Not everything goes fast in China, but some things move incredibly fast. One of them is the MagLev train in Shanghai, which I took this week. It takes you 30 kilometres in less than 8 minutes. Leaning into curves at a speed of approx 430 km/h is quite amazing.

The paradox is that the end station, however, is in the middle of nowhere. We had to transfer to a taxi. And with a speed of 430 km/hr, couldn’t you have built a bit more track?

Nevermind, many Danish commuters daily spend between 3-4 hours in an old-fashioned train travelling between Copenhagen and the country’s second-biggest city, Aarhus. MagLev would do the same lap in about 45 minutes. Add a bridge across the Kattegat and it’s 20! Almost faster than taking the phone:)

Wake up, DK! China’s coming!

I saw this woman on the sidewalk in front of a restaurant in Shanghai in October. She may know nothing about user-centred design or innovation. But she’s living it, whether you like it or not.

She was cleaning in between the restaurant tables and needed a quick and cheap fix to help her work faster and better. So she taped a LED torch to her broom. Simple. Efficient. Rapid prototyping. Reality-driven. And moreover, her lit broom swaying across the sidewalk looked quite spectacular in the dark.

Now she can see what she’s doing. This smart lady is a living example of reality-driven design. An expert identifying a new need and coming up with the right answer. Innovative? Who cares? What matters is the solution. And she found and implemented it faster than I can say ‘innovation’.

If you meet her, tell her she’s an innovation star. By the way, she was really proud of her invention and I understand why.