Nokia Homegrown and Remade

Searching online for information on eco-friendly patents, I got sidetracked by blog posts from a design team at Nokia which is publishing research into sustainable mobile communications technology. This is interesting for us at Pli although we make chairs not phones. The links started with a press release about the Homegrown project.

Following up, I started by reading the comments and presentation materials posted by the Near Future Laboratory which led me to Raphael Grignani’s work on Homegrown and also on Remade, another Nokia project.

I started trying to unscramble the personal and business connections between all the people and organisations involved in this work. But I soon realised that isn’t the point; in fact it misses the point that the output’s important and the organisation is incidental. Welcome to the world of collaborative product development.

Welcome to a small world, too. Raphael Grignani namechecks the Wattson home energy meter, designed by DIY Kyoto who were at college with Sprout, who designed the Reee chair for Pli.

Peter Day, my favourite radio presenter, presents a weekly business programme on BBC Radio 4 and the World Service. His recent edition Team Spirit includes some conversation with Mark Squires, Nokia’s director of social communications. Have a listen: his comments shed some light on the business culture that gives life to projects like Homegrown and Remade.

So a post about patents becomes one about phones, or teams, or innovation. In fact, I guess it’s really about links.