Design  

Mike Friton is a freelance shoemaker, weaver, paper sculptor and innovator with over 30 years of experience at Nike. In a short video, Friton, tells his story of how he came to be known as "The Innovator."

Mike Friton is a freelance shoemaker, weaver, paper sculptor and innovator with over 30 years of experience at Nike.

In this video from Cineastas, former track and field athlete at the University of Oregon and designer, Friton, tells his story of how he came to be known as "The Innovator."

In high school, Friton decided to join the school's track and field team, which would lead him to the University of Oregon where he specialized in the Steeplechase. The event required an athlete to jump over five hurdles and then move on to a water jump.

Designing and putting together his first shoe, Friton took into account the amount of weight the shoe had stepping out of the water. He then figured out how to include holes in the structure in a way that wouldn't damage the shoe’s integrity.

Friton is the type of designer that goes above and beyond by thinking of mind-boggling ways to expand the variation of athletic footwear.

 Creative Intelligence  

Having only recently declared the death of design thinking, author and educator Bruce Nussbaum is soon to release a new book entitled, Creative Intelligence.  The book focuses on developing 'CQ' and applying it to real-world problems.

Author Bruce Nussbaum blogs, tweets, and writes on innovation, design thinking, and creativity. The former assistant managing editor for Business Week, he is Professor of Innovation and Design at Parsons The New School of Design.

Nussbaum is also the founder of the Innovation & Design online channel; founder of IN: Inside Innovation, a quarterly innovation supplement; and author of the forthcoming book, Creative Intelligence: Harnessing the Power to Create, Connect, and Inspire, which will be available next month.

A year-and-a-half ago, Nussbaum famously declared that design thinking was dead.  Now with  Creative Intelligence, he explores a new form of cultural literacy and a method for driving innovation and sparking start-up capitalism.

According to Nussbaum, the world is quickly changing in ways we find hard to comprehend. Conventional methods of dealing with problems have become outmoded. To be successful, one can't just be good; one must also be a creator, a maker, and a doer.