For example, which do you think is environmentally more damaging: wool or polyester? Intuition might point you to rank wool as the more sustainable product, because it is natural. But, the processing of wool uses chemical washes, and wool as a material in apparel requires much more washing and energy use after purchase. Thus, although polyester uses more energy during manufacture, its lifetime energy usage is lower. Even better, polyester can be recycled. Nike used this information to design uniforms made from recycled polyester for the 2012 European Cup soccer championships, thus earning them high marks on sustainability.

A tool that’s helping the apparel industry with this problem is called the Higg Index, which lets manufacturers and brands score the environmental impacts of their garments across the apparel life cycle (materials, manufacturing, packaging, transportation, use, and end-of-life).

Getting industry-wide agreement on the metrics has been key. “As our CEO says, ‘sustainability is a team sport,’” Myette told me. “We’ve been working collaboratively with partners and competitors alike, pre-competitive, to develop the language and metrics of sustainability.”

Internally, to help its product designers make the right choices, REI implemented Dassault Systèmes’ ENOVIA, a product lifecycle management system that gives its designers a dashboard view of how materials rank across the lifecycle for sustainability.

Myette is encouraging REI’s suppliers to use the system, as well using a dyeing process that requires no water and using patterns that minimize scrap waste. “5% of our landfills are just textiles, apparel,” Myette says. Avoiding scrap material and encouraging recycling of apparel is vital for reducing this waste. Few consumers know that it takes 10 times more energy to produce textiles than to produce glass. Greater awareness could spur consumers to demand retailers offer recycling of their synthetic fabrics.

Note: this post originally appeared in the Huffington Post: Mitigating Environmental Impact of Apparel: REI

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-meyer/mitigating-environmental-impact-apparel_b_2253103.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

First, the 3DSCATIA booth was running a live demo on yacht design with Natural Sketch at its booth in the Expo area.
 As well as a demo of Live Rendering:

Nearby, Immersion ran a demo on using a live surface for brainstorming:

The presentation sessions were packed with around 1000 attendees, according to Deelip Menezes, who posted his photo:

One of the presenters was James Shyr,  Senior Vice President, HAITEC Design Center, who is responsible for the total vehicle design under the “LUXGEN” brand in Yulon Group.  As Shyr said about design: “It all starts with a line.”  And, as Menes showed, it can end with a rendering like this:

In all, attendees enjoyed the presentations and expo alike, as these photos and comments attest:

To see an archive of Tweets from the conference, click here:

Tweets from Day 1 3dxForum Europe

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*This item was originally posted by Andrea Meyer on: http://collaborativeinnovation.org/recap-of-3dxforum-in-europe/

A key part of tackling this task is to develop metrics around sustainability so that it can be better managed.  To do this, “We are working hard to create a system of systems — an ecosystem of sustainability — into PLM,” Myette said. Watch the video to learn how REI is approaching sustainability and the role that ENOVIA is playing.

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*This item was originally posted by Andrea Meyer on: http://collaborativeinnovation.org/sustainability-and-reis-kevin-myette-video-interview-from-3dxforum/

Al Bunshaft, Managing Director, North America, will kick off the event, which will be keynoted by Joe Pine, author of  the bestselling The Experience Economy and the new Infinite Possibility: Creating Customer Value on the Digital Frontier.

Next, Bernard Charlès, Dassault Systèmes’ President CEO, will discuss the 3DEXPERIENCE vision, and Monica Menghini, EVP, Industry and Marketing, Dassault Systèmes, will showcase the 3DEXPERIENCE platform in action.

I’m excited about seeing the  platform in action and hearing customers describe how they’re using the system. For example, I’m looking forward to Bell Helicopter’s Glenn E. Isbell Jr., director of Systems Engineering and Engineering Operations, describe how Bell Helicopter innovated its business processes and consumer experience using the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.

In addition, F. Paul Lomangino, PhD, director of Engineering Operations, Tesla Motors, will talk about putting 3DEXPERIENCE into action to design, create, produce and collaborate.  I’ll also be attending sessions by Johnson Johnson and GE Energy to hear their stories of new product innovation.

Here’s the agenda:  http://www.3ds.com/company/events/3dexperience-forum-north-america/agenda/ 

Which sessions are you looking forward to?

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As HRHS CEO Nancy Schlichting puts it, “It’s all about collaboration. The gold in life is in the intersections — we live differently, solve different and bring different thoughts” by interacting with others.  For example, HFHS brings in students from the College of Creative Studies who see the operating room with new eyes. The students are designing new hospital gowns, waiting rooms, and even suggesting changes to operating rooms. They see how long doctors have to stand or how awkwardly they have to bend over, so they’re designing new surgical outfits and shoes to help doctors reengerize, or new chairs in the operating theater so that they don’t have to be on their feet all day.

“We bring in people that have a different set of eyes, that see things in different ways,” Schlichting says.

HFHS is also in a unique situation of being both the operator of a health plan and a healthcare delivery system through its hospital. That brings a creative tension from the health plan side (insurance’s bias is to deny coverage and say “no”) and the hospital service side (whose bias is to provide the healthcare and say “yes.”) The board wondered about selling the insurance side, but Schlichting values the creative tension of both. “Our doctors are different because we have this tension,” she says. The notion of “collaboration between competitors” strengthens both.

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*This item was originally posted by Andrea Meyer on: http://collaborativeinnovation.org/ford-health-system-collaboration-at-the-intersections/

Zappos’ CEO Tony Hsieh is now taking that concept to a new level. Consider it sharing on steroids. After reading the Triumph of the City, Hsieh learned that when a city doubles in size, productivity increases 15 percent. But when companies get bigger, productivity decreases.

So, Hsieh is on a mission to create a hybrid city-company, hoping to create a community that can reap the benefits of intentional productivity through density. The reasoning is simple: when people live closely with one another, the opportunities to interact serendipitously increase, which in turn increases the sharing of knowledge, ideas, and improves productivity.  The magic number, according to the earlier research on ciites, is a density of 100 residents per acre. So Hsieh has decided to relocate Zappos from the outskirts of Las Vegas to downtown, in a quest for density. Instead of Zappos’ 2000 employees being spread across a multi-building campus, they’ll all be housed in one building, the old CIty Hall in Las Vegas.

Hsieh is investing $350 million of his own money to fund this experiment, which isn’t about real estate as much as it is to create a livable community where people want to visit, linger and interact. Around City Hall, Zappos is investing $50 million in small business like cafes and restaurants where people can cluster. In addition, he’s investing another $50 million in tech startups and another $50 million in arts, education and culture. For example, he’s partnering with the founders of the Burning Man festival to create the first “urban burn” event that will attract artists and participants nationwide.

In addition, every week in downtown Vegas features an event designed to attract audiences and interaction. The first Friday of every month features an arts and music festival. The second week is Technology Week, the third week is Fashion Week, and the fourth week is a TED-like conference. These events attract out-of-town particpants like an East Coast fashion company that will sponsor Fashion Week every month. The company’s CEO can’t move to Vegas, but he’ll participate in Fashion Week monthly, meaning that he’ll be there 12 hours a day for 12 weeks, which is 1000 “collideable” hours.

The 15 percent documented productivity gain is something that simply emerges out of different groups colliding in a dense space. “That 15% increase is accidental,” Hsieh says. “Imagine the magic that will happen when we encourage it.”  Purposeful vistors like fashion CEO and a flurry of startups bring energy, entrepreneurship and passion. “It’s the same concept as building a company culture,” Hsieh says, “but on a larger scale.”

Bringing together passionate people with shared interests sparks collaboration and innovation. “A culture of openness, sharing, collaboration and optimism,” as Hsieh puts it.

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*This item was originally posted by Andrea Meyer on: http://collaborativeinnovation.org/zappos-collaborative-culture-on-a-city-scale/

Taylor, the founding editor of Fast Company magazine, has been writing about innovation for two decades, but he sees that one of the most overlooked areas for innovation is, at it’s heart, one of the simplest: kindness.  Yet, business examples are not easy to come by. “Why is it so hard just to be kind?” Taylor asks.

Companies spend a lot of time wondering how to make their employees more clever, “but how do we also make our people more kind?” Taylor wonders.

Kindness instills passion. Taylor cited the example of a Buick dealer who, having learned that Taylor’s father had not returned the loaner car on time because of an emergency operation, sent the father a bouquet of flowers rather than a bill.  “Guess where dad bought bought his car,” Taylor said, “and what story he’s been telling the past six months.”

When executives at Buick learned of the dealer’s actions, they gave him a certificate of excellence. That support from the top encourages a culture of kindness.

How can you begin instilling a culture of kindness at work? One way to start is to focus on collaborating internally, “helping others because you can,” as Paul Simbeck-Hampson, a learning and technology innovator based in Bavaria, Germany put it.

Taylor went on to discuss the example of Umpqua Bank, a bank that’s grown from a market value of $18 million to $1.5 billion (despite the fallout following the financial meltdown) due to its focus on customers and community. Umpqua’s Innovation Lab in Portland, Oregon showcases emerging and existing technologies that foster community.  Its manifesto calls for “treating every customer as if you’ve known them your entire life” and “constantly surprising the world with what a bank can be and how a bank can actually be a part of a customer’s life.”

As Taylor summarizes, “The company of the future will be intensely human,” because what people crave today is the human touch. “Organizations infused with a genuine sense of humanity” will be the ones that thrive.

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*This item was originally posted by Andrea Meyer on: http://collaborativeinnovation.org/collaborative-culture-of-kindness-bif8/

Renee got the discussion going with: “To me, BIF8 was all about transformation. How to transform a yourself, a group, a company, society.”  Here are some of the insights and highlights shared:

• @davegray: I saw people put themselves out there, getting personal, being vulnerable passionate about change they want to see in the world.
• @InnovationFixer: However we define it, collaborative innovation is the future. Very little can now be done alone.
• @pamroes: Stories provide a model/roadmap for innovation -GROWTH. They help with timing implementation, anticipated disruptions, prep for failure.
• @thehealthmaven: Storytelling is just excellent for building the commonality bridge.
• @KatherineBIF: Inspiration! It’s amazing how hearing stories can spark something inside of you. It’s magical.
• @Bo: Collaboration and community (building) are linked. People commit to things they help build.
• @olliegardener: maybe collaboration is about being “in this together” – whether “this” is a goal, process, strategy, space, time…
• @Renee_Hopkins: The talk by Oberlin’s David Stull about musical collaboration teaching kids so much more than just music. His point was that making music in group creates sense of being “part of larger whole” which fires up collaboration.
• @MrsRoadshow: Good chills thinking about possibility. Music as bridge, bond. Activates much like visuals and stories.
• @mattbrat1: Music, visuals both create emotion–necessary for igniting a purpose.
• @QuantFun: Collaboration goals: part of collaboration is co-creation of goals which may change/transform over the process.
• @ScottPropp: ideas applied+accepted=transformation.
• @pamroes: Shared passion, without personal agenda/ego.
• @deanmeistr: Describing their breakaway actions from the norm (disruption) were most engaging parts of the storytellers’ stories for me.

Separately, futurist Paul Higgins @futuristpaul mentioned ex-British Diplomat Carne Ross, founder of  (www.independentdiplomat.org) for his description of how, in a world of networks and globalised connections, an alternate approach to politics and diplomacy was both required and possible.  Also, pop artist visual storyteller Jessica Esch shared her brilliant summation in pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeschnotes/sets/72157631581051973/with/8017313346/

You can read the full transcript of the InnoChat here: http://innochat.com/innochats/date/2012-09-27/recap-collaborative-innovation-summit-bif8

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*This item was originally posted by Andrea Meyer on: http://collaborativeinnovation.org/collaborative-innovation-summit-bif8-highlights/

Unlike ZipCar, in which the company purchased all the cars, BuzzCar utilizes the cars already owned by families and individuals in the community. This type of organization structure lets a company scale much more quickly. The company doesn’t need to own all the assets. In BuzzCar’s case, neighbors share cars with each other, utilizing these existing assets.

BuzzCar provides the platform for neighbors to connect, and it provides some of the overarching infrastructure like car insurance that’s affordable and protects individuals. Beyond that, however, neighbors themselves are the producers and consumers. This is the same model that let YouTube grow so quickly. YouTube provided an easy-to-use platform where individuals could upload their videos and watch the videos of others. YouTube didn’t provide the video cameras or anything other than the platform for connection.

This ability to scale so quickly is the most exciting aspect of this participatory organizational structure. It’s precisely what we need to solve some of the big challenges facing the world – challenges of the environment, health, jobs, and so forth. This Peers, Inc. collaborative organizational style provides the speed to help us deal with these urgent problems. As Chase summarized, “If you can get the platform right, solutions can happen very quickly.”

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*This item was originally posted by Andrea Meyer on: http://collaborativeinnovation.org/buzzcar-a-new-collaborative-organizational-structure-bif8/

One of the tenets of improvisation is the “Yes and” rule. That is, when someone makes a suggestion, your role is to agree and add to it — not to argue “yes but…” which deflates the whole idea. The goal of “Yes and” is to build on each others’ input. Tom Yorton, president of Second City Communications (a division of the Second City comedy theater company that gave birth to comedians like Tina Fey, Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert) explains: “Whatever you say, I affirm and build on that. You can create interesting scenes and characters that way. You can also create an entire business model.”

Second City now helps companies be more innovative in their thinking, using those improv skills. As Yorton sees it, many business people spend so much of their day thinking critically that they’re much more comfortable with “yes but” rather than “yes and.”

Yorton will be speaking at the Business Innovation Factory’s Collaborative Innovation Summit, September 19-20, 2012 in Providence, RI.

Other resources on the topic of innovation and improvisation include:

• “Collaborative innovation involves the genius of the “and” versus the tyranny of the “or.” …In good brainstorming, one feeds off the other and the end result is significantly more powerful than either approach alone.” – Harvard Business Review 
• Keith Sawyer’s  Group Genius Chapter 8: Organizing for Improvisation
• Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s “Adopt a Cow: Strategy as Improvisational Theater” HBR blogpost

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*This item was originally posted by Andrea Meyer on: http://collaborativeinnovation.org/innovation-and-improvisation/