design Archives - Page 4 of 7

Mind RAM

Posted on March 1, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

Our brains are computers. Just like computers we have both RAM and hard drive… even a bit of cache.

Everything humans build is a subconscious replication of organic machines. Which is why Articial Intelligence is moving in its current direction. It’s evolution baby.

So we need to command our brains the same way we do any computer. Hence, best practice is to only keep a few projects (programs) open at a time. If we don’t we’ll lose focus, get confused, freeze and have to be shut down! Just like all our PC’s do from time to time.

Every now again we need to assess our Mind RAM and just make sure we aren’t over stretching its resources. If we have to we should shut down some projects and focus. Just like our PC we’ll work faster – more efficiently.

If we have stuff open in our minds (old projects, tax returns, a mental diary) then we have to shift this stuff to a hard drive – whether it’s a notepad or PC doesn’t matter, just get it out of the RAM. Anything we shouldn’t be thinking about is RAM baggage. A mental cleanout is a must for high performance.

The difference between ‘Innovation & Different’

Posted on February 28, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

While watching entrepreneurs pitch their business earlier this week at the Pitch Club in Melbourne Australia, and colleague and I were disappointed at what some people believe to be innovation.

Shannon from Shannon says and I agreed that what many people call innovation is simply – different.

Here’s a clear delineation of the two which is a startup blog mashup of multiple dictionary definitions.

Different: unlike in form, quality, amount, or nature. Distinct or separate. Unusual or differing from others.

Innovation: a creation, new device or process. The result of study and or experimentation which improves the desired outcome / usage of said device, process or creation.

Sometimes we only need to understand the true meaning of our words to determine if we are ‘on track’.

Office space

Posted on February 20, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

Which space would we rather work in?

This..

or these?

* click to enlarge

(the leggo dudes don’t look very happy to me)

Sure some of these spaces are less efficient (read cost more). But it doesn’t have to be that way…. in any case, how cost efficient is an uninspired and bored workforce whose only thought is getting to the punch clock on time?

When our startups leave the kitchen, it doesn’t mean we need to act like the company we left.

Hema – Wow!

Posted on February 20, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

HEMA is a Dutch department store. The first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam.

Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands. HEMA also has stores in Belgium, Luxemburg, and Germany.

Take a look at HEMA’s product page (switch sound on first).

You can’t order anything and it’s in Dutch but just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens.

Click here to see it.

Click on ‘nog een keer’ to replay, it’s worth a second look…

Startups – get Wow !

Webpreneurs

Posted on February 15, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

Dear Webpreneurs,

Click this. Study this. Understand this. Change this.

Thanks to Chris at rawstylus for the heads up!

Decision time

Posted on February 13, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

Writer and pop culture specialist Thomas Hine reports the following: When consumers enter a supermarket they are exposed to 30,000 products in the average 1,800 seconds they spend walking the store.

Translation – any product only has 0.6 seconds to make an impression.

Imagine how little time we have before a web browser clicks away…so we’ve got to keep it clean.

The façade matters – a lot.

Access vs ownership

Posted on February 2, 2008 by Steve Sammartino

We often have a default thinking that we must ‘own’ something to benefit from it. Particularly when it comes to assets. The truth is more like this…

we only need access, not ownership.

We don’t need to own a Boeing 747 to fly to Sydney, New York or London. We just need a seat on it – access to it. A lot of the time it doesn’t make any sense at all to own something.

It’s just as silly to think we need to have (own) all the technical skills our startup or business requires. And here’s an example which will makes us all very excited.

Yes Skype. The founders of Skype, Zennstrom and Friis, are not programmers. They outsourced all their technical requirements to a team of coders in Estonia. They wanted fresh eyes on the project. None of the coders had telecommunications experience either. They just told them what they wanted and made it happen.

No need to discuss what happened next.