There’s no question that America’s future is filled with challenges, and we’re going to be the ones who have to rise to them. It’s a huge opportunity, but it’s also a bit daunting. The New America Foundation is a non-profit organization that “emphasizes work that is responsive to the changing conditions and problems of our 21st Century information-age economy — an era shaped by transforming innovation and wealth creation, but also by shortened job tenures, longer life spans, mobile capital, financial imbalances and rising inequality.” They’re based in Washington, DC (and Sacramento, CA), and they’re working to ensure that every American generation is able to live better than the one that came before it.
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When I look at creative, marketing, or design agencies, I usually like to check out their client lists and their work. I’m no expert, but it gives me a much better feel for the company. That’s why I was a bit surprised when I came across Phenomenon on the Inc. 5000–they don’t disclose their work or their clients. In fact, they promise anonymity to their sixteen clients (one of which is a country), and they mostly take on new clients who are referred to them by current or past clients. Phenomenon is based in Los Angeles, CA, and their approach is definitely different, but it does seem to be working. They’re growing like crazy with 1,274% three-year revenue growth to $15 million.
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One of my favorite sources for company ideas is e-mailing people who unsubscribe from this mailing list saying they found a job or internship. I figure if somebody is hiring them, then there’s a good chance that that same somebody might hire other readers. A while back a reader told me that he landed one of a few coveted internships at Prophet. I’d never heard of Prophet before, but when I checked them out I saw that they’re “a strategic brand and marketing consultancy with offices around the globe.” Apparently, they’re headquartered in San Francisco, CA, but also have locations in Chicago, IL; New York, NY; and Richmond, VA along with a number of international offices. What I find interesting about Prophet is that they seem to lean more towards a management consulting model in how they do business, even though their focus is on areas including Brand, Marketing, Innovation, Design, and Insights & Analytics.
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When I hear the word innovation, I usually think high-tech. It’s really just about finding new things that work, even if they’re old ideas. Innovations for Poverty Action is a New Haven, CT based non-profit organization that is “dedicated to discovering what works to help the world’s poor.” By using the scientific method in everything that they do, Innovations for Poverty Action is able to optimize their programs for maximum return on investment. That means they’re able to help more people with less money, which is absolutely essential when you’re fighting poverty. It’s pretty cool that they’ve been able to create a system for reliably developing new innovations.
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There are two ways to go about your job search. You can push or you can be pulled. You can seek out companies that you want to be a part of, or you can wait passively for companies to blast their job openings out to the world. The former will lead to far more rejection, but it can be well worth it. This is why I occasionally like to cover companies that don’t appear to have any opportunities posted for new or recent grads. If they’re doing something fascinating, they’re worth looking at regardless of what they have posted. One of the coolest things that I’ve seen lately is the iPod Nano watch made by LunaTik. It’s simple, elegant, and totally awesome. Basically it’s a watch band that you can slip a 6th generation iPod Nano into–totally putting calculator watches, game watches, and every other kind of watch to shame. Not only can you tell the time and use it as a stopwatch (with a multitouch interface), but you can listen to music and track your runs with Nike+. If I didn’t hate wearing watches, I’d totally buy an iPod Nano just so that I could get one of these watches. Now, LunaTik is the brand that these watches come from, but it seems that the whole product line came out of a Chicago, IL based product design shop called Minimal Inc.. Both are founded by a guy named Scott Wilson, so they seem to be very closely related if not formally connected.
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A little known fact about me is that I earned “The Speed Limit” as a nickname during my Senior year of high school. It wasn’t because I drove slowly; it was because I somehow managed to lose 55 pounds between the end of Junior year and the beginning of Senior year. I still don’t know how it happened–I wasn’t even trying to lose weight–but it did (I’ve since gained much of it back, but part of that is because I don’t have the body of a scrawny 17-year old anymore). Apparently, there’s some mysterious weight loss secret out there that I used, but don’t know about. Unfortunately, weight loss isn’t usually that easy, and for most people it’s a huge struggle. I’m a big proponent of “the slow-carb diet” and other methods from Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Body
, but it’s all about finding what works for you. For many it’s Weight Watchers. The New York, NY based company was started in Queens during the early 1960s by Jean Nidetch who “began inviting friends into her Queens home once a week to discuss how best to lose weight.” Now more than a million people across the world go to Weight Watchers meetings every week.
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When I was in high school, I got good grades, did community service work through my church, played baseball and basketball, and ran a fan website about my favorite rapper (it was a long time ago, and it was profitable). It may sound like a lot, but I can’t believe how much time I wasted. High schoolers are capable of a lot, and they need to be challenged. That’s exactly what the San Francisco, CA based Conrad Foundation does. They’re a non-profit organization that challenges “high school students to create innovative products using science, technology, and entrepreneurship to solve real-world, 21st century problems.” They do so through the Spirt of Innovation Awards, which is a competition put on in honor of Pete Conrad (whom the foundation is named after), the astronaut who commanded Apollo 12. Pete was expelled from a prestigious high school because he couldn’t read or spell. It turned out that he was dyslexic, and the headmaster at his new school was able to help him make the most of his genius. After high school he went to Princeton and the moon. Not bad for someone who couldn’t read or spell in high school.
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Usually, when you start a company, you do it with a specific purpose in mind. Maybe you want to create and sell a line of products or offer a suite of services. When Bill Gross started Idealab in 1996, his approach was a little different. For him and his Pasadena, CA based company, products are actually new companies. In just under 15 years, Idealab “has created and operated more than 75 companies with 30 IPOs and acquisitions.” I’m sure you’ll recognize many of the names—there was eToys in 1997 and Picasa in 2002. They also had NetZero, PetSmart, Tickets.com, Citysearch, Commission Junction, and lots more. You may not be familiar with many of Idealab’s current companies, but you will be if their track record is any indication. Idealab continues to generate and test ideas, and the best ones get more attention and are eventually turned into companies.
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I was flipping through the June issue of Fast Company to take a look at their list of The 100 Most Creative People in Business (Lady Gaga is #1) because I figured it would probably lead me towards some new companies to feature. Oddly enough, the profile in magazine that caught my attention first wasn’t even from the list. It was a short profile of Geoff Vuleta, the CEO of New York City based Fahrenheit 212. He’s building a new type of consulting firm—one where IDEO meets McKinsey. He thinks that most innovation firms ignore the fact that the products and ideas that they create need to make money, and he thinks that traditional consulting firms rarely have ideas good enough to serve the markets that they so easily identify. Fahrenheit 212 focuses on helping major companies find new areas for growth—areas that will provide in excess of $100 million in new revenue. But what might be the most unique thing about Fahrenheit 212 is their business model. They only get paid if their ideas work, as they “put up to two thirds of [their] fees at risk, subject to hitting agreed commercial milestones on the initiative.”
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I feel as though I’ve been coming across a lot of innovation design firms lately. I guess it must be a growing field, which makes sense considering that design-focused companies like Apple are making a killing lately. Today we’re taking a look at Aruliden, a New York City based “brand strategy and product design consultancy formed by Rinat Aruh and Johan Liden in 2006 to bridge the gap between design and marketing.” They’re a small firm, but they make up for it by working with big name clients like Motorola, Jaguar, MINI Cooper, Microsoft, Starbucks, and Volkswagen. And not suprisingly, the work that Aruliden has done for these clients is just as impressive as the names of the clients. There’s the Motorola Sparrow and there’s retail strategy for Starbucks. Then there’s Areaware Clips and Scoot, Hydrogen Scooter. As you can see, Aruliden is always working on cool stuff.
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I still haven’t quite worked through all of the companies that I want to cover from the Fast Company World’s Most Innovative Companies list. It really is amazing how helpful magazine lists can be for job seekers. One company from the list that stuck out to me was Ammunition Group, which came in as the 5th most innovative design company. The reason that I’m so impressed with them is that they can claim Apple as a client. If Apple hires you to help with design, you’re doing something right. In addition to Apple, the San Francisco based product, interaction, and brand design firm has also worked to develop the Barnes and Noble Nook and some really interesting Lady Gaga headphones. Whether it’s designing products, identities, or interactions, Ammunition Group is one of the best at what they do.
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It’s tax time, which means that I’ve spent some time looking over my records from last year. This year is already looking better than last year thanks to our sponsor mentioned above. Hopefully it will mean that when I do my taxes in 2011, I won’t consider myself a “low-income entrepreneur.” But if I still do, I’ll at least have the option of getting some support from the Corporation for Enterprise Development. They’re a Washington, DC based non-profit that is “dedicated to expanding economic opportunity for low-income families and communities.” The program that I’m alluding to is the CFED’s Self-Employment Tax Initiative, which helps to provide free tax preparation services for people like me (though I haven’t actually taken advantage of any of these resources). That’s just a small slice of what CFED does, though. Their broader goal is “working at the local, state and federal levels to create economic opportunity that alleviates poverty.”
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It’s an exciting time to be in your 20s. We’re living in a period where technological innovation is constantly in our hands. It’s not in some spaceship that we see on tv or behind closed doors; it’s all around us. Beyond the tangible stuff, it’s never been easier to share and spread ideas. PopTech is a perfect example of this. They are a Brooklyn, NY based non-profit organization that has created a “a global community of cutting-edge leaders, thinkers, and doers from many different disciplines, who come together to explore the social impact of new technologies, the forces of change shaping our future, and new approaches to solving the world’s most significant challenges.” Even if you don’t end up working for PopTech, hopefully you can be a part of that thriving community as you move forward into an exciting career.
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I’m fascinated by the field of industrial design. As much fun as it is to build virtual products like this website, I wish that I had the talent and creativity to develop something tangible. Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks that, because it seems that there are more and more industrial and innovation design firms popping up lately (or maybe I’m just starting to discover more of them). It makes sense. Look at what Apple has done since it refocused and reemphasized beautiful industrial design. More and more companies are using design as their point of differentiation, yet most of them need outside help. That’s where firms like Hoboken, NJ based Propeller come in. As they put it, they “create products, packaging, and modes of visual communication that elevate human experience.”
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Apparently the hot dog is a killer. Who knew? I had heard that the preservatives in hot dogs might cause cancer, but I read yesterday in this Fast Company article that the American Academy of Pediatrics recently “called for the redesign of hot dogs” because of the choking hazard. One of the Academy’s doctors even went so far as to say that, “If you were to take the best engineers in the world and asked them to design a perfect plug for a child’s airway, you couldn’t do better than a hot dog.” The article went on to discuss how RKS, a Thousand Oaks, CA based industrial design firm, was playing with ideas on how to redesign the hot dog. That’s a big task to bite off, but RKS was able to come up with some pretty cool concepts in their brainstorming. It shows why they can claim companies like Apple, Coca-Cola, Nissan, and HP as clients.
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Considering that I do this nearly every day, I see a lot of companies and a lot of jobs, but today I came across something that I’ve never seen before. It’s called Agency Nil, and it’s an full-service advertising agency, except it’s nothing like any ad agency that you’ve ever seen. They don’t have a physical location, they don’t have a salaried staff, and they don’t have set fees. It’s almost as they don’t exist (I think that’s where the “nil” comes in), but they do. As PSFK puts it, Agency Nil “hopes to channelize the skills of experienced but laid-off talents from the advertising industry, as well as that of graduate students from advertising programs – people who just can’t seem to lay their hands on that elusive job.” In other words, they’re trying to put the glut of available talent to good use. It’s brilliant.
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A lot of people think inventing is easy. You see those guys like Billy Mays screaming on tv, and you think to yourself, “I could have thought of that.” Believe it or not, even those stupid infomercial products aren’t easy to come up with, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the world of invention. Inventing a new product is a long, arduous process that requires a ton of resources. Invention Machine is a Boston based software developer that “drives sustainable innovation by enabling global organizations to consistently generate breakthrough ideas that accelerate product development.” It’s hard for a non-inventor to understand how software can help the inventing process, but judging from the number of large corporations that are using Invention Machine’s software, there’s something there.
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If there’s one criticism that I often hear about the non-profit world, it’s that they’re plagued by inefficiency. It’s certainly not true across the board, but taking the profit motives out of an organization can certainly create efficiency issues. Additionally, things like organizational structure, egos, and political agendas can disrupt for-profits and non-profits alike. Root Cause is a Cambridge, MA based non-profit strategy consulting service that “envisions a world in which the public, private, and nonprofit sectors work together to invest and re-invest in the most efficient, effective, and sustainable solutions to social problems.” In other words, they want to find the absolute best way to solve the world’s social problems, and then work with social innovators and social impact investors to make things happen.
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We’ve seen some companies with funky names. Weird made up words. All upper case or lower case. Odd punctuation. And then there’s ?What If!. It kind of looks like someone’s software project gone wrong. It’s definitely not a software project, and I’d say ?What If! is more like a consulting firm gone right. Their business is built on 5 key values: freshness, passion, action, love, and bravery, which sounds a bit different from the values of most companies. The reason that ?What If! deviates from the norms both in name and values is that they’re an innovation company. It’s all about developing new ideas and putting them into action, whether the ideas be products or customer experiences. ?What If! has a long and impressive list of clients, so they’re not just some off the wall company that is all ideas and no action. They’re based in the UK, but they also have offices in New York and Shanghai.
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If you Google “gravity tank,” one result tells you that “A simple, inexpensive gravity tank in a swine manure liquid-solid separation process will help producers control hog odors.” Another says that in a rooftop water gravity tank the gravity pressure is .434 times the height of the bottom of the tank from the fixture in feet. The Gravity Tank that we’re looking for is very different. It’s a Chicago based innovation consulting firm that combines research, strategy, and design to push their clients in new directions. Their staff consists of “anthropologists, former architects, filmmakers, engineers, graphic designers, industrail designers, MBAs, quant researchers, professors, brand strategists, and more.” They’re small, with only 35 employees, but they’ve already some very cool work with some very big names.
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Over the weekend I was having a conversation with some friends about what kind of bagged lunches we used to take to school. A common theme was the popularity of Lunchables and how it was a rare occasion for most of us to have our parents actually buy Lunchables at the supermarket (I didn’t care for Lunchables, so I was scorned by the group). Lunchables have absolutely nothing to do with today’s company, except that whenever I hear the name Inventables, I immediately think of Lunchables. Inventables is a Chicago based (I think that I can actually see their office from my window) company that helps companies innovate by making sourcing and selling materials and technologies easy. In other words they go out and find the newest, most innovative materials and provide a subscription service that provides information to companies that are looking for new materials to use in their products. They look for materials like we look for entry level jobs.
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We’re big on innovation here. We don’t like talking about companies that are doing things the way that they’ve always done. They’re not only boring, but they’re also destined for failure. Look at the auto industry. You can blame the downfall of the Big 3 on a lot of things, but a lack of innovation has to be a big part of your argument. We’re trying to bring innovation to the way that you find jobs, and there are hundreds of startups out there that are defined by innovation. It’s all around us. frog design is a global innovation firm. They “work with the world’s leading companies, helping them create and bring to market meaningful products, services, and experiences,” and they’ve been doing it for almost 40 years. They’ve worked with clients as vaired as Disney, GE, HP, Logitech, Microsoft, MTV, Seagate, Yahoo!, which goes to show you that they’re not easy to pigeonhole. frog design is based out of San Francisco, and they have offices (or as they call them, studios) in Austin, New York, San Jose, Seattle, Milan, Amsterdam, Stuttgart, and Shanghai
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When we review companies, we always like to look at their client lists. It’s a good way to see what a company has done and what kind of reputation they have. Visde’s client list speaks for itself. It includes Apple, Boeing, Disney, Intel, Macromedia, and Yahoo!. If Visde were an accounting firm or a waste management company, you’d probably nod your head and say something like, “Oh, that’s nice.” The reason this client list is so impressive is that Visde is a product experience design firm. They help some of the biggest names in product design with… product design. Some of their latest projects include a personal hearing aid remote control and a national ethnographic study of parents, teachers, and school administrators for online standardized testing. These are just two types of things that you might end up doing at Visde. Their main areas of expertise are Innovation Strategy, Design Strategy, Conceptual Explorations, User Research, User Experience Design, Interaction Design, Information Architecture, Visual Design, Industrial Design, Package Design, Web + Software, and Kiosks.
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A company’s home page should make it instantly clear what the company is about. For many companies this is not the case. There’s all kinds of fluff that fails to give potential customers a proper brand introduction. Menlo Innovations doesn’t make this mistake. Their home page introduces a problem: “In 2004, the U.S. wasted over $55 billion on failed and poorly run software projects.” Then it identifies the cause: “These failures can be traced to a lack of understanding of the business issues being addressed and the wrong implementation methodologies being used.” Finally the home page poses their solution:
Menlo Innovations applies High-Tech Anthropology® to help our clients fully understand their business problems and opportunities. If the solution requires software, Menlo either develops the software within our Menlo Software Factory or The Menlo Institute trains your staff to use proven methodologies to develop the software themselves.
It’s clear. It’s concise, and it gets to the point. There’s no misunderstanding about what The Menlo Institute does.
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The other day, we came across an article about a toy design studio that has come up with technology to create variable-speed bullets. They’re called Lund and Company Invention, but they eerily remind us of Zevo Toys from the movie TOYS with Robin Williams and LL Cool J. Ok, they haven’t been taken over by a military general who is using child labor to fight wars through video games, but Lund and Company did create a toy rocket that is so technologically advanced that it has the Army drooling. We have no idea what kind of jobs Lund and Company offers, nor do we know if they ever hire recent graduates, but it’s Friday, and we like giving you research projects on Fridays.
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Judging from the attention that our post about IDEO’s jobs received, a lot college students must be fascinated by process of innovation and its reliance on design. We certainly are. Whether it’s the way the office is laid out at your first entry-level job or the comfort of the chair at your first desk, design will have a huge effect on your productivity in life. In fact, good design is often what separates what you like from what you don’t like. Ziba Design is a Portland, OR based company that is obsessed with “understanding people, brands and technology.” That actually sound a lot like yesterday’s company MindShare’s mission statement, but don’t worry, Ziba is looking to do something very different with this understanding.
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Are you fascinated by innovation? Do you run out to the store when BusinessWeek publishes their issue on the 50 Most Innovative Companies? (Blatant Self-Promotion: Read our new article on how magazine lists can help you find a job.) Almost all of the companies on BusinesWeek’s list are companies that deal directly with consumers, whether they provide products or services, but IDEO is different. They serve businesses by helping them innovate through design. You’ve probably bought many products that IDEO has had a hand in, but you likely attributed the innovations in the product to the manufacturer. Think again.
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