Just in time for the holidays, Scientific American has put together its 2008 Gadget Guide of eleven socially responsible inventions to save the world. IDEO’s Aquaduct, a pedal-powered bicycle designed to transport, filter, and store water in the developing world, made the list.

Read the article here.

Swissnex San Francisco plays host to the Design Preis Schweiz (Swiss Design Award) exhibit on its premiere stop in North America. The Design Preis Schweiz exhibit, open until December 19, 2008, showcases award-winning and nominated projects from this bi-annual event for Switzerland’s design industry. IDEO’s Bill Moggridge will be moderating opening night, November 20, from 6:30 to 10 p.m. at Swissnex San Francisco.

Reporter Alice Rawsthorn explains that designers will increasingly be called on to help recession-struck companies find ways to cut costs without impeding efficiency. Designers will also need to identify the entrepreneurial opportunities presented by the recession. In one example, Rawsthorn points to the “Virtual Wallet,” an online banking service developed for the young, tech-savvy customers of the American bank PNC. For more information about the Virtual Wallet, click here.

Read the article here.

Fortune has a round-up of the next generation of management experts who are changing the way business gets done. Among the group is IDEO’s Valerie Casey, who founded the Designers Accord, a global coalition of designers, educators, researchers, engineers, and corporate leaders, working together to create positive environmental and social impact. More than 100,000 people and organizations, including Johnson & Johnson Consumer Products and Adobe, have signed on.

Read the article here.

Over the past 18 months, IDEO has explored ways to collaborate at scale through a project called Knowledge Sharing. IDEO has run dozens of experiments in offices around the globe, testing such things as multitouch displays and always-on videoconferencing to blogs, wikis, and other social networking tools. At the Vancouver User Experience Group, Gentry will share some of the lessons learned. For more information about the November 18 event, visit Thought Farmer. Or visit the Facebook page.

Stanford University’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Seminar is a weekly speaker series that brings innovation leaders from the fields of business, finance, technology, education, and philanthropy, to share their insights with entrepreneurs from all over the world. Join IDEO’s Tom Kelley for his presentation “Young at Heart: How to Be an Innovator for Life” on November 12.  For more information or to watch the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network presentation videos, click here.

Phred Dvorak reports on how New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center tapped IDEO to help make the chemotherapy process easier on patients. The hospital enlisted designers “to look at problems differently,” said Wendy Perchick, head of strategic planning and innovation, in the article. IDEO’s process “was the first time for us to see [chemotherapy] through patients’ eyes,” she added.

McKinsey’s Lenny Mendonca and Stanford professor Hayagreeva Rao speak with Tim Brown about his perspective on innovation at IDEO and at other organizations. In the article, he focuses on the role of leadership in stimulating creativity, the barriers that sometimes inhibit it, and the incentives that really help to generate new ideas. He also discusses opportunities to innovate in public services and the promise of user-generated online content.

Read the article here.

At the Serious Play conference, IDEO’s Tim Brown talks about the powerful relationship between creative thinking and play. He reminds us to “forget the adult behaviors that get in the way of ideas.” As FingerBlasters litter the stage, let Tim rekindle your playtime spirit and inspire innovation. Watch the talk on TED.

On November 7, IDEO’s Jocelyn Wyatt will speak at “A Better World by Design,” a conference organized by Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. The confab asks what are designers doing to address the critical issues facing today’s world? For more information about the event, click here.