My husband and I decided to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary by visiting Petra, the amazing Nabataea site. We crossed into Jordan just south of the Lake of Galilee and drove down the Jordan Valley. On our way, we noticed that many of the vehicles transporting agricultural produce were decorated in a way we’d never seen before:
These vehicles are decorated by the farmers themselves. They caught my eye because they are the only colorful objects in an otherwise arid landscape. I was curious why a poor farmer would invest time and money to decorate, sometimes elaborately, what is merely a functional vehicle. What are the origins of this phenomenon? Cultural? Commercial? Something else?
I asked around but no one had a good answer. So I decided to flip the question: if the farmers are spending this much money, what is the benefit that they get? Continue reading ‘Designer pickup trucks’
It makes sense that accidents often lead to good ideas, such as Post-it notes, Viagra and chocolate chip cookies. During ‘normal’ thought processes in search for ideas, we are locked in fixedness, beliefs, habits and criticism. Accidents easily bypass these obstacles. They just happen.
The first challenge, therefore, is intentionally causing accidents; and the second, no less complicated, is identifying them as opportunities for innovation and not as failures. We’ll start with the second challenge.
Let’s take, for example, business cards. Those usually white rectangles, usually 2X3.5 in., with the name of the card’s holder, his/her position and contact information. The font is ordinary, the color scheme – common – and the practice is gray and predictable.
At conferences or meetings with multiple participants, I often receive a bunch of such cards and by the next day (or even an hour later) I cannot remember who gave them to me. All the cards look the same.
