Frans Johansson's Blog

Could UNESCO's Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible cultural heritage be harmful ?

Most people have heard of UNESCO's list of World heritage sites – a list aiming at the protection and preservation of physical buildings, monuments and natural sites considered of interest to mankind all over the world – but, few have heard of the relatively new convention from the same organization on the protection of Intangible cultural heritage, or "living heritage". The convention dates back to...

I got a text from my good friend Peter Haas, the Executive Director of AIDG about the situation in Haiti. It is a critical piece that describes how things in very short order can get worse.

After 9-11 how much money did you have in your pocket? Could you have lived off of that for a week? What if you lived in LA and it was destroyed? The port gone, no airport, no electricity, no cellphones, no ATMs, no gas, banks closed, dozens of people you know are dead, over a million people making their...

Had a great Halloween. Our daughter Amara got to participate in her first dressed up like a "love bug". Sandra Ljung reflects upon traditions and sends a longer post from Sweden on how celebrations morph at the Intersection of cultures:

It is interesting to observe how traditions travel around the globe and intersect with different cultures, and thus transform, and evolve. The influence constituted by an immigrating or imported tradition can also spark innovation and creativity within the new ...

On September 24th we had The Medici Experience in San Jose, CA. The event was a huge success, more so than I could have hoped for (see video below). This time the City of San Jose hosted the Medici Experience and some 140 people filled the room to the brink – there were people on a waiting list even.

Teams from companies, city departments, start-ups and non-profits joined us for an incredibly immersive innovation experience. The event is a mix of a live performance by me and exercises that...

Here are some cool, recent intersectional ideas and stories that we have come across.

1. Butterfly wings and solar cells! Researchers have developed a technique that recreates biological structures on a nano scale. In nature, nano-sized structures give many insects their iridescent appearance, in which their colors appear metallic or seem to change depending on the viewing angle. http://tiny.cc/edXws

2. Piano + staircase…..Clever VW marketing campaign: http://bit.ly/QFAZv

3. Solar panes + roof t...

Wired has a great short piece on how the winning team of the Netflix $1 million challenge came up with their solution. The challenge was to improve Netflix's search and rating system by 10% – something that took years (and he winners own by mere minutes, too). Several key Medici Effect rules stand out:

1. New ideas are generated when you combine existing ideas

"The top two teams beat the challenge by combining teams and their algorithms into more complex algorithms incorporating everybody's...

Here is another post by Sandra Ljung in Sweden:

When I think of the Nordic region, leading companies and brand names, something intriguing strikes me. Finland has Nokia and Marimekko. Sweden has Volvo, Eriksson, Astra/Zeneca and lots of design labels ranging from crystal-ware to fashion. Denmark has the transportation giant Maersk, Bang & Olufsen, pharmaceutical industries, and a colossal design industry in fashion, jewellry, furniture, and home-ware. And Norway has…..well, not much comes up a...

Can Apple disrupt Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo in the gaming market? Although not a single one of these companies would say that this is even a remote possibility it is still interesting to analyze their incentives from a disruptive perspective:

Sony, for instance, has very little incentive to create games such as HarborMaster or Bejeweled 2. Although they are very popular on the iPhone they are way too simple for their core market – teenagers that can memorize 26 combinations for most...

Amazing new imagery from the Hubble Telescope. it is now more ten times more sensitive and here are the first images from our giant eye in the sky. Go here to learn more: http://hubblesite.org/

The latest issue of Speaker Magazine has me as the cover story where I give some suggestions for how to innovate in general and for speakers in particular. I find the entire industry of speaking quite interesting – it is a world entirely unto its own with a set of rules and traditions that it takes some time to learn and then question.

Speaking is also something I love doing while also discovering that I am pretty darn good at it – always a fun combination! After having seen tons and tons of ...