This is only tangentially about technology or geekdom, but bear with me.
The most ingenious thing for me this week was a posting about how the managers of the future need to completely reinvent how they work to model innovation in order to optimize the organizations in which they serve.
I thought about it for a bit, and responded as follows: 'This would work splendidly if top management, or more important the interests they serve were composed of rational actors. ‘Rent-seeking’ strategies are easier than working towards long-term success, and can produce a faster and more predictable yield than acting rationally, so I regret to say that a significant portion of the private sector will choose Door #2 for the moral hazard every time.
Granted, this was an inspirational video. I’m just thinking that this could be brilliantly effective in the public sphere, where we’re all about continuity, called on to use resources more creatively and learning to serve in better ways. ’
Two days later when I took my seat on the board of a public sector organization, I was able to gain the support of the board to give me a mandate as chair to reinvent the mission of the Management Excellence Committee to research and develop new management practices on those lines.
This impressed the hell out of the original poster, an uber-geek with whom I’ve been trying to connect in a personal way for awhile. Give me the prize, and obviously I will ask him to go with me, and who knows?
The most ingenious thing I saw this week was today in fact, walking from the Ferry Building down Market St. I saw a man was riding a motorized unicycle. It certainly stood out from the occasional scooter going past me to and from the office.
thanks for reminding me why I don’t post on forums or why I don’t participate in online news sharing and community groups. I appreciate the painful awareness that anywhere I go, there are people to make fun of me.
I thought it was a genuine example of ingenuity and the ability of humans to think outside of the box, sorry to disappoint you with my lack of sarcastic attitude at the display of genuine craftsmanship. Just because something is common, does not mean it is not ingenious.
Quite possibly the most ingenious thing I have seen this week was a homeless man in the Tenderloin who managed to build a sidewalk home out of soda cans, plastic bottles, a large piece of glass that someone had thrown out and what looked like two futon mattresses. He positioned the cans as security to warn him if anyone was entering. His home managed to last for 3 days on the sidewalk, making him the neighborhood celebrity for the many tourist paparazzi that wander up here. The guide has mad engineering skills!
Golan Levin’s creation of software that uses 3D printable rubber to make any old canvas shoe into a vector for temporary graffiti in snow, dust, or mud. He showed this at EyeO 2013, and it’s such a great example of creative thinking and implementation.
Late Monday night MILLIONS of Californians (CA population is 38M) heard a terrible screeching sound from their cell phones, televisions radios and more. Most people promptly looked at these devices immediately and saw an Amber Alert that was sent to most Californians with cell phone!
“Boulevard, CA AMBER Alert UPDATE: LIC/6WCU986 (CA) Blue Nissan Versa 4 Door.”
We have hit a new milestone in technological innovation where more humans received the same message simultaneously even tho they are separated by a thousand miles. I believe it went to most cell phones in the state in this new FEMA Nationwide Alert system.
This is an ingenious innovation made by thousands of Engineers, Scientists and others to wire our society so ubiquitously that we can all be spoken to by the great Oracle of the Powers that be. I have mixed feelings about but it ain’t going away!
Yesterday I was up in Willits, CA, looking at a commercial organic farm being established on land adjacent to the Brookside Elementary school owned by the Willits Unified School District. The local organizers of the organic farm business are currently interviewing people who wish to own and operate the organic farm business on the land site. Most if not all of the produce from the farm will be sold to the school district for student lunch programs. The district gets affordable fresh, local organic food for students. The farm operator gets a profitable local business that strengthens the local economy and creates some good jobs. School districts and other governmental and public entities around California and the USA are usually prevented by law from leasing their land to be used for a for-profit commercial use. So the farm project organizers and the school district figured out how to get around this by developing a novel approach: licensing (not leasing) the land to the for-profit farmer. This innovative land licensing approach is a huge breakthrough: it will enable thousands of acres of government and other public entity lands in rural and urban locations in California (and elsewhere) to now be legally used by local small farm businesses to grow affordable, organic, local, fresh food for the entities and their communities, and to also create profitable green businesses and decent local jobs.
To get a final version of the licensing agreement document please email:
Susan Lightfoot (Farm2Fork Coordinator, for North Coast Opportunities-Community Action) at: slightfoot@ncoinc.org
What is the next revolution in novelty burgers? I thought the Luther Burger, donuts instead of a bun, would be the pinnacle (and I enjoyed it in rare form at Straw in Hayes Valley this weekend). But wait! Why not Wild Hare’s Deluxe Burger, served between two entire grilled cheese sandwiches? How about Big Chef Tom’s Belly Burgers, made from cripplingly good ground pork belly?
But this week, this week we have an exciting new contender: the Shoyu Ramen Burger, breaking hearts in Brooklyn now. I was prepared to plan a trip, what a burger!, but, thank goodness, local superheroes/restauranteurs Nombe have a ramenburger of their own!
Perhaps after this burger I will finally be satiated, content only eating the same old burgers every time a craving strikes. Or… perhaps I will need to find something new, something more creative and more delicious than anything that has come before.
The most ingenious thing I have seen this week, is not new by any means, it a Gerber Multi-tool that a friend lent me. I am not associated with Gerber nor do I even own one but that will change soon. It is the Gerber Crucial Multi-Tool. I like it because it has pliers incorporated in it but looks nothing like my Leatherman with two main, leg-like parts. This one just looks like a normal pocket knife but opens out to be far more. I love the design, it is beautiful and functional!
what is interesting about the C-24 keyboard is the use of overlooked materials to make a functioning instrument. using magnets instead of springs. using optical sensors instead of switches. using a capacitive ribbon controller to make buttons and a slider. all of this combined can still flatten to make it storable and portable.
most music keyboards are far from ingenious. practically everything on the market emulates a piano in terms of size, shape and action. as keyboard become cost reduced the mechanisms to push keys back into place define the feel, the shape of keys become a compromise and the noise it makes besides the note you are actually playing can be annoying to the player.
making a keyboard to pair with an iPad is a challenge. it must be small, it must be playable, and it must “just work” otherwise it will be cast aside before it finds an audience among players. if you want to know what failure in the music market place looks like simply look for companies that promised that learning to play a keyboard was easy with their e’learning tools. none of it survives and very few musicians repurposed the instruments for their own future.
the company could have chosen to build a larger, more standard size keyboard that would not have the challenges of tiny. however, they should be applauded for doing something hard. of course, the jury is out until people actually play it. the good news is we don’t have to wait long to hear the reports from the field.
Sometimes simple can impress. I saw a plastic holder for a banana. Now, before you judge imagine putting a banana in the holder, throwing it in your computer bag and still having a whole unbruised banana at 3pm!
The most honest and ingenious thing this week was the owner of Lavabit closing his highly secure email service rather than turn over data to the NSA! I wish Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft would “go dark” for a day to protest the intrusive surveillance laws. Maybe if millions of United States citizens couldn’t access email for a day, people would start writing their Congresspeople to change the laws!
Here’s my ingenious idea and motto: Go Dark for Democracy!
I gazed upon a startling neon metafuture, clear and bright, blossoming from the fog-shrouded orchards of Sebastapol, CA. O’Reilly Foo Camp crystallized in my mind the extent of possibility, the promise of technology, and that which humans can achieve when they agree to be kind, visionary, and principled.
