Recently, Continuum staffers Devorah Klein, Principal in Human-Centered Design, and Caitlin Toombs, Program Development Associate, braved a day of basic training at the famed West Point military academy in Hudson Valley, New York. Why, you ask, would these two subject themselves to such torture? They were lucky enough to attend a practice R-Day.

R-Day is the first day of training for the new class of recruits, done each year in the summer. The real R-day is run partially by the more senior cadets, so for a rehearsal, West Point opens up their doors once a year to a select few brave civilians, who allow themselves to be the guinea pigs for a dry run.

The Continuum team wasn’t just in it for the extraordinary stories they’d get to tell us when they got back. Klein and Toombs were interested in how R-Day—so tough that you are supposed to fail and fail fast—could affect behavior change. After all, change is hard. And the military knows a thing or two about effectively managing behavioral change.

How can going to extremes, beyond your personal limit, help you make dramatic changes in your life? What could they teach us about adherence and compliance—and, more importantly, about human behavior?

Find out what they learned in Devorah Klein’s video.

Designing from the Trenches from Continuum on Vimeo.

During a recent trip to San Diego I was introduced to what is probably the first innovation in ice since the icemaker. It’s called Glace. It’s a sphere of crystal clear, zero impurity ice, machined out of the same blocks used to make high end ice sculptures. Each sphere comes in it’s own vacuum sealed pouch and if you leave it out of the freezer for 2 minutes to cure and then drop in your Jameson’s and it disappears. It keeps your drink cold without excessive melting . Although the whole concept of luxury ice seems excessive, it was a unique drinking experience.

A few days ago,Continuum, in collaboration with I/ACT, the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce and Technology and the Lombardy Region of Italy hosted a unique event at our West Newton studio.. The “Partners in Innovation” event celebrated the start of a closer collaboration between the Lombardy Region of Italy and the State of Massachusetts to create leading edge enterprises and to develop innovative products and services in the process.

Bringing together the best resources of two dynamic regions for mutual benefit is indicative of the new economic reality and the great opportunities of a borderless world.  It is appropriate to note that Boston’s Mayor, Tom Menino was recently in Cernobbio, on lake Como to attend the “Mini-Davos” Ambrosetti Forum.

Immediately following the event at Continuum, we showcased several Italian companies that are innovating in diverse industries–normally not associated with Italy–at the Angel Investor Conference hosted by the UMass Boston College of Management.  These pioneering companies ranging from Achtoons, a cartoon animation studio that creates magical multimedia programming for children; Crowd Engineering and SmartRM, two ground-breaking software companies, and i-m3d, a medical diagnostic innovator leading the way in non-invasive colon and breast cancer detection.

We at Continuum believe strongly in the power of interdisciplinary, cross-cultural and international collaboration to design a better future. We welcome the opportunity to contribute our innovation expertise to identify untapped areas for synergies between the regions and to make this collaboration successful across industries.

It’s easy to be irked by what some are calling innovation these days. Just because it’s new, doesn’t make it innovative. For instance, is the latest automotive design particularly innovative? We’ve been re-noodling and re-dressing the same transportation model for over a century. Innovation should entail pioneering and the ability to fundamentally alter people’s perspective. Everything else seems to be reinvention, at best.

Real innovation is out there, however. Theo Jansen, a Dutch sculptor and engineer, comes to mind. Using genetic algorithms, Jansen has created a series of large-scale, animated sculptures which he releases into an environment, observing and analyzing their performance. The physical mechanics of his work are simple, intriguing and elegant, and the conceptual complexity behind the work is captivating. Jansen’s models for artificial life contradict everything that contemporary technology has worked toward and everything contemporary culture has envisioned for how an integrated society may look someday. Forget about Rosie the Jetsons’ maid-robot, and think herds of kinetic species roaming wild, deriving energy and direction from the natural environment.

I remember reading once that an orange, as it exists in nature, can be viewed as the ultimate product design; simple built-in packaging, surprisingly beautiful once unwrapped, and living in complete balance with its environment. No one has quite hit the orange benchmark in design, but Theo Jansen appears to be well on his way. And considering that he’s building intelligent creatures without a lick of silicon, anyone concerned about a future with limited energy resources should pay keen attention to what he’s doing and harness his learnings.

ttp://www.strandbeest.com
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/theo_jansen_creates_new_creatures.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcR7U2tuNoY

Is there too much convenience in our world today? To find new ways to make money, companies naturally try to make it easier to buy and use their products and services – and they put a lot of energy into this. But as they make things easier for consumers, are they making consumers lives more difficult? We may be approaching the edge of having too much convenience.

As we travel and interview people, some of the stories that we hear shed light on this. People tell us about the things they’re doing to make it harder – not easier – for them to do things like spending money or eating food. Can you imagine someone putting a credit card in water and freezing it to help them stop and think before they spend? It’s happening. But on the other side, the New York Times reported that at least one 401k provider is issuing debit cards to allow consumers to effortlessly borrow from their retirement savings.

There’s been a lot of innovation energy (and marketing energy) put around bringing consumers’ impulses and decisions closer together. As we approach the possibility of too much convenience, a new growth opportunity lies in helping people push them apart instead.

Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management and Continuum partner, talks with BusinessWeek about the potential pitfalls and rewards of trying to “buy” innovation

Read it here.

Also check out Continuum’s recent interview with Roger on his new book The Opposable Mind.

We think what Roger and the Rotman School is doing for design education is inspiring for the future of design and business. Other universities should follow suit.

The Boston Globe ran an article yesterday on Rhode Island and its emergence as a hub for tech and innovation. Check it out. Rhode Island in general, and our partners the Business Innovation Factory, has certainly proven its agility and ability in terms of innovation and new ways of thinking. Many of the things being done in Rhode Island are great models for how cities and regions can embrace next generation ways of thinking and doing.

In the words of Saul Kaplan, executive director of BIF:

Now, the smallest state is trying to position itself as an entrepreneurial hub, offering tax incentives and playing off its location between New York and Boston, its size, its universities, and Providence’s urban renaissance.

This is central to our economic development strategy – we’re trying to create an innovation economy,” said Saul Kaplan, executive director of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation. “The whole state is 1,000 square miles with 1 million people in it and we all know each other – in an innovation economy, that’s a huge ad vantage. Connecting the dots across sectors and silos is what innovation is all about, and we have the perfect real world test bed.

Our work with BIF has been inspiring and rewarding. Check out our seminar on March 27th and keep an eye out for their annual innovation summit in October. It is one of the best events of its kind.

We talked with Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School at the University of Toronto, on his new book, The Opposable Mind. In the book, Martin shares how successful leaders win through integrative thinking. What results is a study on the power of creativity and design thinking.

Q: Can you describe to us in a few sentences what integrative thinking is and why it is so powerful?

A: Integrative Thinking is the ability to constructively face the tension of opposing models and, instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generating a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new model.

The new model contains elements of the individual models but is superior to each.

This means that Integrative Thinkers are model creators not model takers. Because of this, they are disproportionately able to come up with breakthrough ways of doing things. They emerge as the admired and revered innovators.

Q: Why is the design world such an important force in all this?

A: The best of design education and design practice is about the creation of options or models that don’t now exist. This is an essential part of Integrative Thinking. This is why I have taken a deep dive into design and design thinking with the help of great designers– including the folks at Continuum.

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