Elements of Car Design

The Wikipedia has a good introduction to the idea of car design.

Automotive design – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The task of the design team is usually split into three main aspects: Exterior design, interior design, and color and trim design.

Social Entrepreneur of the Year – SA

Gorgeous Project.
SA innovator named Social Entrepreneur of the Year - South Africa – The Good News
South African telecommunications innovator Rael Lissoos has been named Social Entrepreneur of the Year for his project Dabba which brings cheap mobile communication technology to townships in South Africa.

Social Innovation Competition

More about banking and for the finance wallahs.
Straight Goods – Pitch your idea for financing social change – Changemaker online challenge searches for cutting-edge financing methods.
“We’re looking for new financing possibilities, such as mobile banking, program investment, social financing and peer-to-peer lending,” said Ashoka’s Changemakers Executive Director, Charlie Brown. “These methods are already [...]

Car Parking through City-Company collaboration

Motormouth: I-GO Car Sharing Partners with CTA
Last week the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) approved adding 45 parking spaces along various El lines for car sharing vehicles.

The Credit Crunch is good!

Much the same as what Umberto Eco said about why Architects in Italy went into university – in the decade post WWII. No jobs, and back to uni to study and teach. So emerged semiotics and a fascination with texts.
Gudjon’s Blog » The Credit Crunch, Good for Innovation
Instead of rushing out onto the [...]

A discussion of disruptive innovation – LINUX

It was disruptive – but for the techies I guess. I am a Mac user and well I am in the zone of extreme proprietary systems.
Is Linux still a disruptive innovation? | LinuxWorld Community
The embarassing little secret is that it never was. It would be nice to have a story of the innovative, [...]

Social Entrepreneurshp for Designers?

And I thought I was on to something new – when I propose to go full tilt into involving students in the sort of work I have been doing since 1994.
Grain News: Sami Nerenberg to teach new RISD studio: Design for Social Entrepreneurship!
The Rhode Island School of Design has asked our Sami Nerenberg to develop [...]

Designers as Entrepreneurs in Melbourne

The job market firs totally dissappeared in the 90s then came back slowly – but still the work scene for designers in Melbourne is not good. Nowhere near what you see in China and India – where you see jobs advertised in big companies – stable jobs with annual salaries. What we have is mainly [...]

LOcal Diet in the NY Times

And more social innovation actually.
A Locally Grown Diet With Fuss but No Muss – NYTimes.com
Although a completely local diet is out of reach for even the most dedicated, the shift toward it is being driven by the increasingly popular view that fast food is the enemy and that local food tastes better. Depending [...]

Why be a Locavore?

Three things – succinctly.
The Good Life: Hudson Valley locavore heaven

There are so many benefits to being a locavore (one who looks first to buying locally produced food) — it helps the regional economy and the environment, the farmers who we want to help stay in business, and us, because I think the the [...]

Ways to use Social Media

I went through this list and have parked it here for further use as the Broadcast project ramps up.
50 Ways to use Social Media, listed by Objective
Chris Brogan, who continues to dazzle us with his thoughtful and helpful social media blog posts (I recommend subscribing to him) lists out “50 Ways Marketers Can [...]

Locavore experiences

And talking about what it takes to be a Locavore.
EATS Blog | Guidelive.com
“Local” is relative in a place like Dallas. I spent a couple of hours Saturday morning — a lot of it in the car — scooping up local fare.
First stop was the organic farmers market hosted twice a month at Eden’s [...]

We need a massive wave of innovation

And it starts off from quoting Gore.
WorldChanging: Al Gore, Clean Energy and A Better Nation
And we won’t get that without a massive transformation in how this country works. We need tax reform (towards green taxes), new regulations, intellectual property reform, campaign finance reform, a restoration of our lost rights and judicial reform (to [...]

Auto Centric World

How everything is now based on the assumption of a car based society.
Auto-centric “imprinting” and our consumer products – Greater Greater Washington
One reason we’re locked into an auto-oriented way of thinking about life is that our consumer economy is primarily designed for households with a car. For example, instead of corner grocery stores [...]

Template for Disruptive Innovation

I am interested in turning this into a studio practice and so am following threads on Disruptive Innovation.
The Innovator’s Solution « Web 2.0 and Management
At the website of the authors Clayton Christensen and Michael Raynor you can find some ready to use ideas and templates to shape new disruptive innovation ideas:
1. A Template [...]

Black Board and Disruptive Innovation

A really good take on all that BlackBoard is trying to do and how it still falls way short of a truly students centered software.
The End in Mind » Blackboard & the Innovator’s Dilemma
Blackboard remains first and foremost a semester-based, content-delivery oriented, course management system. The software is not (at least noticeably) evolving [...]