Innovation
The President’s ACAD Smart Night
The President's ACAD Smart Night, April 4 2009
I had the honor to attend the 2009 ACAD President’s Smart Night this past Saturday night. It was an inspiring event featuring the managing director of IDEO and an expert of Innovation, David Kelley. It was a black-tie event and featured a fantastic meal. Shortly after dinner, David took to the stage and shared some insights he has learned about innovation while managing IDEO with his brother (and company founder). I learned a lot from David’s talk and can’t wait to read his book, The Ten Faces of Innovation.
I couldn’t help but think about the many things he said and how it applies to green building and eco-friendly topics – something that I am very interested in.
The President’s ACAD Smart Night was launched in 2007 as a vehicle to challenge ideas and stimulate dialogue; the inaugural event featured keynote speaker Dan Pink, and author Malcolm Gladwell was our keynote speaker in 2008.
Wrongness
Steven Keith - Executive Vice President, Strategy Director - Capstrat
Earlier in the week, I put out a request to Twitter asking, “what does innovation mean to you?” Of the many responses I received, one of the best came from Steven Keith Executive Vice President at Capstrat. It really struck me as being very important to innovation. It’s not enough to do something ‘different’ to be innovative – you must do something different that makes all other options seem trivial. In my day-to-day work as a web developer for marketing, I am tasked to find new, optimal or efficient ways of working for clients. This can be a difficult task but it also opens my eyes to those who, given the same task, can reach the breakthrough moments that create innovation and move beyond existing options and alternatives.
An intolerance of Failure
The #1 top tactic for innovation, according to expert innovators, is to ‘experiment fearlessly’. Nothing works first time, so you may as well get it wrong as soon as you can. If you cannot accept failure you are unlikely to see too much innovation, no matter how much money you throw at it.
From: The Top Five Innovation Killers, by Stuart Cross
This was also a major point of David’s speech on Saturday night. If you are afraid to fail or work in an environment that punishes failure then you and your team will never be innovative. As I mentioned above, to be innovative is to break new ground and build on existing methods. But, as David pointed out, Thomas Edison may be recognized as one of the most innovative and inventive men of all times – but he failed thousands of times to come up with his most important inventions.
Green Innovation
Did you know that atop every building lies the opportunity to bring nature back to the concrete jungle? If Steven Peck continues to spread the word, green roofs will become the norm. Peck is the founder and president of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, a rapidly growing not-for-profit industry association based in Toronto, which promotes the green roof industry throughout North America. Green roofs beautify urban landscapes, provide refuges for insects and wild birds, and reduce storm water runoff, energy consumption, and air and noise pollution.
From: i2eye with Green Roof Guru Stephen Peck, by Margaret Chandler
Our own house project contains a green roof. While it may not be truly innovative (we are not the first ones in Calgary to have a green roof by any means) we have been very happy about taking such a risk. A number of people didn’t think that it would be a good idea to build a green roof on top of our garage. We simply felt we didn’t have any choice. We built on a hill with a steep backyard. Our garage is unattached and behind the house. Without building a green grass roofed garage, we would have had no backyard at all. Now, we have a large grassed area that is fenced in and provides an excellent play area and relaxation spot. We owe this backyard to the people who took the chance to build a green roof and learn from it – and these lessons made their way to our roof contractors who had some experience and read online on how to build and finish our green roof.
Related posts:
- Green Roof Construction Blog
- Chicago’s newest Jewel is first one that’s ‘green’
- Modern Prefab Homes
- Homes For Sale – Green and Eco-Friendly
- Green Podcast! – Green Design and Eco-Friendly Innovation
- Modern Concrete Homes
- Modern Calgary Home Builders
- Home Builders in Calgary
- The top Home Builders
- Where to find Log Homes?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Innovation is definitely something which breaks through the ground of conventionality like steel structures did in the 20th century.
It was in my opinion one of the first innovations with regard to green construction. Nice blog..
Thanks
Kirk J. Steel
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Ruth
Excellent point from Steven Keith.
From the point of view of the services, which are responsible for a technical condition of a roof, vegetation on a roof is a conclusive sign of necessity of repair. However the lack of the areas for gardening in megacities forces to reconsider traditional sights at a roof as on a waterproofing course protecting a building from an atmospheric precipitation. Now it is possible to combine a reliable waterproofing with an ecological and aesthetic “green” roof in the conditions of a city, which is amazing and practical.