PBTO S2E4: Rethinking Vertical Movement Inside a Building

Who is on the show: In this episode we host architect and product designer Elena Larriba. She works at the intersection between art, science and design. Her curiosity leads her to investigate new concepts, technologies and techniques which she blends together in novel experiments merging engineering, design and craft. Why is she on the show: She is the designer of a vertical movement product called Vycle, which is a hybrid version of a cycle and an elevator and can be used for vertical movement. She has since this conversation gone on to create a lot more interesting products. What did I […]

Mime Artists & A City’s Transformation

I came across a story that could potentially be a Hollywood blockbuster. This is the story of a mayor who transformed an entire city, an unruly one into one that learnt to follow rules. He did this by breaking all the rules about how a politician should look like or behave like. And the entire transformation of the city started by getting “Mime” artists performing on the street. Problem: To understand the extent of the ingenuity, lets first try to comprehend the problem that was being tackled (sounds a lot like our cities): Lots of people dying on the roads […]

Book Review – Three Box Solution

Name of the book: The Three Box Solution: A Simple Framework for                    leading  innovation Author of the book: Vijay Govindarajan Publisher: HBR Press Overall Rating: 4/5 Implementability of ideas: 4/5 This is a book about how to lead innovation in an organisation. The framework that Vijay suggests is simple to learn and keep in mind. As he rightly says in his book, easy to remember doesn’t mean easy to implement. Leading innovation isn’t easy either. However, the simplicity of the framework is a big plus. No need to remember complicated stuff. […]

Quest for the elusive Innovation Framework

Premise: I have read countless blog posts, wrote a few myself, watched videos, did innovation courses, read books on innovation, all in the quest to learn what makes innovation happen and if there is a way to institutionalize innovation. While there are people who claim that they can do so, I have come to the decision that it is an elusive quest, one that we may never be able to complete. Innovation and Parenting: As is usual, when I was taking a walk post lunch today, I was thinking about innovation and if there is a way to institutionalize it. […]

Finding Our Centre Of Excellence

I read a post by Mitch Joel (one of my insanely awesome people) where he proposes a 7 step model to define what could be our centre of excellence. Please do read his post here. I wanted to do this exercise and the result is as below: The Tactic: My tactic of my primary output is content, just like Mitch himself. The Format: My format is text and audio. The Frequency: This is a place where i need to improve significantly. I have committed to myself that i will create content everyday in text and at least once a week in […]