Wired: Sorriest Cubicle on Earth

One of the 7 Pillars for mindshift ties environment to performance. Wired provides fun look at the ghost of cubicles past.

Click here to read the article and see more of the sorriest cubicles on earth.

Google Streetview - mindshifting the globe

Google has added a new feature, Streetview. The map is now alive, a seamless span of live images.

Now when you travel you can see exactly what to expect; the neighborhood, the parking, the house or building.

1. How can you use this?
2. What about privacy for those who happen to show up in a photo?
   
3. What happens if your house is pictured while going through renovation just before you put it up for sale and that's the image someone sees while house hunting?
4. How might you use Streetview and Map Create for business and marketing?
   

Click here for an orientation on creating your own map.

The mindshift: maps go interactive with live images, data and search capability. Have our mental models for maps changed much, a means to figure out how to get from point "A" to point "B?"

There seems to be some innovative opportunities, but it will take a mindshift.

12 Days of Christmas mindshift

A pleasant change of pace while keeping true to theme of bringing about a mindshift.

PS: If you have not had a chance to view the blog recently - check some of the previous posts on Lean practices. This will become a major theme for 2008.

Evidenced Based Design

We've left the world Newtonian certainty and now surf in a sea of change. It's interesting that the path recommended by AIA is "Evidenced Based Design." Here are some excerpts from:

Four Levels of Evidence-Based Practice
By D. Kirk Hamilton, FAIA, FACHA

"The growing trend toward evidence-based design involves design work that is informed by data from a variety of sources. It is also a natural analog to the evidence-based decision making of our clients."

"Entering Harvard medical students are reportedly told, “Half of what you will learn is wrong, but we don’t yet know which half.” As new environmental studies are published, some decisions may be questioned, but conscientious architects will experience fewer doubts as they increase the percentage of decisions based on research. Environmental research is more likely to result in performance guidelines than in prescriptive regulation."

Click here to link to the whole article.

My take away:

Environments by definition are contextual - specific to the need and mix of people they address. Universal principles - aren't, when it comes to contextual application. Evidence based design requires a deep level of expertise - not only conceptual and intellectual - but client and project expertise.

Firms will prosper by becoming experts and demonstrating the value of that expertise.

Lean Basics

The Lean approach is not just a manufacturing method for greater efficiency. Lean is a mindset that focuses on what the client values and is willing to pay for. The basic idea is simple. Identify value, understand the flow of that value and eliminate the steps that do not contribute to either value or flow. Simple? In concept yes, however, a century of success focusing on an industrial approach to creating and making things is a hard habit to break.

The mindshift is that Lean is not a set of techniques but is a set of values through a holistic lens.

1. All members in the value stream bring value and provide value.
2. No part of the value stream can be improved in isolation to the whole.
3. The team learns by doing and reviewing.
   

This is a video showing Lean applied to healthcare - perfect! Lean appears to be a highly effective alternative to our century old industrial model of breaking the whole into its various sub-elements and focusing on the parts. Like the slogan from the old fast food commercial; "Parts is parts." Hmm - yum.

Smooth Predictable Flow

One key concept for Lean is smooth predictable flow. This Visa commercial provides a great illustration of the impact of unpredictable events on the flow of a project.

Linear vs. Collaborative

Take a moment to watch this video exercise.

Round one takes a conventional linear approach to assemble and note the inevitable collisions and bottlenecks.

Round two takes a collaborative approach. See the difference.

We're introducing the idea of Lean Construction as one of the tools for an Integrated Platform and Integrated Delivery. Turner Construction has one of the top Lean construction managers in the industry.

We will pass along some of the basic ideas behind Lean Construction and a list of reading. For now I hope the video provides a compelling image and mindshift.

A good friend from Disney Imagineering sent a list of trends in the architectural and building market. The list was developed by The Greenway Consulting Group.

During the same week another friend and president for a national design firm copied me on the following note:

Jim, In the cab en route to join you today. Looking forward to it. Meanwhile, it occurs to me what a potential serendipity between the Design Futures Council and mindshift might have. Rex, please hit Jim’s at www.greenway.us. You’ll be impressed with how Jim’s organization is dealing with the same issues we discussed yesterday.

Here are some of those trends:

Design-Build service delivery will grow at 2.1 - 2.8 percent annual rate in the US but with significant variations depending on geography and building type. This will substantially affect issues of risk management, since so many formerly competitive entities will be linked by contractual bonds. Essentially this is a “master builder” trend.

Integrated and more overtly collaborative professional practices can be expected in planning, architecture, interior design, engineering, landscape architecture, construction, and facility management. Project management will be enhanced through round the clock web sites with new procedures, protocols, and processes.

Talent shortages will intensify in architecture, design, engineering, construction, and landscape architecture. Supply-demand economics raises base pay by an average of 6.7 percent in 2007 and 6.1 percent in 2008.

The continued, rapid, adoption of BIM Technology will proceed with significant new training programs and expansions implemented in late 2007 and 2008.

Demographics and generational changes will alter the context for professional service delivery, creating a need for new communication plans, new marketing programs, and new design experiences. The generational divide requires new design solutions: 0-10 Digital from Birth; 11-30 Generation Now; 31-40 Generation X; 41-60 Zoomers; 61+ Prime Timers.

Significant process differentiation in project and design management will lead to trademark and branding campaigns. Design firms will use copyright and trademark differentiation as part of their new value proposition’s high definition.

Fast architecture models will be adopted by traditional firms. Speed is a strategic value proposition and firms will invent ways to deliver, proving that speed is not the enemy of quality.

Knowledge worker migration favors coastal, southern, and western geographies in the United States. Expect merger and acquisition activity to aggressively include firms in these locations where a workforce is motivated to locate.

Green and sustainable design is sought after by clients who are increasing the expectations for expertise and advisement in the design professions. Firms without green repute will become anti-strategic in the marketplace.

Strategic partitioning, modular structures, and factory built units will see increasing investments and are expected to play a far larger role in housing, retail, residential, manufacturing, and K-12 facilities construction. One of the legacies of hurricane Katrina is the accelerated growth and popularity of increasingly well designed modular building.

Professional workers from other external knowledge professions will enter the design professions serving in expert roles, especially in healthcare design, and education design. In addition, watch for anthropologists, real estate developers, and college presidents to join the boards of top design and construction firms.

Lifecycle design will become a dynamic new service offering for professional practices that will take contractual responsibility for structures over their useful life. Clients understand that taking care of their buildings is a smart investment and who better than the original designers to take responsibility for the buildings stewardship.

Generalist practitioners will fade from the professions. Interviews with 250 leading North American clients indicate that specializations will grow because clients seek:

• Deep expertise and competence
• Repute by building type
• Trust and confidence in a specialized zone
• Familiarity and comfort

Outsourcing will increasingly become prevalent and prescient, particularly in India where language and training match with quality expectations. India is second only to Canada in their application of LEED building standards.

Intelligent buildings will become the norm. They will anticipate, have “smart” walls and floors, and be constructed with computerized components that will utilize artificial intelligence in every aspect of the building.

Zero energy buildings will be created that produce more energy than they consume. Watch for corporate offices and high-density residences that serve as neighborhood power plants using latest in sustainable technology. Pearl River Tower, at 77 stories, is both office and power plant – giving back energy to the grid.

Thanks largely to BIM, there will be radical tort reform in construction liability. Expect lower E and O insurance premiums.

Intelligence, talent, wisdom, maturity of judgment, and vision – not licensure or technology, become the primary differentiators for design professionals seeking best practice performance. But licensure is critical to HSW in increasingly uncertain times.

Rocky Mountain Institute and USGBC

This collection of organizations is working to make the case that sustainability is essential, critical but also profitable. The video clip on the site is a bit lengthy but well done. Its worth watching when you have ten minutes.

"The right blueprint can lead to the right ecological footprint, and so much more. From materials and construction to lighting, heating, and cooling, the building industry accounts for roughly 40 percent of all the energy used in the United States. Green building is good for the environment. And done the RMI way, it can also be good for the bottom line—everyone’s bottom line. As an international leader in sustainable design, we work with developers, architects, facility managers, and real-estate professionals to create high-performance buildings and communities that are less expensive to build (or retrofit), more profitable to operate, easier to lease, and healthier and more comfortable to occupy—plus, they boost worker productivity."

Click here to go to the site.

Leveraging Social Networking Apps

The August 6th issue of Business Week contained an article called: Fogeys Flock to Facebook. The article explores the trend of older users levering existing social networking applications. Facebook, which used to be the domain of college students is now drawing surprising numbers of professionals their 30s and 40s. Among Silicon Valley executives, journalists, and publicists, Facebook has become the place to see and be seen. And it's not just tech. Consulting company Ernst & Young's Facebook network boasts 16,000 members, while Citigroup's claims nearly 8,500.

My own encounter with Facebook happened just a few weeks ago, I had just completed an article on how Web 2.0 is both reflecting and fueling a major shift in culture. The article drips with words like participatory, customizable and creating community. While I was in my e-mail firing the piece to my editor, I received an invite to Facebook from a potential client in Nigeria. As I was feeling rather Web 2.0 fluent at that moment, I decided to sign up and take a few minutes to explore it.

When I looked up at the clock, an hour had flown by without my perceiving the passage of time. In a whooosh upon entering Facebook, I was connected with colleagues, past classmates, old friends, and gurus from my industry. It was a networking event, trip down memory lane, conversation with people I haven't spoken with in awhile and hello ping to people I'm geographically far from.

But what was really impressive wasn't the connection it provided, but the ability to visualize interconnection. Facebook provides a visual picture of social networks and how they connect to each other. In a glance you begin to understand who people are by who they connect with. The other interesting phenomena is that it fuels the already existing trend of the dissolution of walls between personal, professional and social lives. Add to that some very useful tools for mass-communication, event planning and the ability to easily swap posts and visuals, and you have just a few reasons why Facebook is adding 100,000 new users per day.

Now it makes sense!

Virtual Design and Construction (or BIM) is to Drafting...

What Digital Text is to Writing.

Think about the mindshift.

iPod 2001 - what a mindshift!

How is an xtreme building like an iPod? This was one of the exercises the mindshift team used to spur some lateral thinking about a new radical value proposition for delivering commercial real estate.

My 14 year old son sent this video clip showing the introduction of the first iPod. I've watched it four times listening to Steve Jobs set up the value proposition, compare and contrast what the iPod will provide against the current music experience.

Thanks Nathan, for sending the clip. It always pays to go to the source of a mindshift and experience it fresh. I hope this will help us think about the xtreme real estate in such compelling contrasts and motivate us to build something equally compelling.

"Little Green Lies" - Green Romance and Reality

The Blue Men are a mindshift both in message and delivery. Enjoy their take on planet earth as an intro for today's blog.

Green is in. With the momentum of an Oscar, a Nobel Peace prize and daily articles from all major media public awareness has reached that proverbial tipping point. The pendulum has now swung so that demand and expectations far exceed current capabilities.

The recent Businessweek Cover Story, "Little Green Lies," is an reminder that authenticity and transparency go hand in glove for those serious about restoring the planet. Corporations that jump onto the bandwagon will be closely examined to see if the talk matches the walk.

Here are some excerpts to the article.

"Barely a day goes by without a prominent corporation loudly announcing its latest green accomplishments: retailers retrofitting stores to cut energy consumption, utilities developing pristine wind power, major banks investing billions in clean energy. No matter what Al Gore's critics might say, there's no denying that the Nobel Prize winner's message has hit home. With rising consumer anxiety over global warming, businesses want to show that they're part of the solution, says Chris Hunter, a former energy manager at Johnson & Johnson (JNJ ) who works for the environmental consulting firm GreenOrder. "Ten years ago, companies would call up and say I need a digital strategy.' Now, it's I need a green strategy.'"

"Much corporate environmentalism boils down to misleading statistics and hype. To make real progress, genuine accomplishments will have to be sorted out from feel-good gestures. Schendler no longer views business as capable of the dramatic change he thought possible eight years ago, the sort of change that corporations have grown accustomed to boasting about. His own employer is "a perfect example of why this won't work," he says. "We've had a chance to cherry-pick 50 projects and get them done. But even if every ski company could do what we did, we'd still be nowhere."

For the complete article link here. There is also a Podcast for the story behind the story. You will find a link at the beginning of the article.

If sources like The Economist and the AIA are correct there is somewhere between 33% - over 50% waste delivering conventional real estate. Most efforts to achieve sustainability or some level of LEED certification proceed under the old paradigm; a linear, hierarchical design-bid-build approach. Conventional wisdom says that any effort above LEED Gold requires an up front cost premium. The current premium estimate for LEED Platinum is somewhere between 5%-7%.

Unless I'm missing something, a new paradigm that can make a significant dent in the 33% - 50% waste will also be able to deliver a LEED Platinum building for the same cost (or less) as conventional unsustainable buildings.

Partnering on a project to achieve LEED Platinum with no upfront preimium sounds like a proof-of-concept test. What do you think?

It's the wrong thing to do...

I just returned from meetings with several architects, construction firms and green experts. If you promote sustainability don't be surprised if you're asked; "what do you drive?" I was. I flunked.

That does not discount efforts to improve or develop green products and services. It is, however, a reality check. I have to make sure I know and acknowledge a connection (or in most cases a disconnection) between selling green and living green? Now that green is "in" the true believers will be checking closely to see if we walk our talk.

A second reality check is understanding that green is not a manufactured solution. It is and will be a mindshift, a change of values and for many a change of lifestyle. Results become the by-product. I would personally rather read the books and become an expert but I know that's just not going to fly if I'm going to be part of a mindshift to improve the way we deliver buildings.

I reached a personal tipping point at this event and listening to Ray Anderson. So, my first step is to begin a dailogue with my family and measure our impact on this planet. Right now I have no clue how much energy and water we consume. Or, how much CO2 and solid waste we produce. Our family will probably begin to take a closer look at what we buy and who we buy it from and start the slow process of understanding and reconnecting to the impact of our actions. It sounds like common sense but obviously its not, anymore. I like Ray Anderson's story because it took him time to reach a high level of conviction. I'm not sure where this will lead our family.

I've thought about green and the mission of mindshift too. Green and good design are certainly goals. Because our efforts embrace a broader agenda with diverse disciplines I think we have better means for achieving sustainability and enabling others to do so too.

mindshift embraces sustainability as integral to our mission. In the next few blogs we'll see what others are doing and how they are dealing with the obvious challenges of managing the romance of green with the reality of getting there.

I like what one of the principal mindshift members shared. "To my mind mindshift presents the opportunity to provide a holistic, balanced and wildly efficient approach to construction, which will have many benefits, including more “green” buildings – which in themselves provide unique value to the owners. This is the story I tell."

Perceptive Pixel - Jeff Han (2)

When we think of Virtual Design and Construction, or its other name Building Information Modeling, we may not perceive the true mindshift. We can't help but view VD&C or BIM as an extension of what we already know - drawing - or in the case of architecture - drafting. Media Ecology types call this remediation - the simple extension of a prior practice in a new medium. However, the medium is truly transformative in the sense that it changes our sensory orientation, defines new possibilities and creates a new interface with the environment. We see, feel and touch in a new way.

I like Jeff Han's demonstration because it changes our mindsets toward the virtual environment away from a static image or even game simulation to something quite distinct - a virtual pliable and hyper-realistic world. When we think of Virtual Design and Construction or BIM this video captures the orientation these new tools can and should provide when designing the new built environment.

Be amazed and think of the new possibilities.

Roger Bannister - the 4 minute mindshift

Creating a lower cost, better built, faster delivered, sustainable building is achievable. Once we determine we want to create one - we will. Just ask Roger Bannister.

The most significant impact of Bannister's achievement is what happened immediately happened to the world of running. 37 runner broke the 4 minute barrier during the next year.

First the idea, then the model and then we work together to achieve it.

Steampunk and mindshift

What is a retro-futurist? A steampunker, of course! Steampunk is a combination of old world craft with new world technology.

What lessons are there for mindshifting?

There is money to be made for those who can elegantly combine the two. However, that's not the lesson for today.

The Lesson: Adopting Virtual Design and Construction but following the old world phasing of schematics, design development, construction drawings etc. is a Steampunk approach to a project. It will soon become a curious novelty but misses the point and misses the target.

Steampunking can be a great exercise in creative thinking. This leads me to my favorite creative thinker, Michael Vance, former dean of Disney University. He describes innovation as a derivative of one of four approaches:

1. Invention/Invention
2. Invention/Di-vention
3. Invention/Extension
4. Functional Substitution

I enjoy Steampunk because it spurs a mindshift with a high cool factor thrown in. Take a look, below, at this Wall Street Journal Online video about Steampunking. What are some of your favorite Steampunk ideas?

Seadragon

Seadragon is a new Microsoft acquisition and part of their Photosynth labs. The application provides a unique interface for viewing photos. It allows full immersion into an image seamlessly viewing it in any scale (without loss of detail) or any angle. Seadragon also allows one to view any series of photos and rearrange their context and synthesize them into a composite image (don't ask me how and you have to see it to understand).

"Seadragon takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space."

With Photosynth you can:

• Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle.
• Seamlessly zoom in or out of a photo whether it's megapixels or gigapixels in size.
• See where pictures were taken in relation to one another.
• Find similar photos to the one you're currently viewing.
• Send a collection - or a particular view of one - to a friend."

Browse through some of their photo collections.

Take time to also view some of their videos. (you may need to download a plug-in to view these)

Seadragon is a major mindshift away from dealing with images as linear and sequential. It creates a seamless synthesis where each photo knows how it relates to the other photo. This kind of interface could become integral to understanding design, a building's interface with its environment and to re-purpose existing buildings.

WRAP Report - Value of Off Site Manufacturing

Using off site manufacture can help the construction industry reduce waste according to a report published by WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme - Liz Goodwin, CEO).

WRAP commissioned AMA Research to undertake a scoping study into the uptake of off site manufacture and where the opportunities lie for growth. The research compared current off site manufacture waste levels with traditional methods.

Off site manufacture already offers the construction industry benefits in terms of time and cost predictability, health and safety and skills. However, this work shows that there is the potential to make a significant difference to the amount of waste the industry produces.

Some of the biggest waste streams in traditional construction are packaging (up to 5%), timber (up to 25%) and plasterboard (up to 36%). Up to a 90% reduction can be achieved by reducing wastes such as wood pallets, shrink wrap, cardboard, plasterboard, timber, concrete, bricks and cement by increasing the use of off site manufacture and modern methods of construction.

(details...)

What other advantages are there in time savings, quality, coordination and safety?

Erin McKean - Lexicography and mindshifting

The great institutions of modernity are confronting the new realities of a digitalage.

Modern architecture and the idea of the master architect was born during the Renaissance. Construction is a combination of industrial era assembly and ancient craft practices. Technology has since introduced many significant innovations leading to greater efficiencies but has not changed the paradigm.

Please take a moment and listen to Erin McKean's presentation at the TED conference. You can find the video at the bottom of this blog. I found interesting and entertaining parallels to the disruptive changes in this arcane discipline and mindshift. Erin is the Chief Lexicographer and dictionary evangelist, for the Oxford English Dictionary. Her insights are wonderful (as well as few audacious words to add to your vocabulary). Listen and note her flatfooted critique of her own domain; the by-product of some excellent therapy or she is a Jim Collin's Level 5 leader.

These are a few highlights:

• I love the Electric Velocipede analogy; "Victorian design with modern propulsion."
  
• "Blaming the ham that's bigger than the pan."
• "Could paper be the enemy of words?" Hmm - could paper be the enemy of design?
• "Artificial constraints lead to arbitrary distinctions and a skewed worldview."

We're not alone. The OED is undergoing a mindshift. We're in noble company.

Web 2.0

What do Amazon.com, Netflix, Wikipedia, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Flickr have in common? They represent some of the Titans in the world of Web 2.0.

Web 1.0 focuses on delivering content. Web 2.0 focuses on participation, collaboration and user generated content (or value).

Using Web 2.0 requires a different mindset.

Think:

1. Amazon.com - customers say; "if you like XYZ, you'll like ABC."
2. Netflix - people who liked this movie also liked these movies.
3. Stumbleupon - people upload their videos on various sites; Youtube, Metacafe... and Stumbleupon collects the best for you to view.

"Is there a lesson, an opportunity?"

Craig Janssen, mindshift core member and principal for Acoustic and Strategic Dimension, raised the interesting question during our Houston gathering.

Craig shared that every company has tools that aid their clients in identifying needs or exploring solutions. What if companies automate some of their tools - providing clients with useful information, a valuable experience and in return gaining important information about needs and goals? Clients benefit, engage and end up coming back when they need help. Craig went on to share that making tools available that competitors don't have provides a clear advantage.

One example is Strategic Dimension's "Cost Escalation Calculator." Why is it valuable? Because SD found many client's did not make the connection that delayed decisions cost money. Even when they explained the consequences the idea remained abstract. Craig developed a simple tool and used it in presentations. When it was placed on their website clients would go back and play with the tool. The abstract idea of cost escalation suddenly becomes very tangible and creates better awareness and a sense of urgency for making timely decisions.















Consider:

• What can make the client smarter?
• What can make the intangible more tangible?
• What would aid the decision process?
• What provides an alternate perspective?
• Is there a forum for feedback?
• Is there a means for clients to tap into the wisdom of other clients?

Now go back again and explore Amazon.com, Netflix, Wikipedia and other popular Web 2.0 platforms.

The new technology of Web 2.0 creates new capabilities, a new platform for interaction with completely new value propositions. All of which - requires a new mindset when we think about aiding our client's and generating new value.

Vertical Urban Farming

Here's a mindshift for you - imagine a 30 story farm, just down the block. That is Dr. Dickson Despommier's vision.

Local produce, sustainable farming.

This is more than a futuristic idea from an academic with too much time on his hands. This project has legs and a price tag of about $84 million along with an attractive proforma.

The vertical farm has attracted the attention of several global corporation and universities. Paradigms are changing.

Sky farming offers efficiency, high quality, diversity, locality and sustainability.

Terracycle - Mindshift Business Model

Tom Szaky, co-founder of TerraCycle, explains how they built a successful planet friendly company. Their product works and IS NOT a premium. His last few comments provide the insight - people want to do the right thing but most are not willing to pay more for it.

The mindshift question: "Can we deliver planet friendly buildings that ARE NOT a premium?" It would certainly take a new paradigm.

The Oppenheim Effect

Susan Szenasy, chief editor for Metropolis, recently shared that the future leaders in our industry start with a different set of assumptions:

• Green
• Team
• Virtual Design

Today we highlight the work of Chad Oppenheim. His Cor project in Miami is reviewed in this month's Metropolis (along with a podcast), Businessweek, Business 2.0, Boom or Bust: Miami and Wired Magazine - not too bad.

Why is this important to mindshift? It is a green multi-used project, using pre-engineered units available in 120 different configurations plus layouts that clients dream up.

It is modular, less expensive to build, faster, mass customized and sustainable.

You will similar ideas in Refabricating Architecture. Chad is bringing this idea of fabricated architecture to life.

Chad represents an elegant mindshift and an example worth exploring.

Ambient Orb - The Cool Dashboard

We live in a visual age.

How do you deliver complex data intended to change behavior? Ambient Devices (with a cool website) has developed a unique and strangely effective tool.

Plenty, a media source for sustainability, explains how Southern California Edison experimented with the Ambient Orb reduced energy consumption by 40%.

What additional uses can you think of?

• Product managers could see if they were on target by the color of the orb.
• Safety goals can be displayed with the orb.
• Company carbon objectives can be tracked.
• Customer satisfaction and the list is almost endless.

What metrics can you think of that would communicate the success or struggle of a project?

Consider the mindshift this represents for communicating complex data in an immediately accessible and intuitive way.

Doing well... by doing good - Interface

Leadership, change and a higher call.

Those involved with Mindshift have described our challenge using these kinds of words and ideas. How do you (we) change a complex industry, highly entrenched in outdated methods, habits and interests? For Ray Anderson it started with a personal challenge - and subsequent transformation. Kyle Davy shares some of this story in his book, Value Redesigned.

“In August 1994 Ray C. Anderson embarked on a journey that would transform him as well as the company he founded 20 years earlier. That company, Interface Inc., is the world’s largest producer of contract commercial carpet. Anderson’s wake-up call happened as he prepared to deliver a keynote address to an Interface task force charged with responding to customers who were asking what Interface was doing for the environment. At first he approached the question from a conventional manufacturer’s viewpoint that focused on compliance… However, in the midst of his preparation, he happened upon Paul Hawken’s book, The Ecology of Commerce. Reading the book “changed my life” he notes. :

The company conceived and began implementation of a new business model, which Anderson broadly described as, “We will do well…very well…by doing good.

Over the next decade, Anderson and Interface continued to pursue this mission, establishing a new web of relationships linking thought-leaders in the sustainability movement with industry participants (customers, builders, regulators). The company’s promotion of learning about sustainability issues and sharing ideas and best practices spread its influence significantly beyond the boundaries of its core business.

The collaboration with other leaders has lead to the company’s Pletsus Web site for gathering and sharing “Practices Leading Toward Sustainability.”

Design Build or Integrated Practice

Those in the design build world are finding opportunities created by the dysfunctions of the conventional delivery process.

Is design build moving toward Integrated Practice? Or is it just another spin on a current model with the architect at the lead?

Here is an article from a recent conference on Design Build and Integrated Practice. This article was written by Cindy Frewen Wuellner, FAIA and PhD, a virtual contributor to Operation Mindshift.

Here is a quote from Markku Allison when I posed the question to him. Markku leads the effort for Integrated Practice through the AIA.

"Actually, architect led design build and integrated practice are NOT the same thing. Integrated practice is not a delivery method; it’s the term coined by the institute to describe how industry transformation will shake out for architects, and is a set of values and beliefs about practice. Industry consensus for the "name" of the delivery model behind integrated practice is integrated project delivery, which is also not the same thing as architect led design build."

I'll be curious to hear what others think.

Mindshift's mission involves understanding the technical elements of delivery, the models but as Markku points out - going deeper to the paradigms that frame and condition our models.

World Future Society's Top 10 Forecasts for 2007

I just returned from the 2007 conference in Minneapolis. Here are some of the top forecasts from the society.

There were several interesting session including a new paper soon to be released mapping body chemistry and brain orientation to Meyer's Briggs.



This link provides a written version.

Consider the worldshift!

Pause and consider. This is not a ripple. This is a rip.

Here is a link to the site if the video above does not work for you.

The New Platform - Web 2.0 - or just call it BIM

I've just returned from the BIM conference in Anaheim. Well... Building Information Modeling has hit its tipping point.

BIM has reached a 20% penetration. But most are still in the BIM 1.0 phase - 3D modeling, concept and design.

BIM 2.0 is still an early adopter application and should take off in 2008 as interoperability standards solidify. We will then reach a point where objects tied to data = budgeting, analysis and decision making as never before.

BIM 3.0 makes the revolution complete. BIM 3.0 promises complete virtual simulation and collaboration; from design, construction through life-cycle performance.

BIM exploits the shift from HTML to XML. What????

Sorry - this video will help you see the significance. Look for this tag line - "content is not longer tied to form." Information can be tied to any object or relationship within BIM. You might just call this intelligent design.

I watched the video three times before it sunk in. There's a lot going on but its worth watching.

We are Smarter than Me - Collaborative Book

"The central premise of We Are Smarter Than Me is that large groups of people ("We") can, and should, take responsibility for traditional business functions currently performed by companies, industries and experts ("Me")."

Management and Leadership, once the funnel for innovation, can often become the bottleneck for innovation.

Click here

"What do we mean? Let's look at some recent examples:

Procter & Gamble is recruiting 600,000 housewives to help market its products through word of mouth. In return for much greater reach and impact, the company is giving up control of the marketing message, relying on its community of customers/marketers to craft their own message in the most appropriate fashion.

Microlending websites provide the ability for individuals to lend to small businesses directly. The underwriting decisions (assessing the risk of each loan) are made by individuals, and the price of loan is established through lender bidding. We expect these lending decisions to be superior to the same decisions currently made by experts at banks.

Patients faced with rare diseases are increasingly turning to internet discussion groups to learn more about risks and treatment options, and as a result are participating with doctors more actively (in some cases much more actively) in decisions regarding their care.

A few books have recently been written on this topic, but they all fail to confront one central paradox. While they extol the power of communities, they were each written by only one person. We're putting this paradox to the test by inviting hundreds of thousands of authors to contribute to this "network book" using today's technologies."

We are seeing a sea change. This collaborative thing is gaining momentum, openness is becoming a must, command-and-control is giving way to front line empowerment and a new generation is right behind us who think this is the way things actually work. (And if they run into a roadblock they hack, mod and remix).

Pro-AM Design = Innovation (Leadbeater TED Presentation)

Design is a very powerful tool. It elevates the likelihood of certain kinds of choices and shapes certain kinds of behaviours. Most designers balk at the idea that design is a form of social engineering, but Hilary Cottam, director of RED at the UK Design Council, maintains that "if you don't look at what any design is governing, then you are being governed by it." She continues: "The question for us is how do we find out what the effects of design are and make sure we're using those for social justice." So in our diabetes example, we can reasonably ask, How might things be different if the power of design was deployed to keep us healthy and fit?

As Charles Leadbeater puts it: "Design used to be done by specialists for users. From now on, in a growing number of fields, design will be done with users and by them." In this context the designer is becoming the facilitator, the enabler, rather than the dictator of what people themselves want to do.

Click and Listen or View the TED presentation.

Leadbeater explains very clearly the power of the Web 2.0 paradigm.

This is a must hear/view presentation.

The bottomline - most of our innovation will come outside our walls.

Perhaps this is exactly what Einstein had in mind when he said; "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

Changing Schools Through Design

Here is a link to the audio and video of Sir Ken Robinson's TED presentation. Education is in dire need of redesign. This audio is followed by an excerpt from an post regarding school design in the UK.

In the UK secondary schools were built in the 1950s on a comprehensive ideology that promoted equality, but also a Fordist, one-size-fits-all approach to learning. Pupils sat in rows in front of the teacher who dictated lessons from the blackboard. 50 years later this scene has not changed, despite the huge changes taking place in the modern workplace, such as an emphasis on IT and teamwork. Now that government has a new ideology (based on creativity and diversity of learning styles) and a new curriculum, it has embarked on a massive program designing and building new schools. These new schools are just as attractive as the shopping malls where kids typically truant, and designed with flexible spaces for a mixture of group and individual work, desk-based work and role play, and opportunities for students to learn independently. The UK Design Council has worked with schools across the country to redesign their learning environments, creating new types of furniture and flexible learning spaces that support creative learning.

What better way to make the public--and teachers--see the radical changes being made to something as intangible as the philosophy of learning than to design new schools? New ideology, new design.

There has been a shift in conventional politics; a realization that top-down policies no longer work and that public services in particular must be redesigned around the user. Conventional policy makers are not readily equipped to do this. Designers are. Jennie Winhall

Customer Service - Cultural Innovation

I'm including two links. One is the Businessweek article on their top 25 service champions. The second is a Podcast with the writer sharing some of the surprises in her research.

Great customer service is a cultural mindset as much or more than a business strategy. I recently heard Jules Williams, a Principal from Jacobs (engineering and architecture), share that their goal is not just satisfaction, exceeding expectations or delight. Their goal is amazement.

Amazement requires a deep understanding of the other person's need, desires and expectations. That demands time, reflection and empathy. It is the most relational mindset I have run across in business. Pleasant surprise is not an accident - it is highly intentional.

Amazed clients are willing to pay more, remain loyal and refer others. When you create a virtuous cycle like this you can afford to take the time, invest the energy and stay focused on your client relationships.

Jules said that 90% of their business comes from repeat and referred clients. We all know the cost of going out to find a new client or replace an exisitng one.

This 90% factor is the difference that makes a difference.

Click here for the article.

Click here for the Podcast.

The photo is Jules Williams - Principal at Jacobs - Washington, DC Office

Hillary Cottam - Changing the World Through Design

"My policy colleagues say they went into politics because they wanted to challenge the status quo and make things better for ordinary people. That's certainly why I went into design. So maybe design is more political than you think." - Hillary Cottam

"Embodying ideology Monuments to political (and corporate!) ideologies are all around us in the design of buildings, goods and services. A few years ago, a team of architects, policy makers and educationalists from the Do Tank looked at redesigning prisons. Prisons are a powerful example of the way design reinforces and makes manifest political ideology. In the 19th century, the dominant ideology in criminal justice was of power through surveillance, control, punishment of the psyche and awe of the state. Architects then designed their prisons to oppress and remove any sense of autonomy or personal identity. The most extreme of these designs is the panopticon, a circular format with a central watch tower which allows an observer to observe all prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell if they are being observed or not: the architectural equivalent of Big Brother. These designs punished indeed, but did nothing to rehabilitate their subjects. In fact, surviving examples of panopticons are known to create psychological trauma in their prisoners. " Jennie Winhall

Click here for a link to the whole article.

What assumptions are embodied in our:

• Offices
• Schools
• Libraries
• Churches
• Government buildings
• Health facilities

What are the assumptions about the people coming in; about the leadership inside, about the organization"s relationship to its immediate community, about its legacy, about its interaction with the public?

"French philosopher Michel Foucault describes power as distributed and ubiquitous--embedded in our daily lives. The spaces we inhabit, the tools we use and the systems we interact with are all mediated by design, and so design, then, operates as part of that power. It is, whether we like it or not, being used to shape society--but by whom?" - Jennie Winhall

Many of the challenges we face as a society find their expression in design. Design is the outward expression of our philosophy, theology and worldview.

Edward Deming - transformation through a new system of reward

Innovation requires transformation - said no better than in this presentation by Edward Deming.

Click here - to see the video.

Welcome to the Human Network

The mindshift for innovation is incredible. Here is a 60 second commercial from Cisco that nicely captures several of the mindshifts taking place.

Click here for the video

A world:

“where people subscribe to people, not magazines”
“where books rewrite themselves”
“where you can drag and drop people where you want them to go”

"where a phone doubles as a train ticket or a lift ticket"
“where libraries travel across the world”

“where we’re more powerful together than we ever could be apart”

Welcome to the human network.

Thanks to Ideas and Thoughts.

Some Wow, Pop and Pizzaz

The rules for communication are transforming. We will all need to learn the grammar and syntax of multi-media, multi-sensory, interactive and dynamic information.

Please take a look at a few sites and consider the possibilities:

• Gapminder
• Maurmushi News Map
• The Brain - take a tour
• Visual Thesaurus

Cult of Busyness

Here is a wonderful excerpt a good friend sent regarding our efficient lifestyle trap. What does this have to do about innovation? Everything!!!

"Everybody who's observed American culture, beginning with de Tocqueville, has said that Americans are uneasy with leisure. . . . New technologies make it easier [to channel] those impulses.’

“The cult of busyness and the advent of new technologies have also reshaped our leisure time. In a society that lives by the "work hard, play hard" philosophy, workaholic excess is rewarded with an excess of self-gratification. We console our aching bodies and distract our racing minds with indulgence in food and drink, shopping, entertainment -- anything to anesthetize us to the reality of the daily grind and rescue us from our long-neglected inner thoughts. When they threaten to intrude anyway, we use music, talk radio, and television to keep them at bay. We can shower to the accompaniment of a waterproof radio, watch television in the car or in an airplane, and even hike on a remote mountaintop to familiar tunes playing on our iPods.

“Even when we are not watching television, surfing the Web, or jamming with the iPod, we tend to fill our hours with nonstop action and sensory stimulation. Experts have lamented that our free time has become so highly programmed and crammed with endless diversions that families no longer have an opportunity to simply be together and children are no longer learning the art of conversation. Parents feel pressured to fill a child's every waking moment with action, achievement, and entertainment. As a result, many children no longer know the idle pleasures of a carefree summer or the challenge of fending off boredom by inventing imaginary friends or scouring the neighborhood for playmates whose parents did not already book them for a formal playdate.”

Colleen Carroll Campbell

Go out and walk, relax or chicken wrestle.

Valentine's Mindset Shift - Flower Innovation

The perfect Valentine's story! You may be surprised at how these gifts of sentiment and meaning actually get from point A to point B.

Flower Confidential portrays the Flatworld of Flowers. It describes how the Internet and transportation have turned this into a global commodity and how florists must find ways to add-value by becoming niche players.

Sustainabililty - A Business Tipping Point

We've reached a business tipping point. Sustainability has gone from good PR to good Strategy.

This Businessweek Podcast (click here) provides a compelling look at the tipping point. The link will take you to the web page and from there you will need to click again to listen to the interview. To see the slideshow (click here).

Take a look too at Innovest's list of the Top 100 Green Companies (click here).

What do you have in your Green Wallet? Can you walk the talk? Can you even talk Green?

Link to the article text (click here).

Debra Dunn - HP Sustainability Czar

Debra Dunn, former head of Hewlett Packard’s sustainability initiative talks about responsible corporations and on the challenges of entrepreneurship

For the audio interview - Click Here

Debra is on the board of the Skoll Foundation. The Skoll Foundation’s mission is to advance systemic change to benefit communities around the world by investing in, connecting and celebrating social entrepreneurs.

Project Mindshift's mission will bring systemic change to delivering commercial real estate improving the business, social and environmental bottomline.

MTV and Sustainability

You will want to watch this video on sustainability - trust me.

Click Here for Video.

IBM CEO Annual Report on Innovation

"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." John Cage

IBM Report - Click Here

The IBM CEO report on innovation surveys over 700 top executives, their concerns and their strategies for innovation.

Mindshift from Big to Fast

"The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow." - Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO, News Corporation.

I found this quote on a site called Principal Voices. Eric Beinhocker of the Corporate Executive Board : "The main difference recently has been the pace of change," he says. "In the early 1980s you had the idea of sustainable competitive advantage. "When you talk to business leaders today the notion that any competitive advantage is sustainable has gone away. Success is now based on creating a flow of temporary advantages, and to do that you have to be able to innovate."

Process innovation and challenging our current mindsets go hand-in-hand. Please take a look at this site. The conversations will inform our efforts to map a new path.

Secret to Long Life

Ed Chinn, good friend of mine, sent a link to the secrets of longevity. In this link you'll find research from National Geographic correlating factors for living a long life. The comparison cities are Loma Linda, Okinawa and Sardinia.

In addition to elements we might expect; no smoking, social engagement, active lives and a healthy diet - two additional elements caught my attention. Two elements that corporations can influence and will factor into future strategies for recruitment and retention.

The first is the priority of family and social engagement. Family and work have traditionally been kept separate. That is an old reality. They converge. The blur and blend doesn't fit well with traditional management mindsets that need compartments and boundaries to feel in control. If people are going to answer their Blackberry's at all hours then they will also need a counterbalance.

Best Buy has recently responded to this counterbalance with a new mindset for management called ROWE - Results Only Work Environment. Sounds good? Sounds out there? Businessweek used this as a cover story last year in an article called Smashing the Clock.

I've also include a link to the Podcast interview with the reporter who wrote the story. This is definitely a stretch but it is an innovation mindshift.

The second element that caught my attention is the enclave environment for these areas of extended longevity. Companies have more flexibility where they can locate and there will be new model "factory towns" where companies join forces with innovative developers and create enclaves that offer a high quality of life off the beaten path.

I'll report in around 10AM tomorrow after my hour of meditation, quality time with the kids, healthy breakfast of legumes and an exhilarating work out - NOT. I'll be up at 5:30 and in to the office early where I'll have a few quiet hours before the fire drills begin. The only clock I'll smash will be my alarm clock.

Ed Chinn is an excellent writer, editor and thinker. Here is his website - www.edchinn.com

iPhone - Mindshifting the Handset

What do the iPod, Palm and Treo have in common? These devices use standard components. Their Mindshift is the result of radical simplification and integration of use.

Here is a recent interview with Jobs expressing this simplification philosophy.

Deep understanding of use and value along with a hacker's mind produce innovation.

Jeff Hawkins Master Mindshifter - Palm, TREO

"When you look at the PalmPilot," he (Jeff Hawkins) points out, "there was nothing new in it. Everything had existed in a prior product. The trick was to know what to include, what to exclude, and what we were trying to accomplish with it."

Hawkins is driven by his constant dissatisfaction with the way things are. Handwriting-recognition software was horrible, so he invented the Graffiti writing system used in the original Palm. (Excerpt from Business 2.0 - January 07)