Technology designers shout the famous Einstein quote with the same frequency and urgency that a puppy relieves itself on your favorite rug: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." But how frequently do they actually achieve this noble ambition? Almost never.

Have you wondered why we linger in an Apple store, playing with shiny screens, but never set foot in a Sony Style store (which, incidentally, has its devices locked behind glass doors)? Why are one company’s stores a multi-billion dollar business while the other doesn’t even show up in their annual report?

With the introduction of Timeline a few weeks ago, Facebook emphasized the importance of life stories in human interaction. This interface taps into the way that people innately understand their own lives with a narrative structure that allows users to express a whole identity, rather than a fragmented view of events and photos.

The central question about Apple these days is what it will become without Steve Jobs’s passionate conviction and daily direction in the design of the company’s products and services. Tuesday night, at an invitation-only party in Palo Alto, I got a peek at the answer. The Silicon Valley startup Nest launched its product--nay, company--at the new and trendy Reposado restaurant. Never has there been so much fanfare about the introduction of a thermostat.

If you tell your kid it’s important to wash her hands before meals but you don’t wash your own, you’re really saying it’s not important. Say “Always tell the truth” and then tell one lie, and you’re saying “Sometimes tell a lie.” Say drugs are bad, then smoke a little weed out on the fire escape and, well, guess what? It’s what you do, not what you say. And that’s as true for companies as it is for parents.

Last month, I attended "back-to-school night" at my four-year-old’s preschool, where the teacher spelled out my daughter’s curriculum for the school year. Not only did she inform me that my kid would be learning eight languages plus calculus by the time Christmas rolls around; she also told me that I should not pack her lunch box with cookies, chips, or sugary juice boxes, as that would be a major Montessori faux pas. (Personally, I’m surprised they don’t have an organic chef on staff, given how much I’m dishing out in tuition.)

As the Girl Scouts approach their 100-year anniversary in March, they are introducing a whole new lineup of badges. Way back in 1913, the organization had badges like Flyer and Electrician to represent those trailblazing professions. Today, girls live in vastly different times and have wider opportunities in business leadership. With that in mind, Jump worked with the Girl Scouts to develop a badge program to expose girls to cutting-edge fields such as web design and social innovation.

The turnaround was engineered by the production's legendary choreographer Twyla Tharp, who faced down her initial failure with remarkable insight. Read More »

Hardly anything unites Americans anymore--except for the death of Steve Jobs. His passing and the deep mourning for him across political, generational, and cultural divides remind us that we all can agree on one thing--that it is Jobs’s kind of capitalism, entrepreneurial capitalism, that we love, because it generates the incredible fun that comes with creating the new. His death reminds us that the big, disruptive innovations almost always come from entrepreneurs who embody their following and enable the dreams and talents that they have inside and haven’t yet expressed. Read More »

When you think of the unusual juxtaposition of “client” and “hero,” you might be forgiven for automatically conjuring up an image of Steve Jobs in his trademark jeans, running shoes, and black, long-sleeved mock turtleneck. After all, he almost single-handedly pulled his brand baby from the fires of mediocrity and propelled it back into the stratosphere (and beyond), utilizing his secret weapons of product innovation and design--both industrial and graphic. Read More »