Business Playground
Where Creativity and Commerce Collide – send us ideas to feature

One company has made swimming safer and more fun.

Ask any parent about trying to teach their kids to swim and they’ll most likely tell you a story of their child being too afraid to get in the water. Whether it’s a river, the ocean, or even just the shallow end of a pool, the water [...]

This weekend saw the release of the latest film in the Lady Dior series starring the French Oscar winning actress, Marion Cotillard, and her Dior handbag.  The latest film is directed by David Lynch and has a distinctly Twin Peaks feel to it. The previous film directed by Jonas Akerlund has the gorgeous Ms Cotillard [...]

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MIT researchers are developing a microchip that could help blind people regain partial eyesight. Though it won’t completely restore normal vision, it will enable a blind person to recognize faces and navigate a room without assistance. The chip, which is encased in titanium to prevent water damage, will be implanted onto a patient’s eyeball. The [...]

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These ads captures why kids love LEGO through simple visuals and no words. Perfect.

Reap what you sow. Or, in this case, is it sow what you reap…? Whatever, it’s a good idea to have business cards that do more than clog up your wallet.

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Businesses that give two hoots about innovation are finding novel ways to collaborate with artists who have ideas coming out of their ears. Artists for instance, like Dave Stewart, my co-author on The Business Playground. I recently asked him about his advisory role to Nokia. Dave was stranded in London on the [...]

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Watch the film on the manufacturers website of it morphing. It’s a real product from the Netherlands.
http://www.bloomframe.nl/

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If you bought a book by Belgian’s most famous crime writer, Pieter Aspe, you got this bag.

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A beautifully designed car by Norman E. Timbs. according to Supercars.net mechanical engineer Timbs created this dramatic streamliner in the 1940s which in many ways was the ultimate American hot rod. He designed and fabricated much of the project himself which included a custom aluminum body and steel chassis.  At first the [...]

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This ad for free WiFi in McDonald’s gets the idea across through a simple visual that sells the brand.

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. Here’s one.

The OneDown mousetrap swings upright from horizontal due to a rodent’s own weight to clearly indicate that it has been trapped. There is no risk of snapping the fingers and creating any mess or smell as the [...]

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From the New York Times 9th annual year in ideas

April, the world was introduced to Ruppy, the first known fluorescent dog. In natural light, Ruppy seems to be an almost-normal beagle — though his paws look as if he has stepped in pink ink. Under ultraviolet light, the effect is quite evident: he emits an [...]

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In honour of National Poetry Month the Books For Walls project has launched The Haiku Your Book Challenge. This is the haiku one of the contributors wrote to describe Punk Marketing: Get Off Your Ass and Join the Revolution, the book Mark Simmons co-authored in 2007 with Richard Laermer.
Revolutionize.
Thwart the competition, yo!
Bust the mold. Create.

A cool steampunk desktop computer design from here.

When you’re done with this cardboard box you can tear it up and plant it.

Seeds embedded in the recycled card will grow up to 100 trees. See more here.

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Mind maps are a good way of visualizing solutions to challenging problems.

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Fro the New York Times magazine 9th annual year in ideas.

Nature may well be the art of God, but that isn’t keeping mere mortals from trying their hand at it. This year, a group of British engineers recommended building a forest of artificial carbon-filtering “trees” across the United Kingdom to combat climate change; and a [...]

Probably the best speech on creativity I’ve seen

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Half chair, half Vespa. And that’s all there is to it.

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You will have seen the announcement earlier this year that pop sensation Lady Gaga has become the creative director for instant camera company Polaroid. The cynical amongst us might view this as a publicity stunt that won’t translate into anything more than a few column inches. After all, now that all pictures are pretty much [...]

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The title says it all.

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A great way to advertise Copenhagen zoo.

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When announcing an effort to launch Googly TV head of engineering, Vic Gundotra, was making an obvious reference to Apple when he said at the press conference: “If you believe that the only way to get a good smartphone is to bet on one man, one device, one carrier, and one choice, that is [...]

We held a launch event at the head offices of Live Nation on Thursday night, featuring an interview with Live Nation, Mike Rapino, a Q&A session with co-authors Dave and Mark and a great improvised musical performance by Mr. Stewart and violinist Anne-Marie Calhoun.

The LA Times was there to cover the event and this is [...]

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A young designer has invented a revolutionary folding bicycle that will stop thieves in their tracks.

Kevin Scott, 21, designed the space-age bike that wraps around a lamp post so it can be locked-up safely – without the need for a lock or chain. The De Montfort University graduate used a ratchet [...]

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from New York Times mags 9th annual year in ideas called “it happens when nobody is watching” and placed in a bus shelter in Berlin, was a one-time installation sponsored by Amnesty International. When a person in the shelter was looking at the poster, he saw, along with the words, a photograph of an amiable [...]

IDEO’s Tim Brown at a recent TED talk. Interviews with Tim appear in Business Playground, the book.

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Creativity comes in myriad different forms. For Andy Goldsworthy it’s making ephemeral art and from the things he finds in nature. His work is inspiring and beautiful. This extract is from the film about his work “Rivers and Tides.”

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Plenty of people’s Twitter feeds appear to be connected directly to their egos, but one scientist’s is actually wired to his brain. In April, University of Wisconsin doctoral student Adam Wilson — working with adviser Justin Williams, above — tweeted 23 characters just by thinking. He focused his attention on one flashing letter after another [...]

With the flick of a switch, Philips Electronics may have just dramatically lowered America’s electric bill. In September the Dutch electronics giant became the first to enter the U.S. Department of Energy’s L Prize competition, which seeks an LED alternative to the common 60-watt bulb. Sixty-watt lights account for 50% of the domestic incandescent market; [...]

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I liked this blog post from entrepreneur Chris Dixon and decided to reproduce it in its entirety. Thanks Chris.
Developing new startup ideas
March 14th, 2010 | careers, product design, startups
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// ]]>If you want to start a company and are working on new ideas, here’s how I’ve always done it and how I [...]

Ozzy Osbourne pretended to be his own waxwork figure at Madame Tussauds in New York as a way to promote his new album, “Scream” which is out on June 22nd.