Economist - "Fresh Thinking For The Ideas Economy"

Blogging Innovation will be covering The Economist's event - "Innovation Fresh Thinking For the Ideas Economy" (see discount code below) at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley on March 23-24, 2010.

There will be a lot of great, top-flight speakers at this event, including:

• Clayton Christensen and Michael Porter (by Video Link)
  
• Arianna Huffington - Editor in Chief, Huffington Post
  
• Tim Brown - CEO, IDEO
  
• David Kelley - Head, Stanford Design School
  
• Judy Estrin - Author, "Closing the Innovation Gap"
  
• Scott Berkun - Author, "Myths of Innovation"
  
• Roger Martin - Dean, Rotman School of Business
  
• Paul Saffo - Visiting Scholar, Stanford Media X Network
  
• Matt Mullenweg - Founder, Wordpress
  
• John Kao - Author, "Innovation Nation"

As an added value for our loyal Blogging Innovation readers, we have negotiated a $150 discount when you register using our discount code - "BLINN" - register now.

We hope to see you there!

Don't miss an article - signup for our rss feed or our Continous Innovation group today!

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Braden Kelley is the editor of Blogging Innovation and founder of Business Strategy Innovation, a consultancy focusing on innovation and marketing strategy. Braden is also @innovate on Twitter.

Design Thinking For Your Writing

by Matthew E May

William Bostick over at Core77 wrote a terrific post called "How (Not) To Write Like a Designer." Design thinking is how I prefer to think about my style of problem solving. I'm not alone...IDEO and Stanford's D School coined the term, and Tim Brown's blog is all about it. But what I liked about this particular post was that it talked about writing as design. In other words, writing as designer thinking and problem solving. And anything that reads, "...you work with contraints to find elegant solutions to complex problems..." is sure to catch my eye.

I put William's five points to the test in reflecting on my process in writing In Pursuit of Elegance, and in the eventual work product.

1. Use Your Skills

• Bostick says ask: Who's this for? What's the big idea? What are the pieces I'm using? In developing the proposal for the book, all of those questions were asked and answered. Check!

2. Kill Jargon

• Stay away from buzzwords, acronyms, cliches, formulas, steps, etc. Check!

3. Tell a Story

• The point here is to think less about "what it is" and focus more on "what is happening." People want stories, want to know what what's happening before they want to know what it means. Good news: the book is nothing BUT stories. Check!

4. Don't Be Afraid to Put Yourself Into Your Writing

• In other words, use first person. Check!

5. Finally, And Most Importantly, Don't Say Too Much.

• Funny, that's my entire premise. Any book on elegance better be simple yet powerful. No fat, no fluff. It better have some pieces missing. Check!

So, tell a story, put yourself in it, use real words, and don't write too much. How elegant.

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Matthew E. May is the author of "IN PURSUIT OF ELEGANCE: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing." He is constantly searching for creative ideas and innovative solutions that are 'elegant' - a unique and elusive combination of unusual simplicity and surprising power.