Coolhunting Academy 2010 Invitation

Invitation to Half-Day Coolhunting Training Course -– Afternoon of Thursday, October 7, 2010

What is it that distinguishes Apple, LEGO, and P&G from their competitors? Why are they launching one killer product after the other? This is because they are taking a huge page from the playbook of creativity. They organize their business as a swarm business, applying the principles of swarm creativity by listening to and becoming a member of their swarm of loyal users, immersing themselves into their swarm. This swarm tells them what’s going to be cool, and how to make it even cooler.   Knowing where in the swarm the collaborative innovators are allows them to determine what’s going to be cool, too – before everyone else. The art of coolhunting involves zeroing in on the fresh idea that will be the genesis of a hot new trend. It also involves finding the people responsible for the idea – the trendsetters who will cause others to jump on board.

Practical applications of Swarm Creativity and Collaborative Innovation Networks are

  • Discovering cool trends for your field by tapping into the collective intelligence of your audience and potential customers (coolhunting)
  • Finding the trendsetters who convert an innovation into a trend
  • Run with the new trends you find and tap their business value through coolfarming
 The Coolhunting and Coolfarming framework developed at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence and field tested at dozens of fortune 1000 companies, offers a novel way to find the latest trends by discovering the online communication patterns of the trendsetters.

Plan to participate with us October 7-9 in Savannah to share and connect to new opportunities.

For more information, stop by for a visit and sign in to the COINs2010 community at http://www.coins2010.com

Connect to COINs2010:
Facebook: Collaborative-Innovation-Networks-COINS2010-Conference
Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/SwarmCreativity
Twitter: http://twitter.com/coins_2010
Website: http://www.coins2010.com

COINs University Partners:
http://cci.mit.edu/index.html
http://www.scad.edu/
http://wayne.edu/

COINs2010 Sponsors:
COINs University Partners
Galaxy Advisors http://www.galaxyadvisors.com/
I-OPEN http://i-open-2.strategy-nets.net

Background Information:
http://www.swarmcreativity.net/
http://www.ickn.org/
http://wiki.soberit.hut.fi/virtualbrownbag/tiki-index.php?page=homepage
http://www.galaxyadvisors.com/

 

COINs2010 Call for Papers

I-OPEN is a sponsor of the Collaborative Innovation Networks COINs2010 Conference, October 7-9, 2010 in Savannah, Georgia. The conference is presented in collaboration by the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD), Wayne State University School of Engineering, and MIT's Center for Collective Intelligence.

The COINs community is a network of research and industry leaders seeking the best practices and tools they can find to understand innovation in the emerging Science of Collaboration.

If you are a research or industry leader, consider submitting a paper or thought paper about your insights and perspectives to elevate everyone's understanding of how to collaborate for competitive innovation advantage.

Plan to participate with us October 7-9 in Savannah to share and connect to new opportunities.

For more information, stop by for a visit and sign in to the COINs2010 community at http://www.coins2010.com

Connect to COINs2010:
Facebook: Collaborative-Innovation-Networks-COINS2010-Conference
Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/SwarmCreativity
Twitter: http://twitter.com/coins_2010
Website: http://www.coins2010.com

COINs University Partners:
http://cci.mit.edu/index.html
http://www.scad.edu/
http://wayne.edu/

COINs2010 Sponsors:
COINs University Partners
Galaxy Advisors http://www.galaxyadvisors.com/
I-OPEN http://i-open-2.strategy-nets.net

Background Information:
http://www.swarmcreativity.net/
http://www.ickn.org/
http://wiki.soberit.hut.fi/virtualbrownbag/tiki-index.php?page=homepage
http://www.galaxyadvisors.com/

 

"The Pattern of Renewal: What to Look for and Help Bring Forth" by Christopher Reynolds

Chris Reynolds, teacher, musician, and traditional healer, writes about the regional economic and cultural transformation already taking place in Northeast Ohio at its centers of creativity, spirituality, and healing. 

He writes,

In our time, the general pattern is that the world, as perceived by the orphan, is much more expansive, meaningful, loving and merged with spiritual realities than the “real” world as delineated by the current family, educational, religious, political, scientific and technological systems. 

The resultant isolation and suffering brings the orphans to a crisis point that many do not survive. The individuals who do manage to find the healing information for their lives, usually through a form of death and rebirth experience, are now gathering in greater numbers at our local creativity and healing centers.

Chris writes further,

The renewal our region is seeking has already been quietly underway for some years now. This essay is a Calling in itself to those who would be leaders to invite those centers and individuals who have been living in this renewed, holistic manner into public awareness.

There is an astounding amount of wisdom for our times waiting to be welcomed home and permitted to share what Joseph Campbell in the Hero of a Thousand Faces called, “The Boon”, with the culture at large. 

Time, money, effort, generosity invested in the wave of renewal I described opens a better way forward for the future generations.

Who is the orphan in your community and how will you welcome their creative, wholistic insights?

 

 

The Passion of the Western Mind

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Homework from Chris Reynolds - teacher, musician, and traditional healer - in this collection of his favorite books connecting the power of creativity and the power of one's ties to the land, both integral to the economic and cultural renewal of regions.

…so I would like to introduce you to a thinker named, Richard Tarnas, and in particular, his book, “Passion of the Western Mind” which is followed by “Cosmos and Psyche”. For Tarnas, the falling apart that we’re doing right now is the end of a twenty-five hundred year arch. And for him, the passion of the Western Mind, what he calls the ‘Western Development’ has been predominately masculine, predominately male.

And the proof he uses for it, is the names of the human being in all languages in the West are, ‘man’, ‘lum’, ‘wom’ – it’s all, when we talk about a human being we say, ‘man’. For him, at this time in history, we are going through the end of man.

That doesn’t mean the end of human beings; it means the end of a way of life. And for him, the future looks like a completing of the masculine in the feminine or a sacred marriage where there is a balance between the two.

And I like to think of what we’re going through now in those terms. If you look through our culture through that lens, you will see all the qualities that were cultivated over the last twenty-five hundred years have reached a point where they no longer work. There’s this old way that’s dying around our feet and at the same this new way is rising up.

So, I would like to say again, the way it looks regionally is, where the new ground is breaking through, through what’s falling apart, is these healing centers, these places where the people who fell apart and who are coming back together. So, it’s right in our midst. The important thing for us as leaders is to be able to allow what wants to die, to die. And that which is being born, that’s where we would place our interest.

Learn more from Chris about the relationship of creativity, traditional rites of passage, and the cosmos to mindfullness, passion, and meaningful civic engagement at his page on I-Open.

Follow the wisdom of civic leaders across these I-Open communities:

I-Open http://i-open-2.strategy-nets.net
Facebook I-Open http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=35942064712&ref=ts
Facebook The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=35942064712&ref=ts
Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/iopen/sets/72157623351094216/
Friendfeed http://friendfeed.com/iopen
Livestream http://www.livestream.com/iopen/
Posterous http://i-open.posterous.com/
Scribd http://www.scribd.com/I-Open
Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/IOpen2
Twitter http://twitter.com/iopen2
Vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/user1999383
You Tube http://www.youtube.com/user/IOpen2

Copyright 2010 Betsey Merkel http://www.betseymerkel.extendr.com/ and I-Open http://i-open-2.strategy-nets.net Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA

The Renewal of Culture - Christopher Reynolds, M.Ed., Teacher, Musician, and Traditional Healer

iopen on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Chris is passionate about "waging creativity" - as he does this in all his work - to nurture that which is growing forth from the land, to help things to be born, instead of destroying things. His art movement, "urrealism", teaches others how to bring forth what's best in people. 

Chris describes our shared challenge is "to be able to respond to what has not been seen before. The energy needed to do this in the classroom is the same energy that is needed to renew a region's culture.

Creativity is not just making things, it is in how you perceive what is before you. Each of us holds a receptive mirror, a unique way of seeing things, and when you are able to use the mirror, that quality is 'presence' - the capacity to reflect back and see the creativity, to see what is coming forth. Teachers in touch with their 'mirror' can reflect back and show the future it's own face, responding in such a way to strengthen what is coming forth.

When the future is carried in - in the classroom - it's carried in with shaky legs, it's weak, it's unsure, and you don't know where it came from. This is the kind of presence someone will bring."

Learn from the wisdom of civic leaders across these I-Open communities:

Copyright 2011 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 2563 Kingston Road Cleveland OH 44118 Phone: 216-220-0172 Web: http://i-open.posterous.com/

 

Leading and Creating - a set on Flickr

David Deming, Sculptor and President of the Cleveland Institute of Art, contributed an interview to I-Open research about his work leading and creating.

The images tell the story of David as an artist, who with steadfast creativity, shapes the three-dimensional likeness of an inner soul with a personal signature that is warm and generous.

But between the stories of leadership and the re-making of spirits with tools and earth, lies the secret to innovation: creativity.

What can we learn from the disciplined habits of creatives? The efficiency? The destructionism? What can we learn from the doers who blindly transform ideas to projects feeling their way forward, to re-create education and re-wire government?

Be alert to the sights and sounds of creativity around you - these jewels, the assets that reside in every community and the most valuable of all social and economic investments to prosperity building.

Photos and their narratives by Alice Merkel

Listen to a series of interviews on
Livestream
Vimeo
You Tube

Learn more about the Cleveland Institute of Art

Copyright 2010 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA

The Village: A Microcosm Economy of Culture

Melissa Daubert, Experience Artist, Cleveland, Ohio, introduces us to local Zimbabwe paintings and provides a tour of "The Village" a collection of idealized architectural structures from her experience living in Zimbabwe as a Peace Corps teacher educating students in metal working.

Village pieces embody what is important to people, the community, and the economic way of life. From Melissa's experience, values and investments focus on health care, education, environment, commerce, gender equality and empowerment of women, and addressing daily living needs.

"The Village" is comprised of several works --

The Tongue Wagger, the Cooking Hut, the Pit Toilet and Bathing Space, The Sleeping Space, The Sausage Tree, the Look Out Tower, and the post-Zimbabwe piece, All American Ants.

Each each structure tells a story about its relationship to local culture and community. You can see objects close up and learn the story about each at this I-Open Flickr set http://www.flickr.com/photos/iopen/sets/72157623225592857/

Learn more about what's happening in Open Source Economic Development:

Copyright 2010 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA

Collaboration Accelerates Creative Innovation

Experience Artist, Melissa Daubert of Cleveland, Ohio, talks about the benefits of building personal relationships to develop new ideas, expand know-how, and access resources.

By having the opportunity of working with a local leader in digital technology at a near-by university, her opportunities to remix fine and digital art instantly went fast track.

This is a good example of the power of growing purposeful networks to advance place-based industry innovation.

Links to learn more:

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=35942064712
Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/i-open/sets/
I-Open http://i-open-2.strategy-nets.net
Livestream http://www.livestream.com/iopen
Posterous http://i-open.posterous.com/
Scribd http://www.scribd.com/I-Open
Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/iopen2
Twitter http://twitter.com/iopen2
Vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/user1999383
You Tube http://www.youtube.com/user/IOpen2

Copyright 2010 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA

An Introduction to the Open Publishing Lab @RIT with Matt Bernius, Co-Director

Matt Bernius, is Co-Director & Researcher of the Open Publishing Lab (OPL) at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY.

Matt talks about the sea changes happening across the publishing industry and how OPL@RIT is responding by strengthening creativity and innovation by leveraging new Open Source approaches to empower individuals, businesses, and communities.

OPL is itself a new kind of economic model of production and distribution, and explores new ways of displaying identity and group knowledge.

Check back to this page on I-Open for additional updates about innovative practices at the Open Publishing Lab at RIT.

Links:

I-Open http://i-open-2.strategy-nets.net
OPL Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/16914646@N02/sets/72157621888188518/
Facebook I-Open http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=35942064712&ref=ts
Livestream http://www.livestream.com/iopen/
You Tube http://www.youtube.com/user/IOpen2
Vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/8856916

Copyright 2010 Betsey Merkel http://www.betseymerkel.extendr.com/ and I-Open http://i-open.org/. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA

COINS 2009 - a brief movie

This is a short film from my visit to Savannah, GA, October 8-11 for the COINS 2009 conference.

The film doesn't begin to capture the diversity of learning experiences from the conference but it does provide a sense of the quality interdisciplinary research presented, lovely surroundings, the collaborative and creative culture of the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD), and caliber of innovative students SCAD is generating.

Thank you all SCAD organizers, participants, and partners. It was a pleasure to meet everyone. Enjoy the film!

Created and posted by Betsey Merkel.