Photo: Helpo

Great to see that after 5 years, Helpo still knows what to  do and how to use the identity we created at that time. I’m very proud of what I’m seeing in this picture that was taken a few days ago. More important than that they are achieving the goals they had set also at that time for the children of Mozambique. Congratulations for the great work.
Want to helpo?

Check the article (only in portuguese)

Immensely proud to see my Grandmother Conceição and my Grand Grandmother Sofia leading this article.
Makes me think that all of this is worth it.

Probably one of the most amazing places I’ve been. After two years I still have these images in my mind. I still go back to them everytime I meditate.

About a year ago Zé asked for my help. “I have an idea. I want to present a campaign to the city of Lisbon”. I (almost) never question him when he comes with these “semi” crazy ideas. I try to help whenever I have time. One year after, Zé is probably the 1st blogger in the world to sign a campaign for a city. Congratulations again Zé. All of this because you have the courage to continue doing what you love. Thanks for the opportunity of letting me be the designer of your campaign. The campaign you’ve wrote, photographed and deserved.

Em português: www.oalfaiatelisboeta.com
In english: www.thelisbontailor.com
En Español: www.elsastredelisboa.com

How I took this month to dedicate myself to a new and very important project. The name of this project could be “Giving a hand on the family business”. I invited my friend Tiago Nunes to work 3 days full time on this with me and the motivation to do this couldn’t be greater. My family works in the “fish” industry for more than 100 years and my father is working in this business for more than 30 years now. He run’s the oldest company in the market – 26 years. As everybody knows we live in difficult times and everything changed for the worst in the last years “economically” speaking. Besides that, the POS for the company changed brutally from the center of the city of Lisbon to about 40Km to the outside which means that all the transactions in this chain where inverted. People in the markets and fishing shops stopped going there to buy to the wholesalers and the wholesalers (almost all of them) stated working as distributors bringing the fish directly to these people. All of these changes are having a negative impact in the company and only a change in the processes and way of making business will change everything for the best. What we are trying to do is to develop an innovation process that will lead us to new ideas, new approaches. In the end we want to implement a sense of balance in the company and to make it more profitable and sustainable for the coming years. For me personally it’s a huge challenge to do this having all my family involved but the 1st days showed us that is possible to do great things (trust us).

These are just some insights on what this project is. There’s so much to discover along the way. We wanted to make this project public (with some limitations of course) and so we built a website with daily updates on the process.
We want people to navigate with us and to join us for this adventure. Feel free to share ideas, insights, things you’ll think will help us innovate.

Please follow the link: http://fishingforideas.wordpress.com/the-team/
More about the people involved: http://fishingforideas.wordpress.com/the-team/

This was our presentation at the University of Zaragoza for the Independent Design Week last monday. We talked about the importance of bringing the playfulness of a child to the development of the work we do “today”. We didn’t focus so much on the social/educational aspects and constrains imposed by our society but on the intrinsic physiological constrains produced by our own brains while we grow up. Can we be more innovative by integrating playful actions, playful spaces, group discussions and a nap in the middle of the day? We think so! And we didn’t take a nap in the middle of the talk but we were able to bring people on the stage to play and redefine the stage with us.

We hope we can have a video online soon. For more details check the presentation on Slideshare.

2nd day in Zaragoza!

This video was showed at the Service Design Drinks – Lisbon. It was the result of the service we created in the last Global Service Jam.
The Global Service Jam is an amazing event.
Hundreds of participants worldwide have 48hr to design a service based on a surprise theme that is only revealed when the challenge begins. Join a team of multidisciplinary people you never met before. Get ready to sleep only a few hours. Be prepared to eat really quick (the food was actually really good). Open your mind to different opinions. Learn as much as you can from the “coaches” (in  this case “cooperativa criativa“) and the external mentors. Get in contact with a lot of creative and fun techniques that will help unblock your way until you reach the final prototype. It’s interesting in the end to see the great variety of projects and to recognize that some of them have a real potential to be implemented. Great, great event that I will for sure repeat in the future.

For my first experience I was lucky enough to be in an excellent group with Vanda (the jewel), Ricardo (the IT guy), Gabi (the clusterizer) and Rita (the manager).
We created the “digories” service. A service where anyone can store digitally and physically their most important objects. Specially those meaningful objects that are passing from generation through generation. For those who want to know more about the project please watch the video and check the description on vimeo!
For more information or if you want to participate in the next GlobalServiceJam Lisbon jut follow the link!

Photo: Carlos Soria

It’s good to announce that I will be speaking at the INDEPENDENT DESIGN WEEK in Zaragoza (IDW Zgz) together with Inês next March 12th. We will talk on “How can future innovations can be so influenced by our own past and the importance of a society that values connectivity over isolation and creativity over guessed formulation”.
Thanks Gabriel for your invitation. Looking forward to meet your city.