Fresh Ideas at Work » Turn Up the Volume

New Offices Designed for Employees Not to Work There

freshideasatwork — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:48:09 +0000

Many companies offer the option of telecommuting, but Plantronics exemplified the Fresh Ideas strategy ‘Turn Up the Volume’ when it designed it’s new Santa Cruz offices.

The new headquarters “doesn’t have assigned desks, has enough desk space for just 60% to 70% of its employees, and houses a number of giant wall-mounted TV screens, which are intended to bring telecommuters into office conversations. The screens are virtually everywhere, including in the cafeteria…. We wanted to be more open to smarter working, anywhere anytime.”

Starting with something familiar can make a new approach easier to implement – how could you take an established practice and apply it in a bigger way?

Stockbox Grocers: Fresh Groceries and Fresh Ideas

freshideasatwork — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 18:31:03 +0000

“Across the U.S. a growing number of people live in food deserts, which means they don’t have access to healthy and affordable food within walking or biking distance of their home. Stockbox Grocers responds to this need with a miniature grocery that’s tucked inside a reclaimed shipping container and placed into the parking lot of an existing business. We innovate on the espresso stand model to build stores throughout urban communities, and provide fresh produce and grocery staples to those who currently without access to good food, where they live.”

On their concise web pages you have an opportunity to find or put several Fresh Ideas strategies into play, for example:

Make a Note of Unusual Combinations: reclaimed shipping container + parking lot of an existing business + fresh produce and groceries = miniature grocery for food desserts
Turn Up the Volume: take the espresso stand model and expand it to offer grocery items to get you through the week
Prototype Early and Often: go here http://stockboxgrocers.com/ to learn how their prototyping is progressing.

Which Fresh Ideas strategies could you braid together to craft a new solution?

Speed Creating

freshideasatwork — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 14:18:01 +0000

Dominic Wilcox posted the results of his 30 day creative experiment here – providing an adventurous example of the Fresh Ideas strategy ‘Turn Up the Volume” at play.

“Each day for 30 days I will make a new object, installation or creative intervention while going about my daily life…. I believe that this self-imposed project with it’s constraints on time and money will force me to take an instinctive and experimental approach. The fear of failure and the usual time spent thinking through the potential pitfalls of a project will not be an option and I will need to react swiftly to my thoughts, observations and experimental outcomes discovered along the way. I am not focused solely on the final objects or images but on the creative journey I take. Complete failures are expected and embraced.”

Solving World Hunger with Gaming

freshideasatwork — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:50:38 +0000

Gamers play online games for over 3 billion hours a week.

Jane McGonigal thinks we should play even more – when the games have been designed to teach transferable leadership skills and collaboratively solve the world’s most urgent challenges.

The recently released Evoke was designed with these goals, watch this trailer and recognize an example of the Fresh Ideas strategy ‘Turn Up the Volume’ at play: