Here is a nice little scenario explanation of business model innovation. It makes good use of the slideshow format to tell a story.

This explains why Radiohead’s new album “which was not only released online but also with a pay-what-you-please price strategy - earned the band an average of £5 per album, more than twice of what they would have received if they were still tied to a record label.”

If innovation can work this well to revive a broken music distribution system maybe someone will start to innovate on our broken political system.

[ Slideshare presentation via -Communication Nation ]

By soldering a bunch of LEDs into a cube shape these people have made a three dimensional display. It works just like those scrolling LED signs that are common in airports except this adds the third dimension of depth.

I think this works as visual eye-candy but would be hard to use for displaying textual information as you don’t need a third dimension to read text. It could become the new mirror ball though.

[ via -KanyeUniversity ]

I found a pretty cool website that lets you create your own pocket sized planner that you can print yourself and a standard inkjet. Pocket Mod is a “small book with guides on each page. These guides or templates, combined with a unique folding style, enable a normal piece of paper to become the ultimate note card.”

It is essentially an application that gives you the tools to build an 8 page disposable notebook. They provide numerous “mods” which are page layouts like calendars, lined pages, gridded pages, storyboards, task sheets, contacts, etc. I created a basic one for notes with gridded pages on one side and lined pages on the other, and only took five minutes

I don’t think it will replace my Moleskine notebook, but would be good for carrying with you to make notes that can be transferred later to a more permanent destination.

It was about a nice summer night in 2002 when a friend and I were at a field party taking some shotguns (when you poke a hole in the side a beer can and chug awhile opening the top), when we got to discussing how messy and dangerous the process is.

How to take a shotgun.

You see the actual hole making ordeal involves a sharp object ,usually metal, most often a key that can produces jagged metal edges in the can. The puncturing will often cause a mild explosion of beer which can get messy.

So I, being an industrial design major and him a business major decided to take it upon ourselves to solve the problem. A tool was needed that could be easily pocketed and carried. I made some sketches and a prototype, but nothing really came of it.

I can’t say I was surprised to find out that six years later such a product was developed and is out on the market. The Shotgunator is bottle opener, can opener, and most importantly a shotgun hole maker. It seems like a pretty simple design and is actually more practical than the prototype I developed, so I can’t be too upset.

It comes in two forms: A utilitarian version that you can bust out at any social event and the classy version for playing beer golf with your buddies.

I still feel there is potential in this sector, because it took me this long to hear of this and it seems they are really pushing for the large quantity orders that usually end up as corporate give aways. I can’t imagine too many companies that are open minded enough to promote binge drinking to it’s employees and potential customers, but I guess only time will tell.

This was made for the European Union to promote careers in research. Nothing better than metaphors acted out through scenarios to make science interesting.

[ via - core77 ]

Here is an interesting story about city branding. Belfast introduced its new city brand only to discover that the cities of Blackburn and Barrow have practically the exact same look and feel in their brandmarks. The side ways heart form that also creates the letter B was used in each of these cities campaigns but Belfast paid about three times as much (£180,000) for their mark as Blackburn (£60,000) did.

Full story here from the Design research Group blog.

My buddy Jon posted a some old beer commercials on his blog recently. It’s quite amusing to watch these after spending the weekend watching the constant commercialism of the Olympics this weekend. Advertising has certainly grown into a sophisticated practice and multi-billion dollar effort since these commercials were made. One thing hasn’t changed though, it’s still trying to get me to buy stuff I don’t want or need. If I had my choice I’d stick with the retro beer commercials.

See the rest here

A while ago we posted an infographic from the NY Times that plotted the box office receipts of all major movies from 1986-2007.

Here is another visual graphic system that shows similar information but in a slightly different (in my opinion better) way. These are based on on steam graphs and show a more organized structure of data.

Each page displays trends in the top 25 movies at the box office for each weekend in a year. The color is based on the movie’s debut week. Because of that, long-running movies will gradually start to stand out from newer movies with different colors.

You can see detailed views here. I’m sure no one will be surprised to learn the The Dark Knight is kicking ass at the box office in the last couple of weeks.

In relation to Maria’s post last week I found that the Lego minifigure turned 30 this year. There is nice photo gallery of various mini figs through the years at IconEye.

I know the gas price hikes have been bad and hurting everyone’s wallet. However, recently I have been thinking about the benefits of getting gouged at the pumps. The main one being that people are reconsidering what they really need from a vehicle and sure enough most are realizing that an SUV in suburbia is overkill.

The number of trucks and SUV’s on sale is overwhelming as the market tries to dump them for more energy efficient vehicles. I ‘ve heard that the producers of the Hummer are planning on canceling the entire line and increasing it’s efforts on hybrids, as the car companies are getting losing big on their gas guzzlers.

The expense of driving has made us think twice about driving up the street to get something form the store when we could easily walk or bike. Now there is also evidence that the high prices are having a positive effect on the number of fatal car accidents, as we are not only driving less overall but driving safer (because you get better gas milage driving the speed limit).

Ideally the rises in gas prices will help us decrease our dependence on stuff, and ultimately realize that there are other  options. And when people start looking for those options they tend to find a whole lot of stuff that makes it hard to go back to way things were before.