Improving Creativity

Everyone possess immense creativity.

Unfortunately, our minds have ways to distract us from using our imagination for innovation.

A notebook is the best way you can improve your creative skills.

Sketches, to-do lists, ideas. 

A notebook organizes your thoughts, helps improve your writing, and increases your capacity for deeper thinking. 

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Writing/sketching ideas in a notebook helps bring the imaginary closer to reality. 

The longer an idea sits in the mind, the longer you get to criticize and dissect "why it won't work".  You see an idea you had years ago make someone else rich. 

Putting ideas on paper, removes internal criticism and makes your ideas real. 

Don't like that line?  Draw over it. Draw around it. Erase it. 

You can iterate an idea in your mind, but putting all your work on paper documents the progression.

Even with 3D modeling prevalent in the footwear industry, many designers ideas start out as a sketch. 

Sketching connects your mind with the object you are drawing.  Writing down ideas moves them from the inside to outside, so you can have more inside space for more ideas.

You are creating change you can see.

Improving the concept with each iteration.

Growing your thoughts and ideas into something real. 

When I visited Nike's campus back in July 2016, everyone had a Moleskine.

Next time anything crosses your mind, write it down.

Sources

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/writing-and-remembering-why-we-remember-what-we-write.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ellevate/2014/04/08/why-you-should-be-writing-down-your-goals/#4ba430652f14

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/Putting-Feelings-Into-Words-Produces-8047

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2012/jun/19/joy-moleskine-notebooks

Smart Shoes

Why can't the toe box on my shoes tell me how fast and how long I've been running?

 

What if you wanted to know the optimal spot on your foot to take a free kick from?

Today, Apple was granted a patent for conductive carbon nanotubes to be used in a fold-able Iphone.

These tubes form flexible strands that hold signals (electricity) and are flexible and resistant to cracking.

Apple has found a way to bend displays and stretch signals over a small folded area.

 

With the release of the Nike HyperAdapt and Air Mag, there is a push to have shoes be more adaptive and responsive to the athlete.

After the fold-able phone, the smart shoe will be next. 

For smart shoes to succeed, the wiring and connections needed to power the shoe have to integrate seamlessly into the shoe.

 

The guts.

The guts.

Embedding conductive carbon fibers into a flyknit upper would create a feedback loop for the athlete.  Using touch sensors embedded in the sole and upper, an athlete could see stride, speed and impact information displayed on a phone, or directly on the toebox.

A soccer player, who now has a target displayed directly on his boot, to guide him to his strongest spot for a free kick.

The basketball player, who can see how high they jumped for the last rebound.

Nike Ease Challenge

On Oct 28th, Nike announced the Nike Ease Challenge, which invites designers, engineers, makers and innovators to advance and reinvent footwear design for athletes of all abilities. The $50,000 challenge continues Nike’s leadership in driving footwear innovations that help all athletes to live more active and independent lives.

I've worn some of the alternative entry system shoes Nike has put out in the past. 

Love the Air Rift.

I dug into the patent vault to learn more.  For the Nike FlyEase, a lacing system is connected to a strap of velcro along with the use of a zipper.  I didn't realize there was a lacing system connected through the strap to make the shoe tighter.  Here are some of the shoe sketches below.

For my design I'm thinking about:

Magnets to open and close foot entry

how can an athlete tighten a shoe with limited mobility?

how can an athlete take off a tightened shoe with limited mobility?

two separate uppers that weave through each other

how can you open an upper for a larger foot, then create an adaptive level of ankle support?

how can you mechanize the closure of a shoe differently than the AIRMAG (motor in sole)?

How can you use rubber and stretch materials to provide support?

an adaptive lacing system in between the liner and the upper

stretch weave materials

A removable heel counter

early concepts from the Nike FlyEase Video

early concepts from the Nike FlyEase Video

Here's some of the videos I watched while coming up with ideas/inspirations.

Building Blocks pt. 1

Here's a list of some great books that have changed the way I think and operate:

The Alchemist - The first book I recommend to everyone.  It's the story of life.

The Four Agreements - Don't take anything personally.  This book helped me stop that.

The Shortness of Life - The truest words about how we waste time.

Who Moved My Cheese - Change is inevitable.

How to Win Friends and Influence People - I thought I knew how to win friends, after the 6th person recommended this one, I figured out I was wrong.

Zen Mind Beginner's Mind - How to remove the assumptions and see everything new for the first time.

It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be - It's all about how you handle what situations life gives you.

2 Second Lean - The easiest approach to learning about continuous improvement and fixing what bugs you.  Lean is invention and innovation.

The Goal - After working in factories for a while, the lessons in this book made so much sense.

 

The air out there

M Frank Rudy, an aerospace engineer, patented the Nike Air cushioning system in 1979. 

This was 8 years before David Forland and Tinker Hatfield made Nike Air infamous by making the air visible in the Air Max 1 in 1987.

After seeing the blow mold process used for NASA space helmets, Frank used these insights to create the air bag for footwear applications.

“Frank Rudy found that the work he was doing for NASA could also be of practical use on the ground. He was able to encapsulate dense gases into rubber membranes creating a gas or “AIR” bag. The rubber molding processes he and his NASA colleagues were working with allowed for the creation of a hollowed out midsole to fit the air bag. The technology would exponentially decrease the impact a single step has on the body.”
— http://sneakerhistory.com
““He wasn’t one to shy away from the ultimate challenge. The bigger the problem the more complex the problem, the deeper he dug in.” ”

Frank took his ideas to footwear companies back in the 70's, no one was interested.   There was a culture of risk aversion to changing existing manufacturing processes.

Until Nike took a risk on an aerospace engineer with a crazy idea on changing the existing manufacturing process.

““Frank Rudy holds a singular place in the pantheon of Nike innovation. His relentless creativity and focus on solving problems was, in many ways, the template for how Nike pursues performance to this very day.””
— Mark Parker

An aerospace engineer with relentless creativity and a focus on solving problems.

Frank passed away in 2009, but the effects of his innovations are still changing the footwear manufacturing process today with shoes like the Nike Vapormax

Thank You Frank

KICKS IN MY KITCHEN

The kitchen is where a chef (like David Chang) turns the everyday into something completely new.

Romaine and walnut bagna cauda

Romaine and walnut bagna cauda

The kitchen is also where Bill Bowerman using his wife's waffle iron created an outsole with a gridded pattern and grip traction, completely new at that time.

Bill Bowerman at a Eugene lab circa 1980.

Bill Bowerman at a Eugene lab circa 1980.

FOOD and FOOTWEAR

Creativity in the kitchen can lead you to creating a new dish, or a new breakthrough in footwear.