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Learn Innovation Techniques by thinking “Inside the Box”

April 6, 2015 by Eric Gauvin Leave a Comment

What are the possible benefits of a bottle with two lids?

At first, a bottle with two lids sounds a little strange, but this idea is an example of the multiplication technique described by Drew Boyd and Jacob Goldenberg in their excellent book, Inside the Box: A Proven System of Creativity for Breakthrough Results (Amazon). I recently read this book and highly recommend it to anyone who’s trying to be more creative and innovative.

Let’s take a look at a bottle with two lids and see what you think?

images-1Pillid-2

Pillid is an extra lid that goes on a Nalgene water bottle. Its primary use is for storing pills, but it can be used for many other things. (It also has one of my all-time favorite logos, which looks the same forward, backward and upside down.)

Look at all the wonderful ideas for uses of the Pillid.

Pillid-4

Check out their blog for all the cool ideas of things you can do with Pillid.

Become More Creative and Innovative

Drew Boyd and Jacob Goldenberg outline 5 powerful techniques you can apply to any product or service. Even if you never thought of yourself as very creative, after reading this book you’ll have the tools and techniques to approach innovation in a completely new way.

The creative method that works for everyone.

For thousands of years, innovators have used five simple patterns in their inventions, usually without knowing it. These patterns are now embedded into the products and services you see around you today. Think of them as the DNA of a product or service. This book is about a method of creativity that allows you to harness those patterns and apply them to anything that you want to innovate.

–Drew and Jacob

 

Benihana-02Here’s another example. What are the possible benefits of a restaurant without a kitchen?

Perhaps you should ask Hiroaki Aoki, the founder of Benihana Restaurant. Having the chef prepare your meal at your table has 2 main benefits: providing entertainment and reducing the need for servers. It also helped create a distinctive brand identity for the highly successful Benihana chain that many have copied.

Visit the authors’ website: insidetheboxinnovation.com

Buy the book on Amazon: Inside the Box: A Proven System of Creativity for Breakthrough Results

Filed Under: Books, Creativity, Design, Innovation

Planning your Small Businesses Website

March 4, 2015 by Eric Gauvin Leave a Comment

One of the great things about any website is that it’s very flexible and can grow and evolve over time. However, it’s best to start with a good foundation that has the right content structure, visual design and functionality.

Content Structure

Content is the most important part of your site, and can be the most difficult to develop. Don’t be afraid to start writing. It won’t be perfect at first, but don’t worry. You can edit it later. As your content begins to take shape, you can start to organize it into meaningful sections that will become the pages and the navigation of your site. Remember, each section should be relatively short.

Visual Design

The design of your site will include the visual design as well as branding and user experience design. This is how you can make a connection with your customers in the way that meets your business goals.

Functionality

Websites can do many things. For example, most business websites will have a simple contact form or a newsletter signup, but other sites may include more advanced functionality such as e-commerce. In planning your website, you should have an idea of some of the things you need your website to do.

 

Filed Under: Design

Registering a Domain Name and Choosing a Hosting Company for Beginners

March 4, 2015 by Eric Gauvin Leave a Comment

Even before you begin planning and designing your new website, you can start by registering a domain name and choosing a hosting company.

Registering a Domain Name

Registering a domain name is very easy and takes only a few minutes. The most difficult part is finding an available domain name that you like. Remember the basics of picking a domain name:

  • Keep it short and easy to read and type
  • Avoid numbers and hyphens
  • Consider including key words that relate to your business
  • Make sure your domain name is not trademarked
  • Use an appropriate domain extension (.com, .net, .org, etc.)

I’ve used and can recommend Namecheap and Tierra Net.

Choosing a Hosting Company

Choosing a hosting company is also very easy. There are many types of hosting companies available. Most are very affordable. I suggest you search the internet for the latest reviews and ratings of web hosting companies to get an idea of the best and worst. A high quality option for WordPress sites is WP engine.

Note: I am not affiliated in any way with Namecheap, Tierra Net or WP engine.

Filed Under: Design

The Benefits of Using WordPress

March 4, 2015 by Eric Gauvin Leave a Comment

WordPress is the leading choice for content management systems (CMS) worldwide. It has a long track record with prominent organizations who rely on its flexibility, power and ease of use. With its huge ecosystem of themes and plugins, your website will be part of a large and thriving friendly community that includes everyone from professional developers and designers to complete newbies.

Key Benefits

  • Free, open source
  • Highly active community of users
  • Inexpensive to implement and maintain
  • Search Engine Optimized (SEO)
  • Thousands of themes and plugins
  • Vast sources of information and training available on the web

Recommended Books

If you’re interested in learning more about WordPress, I highly recommend these books. Although there is abundant information available all over the web and at wordpress.org, I sometimes prefer to immerse myself with an expertly written book. If you have any other books you like, leave a comment below.

Professional WordPress: Design and Development

Professional WordPress Plugin Development

Filed Under: Design, Development

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