by mmartyn | Oct 19, 2010 | Continuous Improvement, Cultural Enablers, Innovation, Problem Solving
Welcome to the Grand Cafe in Oxford, England. The Grand Cafe was one of the first coffee houses to open in England in 1650. With the replacement of alcohol as the daytime drink of choice, the English coffee house blossomed into a locus of learning and was crucial to...
by mmartyn | Oct 9, 2010 | Continuous Improvement, Creativity, Innovation, Problem Solving
A Chinese man created these structures on a beach using nothing other than the natural balance of the objects. When asked how he did it, he responded “Well I guess with everything in life, there is a place of balance…” Amy Tan, once noted that the key to...
by mmartyn | Sep 26, 2010 | Continuous Improvement, Engagement, Enterprise Alignment, Human Behavior, Problem Solving, Visual Management
After spending countless hours analyzing visual management boards in office and manufacturing environments, many fail to live up to the expectations we set for them and die a slow and painful death. Here are three simple mistakes I routinely see made when designing...
by mmartyn | Feb 22, 2010 | Brain, Creativity, Design, Problem Solving
In his new book Change by Design, Tim Brown presents the idea that we should learn by making…or as he puts it, instead of thinking about what to build, we should “build in order to think.” The brain and the hand are inextricably linked. We rely on the use of our...
