I’m rather excited by Quirky, who are taking a new approach to product design by crowdsourcing.
Got a new product idea? Submit it to Quirky (for a $99 fee, mind you). If your idea is chosen, it is then thrown over to the community of designers and marketers. The community helps you to flesh out the idea, by submitting and voting for product names , logos, packaging and the product design itself.
Once the product concept is complete, it is then offered for pre-sale. Enough people pre-order it, and it gets made. The product ideator, and those who contribute along the way are given a generous cut of the profits.
Currently there are 5 items up for pre-sale, with no manufactured products just yet. But the early concepts look promising. I like the look of this split personality USB stick, as reviewed by engadget.
It will interesting to see how well Quirky do. It’s certainly an interesting business model, although paying $99 to submit an idea will be an obvious deterrent for many. That said, I can see this site having a huge appeal for all of us wannabe inventors out there.
1 Comment »
The power of using colours is that it’s easy to instantly understand the current status of your business. Something red? Better make a plan to fix it. Got a couple yellow areas? Ask your manager what she’s doing to address it. Notice a few green items? Congratulate the team!
I really liked Ryan Carson’s recent piece on measuring your key performance indicators with Red, Yellow or Green formatting. You can see his example spreadsheet here if you are interested.
No Comments »
Ink Calendar make use of the timed pace of the ink spreading on the paper to indicate time. The ink is absorbed slowly, and the numbers in the calendar are ‘printed ‘ daily. One a day, they are filled with ink until the end of the month. The calendar enhances the perception of time passing and not only signaling it. The aim of the project is to address our senses, rather than the logical and conscious brain.
via EveryDay UX
No Comments »
“If people put as much passion into the words as they put into the pixels, web design would be far, far better.”
Jason Fried, 37 Signals – via the net@night podcast
No Comments »
Dear Old People Who Run the World,
My generation would like to break up with you.
Everyday, I see a widening gap in how you and we understand the world — and what we want from it. I think we have irreconcilable differences.
You wanted big, fat, lazy “business.” We want small, responsive, micro-scale commerce.
You turned politics into a dirty word. We want authentic, deep democracy — everywhere.
You wanted financial fundamentalism. We want an economics that makes sense for people — not just banks.
You wanted shareholder value — built by tough-guy CEOs. We want real value, built by people with character, dignity, and courage.
You wanted an invisible hand — it became a digital hand. Today’s markets are those where the majority of trades are done literally robotically. We want a visible handshake: to trust and to be trusted.
You wanted growth — faster. We want to slow down — so we can become better.
You didn’t care which communities were capsized, or which lives were sunk. We want a rising tide that lifts all boats.
You wanted to biggie size life: McMansions, Hummers, and McFood. We want to humanize life.
You wanted exurbs, sprawl, and gated anti-communities. We want a society built on authentic community.
You wanted more money, credit and leverage — to consume ravenously. We want to be great at doing stuff that matters.
You sacrificed the meaningful for the material: you sold out the very things that made us great for trivial gewgaws, trinkets, and gadgets. We’re not for sale: we’re learning to once again do what is meaningful.
The awesome Generation M Manifesto, by Umair Haque. Read more about it here.
No Comments »
