Adrian van Hooydonk, head of design at BMW, sits down an in an excellent interview with Tyler Brûlé of car magazine Monocle. The conversation leads down many threads including how BMW’s design thinking has changed recently, how they are always working to meet customer’s changing expectations, and the relationship between the drawing board and the driver. Big pushes for the company are happening in the way of being more environmentally friendly, meeting more of their owner’s needs and their lifestyle, and creating story narratives around vehicles as part of the design process.

ABC’s Nightline goes behind the scenes at Zappos to see why they have become the leading example in customer satisfaction and expose the company’s enviable corporate culture. By making investments in company moral, and customer satisfaction, their long-term vision has returned huge dividends. Zappos offers newly trained workers $2000 to quit and gives customers 365 days to return purchases with free shipping both ways. CEO Tony Hsieh has kept the call centers based in the US and says their number one focus is building the company’s culture. Whether they teach the practice in business schools or not, the proof is in the pudding. Also check out Zappos’ 10 Core Values.

Noah Zerkin, Augmented Reality Enthusiast, designed and developed the Zerkin Glove, a retrofitted paintball glove to enable computer input of the body’s motions. The sub-$300 DIY project incorporates flex sensors into the glove and arm band to enable control of augmented reality environments. Noah is currently working to develop kits to sell them commercially. Check out more videos of Noah here.

Blending the old with the new, the Chameleon Guitar uses a swappable soundboards to pick up the resonant qualities of various woods, metals, plastics, and well, pretty much anything to produce desired sounds. The boards can be built to mimic guitar sounds from classical guitars to electric guitars, and more. Designed by Amit Zoran under guidance from Pattie Maes and Marco Coppiardi, he is now working on the project as part of his Masters. Amit one day hopes to take the product to market.

Bill Gurstelle, author of book like Backyard Ballistics and Absinthe and Flamethrowers, speaks at Gel 2009 about risk taking and its correlation with life satisfaction. Both inspiring and informative, Bill shares multiple stories of his own and others’ risk taking adventures.
Do you take risks? Take the test here.

Steve V, a video producer from Kitchener, Ontario, replicates the marshmallow test. An experiment in kids ability to sacrifice short-term gratification for long-term rewards, the marsh mallow experiment is interestingly academically just as it is fun to watch kids struggle with waiting the fully 20 minutes for their reward. In terms of relevance, if the child can resist the instant gratification, there is a very good chance they will be successful in life. For more details of the original landmark experiment, watch Joachim de Posada’s TED talk.