

Saul Griffith's House of Cool Ideas - dimas
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100201/saul-griffiths-house-of-cool-ideas.html

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dskhatri
I'm a big fan of hacker labs/collectives like Saul's Squid Labs. Here are some
others I know of:

Squid Labs (Bay Area): <http://www.squid-labs.com/>

Applied Minds (LA): <http://www.appliedminds.com/>

Syyn Labs (LA): <http://syynlabs.com/>

NYC Resistor (NYC): <http://nycresistor.com>

Any others?

Wouldn't medium-sized and large companies benefit a lot from having small but
independent (free to hack on whatever they feel like) "skunk works" labs like
these? I'm not sure if the research labs at Microsoft, IBM are equivalent.

The Synn Labs folk are cool hackers. They often have their interactive tech
projects on display at Mindshare. If you're in LA, Mindshare
(<http://mindshare.la>) is a monthly event that I highly recommend.

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DaniFong
I'm trying to create a lab somewhat like this, but actually as a co-operative
living situation. The idea is that a huge proportion of the environmental
footprint people have comes from their homes, transportation, work, and
materials. If a collection of green entrepreneurs, scientists, and engineers
are then living together under that one roof, then they can use that home as a
prototype for the new technologies, products, methodologies, and ways of
thinking and living for a future green society. From there, we can spin them
out into the world, through journalism or as actual products.

\----

The main problem with such incubators is that the big ideas are a tiny part of
the game. Execution really matters; at least for me, my inventions have to
work at scale! I have ideas for technologies and businesses which altogether
could supply trillions of dollars worth of market need; but supplying this
first million is still going to be a long slog, and that will require focus.

~~~
dskhatri
An in-residence collective sounds like a great idea! Again in LA, I know of
one great example for artists: the Brewery Arts Complex:
<http://www.thebreweryartistlofts.com/brewery_website_002.htm>

