Warning! If you enjoy browsing old aviation photographs, this site eats up tons of time! The magazine Aviation News is 100 years old, and every article … every photograph … every airplane cutaway drawing is available online for free viewing. While the search engine is a bit slow, browsing the photo archives was fast and a treat. Access everything via their archive: (click to expand either image)

• Photo Archives
• Pre-1914
• 1930s (civil)
• 1930s (military)
• 1939-1945
• Post World War II

During the process of trying to innovate, we are often challenged to think outside the box … or in this case should I say … outside the goalie crease. Via the Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog, I learned about a high school ice hockey goalie who redesigned his protective pads to blend into the goal net behind him. This was the young man's idea (quoted from the Boston Globe):

• "When the shooter comes down and only has a split second to shoot the
  puck, they're looking for net," said Leahy, a senior from Hampton,
  N.H., who grew up in Byfield. "If you put the net on the pad, they'll
  shoot at the pad instead of the goal."

Neat idea … will it work? Who knows, but this kids is thinking outside the box!
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IHMC (Institute for Human and Machine Cognition) is the same great academic organization which provides the mind / process mapping tool for which I recently provided a tutorial. Even if you don't want to use the software, attend one of their free IHMC lectures via the web. Here are some recent offerings:

• Dr. Dan Arvizu, Director of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL): The Role of R&D in the Age of Renewable Energy
• Fraser Stoddart: Mingling Art with Science
• Mike Griffin, NASA Administrator: What the Hubble Space Telescope Teaches Us About Ourselves PDF of Talk

I will definitely add this content to my engineering seminar search engine and wiki.
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If you work in a technical field, or manage projects this resource is FANTASTIC, and it's free (courtesy of a DARPA research grant). Earlier today while participating in the project / chartering definition phase of a project at work, I watched a colleague use a neat tool for visually defining and linking the parts of a project. Not only did the software seem easy to use, but the visualization really encouraged all the team members to participate.

After the meeting, I linked to the software site (IHMC Cmap), downloaded the software, did an install … and in almost no time at all found I could use the mind mapping / process mapping software. The user interface was very intuitive.

I've linked two items below … one is a Powerpoint file which gives annotated screenshots of the IHMC CMap user interface. The other link is to my example (i.e. a completed process map):

• Northstar Nerd Mind Map Tutorial
  
• Process Map Example

Here is one screenshot of the user interface (click to expand):
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