For months, I’ve buried myself in books, articles and miles of sketches, to create the content for this fall. I am very excited to see what you think. Here is a peek of the presentations and conversations that are on tap:

Stack Unconference, Omaha – I will have a few fun, collaborative ideas to toss on the wall. In true unconference form, attendees choose and direct topic content ‘on the fly’.

HDC, Omaha – I will be giving a 3 hour workshop on capturing innovation and developing great ideas. There are only 25 seats available, so if you’ll be around, grab your spot now.

On Thursday, I am giving a session on becoming a user experience designer in 45 minutes. Here we’ll focus on the key practices of experience design that will win you fans of your product or application.

AIGA Minnesota Design Camp – One of my favorite conferences of last year! I will be giving a workshop (scroll down to workshop #8) on bettering your design chops with creative play; not to be missed.

For SXSW 2011, I submitted a discussion entitled; Innovation Hunting in the Age of Prosthetic Apathy.
Check it out, leave me a comment and vote if you like it!

In the past months I have been talking a lot about idea capture, seizing innovation, creativity and play. It’s often difficult to sit down with just a blank piece of paper and a pen; waiting for the inspiration to appear. If you are planning an idea-generating session with your team, give these idea sheets a try.

Here are steps I use to explore a purposeful search for opportunities and innovative ideas:

- Identify the needs or features you would like to explore
- Have each participant run some timed sprints, individually
- Then take time to share the results (Even the ones you don’t think are solid)
- And if your really brave, have clients or consumers go through the same exercise (empathic innovation, anyone?)

Download the idea sketch sheet – PDF