As the title suggests, this page contains random thoughts that are not necessarily related to innovation or sustainability. They may, but not necessarily. Here I collect stuff that triggers something in me, sparks my interest, or is just fun to explore.
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- My Motivation
Last week, I gave a presentation on the Future Flip Book (in English and in German) in Hamburg. While preparing for the presentation, I asked myself: Why am I doing what I am doing? What motivated me working on sustainable innovation, what was the driver for my work on the Future Flip Book? I put it in… - I am Beautiful
No, no, no. This will not be a post where I can live my narcissistic side. This is about an ad campaign by German McDonald’s. They show a used paper coffee cup and claim in bold letters: I (the paper cup) am beautiful because I might become a book someday (see here). I was stunned to see… - Money, money, money, must be funny, …
You will probably know this line from the oldies’ charts, 70s parties, or from your not-so-favorite radio station. Well, it’s been a while since it was in the charts. But it is still en vouge. Not for the tune, but for the lyrics. At least for the first part. Money is still important and will remain to… - Helping Activists
My idea of systems entrepreneurship is that someone recognizes that a system is somehow broken and then does something about it. If that were a broadly acceptable definition, then we’re looking at systems entrepreneurship here: Emily Laquer has recognized that the media system (especially primetime TV / Radio discussion panels) is somehow broken: Primetime barely features social… - Meat you halfway?
I have been following the trend towards more plant-based foods. I think this is important. For health reasons. For ethical reasons. And for climate reasons. Now, if this is good, how do we get there and increase the number of people embarking at least on a partially plant-based diet? There are two approaches: One is to restrict… - Sounds of Extinction
The term creative destruction was coined by Joseph Alois Schumpeter as an essential dynamic property of capitalism. In short, it constantly creates new products and processes that make existing products and processes obsolete, they vanish. This dynamic process of the new replacing the old changes our environment dramatically, of course depending on where we are. It affects… - Cool Summer Retro
Apple has announced the 2021 Apple Design Award Finalists. I try to write here about design every now and then. Today is one of those days. The line-up of finalists includes an App under the category ‘Delight and Fun,’ which is just that – it’s a delight, and it is incredible fun. It is poolside.fm. John Gruber… - Boredom
Today, maybe in search for a ‘side-hustle’ (was it boredom that drove me?), I ran into a nice and brief essay by Josh Pillay about the very same thing: boredom Perhaps our attitudes to boredom are really a by-product of our insatiable need for excitement and entertainment – an expectation and anticipation that something has to happen in any… - Death in Venice?
Rather to the contrary, I hope. Its about life. On May 22, the 2021 Biennale Architektura opens its door. The bold question How will We Live Together? is the overarching theme of the exhibition. Hashim Sarkis the curator of the exhibition says: The world is putting new challenges in front of architecture … I look forward to… - Slow Development of Heavy Metal
It is not the case that innovations get developed over night. Most of the goods and services that we currently see have – of course – been innovations once. And these innovations do not fall like manna from heaven. Most innovations have multiple parents. Polyphonic explores those multiple parents for a music genre innovation in the early… - Beautiful Power
Jason Kottke has a blog post today about the beauty of gas stations. I agree that sometimes the architecture ist quite stunning. My favorite is the Skovshoved Petrol Station located in Copenhagen and designed in 1936 by the Danish architect and designer icon Arne Jacobsen. Do you wonder when we will have beautiful electric changing facilities? Oh… - Crisis and Small Scale Innovation
My colleague Johannes Dahlke summarizes his thoughts and a paper of ours under the headline ‘Why we need to support small-scale innovation projects during crises‘. There are three reasons: 1) People are willing and capable of generating crisis-driven innovations in their communities. 2) Being part of innovative solutions creates a sense of purpose and control. 3) We… - Colors? What Colors?
I have to admit that I am not completely color blind, but I have some issues with red and green. I only recognize a 17 in the image below. Others – I am told – also see a 42. Maybe this is why I opted for a clear black and white contrast in the re-launch of my… - Glaciers Then and Now
Taking up yesterday’s post and the notion of small multiples introduced by Edward Tufte in his Visual Display of Quantitative Information, I’d like to highlight another excellent interactive visualization of climate change. This time the melting of glaciers. The Guardian’s Niko Kommenda has an excellent piece on this. The illustration highlights how the outlines of the 90 largest… - New Normals
This is not about the New Normal that is often mentioned when we discuss the future in the wake of the Covid-pandemic. This is about the visualization of the shifts in average temperature for the US. This highlights pretty impressively how the temperature has changed over the last since 1901. Every 10 years, NOAA – the National… - The Boardroom and Beyond
Today Shira Ovide has a nice piece in the New York Times about the role and influence of tech companies’ CEOs on how we live our lives and on the overall economic, technological, and social development. What the 21st-century tech barons like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Jack Ma believe and do matters. It wasn’t a spreadsheet… - Earth Restored
It would be great to announce that the earth has been restored. But unfortunately, we are far from it. When writing this headline, I should have remembered the good old René Magritte and his La Trahison des images (also known as Ceci n’est pas une pipe). It is not the earth that has been restored; it is… - Soccer of All Sports
The Bohemian FC, one of the oldest soccer clubs in Ireland, has appointed Sean McCabe as the World’s first Climate Justice Officer. He says about the crisis and about his position: This stuff has to be sincere, or we know that we failed. The world will let us know that you cannot trick the laws of thermodynamics.… - Black Lego
As a kid I have loved Lego. Now I ran into this and – frankly – it blows me away. Ekow Nimako creates sculptures inspired by masks, African folklore, and medieval cities. He only uses black lego. Let’s see how he works. (via kottke.org) (cover image is from https://ekownimako.com/artwork) - Your Carbon Footprint
Finextra reports about an initiative of the Swedish payment solution provider Klarna: Buy now, pay later giant Klarna is to provide shoppers with carbon footprint calculation tools from Mastercard-backed Doconomy to measure the emissions generated by their purchases. Every purchase made through Klarna’s payment methods will include a carbon footprint measured by Doconomy’s Åland Index**, reaching up… - Earth Day 2021
Innovation can restore our planet. This is the second part of the headline of a piece on forbes.com. And it triggered something in me. Innovation – naturally, and restoring the planet. Great. What a promise. This year’s Earth Day theme is restoration. We need to reverse the detrimental effects of climate change and stop the pollution of… - The Tools I Use
The set-up interviews on usethis.com really spark my curiosity to find out what hardware and software is used by others. For me it is a continuous inspiration and a valuable source of information to see what others use and read about their workflow. So I decided to briefly share my set-up here. - Innovation & FailureThe Austrian Federal Economic Chamber invited me to speak at the bi-annual MIT Europe Conference in Vienna about ‘Innovation & Failure: The Basis for Building the Future’. This was a nice occasion to build a story around my research with Sören Petersen (formerly with the Technical University in Berlin, now with Google in Dublin).