Doctor's Note

A mix of essays and commentary about design, innovation, technology, society, coaching, personal and leadership development. Since 1996.

Dial4Light

There was an interesting report on 3Sat here in Germany the other day about street lighting. Many cities save on energy costs by cutting the amount of time …

PaperC - Replacing the Library Photocopier

A recently launched service in Germany called PaperC (Twitter: @Paper_c) looks like it might become a pretty handy resource for students and researchers. It is …

Interviews with Jona Piehl and Tom Roope

The latest set in the series of interviews I did for COFA Online have now gone online. Jona Piehl from Land Design Studio talks about the challenges and role of …

Does Graphic Design Have Superpowers?

(Photo: ndinneen) Rich Smith, a graphic design student in the UK wrote to me about the presentation I gave at AGDA’s Design A Better World event. He asked …

Is Design Research Useless for Innovation?

Don Norman has just posted a very provocative and thoughtful piece about the value of design research, or not. “I’ve come to a disconcerting …

Time-shifting payments with Sprize and Swiss Rail

Gap’s new pilot service, Sprize, deals with an age-old irritation. You buy something at full-price only to find it reduced in a sale a few days later. It …

Printing Your Toast

Congratulations to one of my MA students at Luzern, Othmar Mühlebach, who has just won the second prize at the Berner Design Awards for his toaster re-design. …