the following sites below contain more than the recommended daily allowance of brainfood so eat up friend. maybe they'll shift your thinking sideways a little or maybe a lot.
For those of you are are totally into the foodie game, check out Melbourne City Rooftop Honey which has sprung up all over Melbourne town. You’ve heard of green roofs, well this is just as important and definitely more delicious. Vanessa Kwiatkowski and Mat Lumalasi launched Melbourne City Rooftop Honey after learning that beekeepers in cities such as London, New York and Paris were reintroducing bees to urban areas. Since then, they’ve installed hives on the rooftops of more than 15 CBD and inner-city businesses, mainly cafes and restaurants, and half a dozen suburban gardens. More than 100 people have joined their waiting list.
Nikolsky’s grandfather was a commercial beekeeper and he has strong memories of people coming to his grandparents’ door to buy honey. When Nikolsky read a small newspaper article about Melbourne City Rooftop Honey last year, he offered to host a hive.
For a $250 annual fee, Kwiatkowski and Lumalasi visit fortnightly to check on the hives. In return, the Alphington couple gets a share of the honey and, thanks to the busy bees, a measurable improvement in garden productivity.
“It’s good for us because we like to grow our own vegies and try to be as sustainable as we can,” says Nikolsky. “We’re not talking food miles here. We’re talking food metres.”
Check out The Little Grocer in Armadale Victoria for some really cute interiors by interior stylist Nikki Green along with a really sweet ongoing window display by Amelia Lackmann. Great eye candy.
And while we’re on the subject of Portland, which by the way if you’ve never traversed that far is an absolutely wonderful city.. It’s progressive, it’s considered, it’s design focused, you can eat well easily, people value organic and it generally feels like an all round healthy approach to life and life style. On that note,if you’re into the whole farm-to-table thing you absolutely need to check out this episode of Portlandia. Portlandia is a series created by local musician Fred Armisen and his partner-in-crime Carrie Brownstein. It’s a hilarious series covering the various aspects of what makes Portland weird. . . ["Keep Portland weird" by the way is a self titled motto bestowed upon Portland by the locals who live there]. We all love a bit of organic produce, we all care about the provenance of our food but this is perhaps taking it a little far . . . It’s genius. Enjoy.
You can check out more about Portlandia here. Better still, check out the real thing.
We know people love their pets and we also know that the pet industry is closely following the baby industry in its overpriced indulgences. Now we all want to apply the same quality of care to our pets as we would to our family or ourselves.
With wellbeing products on the increase it’s no wonder the pet care industry is following suit. It’s not enough to just have a friendly pet or even a stylish pet, now you need a pet who can perform at optimum levels & reach his or her own personal potential. After all, you can’t be the fastest pup in the park if you’re not feeling your best now can you?
Whilst the pet care industry has already developed food for bone growth, weight loss & tooth protection – most food is limited to obvious functional benefits.
What about mood food for pets? Supplements or treats that address anger, stress or other negative behavioural issues. After all, no one wants a grumpy puppy or an A.D.D. hound.
Whatever you can get away with selling to people, you can almost certainly get away with selling for pets. It goes without saying that in the era of celebrity canines, anything goes. Better still, take the behavioural angle & sell it back to humans. Can you imagine a cereal that was targeted at teens to alleviate that grumpy
school morning attitude? With the right products, there’s no reason why everybody can’t play nice…
I saw this in a sydney supermarket the other day and had to take a shot. It’s the new Mother drink from Coca Cola which offers the slogan “New..Tastes nothing like the old one!”. Is there a witty marketing-ism or product innovation positioning I’m not getting or is this really as stupid as it sounds?
While you can’t judge a book by its cover, we often judge food by its packaging. One dollars worth of spaghetti sure looks a million dollars with a bit of fancy pants wrapping doesn’t it…Never underestimate the importance of appearance when it comes to food, or anything for that matter…
Why do pet care companies always put an animal on the front of their pet food? The dog can’t read but the owner can. Why are we packaging pet food for the pet? They know what dogs look like, talk to them in their own language.
I’d take a premium supermarket pet food brand & stick it in a stylish black tin with silver labeling & discrete branding with no visual reference to animals. Risky you say? I doubt it.
And another thing… why do washing detergents all use bright colours & show water or clean clothes? We make our decisions on what detergent to buy on the perceived quality of the brand. In the absence of any
laundry powders which don’t present pictures of clouds or water gushing through logos, let’s be honest, we pick the one we think looks more sophisticated or innovative or expensive than the rest.
Why not take washing powder & stick it in a metal canister that sits proudly on the laundry shelf instead of embarrassingly in the cupboard? Or better still, cook some good looking detergent granules &
put the stuff in a stylish transparent container.
For a fresh spin on packaging, make it design-orientated not product-orientated. Just because you’re selling pasta doesn’t mean you need a fat Italian & a bunch of tomatoes on the front. Lord, this is 2008.
Here’s another little ditty from Andrew Tan’s blog WhatIf which covers innovation & design from an Asian perspective. And no, he’s not part of the global outfit Whatif Innovation, he runs his own innovation company and this is his personal blog.
Design thinking is the latest and hottest methodology talked about to help a company innovate. GE calls it CENCOR (calibrate, explore, create, organize and realize). The Mayo Clinic calls it SPARC (see, plan, act, refine, communicate). Andrew’s new company calls it GIP (Gather, Ideate, Prototype). Its most obvious and direct power is in the creation of new products and services. Design thinking allows an organization to differentiate its products and services in an avenue other than pricing.
Andrew’s method is not dissimilar to the IDEO method of industrial design, one which has nurtured some of the most popular innovations of the past few decades. Apple’s first mouse. Prada’s ultrahip Manhattan store. Stand-up toothpaste tubes that don’t get icky. The Palm V.
In the Ideo universe, great design doesn’t begin with a far-out concept or a way-cool drawing. It begins with a deep and empathic understanding of the human condition. The first step for any Ideo team on any project is to try to empathize with the people who might use whatever product or service that eventually emerges from its work. Ideo has crafted a set of systematic research methods for understanding what the firm calls “human factors.” It then goes on to develop ideas and from those ideas, prototypes which can be tested for real responses on real people.
Here’s another fun prediction piece for 2008; this time it’s from foodie bible Epicurious. These prediction articles are fun to skim over for inspiration but more to the point, they make great quick ‘n’ easy stimulus for innovation workshops when you’ve run out of insightful platforms .
1) Farmers are the New Celebrity Chefs: With more celebrity chefs than we can shake a spatula at, it’s now time to salute the farmer and make him or her famous, rich, and, no doubt, host of a reality show.
2) Fancy Frozen Yogurt is the new Designer Cupcake: Some designer cupcakes taste great, like those from New York’s Magnolia Bakery–but many are small, dry, and flavorless. The FroYo trend, however, shows no signs of slowing, with lines around the block at spots like Pinkberry, The Big Chill and Naked Berry. Exotic ice cream flavors push the envelope and set the bar, with spicy flavors like wasabi, nuanced juxtapositions like blueberry cheesecake, ultra-seasonal influences like pumpkin in October, and new dairy twists like creme fraiche, goat’s milk, or sour cream.
3) Meatballs are the New Hamburger Sliders: Sliders are on lots of menus but while some mini hamburgers can be tasty, most end up dry and tough. Tiny hamburgers will soon be replaced by high-end meatballs like those made from duck at New York’s A Voce and veal at Washington D.C.’s Brasserie Beck.
4) Cambodian is the New Thai: A triangulation between Vietnamese, Chinese, and Thai cooking, Cambodian’s emphasis on noodle dishes, curries, stir fries and prahok, the strong-flavored fish paste, will grow in popularity. Cambodian food has stronger flavors than Vietnamese, slightly more subtle that Thai and is not as heavy as Chinese. (more…)
he latest and hottest methodology talked about to help a company innovate. GE calls it CENCOR (calibrate, explore, create, organize and realize). The Mayo Clinic calls it SPARC (see, plan, act, refine, communicate). Andrew’s new company calls it GIP (Gather, Ideate, Prototype). Its most obvious and direct power is in the creation of new products and services. Design thinking allows an organization to differentiate its products and services in an avenue other than pricing.
he latest and hottest methodology talked about to help a company innovate. GE calls it CENCOR (calibrate, explore, create, organize and realize). The Mayo Clinic calls it SPARC (see, plan, act, refine, communicate). Andrew’s new company calls it GIP (Gather, Ideate, Prototype). Its most obvious and direct power is in the creation of new products and services. Design thinking allows an organization to differentiate its products and services in an avenue other than pricing.
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