volume and diversity of inventions, innovation, and discovery to match the world of exponential change (and its accompanying challenges) that we are now living in.

It seem to me that most things are the result of the environment and conditions we are in at the time, and I think this holds true for something as fleeting as creativity.  So I’m wondering: how can we better understand the environments and conditions that seem to spark the most creativity?  Based on this understanding, we could create more of such environments—ones that are enriched with these characteristics and bring out the creativity, innovation, and inventiveness more often and for many more people than the current and historical norm.

*See my previous posting and podcast “Confusing Flapping with Flying” for more on my thoughts about essential elements of great inventions and innovations.

Spontaneous Combustion

We could use a favorite analogy of mine to help us with this—that of spontaneous combustion.  In my own layman’s terms, spontaneous combustion is when fire unexpectedly and unintentionally breaks out without any apparent cause of ignition, such as sparks or flames. I learned about spontaneous combustion firsthand in some of my former lives when I was a mechanic, a woodworker, and an industrial technology teacher and became critically aware of the fire hazard posed by leaving oily rags, sawdust, paper, etc. lying around or in open waste containers. But as I’m often wont to do, I inverted this negative and dangerous characteristic into a powerfully positive one and abstracted it into a conceptual model, so what I really took away from it was a fascination for indirect causation that still sticks with me today as you’re about to see. 

From what I’ve been able to read and research, we (scientists) still don’t fully understand spontaneous combustion,† but what we do know are the conditions that make it more likely to happen, such as the presence of chemicals (oil, resin, varnish combined with flame supporting materials such as rags, sawdust, paper and oxygen). The simple preventative solution therefore is to make sure things like oily rags are stored or disposed of in sealed containers to cut off the air/oxygen supply.

†Of course we do have this YouTube video on “How to: Do Spontaneous Combustion”.   BTW, for most of you, I recommend it for watching and NOT for experiential learning!

Brains on Fire! Spontaneous Cognitive Combustion?

I’m sure you can see the connection here to creativity, which seems to me to be a form of spontaneous creative or cognitive combustion—when a sudden creative thought that just comes to you, an unexpected "Aha!" moment bursts into flame without any apparent cause. 

So what if we want to purposely cause a chemical spontaneous combustion? What if we want to have a fire break out without directly causing it, such as by lighting a match?  In a lab, we can do so by carefully controlling a set of conditions (types and amounts of flammable liquids, supporting materials, etc.) and creating an environment (temperature, oxygen, humidity) that raises the probability of spontaneous combustion. We may not know just when or where the fire will begin, but we can expect that it will happen somewhere in the experimental container relatively soon. 

I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. What are the conditions, materials, and environments that lead to spontaneous cognitive combustion?  What are those essential elements that can reduce the amount of "flapping" we do and increase our innovation, invention, and creativity?

At a very general level, some of this can be addressed by thinking differently, outside the proverbial box so to speak, being contrarian, converting the negative energy of naysayers into positive energy that drives you to succeed all the more.  But let’s try to go further.

To help us do so and to use this opportunity to start a few "fires" on this topic... I’m sure we’ve all suffered from bouts of what might be called “creative constipation” when, try as we might, we just can’t seem to squeeze out a new creative thought, solve a problem, or otherwise "hit the wall"... I thought that Robert Lucky put it well in his IEEE Spectrum article (Jan 2007) called "Great Thoughts" where he posited:

"There is a theory of creativity that holds that creativity is most often the product of the unexpected intersection of two previously unconnected thoughts. If you are thinking very hard  about one such thought perhaps you are suppressing the other thoughts which could connect with it."

This leads to the often observed benefit of taking a break, going for a walk, or otherwise distracting yourself from the problem at hand. But it is the theory on creativity that I most strongly concur with—the notion that there are very few truly new ideas, but rather that we are constantly building from and upon previous and existing thoughts and ideas and the new springs from the intersection or collision of two or more previously existing but unconnected thoughts.  Hence my fascination with the concept of mashups‡ and why I see these as a fundamental characteristic of the future. 

‡ I also like the fact that my spell checker keeps wanting to correct the spelling of mashups to smashups as I’m equally big on the need for disassembly and “creative destruction”, but I’ll wander and ponder that with you in a future posting.

Inspiring Combustion: Why Wait?

One of the most common and rewarding comments that I receive from many of you after my talks and postings is that they help you connect a set of dots/thoughts which you knew about and that were previously “out there” but which had not been connected the way I strung them together.  A “necklace for the mind” as one most complimentary person put it to me. I take these as the highest compliments I can receive—to have helped to cause (in my own direct fashion) some spontaneous cognitive combustion in others. I’d be honored to be regarded as a cognitive pyromaniac and can only hope to continue to cause and stoke more "fires" and "fan the flames" of global creativity.

But what about YOU?  Take a few minutes—you deserve the break—to think back to times when you have been particularly creative, inventive, inspired, or your brain was otherwise "on fire". Look for some patterns. What are their commonalities?  In particular, I encourage you to focus on the overall "environment" you were in at these times, such as colors, sounds, furniture, views, movement, other people, time of day, lighting, what you were doing just beforehand, and so on. Please share (either with comments here at OCOT or on your own site) the essential elements of creativity you come up with. 

Here’s to creating a world of spontaneous cognitive combustion for all of us.

Cool Tools: Ratchet Wrenches

I truly believe that every one of us (yes, that includes YOU!) has cool tools that we use on an everyday basis and stories about how we use these tools and how we came to find and use them. I'd like to hear about yours. Meanwhile, here's another one of mine:

Even if you are only a very occasional fixer upper or user of mechanical tools, I think every toolbox needs to have a set of these relatively new ratchet wrenches. These are very much in keeping with one of the dominant themes and requirements to be a Cool Tool: simplicity. In this case, it's a wrench with a built in ratchet mechanism. 

 

They also represent one of those ideas that makes you ask “Why didn’t I or someone else think of this sooner." Technically they did, since there have been ratchet wrenches for many years, BUT they have always been very large and quite “clunky” or impossible to use in most applications since the ends were so large you could not get them into most spaces where the heads of nuts and bolts are typically located. These newer versions fix all that and are sleek and small, even smaller externally than many plain or non-ratcheting wrench ends, which makes them VERY usable now.

In proper tool terminology, these wrenches (as shown on the left) are known as combination wrenches since they have an open end and a box end on each wrench. The new twist that makes them truly cool and indispensable for me is that they added a ratchet mechanism inside the box end. 

I find myself using these wrenches at least ten times more often than regular sockets for many reasons. The new ratchet wrenches take up MUCH less space, so you can get into much smaller and tighter spots, a situation that seems to be the norm most of the time for me. The ratchet mechanism is also designed with smaller increments, so you only need to swing or move the end of the wrench about 5º instead of the more typical 30º. This can make the difference between success or failure when it comes to removing a nut from an area that has immovable objects in the way of the handle, which again seems to be common in most situations. Being open on both sides also means that these wrenches can slide over any length of threaded bolt that is protruding from a nut, unlike sockets which are limited by their depth. This in no way eliminates the need for sockets though, since they are still very useful for reaching down into recessed holes for example, but since I’ve started adding these ratchet wrenches to my tool box, I find myself using my socket sets much less often.

 

 

One important note: if you are about to go out and purchase some of these, there are several important differences among the brands that you should be aware of. I’ve tried quite a few, and the most important of the differences for me has to do with whether the box end is offset at an angle or lies flat with the handle. This in turn determines how they reverse their action to switch between tightening and loosening.

Offset wrenches such as this on on the right, are bent where the box end attaches to the handle of the wrench so that the head is at a small angle of about 10º. Thus, when the wrench is put onto on a nut that is on a flat surface, the handle sits at an angle or is offset from the surface to provide enough space for your fingers to grip the other end and this prevents (OK reduces) scraped knuckles. These offset wrenches can therefore only be used “one way up” so that the offset raises the handle above the surface and therefore the offset ratchet wrenches have a small lever on the box end that you turn from to one side to the other in order to reverse them.

On non-offset wrenches such as this one, there is no need for this lever since you simply flip the whole wrench over. While you would think that you’d most often want to have the offset wrench type, I’ve found that the flat or non-offset wrenches are what I reach for more often since they are a bit smaller on the overall end and I never have to worry about accidentally bumping the lever and changing the ratchet direction when I don’t mean to. 

In practical terms then, you really want to have a set of both the offset and the flat or non-offset types. If you are still reading this, you probably a tool lover like me and so you know that tools are like disk space and memory on your computer—you never have enough!  However, if I were only able to have one type, I’d personally choose the flat non-offset ones first, since they are smaller on the ends and therefore more useful in more situations.

* Quick tip:  To know which way to use the flat or non-offset wrenches with no lever so the ratchet is going in the right direction, just look at the other open end of the wrench. The open end is always set at an angle relative to the handle, which is how you reverse an open end wrench to reduce the swing angle that is required (see photo of the  combination wrench at the top). I’ve noticed that when you are looking down on the wrench in position, whichever way the angle of the open end faces is the direction the box end works.

The other big difference I’ve noticed is that some makes, such as the popular Craftsman brand, have much thicker amounts of metal around the box end. This makes the end stronger I’m sure, but it also means that they often won’t fit into the spaces provided around a nut or bolt head. Therefore I strongly recommend the ones that are much thinner and sleeker on the ends, which get into all but the tightest areas.

If you’ve been reading Off Course – On Target for awhile, you’ve no doubt figured out that I graduated with honors from the school of by “Never a Sentence when a Paragraph Will Do” and I often find that the explanation of something very simple takes much more time and words and seems much more complex than the item itself.  Hopefully you can see how brilliantly simple this new style of ratchet wrenches is and why they easily make it into my Cool Tools category.  Hope you too find them useful or they might be a great gift idea for your favorite mechanically-inclined friend or family member.  You can usually spot them by their scraped knuckles and dirty fingernails! <g>

***********

Have  "Cool Tools" you use and want to share?  Send me your favorites with the following information:

• Name of the tool and source for getting one. 
• What does it do? 
• How did you come to discover this? 
• How do you use it? 
• Why is it on your top ten "Cool Tools I Use" list?

Trust, Decisions, Communities, and Snowflakes

Trust still matters!

Surely it should come as no surprise to us that there are some basic characteristics that have always been and will probably always be required for successful human interactions, including those augmented by technology. One of these attributes—at the top of the list, some might argue—is that of trust. It’s a good example of something that has been a necessary component of success throughout human history, and is one that continues to reign supreme in our latest and greatest technology-infused solutions. 

For example, years ago Tim Berners-Lee had what he termed “the web of trust” at the top of his list. His vision of the architecture of the web and its future, laid out in his famous “birthday cake” diagram, placed trust at the top. As the excerpt below from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C0) explains:

"The Web is a collaborative medium, not read-only like a magazine. In fact, the first Web browser was also an editor, though most people today think of browsing as primarily viewing, not interacting. To promote a more collaborative environment, we must build a "Web of Trust" that offers confidentiality, instills confidence, and makes it possible for people to take responsibility for (or be accountable for) what they publish on the Web. "

In my previous postings, such as "Trust as a competency?! - Part 1 and Part 2" and  "Trust is Good!", I too have commented that trust can be thought of as a human competency and one which we can work on improving.  Stephen MR Covey has most recently done the most to promote this notion in his book “The Speed of Trust: The one thing that changes everything”.

Trusted Advisors:

I was reminded of the importance of trust while I was reviewing “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies” the recent study by Forrester Research, which was written by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.  A Crave review "Study: Our friends are the best product reviewers" touches on trust and mentions this same study. I would have added to the title "even if we've never met them"!  FastCompany also had a good review on this study, including an interesting excerpt of one chapter.

As you can see from the graphic below, topping the list (83%) is the opinions of friends or acquaintances who have used the product or service. I suspect most of us would have guessed that. But I was surprised at the continued high regard for information on the manufacturer’s site (69%) and the low scoring of online reviews by a blogger (30%).

What stood out even more though was the collective power that is emerging from the feedback loops of reviews by a variety of sources of consumers. By my count, reviews from other consumers make up 5 or 6 out of the top 10 sources listed in this study (depending on whether you count bloggers as consumers).

This study seems mostly right based on my personal experiences and habits. When I’m looking for a new product or service, my first quest is to seek out the recommendations and reviews of others who have already used them, and then I too check out the manufacturer’s site. But the key distinction here, as noted in the study, is the reliance on the manufacturer’s site to give me “information” (or what I would say is more accurately called data), on their products and services rather than the opinions, which all the other sources represent. Like those in the study, I value the opinions of those whose values and preferences I know, but I also value highly the opinions of those I’ve never met, but who have used the products or services I’m interested in. 

Context = Relevance = Value

Better yet, I’m even more interested in and value the opinions of those who share some of my interests and contexts. Using myself as an example, I’m what is referred to as a “bluewater cruiser”, someone who lives aboard their sailboat full time traveling the world’s waterways and oceans. If I’m looking for some decision support for solutions to some of my boating-related needs (when aren’t I?!), my hierarchy of relevance might progress from boats to sailboats to liveaboards on sailboats to bluewater (open ocean) liveaboards on sailboats. Each one of these additional levels of context typically represents a very significant jump in relevance, such as the difference between what would matter if you were a weekend sailor rather than living aboard full time. So when I’m looking for solutions to problems and am trying to make better decisions and choices, finding others “like me” in this momentary set of conditions is of huge value.

Snowflakes One and All!

I suspect that my limited example how my contextual hierarchy can be relevant to me is not the shared by even one of you. Certainly there is no question that I have a penchant for the extreme. But try this: take a few minutes right now to come up with just one example of a hierarchy of relevance for something you have recently been needing some “decision support” for. Got it?  Now ask yourself, "How many others reading OCOT would share the same list?"  Probably few to none, depending on how much detail or how many levels you put into your hierarchy. Equally, however, I’m sure that if you took that same list and looked elsewhere on the web, you’d find a group of people who do indeed share many of these same attributes, and thus you will have found a highly valuable resource for making your decision or choice.

Recommender systems are helping to synthesize the often overwhelming volume of such input and feedback from these sources of opinions and reviews. These systems reveal patterns and key factors that characterize our very personal usage patterns and preferences—ones that even we are often not aware. They constitute some of the evolution of what Erik Duval and I are referring to as The Snowflake Effect (see also  "Do blind people dream?" and "Musical Snowflakes Continue to Fall All Around Us" for some recent examples).  In this case, it means that we are increasingly able to tweak and tune these recommender systems and decision support tools to be ever more relevant to the combination of conditions and circumstances that make every one of our situations into one that is truly unique...like every snowflake. Using the results of the Forester study as an example, consider the multiplication factor that comes into play when you can not only get reviews and feedback from friends and other consumers, but you can narrow this down to those who share your values, interests, preferences, and the like. 

The Value of Communities

I raise all of this in light of the continued interest in (and lots of hype about) “communities”. I think, at their simplest level, communities can be two or more people with something in common. This study points toward one particularly tangible and powerful attribute of communities—as a collection point and source of reviews, recommendations, and opinions, which we will continue to value highly and use daily to help us make decisions. It is likely safe for me to assume that anyone reading this has the distinct advantage and privilege of living in an environment of plentitude and abundance and perhaps the greatest challenge presented by such an existence is that of making more and better decisions and choices. 

Unlike those in Groundswell study, I place a very high value on the opinions of other bloggers, but I would note that more and more of these are blogs from those who share some similar and relevant characteristics with me as it relates to my decision support needs. Using my previous sailing example, some of my best sources of decision support come via other blue water cruisers who are using blogs as a way to document their experiences, and especially those with whom I share other specific similarities, such as routes, locations, ship type, engines, rigging, etc.  Many of these bloggers are also typically members of larger online communities, such as one I frequent a lot lately comprised of other bluewater cruisers who are on the west coast of the Americas and are heading south. So this is another example of contextual hierarchy.  You can probably imagine the extremely high value that this select group offers for helping me to make better decisions on everything from finding great anchorages to route planning, weather updates, recommended (and not) equipment. And, of course, I’m able to add value back by posting my feedback with answers and responses to questions posed on the community site and by posting my experiences and observations to my own sailing blog.

Personal?  Professional?

Best of all perhaps, the extremely high value of these sources that provide highly relevant decision support seem not to be bound by the distinctions of "personal" versus "professional". Hence, we are seeing the increasing use and value of more “professional” sources, such as LinkedIn and other sites, such as FaceBook and MySpace, for very job-related and professional applications. They are certainly not limited to use by any one demographic group, such as the “younger generations”....whatever that means.  After all, what could be more personal than one’s vocations, jobs, hobbies and work? All the more exacerbated by the blurring distinction between one’s “personal life” and “work life” (for better and for worse, I might add).

But before I digress any further, this blog is called Off Course – On Target for a reason you know, I’ll leave it at that for today.  My purpose in this posting is to observe the growing need for continuous improvement to the decision support structures we use so that we can all survive and thrive in the new economies of abundance and a world of exponential change. For me, these are a wonderful combination of timeless human attributes such as trust and conversation augmented with new capabilities and reach provided by technology. Let’s do keep in mind that as a percentage of the world’s 6.6 billion population, a minority of us are privileged enough to live in these economies of abundance and have these very good problems to solve. As we work to have this abundance flow to all, so too will we be helping by developing effective decision support structures, habits, and techniques to share and accompany the spread of abundance.

I’d be curious and anxious to hear some of the other attributes and sources that you are using for your own decision support. What helps you make more and better choices from the exponentially growing list of options? Which tools and services are you using?  Which new techniques and habits are you trying?  What do some of your contextual hierarchies look like?  Who, what, and where do you go for opinions to help make decisions and using "trust" as a delimiter, how would you rank these?  

Redesigning Rather Than Crying Over Spilled Milk?

On a recent trip back to the USA for a few weeks, I noticed something new in the dairy section of the grocery store—a new milk container. The milk was the same, but the container was completely new—square in shape and made from recyclable plastic. A quick search online produced all the details, such as this NY Times article “Solution, or Mess? A Milk Jug for a Green Earth” and revealed what I thought was another great example of the rising role and increasing importance of design for a bright future. 

As I looked into this story of these new milk containers, I was struck by:

• The simply staggering improvements that were realized by a relatively simple redesign of the everyday milk container
• The role that consumers need to play in both the design process and the successful implementation of these changes into mass usage.

For those who have not seen these new containers, here is a quick overview:

• More efficient storage; new jugs store 50% more milk by volume and are stackable.  More milk can be shipped per truck and requires less refrigerated storage.  One retailer now stores 224 gallons of milk in the same space that used to hold 80.   Combined these reduce fuel and energy use dramatically.
• Does not require crates or racks for shipping and storage due to its stackable, flat-top design.
• With no crates to wash or transport, labor is cut by half (loading, returning, washing) and water usage is reduced by 60 to 70 percent. One dairy mentioned in the NYT article was using 100,000 gals of water per day just for washing crates!
• More milk per truck and with no crates to haul back, the number of truck trips to the store has been reduced from 5 per week to just 2, which is a major fuel saving, and it lowers the overall cost of milk 10 to 20 cents per gallon.
• Overall efficiency is increased; milk from the cow in the morning is on the store shelves by afternoon. When I was young I spent many summers on my uncle’s dairy farm and always long for the taste of truly fresh milk.

To summarize, these new milk jugs result in cheaper, fresher milk that requires much less energy, water and labor and is better for the environment.

Creating a better world through a different design approach

This example also gives me even more confidence and optimism that we can create a better world through a balanced approach that benefits all those involved in the entire cycle—from initial idea to design to production, consumption and recycling.

Has to be an instant success, right?  Not quite. The real challenge may well be our ability as milk consumers to adapt to these new containers, to UNlearn some of our ingrained habits, such as how we  do something as basic as pouring milk from a container. It turns out that many people spill some milk when they first try to pour from these new containers. Why? Because they try to pour milk the way they are used to doing it. Many people end up rejecting these new containers and go back to purchasing the older style of containers. To address this problem, some stores are even offering in store lessons on how to pour with no spills—by tilting the jug forward rather than lifting it up, a technique described as "rock-and-pour instead of a lift-and-tip."

Spilled milk is clearly frustrating and wasteful, but rather than crying over it (sorry , couldn’t resist), the solution would appear to be twofold:  short term this appears to be a good example of one of my favorite themes of unlearning and relearning how to pour milk from these new containers without spilling and longer term, I suspect that there are additional design improvements that will make these containers even more spill proof and easy to use.

I think there is also a larger lesson to be learned from this example. I have to imagine that if a more holistic approach had been taken by involving consumers in the design process, the new containers would have been easier or more intuitive to use without spilling.

Maybe I’m just being my hyperbolic self and I’m seeing more than there really is, but I don’t think so. Look at some of these numbers and start multiplying them by the amount of milk consumed every day around the world. Seems like an amazing improvement to me, and all from a relatively straightforward rethinking and redesign of an everyday item.

Tapping into the "Prosumer" model

There is a lot of talk these days about the environment, being green, sustainability and so on, most of which is well intentioned and much needed.  However, it seems to me that these changes are often implemented along the lines of the historical roles for consumers and producers where the producers come up with the ideas, make the changes, and the role of consumers is to buy and use these new and improved products.  Not a bad model necessarily and one capable of producing good results as the new milk jug attests. However I’m advocating the need for a more “prosumer” and  collaborative approach to design where we are simultaneously producers and consumers. 

The term prosumer  was first coined by Alvin and Heidi Toffler in their 1980 book “The Third Wave” where they predicted what I think we are now seeing—a society where the previously separate roles and responsibilities are increasingly being combined or “mashed up”  to create a very new and different role for all of us.

I see a distinct trend towards a prosumer society where all of us will play an increasing role in the design process of everything around us. Keeping in mind that pretty much everything in our world that isn’t living matter has to be designed and built by us, this has very major implications for all of us and the world we inhabit.This is a theme I’ll be expanding on more in upcoming articles and podcasts here on OCOT.

More than anything else though, this new milk jug example has me pondering what other everyday items besides the lowly milk container could produce similarly staggering results. What if we were to look at them more closely and rethink the design and unlearn some of our habits for using them?  Packaging alone is an enormous area ripe for major improvement, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg of benefits to be had from redesigning and rethinking our current products and practices. 

How about you?  Look around your home, office, car, or other places you frequently inhabit and try seeing using a newly critical eye to see what opportunities you can find. You don’t need to have a degree in design nor have it appear on your business card or job description to be a designer. All it takes is adopting a more critical and new look at everyday things, thinking differently and thinking about seeing anew those things we take for granted. Who would have thought that something as basic and “unimportant” as a milk container could produce such staggering improvements?  Let’s hear some ideas from the rest of us about what should be next in line for such redesign.

Cool Tools: Doodling your way to Event Efficiency

I truly believe that every one of us (yes, that includes YOU!) has cool tools that we use on an everyday basis and stories about how we use these tools and how we came to find and use them.  I'd like to hear about yours.  Meanwhile, here's are two simple, but ever so handy, computer utilities that I use regularly and wanted to pass on to you.

Today’s Cool Tool is one I’ve been using to help schedule events such as meetings for about 3 years, and it has been a huge time saver and convenience, not only for myself but for many others whom I have had the privilege to work with around the world on committees, working groups, project teams, and the like. 

It goes by the simple (though not very descriptive) name of Doodle and it is created by a Swiss-based company Doodle AG.

As with most of the things that make it to my Cool Tools list, Doodle is a marvel in simplicity and simply enables you to easily conduct an online poll.  As their site puts it, Doodle involves 3 steps:

Create a poll.

Forward the poll's link to the participants.

Follow online what the participants vote for.

In particular, I use it the most for its original purpose, which is to find the time and day that will work best for the majority of a group of people to meet. As many of you may have experienced, this simple sounding task can become an amazingly long and arduous one as you struggle to find a single time and date that will work for a group of typically very busy people who are often in very different time zones, jobs, etc.  

Using Doodle, meeting organizers can:

1. Create a list of potential dates and times for meetings.
2. Create an online poll with each of these as choices.
3. Generate a unique URL where each potential attendee can indicate which ones they can attend (green) or cannot attend (red). The participant simply checks the square for each choice. 
4. Receive an e-mail letting them know a member's choices.

Anyone who has the URL can see a tally of the voting at any time. 

Doodle keeps tabs on the results as they come in and indicates which days and times are currently the best choice for the meeting based on those who have provided their input at that time. You can see which dates/times work for each individual so if there are some who must absolutely attend you can be sure to choose those times that work for these individuals.

In addition to polls that help find the best meeting time, you can use Doodle to create polls for anything you like, such as choosing a restaurant for an upcoming group dinner, helping to reach consensus by voting on a list of choices, and anything else where you want to provide a quick and easy way for a group of people to provide their input.

The developers have also recently added some features that I’ve long been waiting for, such as “My Doodle” which provides me with a dynamically updated list of all the ongoing polls I have going at any time.  Before this feature was added, I had to keep track of all these different and rather arcane URLs. Now  Doodle does this automatically and the ongoing polls are listed in the My Doodle page. However, to use this feature, you must complete their free registration. 

They have also recently added a PowerDoodle set of features that include:

The ability to conduct hidden polls that hide the results from the participants

A very useful Yes-No-IfNeedBe poll that adds a yellow “if everything else fails” option to the standard green/red yes/no options

Polls that span different time zones and automatically calculate the right time for each participant’s time zone.  How many such meetings have YOU missed by being too early or too late because of time zone miscalculations?

Doodle currently works in 19 languages, including Esperanto, and it works very well for globally dispersed teams and groups, as I can attest. Just do some simple math to figure out the total amount of time and money that can be saved by a group of say, 20 attendees, or even more by the organizer.

And don’t limit your thinking about applications for Doodle to “just” your work-related events and polls. Consider the value of using this for scheduling family events, reunions, quick polls on the best movie to see, book to read, etc.  It’s free, it’s simple, it works, and it’s this week’s Cool Tool, so be sure to give it a test run to see how well it might work for you.  Let us know what you think and how you use it if it is cool to you too. And if this posting reminds you of one of your own Cool Tools, I hope you'll share it with the rest of us here at OCOT.

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Have  "Cool Tools" you use and want to share?  Send me your favorites with the following information:

• Name of the tool and source for getting one. 
• What does it do? 
• How did you come to discover this? 
• How do you use it? 
• Why is it on your top ten "Cool Tools I Use" list?