A while back, we wrote a short post about the Engaging Ideas Card Pack and mentioned, “We haven’t gotten our hands on the full set, but it looks like a neat package for a broad range of ideas.”  Well, now (thanks to Rob Fox) we’ve gotten our grubs on the entire pack and sifted through the stack of colorful cards.

The first impression is that they look like a deck of large novelty sized playing cards printed on thick stock cardboard.  The front side of each card is an image meant to invoke the message or activity presented on the back.  For the most part, the full card formatted images are stellar, ranging from iconic art and expressive photography down to some painfully low resolution and pixelated images.  However, given the goals of the cards to engage employees through practical exercises, this is a rather minor point.

The 52-card deck (not including two jokers) is meant to stimulate positive discussion through identification of business goals and ideals.  The cards are divided into three general categories: Discover, Design and Deliver.  In this hierarchy of inspiration the cards build on each other by slowly introducing more complex activities, interspersed with straightforward tips.

The themes that appeared the most were honing the effectiveness of leadership, identifying core values and honing the business environment to suit the challenges ahead.  Here are two sample cards that we think embody the entire project:

21.  Distributed Leadership

We tend to think that leadership is something that happens at the top.  True, but what is perhaps more true is that acts of leadership happen across and throughout business, day in, day out.  Identify these acts of leadership, encourage them and communicate them widely.  Doing so helps to demonstrate that all people can offer leadership and will also help acts of leadership to flourish.  This exercise also begs an answer to a fundamentally important question necessary to achieve higher levels of engagement: what does your business recognize as leadership?

48.  Heartstorming
A success factor for any engagement effort is to discover, design and deliver better ways to connect emotionally with people to inspire their commitment and action.  To help accomplish this make “heartstorming” rather than just brainstorming, a core aspect of your business’ problem solving and change practices.  Demonstrating difference, “heartstorming” will help to uncover and build stronger emotional connections by focusing groups on questions like:

• I love it when…
• I get a kick out of it when…
• My heart beats faster when…
• I’m energized when…
• It frustrates me when…
• I feel undermined when…
• I’m intimidated when…
• I feel powerless when…

The Engaging Ideas pack is clearly based on solid business research and extensive experience in the corporate environment.  Stagnation of ideas is the clear hurdle targeted by the collection and we applaud the stepping-stones proved for those slow to innovate.  Overall, the package is a collection of ideas that won’t be revolutionary to those knowledgeable, but gives a beautifully formatted package of ideas to those hoping to give the friendly push to coworkers or employees.  Engaging ideas is a careful and successful balance between professional business pursuits and playful corporate connections.

Thanks again to Rob for taking the time and money to ship a sample pack across the pond.

Team PSFK are pleased to announce our second book! At this time of year we’re supposed to produce a trends report for 2009. When we all sat down and chatted about it, we thought such a report would be so gloomy and rather depressing. We didn’t want to write about things like ‘trading down’ or ‘discreet consumption’! We wanted to talk about all the inspirational ideas we read and write about every day, we wanted to spread the positivity, we wanted to encourage you to re-ignite the world. Honestly.

So we created Good Ideas In 2009. The 80 page click-to-print book features nine Good Ideas and manifestations of them. We write about design, mobile, collaboration, digital, social media, the long term and much more. Click through to the Blurb site and you can get a sneak peek.

The books are $50 for the softback and $60 for the beautiful hardback. If you’re considering buying reports for your company or just books for your coffee table, we ask you to consider Good Ideas In 2009. We’re rather proud of it. We hope it inspires you yo make things better.

Good Ideas In 2009

This is the latest work by Robert Burden, an artist most known for his beautiful (and huge) paintings of toys. Previous themes include Mattel’s BattleCat and a Foot Soldier from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This particular work is called “Defensor Mundi” (Defender of the Earth in Latin) and depicts a triumphant Voltron, standing 11 by 7 feet tall. Burden spent a year working on it and we’re truly impressive to see an artist that can pursue a vision with such dedication. The entire process of this oil-on-canvas piece was captured with this time lapse video:

[via Make]

After a superb session today on Mobile (video coming tomorrow). PSFK’s Good Idea Salons continue on Thursday in New York City.

Speaking on the subject of Good Ideas in 2009 IN Design, panelists include Craig Dubitsky (The Kind Group), Jill Fehrenbacher (Inhabitat), John Fiorelli (Cut and Paste), Peter Semmelhack (Bug Labs) and Dave Pinter (PSFK).

http://goodideasindesign.eventbrite.com/

Tickets are just $40. If you’re in the city, we hope you can make it. If you’re further afield, please pass on the link to a local friend.

Thanks,

Piers & The Team

PSFK stopped by Times Square earlier today to check out Uniqlo’s Human Vending Machine for their HEATTECH apparel line. The booth was set up on a narrow concrete island. There were tons of people already in line to get to the free stuff. Prior to reaching the booth, there was a ’scanning station’ manned with a Uniqlo associate with a hand held thermal camera. Each person’s heat image showed up on an adjacent screen and identified their core body temperature.

After that, visitors proceeded to either a male or female dispenser who were giving away the HEATTECH gear. The reasonably priced line claims to offer warmth from a very thin material. Shirts cost just over $10.

Here’s a few more photos from our visit:

We like Hello Health, Dr Jay Parkinson’s subscription-based healthcare system that gives patients access to doctor’s virtually anytime, anywhere - via IM, phone, videochat, or home consultation (for an extra fee). We’re excited to see the company is very much alive and well, as a new set of print ads for the service were recently released:

Herman Miller’s heir apparent to the Aeron Chair, the Embody series, is a design that promises to promote clear-minded thinking by lowering the stress placed upon the body while sitting. With that in mind, they’ve created a microsite called Thought Pile that invites users to participate in an ideas forum by answering weekly questions that are meant to provoke conversation and innovation. The results are displayed visually in a mind map on the screen, the circles displaying individual concepts growing in real time as the audience votes. Interaction can be as simple as clicking agree or disagree based on an opinion to the responses or by writing comments that further the discussion within the community. At the end of the week, the person whose solution or thought has received the most positive reactions will be awarded an Embody Chair.

Fast on the heels of what many are heralding as the most successful presidential campaign ever staged, folks everywhere are hoping to be the first to uncover the valuable lessons that made this historic election possible. Those in the marketing industry choose to look at the Obama campaign from the perspective of “effective sales pitch to the entire nation,” able to cross all demographics with a single message. However, maybe this is view is too narrow and fails to see the broader implications as we move forward.

To that end, Gawker offers five realistic takeaways that paint a bigger picture of our country:

1. Facebook doesn’t mean shit - Social networking is still emerging as a tool. Online activity still doesn’t guarantee real life action.

2. TV is still king - The internet continues to grow, particularly as a communication tool, but TV is ubiquitous and still the best method for reaching the widest audience.

3. The candidates matter - Likable equals electable, no matter who you are.

4. Elections ride the swinging pendulum - In light of the past eight years, America was ready for a change.

5. Campaign tactics are always evaluated in retrospect because the media has no idea what it’s talking about, mostly - Until the public’s reaction can be gaged, it’s all pure speculation.

[via Gawker]

The folks at innocent drinks, makers of tasty smoothies, have revamped their site to include a rating and review section. Hoping to foster a more robust brand culture and connection with their audience, innocent is trying out a consumer-centric website. The new feedback area provides simple ratings along with more detailed reviews. A built-in feature promises to randomly select comments to be highlighted on the homepage and further entices visitors by awarding funky prizes each month. The site layout was designed by Soup with a goal of pushing the playful nature of the company into the digital arena.

[via Ellie @ Soup]