Innovative New Water Filter Design funded by YOU from Soma Water Filter.

 

The personal filtration market has an interesting, new competitor

Because I am a water engineer and have studied the water quality in the US (atleast the areas I’ve lived in), I tend to generally drink water straight out of the tap. But I still love new design and technology in the space.

There’s a new competitor out in the personal water filtration space, competing against Brita, PUR, and a couple of similar products on the market. Imagine a designer (similar to IDEO) being asked to redesign a Brita Water Filter…that would be SOMA Water Filter.

What makes them particularly unique is that they are 100% recyclable and sustainable (excluding the fuel costs/postage involved with shipping). The filters are compostable (I assume they use activated charcoal, like Brita). Glass makes them classy, and I expect dishwasher safe (but also breakable). But their model is particularly unique and SMART. They work on a subscription basis, generally by half a year or annually. Every couple of months, they will ship you a water filter…making them a regular part of your life.  And they have a brilliant and very catchy advertising video. They certainly know what they are doing!! I wouldn’t be surprised if they soon pair up with Charity:Water.

Check out their excellent kickstarter campaign. If you do invest, tell me what you think of the water…they are for sure going into business because they’ve already made a splash in the media and are close to getting their ask:

Google UK’s Think Quarterly

Google UK’s Think Quarterly Magazine

Google’s UK division has a great new quarterly magazine, called the Think Quarterly, that has been publishing online for free since March 2011.

The themed issues all call upon established CEOs, startup founders, and other innovators to reflect on the themes in that issue. Taking lessons from within Google, to people all around, its a fairly insightful magazine. Thus far, seven issues have been published on the following themes:

  • The Open Issue: Covers the various “Open” initiatives and the movement towards transparency.
  • The Creativity Issue: ‘New industries start with people having fun,’ writes Tim O’Reilly in Faire Play.” “Dedicated to digital creativity in its many forms – from YouTube remixes to next-generation advertising to data visualizations – and what it means for your business.”
  • The Play Issue: This is my favorite issue. “In this issue, we explore the rising importance of play – in work and in life.
  • The Speed Issue: “The Speed issue of Google’s Think Quarterly is about th[e] acceleration of everything – what is changing and how it works, why it matters and when it doesn’t.”
  • The People Issue: “This issue of Think Quarterly is people talking about people. We hope that the diverse spread of thoughts and opinions helps you connect with your customers, your employees, and the human soul of your business.”
  • The Innovation Issue: “Where can you break molds and shape the future? We hope this gives you inspiration, insight, and some new ideas of your own.”
  • The Data Issue: “amongst a morass of information, how can you find the magic metrics that will help transform your business?”

Xylem’s Innovative Water Convention

The Xylem World Water Show’s entrance page…look at the virtual classroom that you can “walk” into on the right.

The connective power of the internet and more powerful tools like smartphones and computers are both increasing innovation in otherwise stale areas, as well as decreasing barriers to entry for players who previously couldn’t come to the playing field for a variety of reasons.

Xylem, Inc is a company I had scarcely heard about until recently when I came across their World-Wide Water Show, a virtual trade show and convention that you could attend from the comfort of your living room.  Access to an internet browser and a dial-up connection gave you access to a whole world of international technology, and speakers. Suddenly, third-world citizens have the same access to opportunity as those from the first-world.

The one-day show on Nov 29, 2012, meant that you could attend at ANY point in the world’s 24-hour cycle. Like any convention, there was a calendar and agenda for when things were being showcased at what times. You could “wander” into a conference room that had a live speaker who was being simulcast; there were moderated forums for chat during the speech and a space to ask questions. Or you could go to the trade floor and “meet” virtually with experts from sponsor companies who “displayed” their wares and answered any questions. Forums or “live chats” took the place of face-to-face interactions.

Xylem also worked hard to incorporate features that made you feel like you were in a conference room or trade floor, by looking at the screen and letting you play like you were in a “Second Life” style setting.

If you are interested, the content and features are still up for another 85 days. Highly recommend it!! Go hereregister and click on the “on demand” button.

I’ll be honest… even as a water engineer, it is a little boring, so I didn’t stay too long. But its still worth visiting to check out the idea in action, the platform and the overall design/user experience…it was extremely innovative and brilliantly done at a fraction of the cost of a real convention. Granted there was no face-to-face interaction…but this could easily lead to that through.

Tomas Saraceno shows you what its like to “walk on air”

 

Over the past couple of weeks, MIT Visiting Artist Tomas Saraceno has been setting the design world ablaze with his innovative playground titled “On Space Time Foam.” Currently on display in Milan, visitors (both young and old) can explore a large hangar-like area by climbing around a plastic-bag like maze.

Here’s a video of what its like. You can’t see the smiles on the faces of the people climbing around, but several of the pictures I’ve seen show them pretty big.

TEDWeekends: TED innovates yet again to stay relevant

(above) TED curator and CEO, Chris Anderson addresses an eager crowd at the TED Talent Search in Amsterdam (photo credit: James Duncan Davidson)

TED continues to impress me with how they are constantly innovating to make themselves, particularly their TEDTalks interesting, accessible, and most importantly, relevant. They simply won’t let anyone forget about them. At once ubiquitous, yet growing, and evolving in new ways and markets, they won’t stoop to regular advertising; rather they have expanded viewership through developing new packaging, forging strong partnerships, relying on their high quality product (or TEDTalks) and a constant innovation engine that revs hard to keep them fresh.

If you think about it, its pretty amazing what they have accomplished in the past ten years!!

(Need something to contrast it to?? Try TEDMED, a sister conference created by the same parent and sold at the same time that TED was, but to a different group of people. Never heard of them?? You aren’t the only one…)

Somewhere around circa 2001, TED was sold by Founder Richard Saul Wurman to British Publishing genius Chris Anderson (or atleast his non-profit called the Sapling Foundation), and from there its growth finally became more publicly visible. Since then, we’ve seen all kinds of things develop from the new group – first changing the way conferences are done by delivering consistent, high quality user experiences in a specific format. The content was filmed, packaged and published online at TED.com, a website that in and of itself keeps evolving to be better and better, and is the real heart of the organization (and some might argue, the real engine behind its success).

Offshoots soon developed over time, each of which has had their own set of iterations…like (not in order) the TEDBookClub, TEDBooks, the TEDPrize (which has also had a few iterations), the TEDFellows program, and TEDx…all of this, while they expanded to have another permanent regular TEDGlobal Conference, and the rare move to the Developing World, first to TEDAfrica in 2007 and TEDIndia in 2009. Themed mini-conferences began as well – TEDYouth and TEDWomen, which quickly were embraced and adopted by the TEDx movement.

And then to reach an even greater audience, TED.com started their Open Translation Project, that brought greater international involvement, and made the talks relevant to increasing masses of people from outside the English speaking world.

Soon we could see online curated bits all over the place — on TV, and even on Netflix. And they even remade their content to be teacher-friendly, so that a whole new demographic could start viewing and learning from TEDTalks — children — in a new initiative called TED-ED.

Most recently, TED has paired up with the Huffington Post to create curated weekend content called TEDWeekends. The talks are still the same, but the hope is to reach an even greater audience through a different packaging mechanism. Similar to the Netflix TED packs, TEDWeekends features several TEDtalks under a single enticing topic, with a narrative running through it that ties them together. Its just a new way to increase viewership. Viewership on the talks keep increasing; their twitter and blog followers also keep going up.

Their outreach team is brilliant! Even as TEDx has (some might argue) washed down the TED brand, you can’t seem to get away from them. Check out the various TED products and keep your eye on the organization. They are definitely a model for organizations struggling to stay relevant and fresh.

Are you an enterprising University Student?? Apply to Attend the Karios 50 Summit!

Source: www.kairossociety.org

 

Enterprising university students should consider applying for the Kairos50 Summit. DEADLINE: 16 DEC 2012

According to the Kairos Society, the Karios 50 Summit is done as follows:

“We search dorm rooms everywhere to find the cutting-edge companies that college students are creating worldwide. We don’t just look for projects, we look for innovative ventures that are tackling today’s biggest global challenges. The end result is the Kairos 50, an annual compilation of the fifty most innovative student-run businesses in the world. At the Kairos Global Summit, we bring these companies to the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange and unveil their technologies. With the newfound support of peers, business and political leaders, media, and investors, K50 winners can accelerate their company’s growth to become global market leaders.”

Here’s a nice video about the Karios Society:

New York City’s Innovation Challenge: Remake Public Telephones

New York City is challenging the world to help update their payphone infrastructure. Have ideas?? (source: Reinvent PayPhones)

Public utilities are desperately in need of help. Its the biggest Tragedy of the Commons. Everyone uses them (generally), and they take immense amounts of capital to develop and maintain. With technology moving so rapidly, how do you update them when they get defunct? Or what do you do with the old pieces?

Well, New York City ain’t about to give up on their public telephones. In the fast-paced age of mobile phones, what do you do about existing public telephone infrastructure?? Unlike other cities, they are still being used. The huge daily influx of migrants and travelers coming through there, plus the economically challenged communities of NYC still use them. But is there something else that can be done to make them relevant to the majority??

So here’s the challenge:

Have ideas on how New York City can reinvent payphones to create a safer, healthier, more sustainable, accessible and informed city? Submit your prototype by February 18th and you could help to shape the City’s future.”

Wanna enter?? Go here!

I LOVE it when governments are innovative!

Steve Jobs: The Art of Taking an Insult and Making Some Fans

Whenever you stick your neck out and do something differently, you are going to have people pissed off at you…sometimes pretty badly. Over the years, I’ve had my fair share of the same. Change is always disruptive and hard, and sometimes, the more effective or efficient you are, the more disruptive it is (this is true of both change for the good or bad). The insults, consequently, are proportionally bad and hard. Its taken me some time to learn how to deal with insults, and I’m constantly seeking new ways to understand the art of dealing with them.

Today’s lesson is from Steve Jobs, ironically a great insulter himself, who shows us the art of turning an “ouch” into an enthused ovation.

1.  Show your insulter and the audience some respect (if they deserve it). In this case, it took guts to stand up and question a respected figure. Steve did not put him down in any way, nor did he turn the audience against him. There was no laughing at him or belligerence or defensiveness. It was respectful throughout.

2. Pause and take your time. Steve takes his time answering. This is good for several reasons. It allows you to calm yourself down, collect your thoughts and answer in a coherent and controlled manner.  Essentially, it takes power away from the insulter and gives it back to you.

3. Separate out the personal/emotional and focus on the core problem the insulter has. While the question started out and ended personally (“you don’t know what you are talking about” and “maybe you can tell us what you’ve been doing for seven years!!”), it became very pointed and clear what specifically the insulter had a problem with was Java, and probably the fact that he didn’t understand Steve’s methods and direction. Steve honed into this and focused his response on that.

4. Use humor without making it personal. After pausing, Steve starts in a light-hearted manner and keeps infusing humor where he can. Humor always diffuses tension. It was never, however, personal. Again, it sets the whole group at ease, including the insulter.

5.  If your insulter is right, say so. This goes back to point #1, of showing respect. The audience isn’t stupid either and they know that the insulter had a point. Steve gains everyone’s respect by admitting that he was right in parts.

6. Turn the insult into an opportunity to sell/explain your point-of-view: Often insults get the most attention…audience members who have may have tuned out, tune back in. You could’ve heard a pin-drop in that pause between insult and response. Steve,  a genius at captivating an audience, capitalized on that opportunity. In this case, he talks about how he starts with the audience in mind, not the technology, and how that dictates his entire philosophy and helps ultimately sell apple products. He then tells stories and keeps the audience engaged. Essentially, he turned an insult into a powerful 5 min story-telling session that showcased the hardworking team at Apple.

7. Apologize, if there is reason to. Steve does this multiple times, and he is clear what is both sorry for, and what he isn’t.

8. Summarize and finish strong. In the last 10 seconds, Steve sums it up very quickly, ensuring his last words leave the audience in his court…i.e. “support my team who are kicking some serious butt.”

Interestingly, I googled “the art of taking an insult”, and the top search results all linked to “the art of giving an insult.” It should say something about our priorities!! 🙂

Other points of view: Zen and the Art of Dealing with Insults

 

Mine Kafon: Innovative Wind-Powered Minesweeper

Designer and Inventor, Massoud Hassani poses with his landmine remover, Mine Kafon in the back.

No doubt, you’ve probably heard about Mine Kafon, a beautiful wind-powered landmine remover that’s been designed by Massoud Hassani. I like that it is being designed by expat Afghanis who are planning to deploy the technology in their home country soon. And I’ve really appreciated how smart they’ve been in creating awareness of their project by using all the social media tools available. Although debatable in terms of their efficacy, their openness has allowed input from different experts, and hopefully will help to create a more robust product. Not to mention all the PR they have gotten as a result.

Interested in being involved?? Check out their kickstarter project here.

 

 

Innovation in Sanitation: Waste Enterprisers

 

WE Founder, Ashley Murray has a PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from UC Berkeley

A small group of poo-advocates have parked themselves in Accra, Ghana and creating an eco-energy business, transforming sewage into precious fuel.

 

Called the Waste-Enterprisers, their business model works as follows:

Inspired by the widespread use of sewage sludge as a fuel for cement plants, we’re developing a business around processing fecal sludge as a fuel for industrial boilers and kilns. Through our work with the FaME consortium in Ghana, Senegal and Uganda, we’ve found that the solids portion of fecal sludge has an energy value similar to coal.

Our business will harness that energy by processing, branding and marketing fecal sludge as a clean, renewable fuel to industries.

Here’s the best embeddable video I could find of theirs that showcased their business model:

Oh, and bTW, they are hiring. See here for more details (couldn’t find anything on their website, but heard about this from a friend). Follow them on twitter @WEnterprisers