On September 8, Tim Brown will speak at Cumulus, a conference hosted by the Cumulus Network, a group organized around “a common desire to enhance the quality of education through co-operation.”
To learn more about the speakers, click here.

GeekDad wants to know: What’s your favorite balloon animal? The IDEO Toy Lab creations can now be found on the Balloonimals app for both the iPhone and the iPad.
Read more here.

IDEO’s Tim Brown was interviewed by Tianjin Binhai Radio’s East & West programme in the lead-up to the Summer World Economic Forum. The station entertains 100,000,000 people in the western, the northwestern and the most part of northern China.
Listen to a broadcast of the interview here. (in Chinese and English)

A new PATTERNS column in Fast Company’s Co.Design kicked off today: Read the preface by IDEO’s Suzanne Gibbs Howard here. She writes, “by sharing PATTERNS, we hope to help people design for greater impact within their organizations and communities. We believe more can happen when we work together.”

PATTERNS posted so far include Colin Raney’s “Business in Beta,” “Shanzhai” from Makiko Taniguchi and Eddie Wu, “Millennials” by Ashlea Powell and Davide Agnelli, “Continuous Conversations” written by Jenny Comiskey, Aradhana Goel, and Simon King, “Guilty Secrets” from Betsy Fields, Rebecca Sinclair, and Annie Valdes, Beau Trincia’s “Not-So-Real-Estate”, Patrice Martin’s “The ‘I’ in Community and Suzanne Gibbs Howard, Meija Jacobs, Rachel Switzky, and Jody Turner’s “Social Media Bolsters Big Brands”.

To learn more about PATTERNS and read past issues, go to the PATTERNS website.

Tom Hulme’s article “Watch the Disruptors, Not the Incumbents” was published in Director Magazine. In the article, Tom explores the importance of businesses being both exploitative and explorative and walks us through two case studies to illustrate.
Read the article here.

Communication design work for Bedsider and HCD Toolkit is currently on display at the Pasadena Museum of California Art’s Design Biennial. The exhibit is on until October 31, 2010.
Learn more about The Design Biennial here.

In “OpenIDEO: A New Collaboration Platform for Designers,” NextBillion’s Francisco Noguera covers IDEO’s new open innovation platform.

Read the article here.

By Aaron Sklar and Sally Madsen

IDEO’s Aaron Sklar and Sally Madsen discuss working with foundations, nongovernmental organizations and social entrepreneurs in “Design for Social Impact,” published in the spring issue of Ergonomics in Design. The article explains “empathy, a community focus, and team preparation are among the human/humanity-centered principles for design and innovation in the developing world.”

Download the PDF

IDEO has just launched an online community where people can create solutions to some of the world’s toughest challenges. OpenIDEO’s first challenge, hosted by TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver, asks the question, “How can we raise kids’ awareness of the benefits of fresh food so they can make better choices?” Visit OpenIDEO.com to contribute ideas and inspiration.

Read posts by Core77, Design Taxi and Brain Pickings about the launch.