While writing the next book, I’ve been in speech analysis-mode, and have considered including an analysis on this speech as an example of what not to do… but I love PowerPoint too much to do that. He made it sound like they’re all building a camel instead of a visionary or revolutionary product. Things that they called technical feedback, emotional feedback, to try to Matt Lauer said that the launch of Windows 7 was the most important launch Microsoft had done in ten years. If that’s true, why’d it suck so much?

For example, if you have an Excel spreadsheet in your presentation, you can click the spreadsheet to edit it. In an earlier post I covered how you can shrink your PowerPoint files using PowerPoint tools , which mentioned that specialized software can do a better job of shrinking files depending on your needs. Such software works with a server and offers more options such as treatment of images and how much to sacrifice in image quality.

Beginning to think about design by exploring the tenets of the Zen aesthetic may not be an example of Lateral Thinking in the strict sense, but doing so is a good exercise in stretching ourselves and really beginning to think differently about visuals and design in our everyday professional lives. The principles of Zen aesthetics found in the art of the traditional Japanese garden, for example, have many lessons for us, though they are unknown to most people. Exposing ourselves to traditional Japanese aesthetic ideas — notions that may seem quite foreign to most of us — is a good exercise in lateral thinking, a term coined by Edward de Bono in 1967. "Lateral

Though Kaizen is a tool used by corporations to achieve greater innovation, productivity, and general excellence, it’s also an approach, an approach that we can learn from and apply to our own lives as we strive for continuous improvement on a more personal level. Here are 15 tips in no particular order . (1) Keep an analog scrapbook of design examples you find. Kaizen (??) means "improvement" — "kai" (?)

Dan focuses here only on Autonomy and gives a few good examples, and touches on the ROWE ( Results Only Work Environment ). It almost did not feel like work, yet I was more productive and worked more than when I was employed in Japan. Companies need to lighten up and give more room for their talent to be creative. Letting go: A new management style? A key tenet of Zen is that we must learn to let go of things (the past and the future, for example). Below is a very interesting TED talk by my buddy Daniel Pink. In December Dan has a new book coming out called Drive:

An afternoon at the DMV, for example, is a good place to experience complicated designs (systems, procedures, rules, etc.) Nature's complex systems remind us that parsimony, for example, is a good rule of thumb for artists, designers, and even scientists, at least as a general guideline. Another example of a uniquely Japanese traditional art form is the wagasa (traditional Japanese umbrella). I think of complexity and simplicity not as opposites, but as ideas that have a harmonious relationship. In fact, relationship is not even the right word for this implies that they are

I was given the opportunity recently to test out a new product called Papershow by Canson, a new way to digitize meeting notes that would normally be written on a flip chart or white board. You can also change the background color from white to black, for example, if you'd like a blackboard effect. The main problem I had with the product was that the pen and key are not meant to First, I just have to say that this thing seems like magic! Whatever you draw on the interactive notepad shows up on the screen.

The video is 50-minutes long and is essentially a video version of the book with many of the same examples. Rather, it's just me talking to you about the core themes of the book with loads of examples (most of which are from the book). in front of me except for some key words on the MacBook — all the slides and background visuals and effects were added later in post production. Outtakes Below you can see some of the outtakes arranged by Mary Sweeney in Berkeley. Last June, I made a trip from Osaka to San Francisco to film a video version of the PZ book. The results of those

The live Mix09 stage design — with superfluous animation — was a distraction for me as well, but I guess that's just Vegas.) This is a good time to be focused on experience, says Bill Buxton. Good example of Return on Experience: Walter Teague's design work at Kodak some 60 years ago. (And And Apple's iPod more recently). It's not about the thing! It's about the experience. Oops, demo didn't work (but he moved on quickly). Creativity, Design, & the return on Experience Bill was not introducing new products nor

Mornings were filled with creative presentations from Fortune 500 companies, small startups and non-profits, and each afternoon was packed with optional breakouts that allowed the SB participants to get to know each speaker more personally.   While some speeches were obvious product plugs and some speakers appeared lost in the wild world of public speaking, two presentations stood out above the others.   Patnaik’s clear message was that the success of a product can come from the innovation of a company “taking a walk in their consumer’s shoes.”   One of my colleagues attended the Sustainable Brands 2009 conference last week in Monterey, California.