It was a very exciting week at Cooper last week. So much to celebrate. First, we want to congratulate and celebrate with Doug LeMoine and his wife Mara on the birth of their son. We can't wait to meet this little man!

Clearly, Doug wasn't able to give his talk at SXSW as planned but Alan and Nick both spoke at SXSW and contributed significantly. Nick's talk, The Visual Interface Is Now Your Brand, was so popular and over capacity (of course!) that our own Alan Cooper couldn't get in.

At Cooper, we don't sweat the small stuff, but we do work to keep our cool over the big stuff. Those of us who weren't at SXSW were lucky to host some of the brightest and most talented design muscle coming out of CMU design programs. We wish them luck with the rest of their year and, given their aspirations, we know you'll be seeing them soon. Come back to Cooper soon!

Speaking about making a difference in the world, we want to congratulate Pipette and RockHealth. Pipette, a start-up who participated in RockHealth's first class, was recently acquired by Ginger.io, an MIT Media Lab spin off. Congratulations to Pipette; the road to recovery is about to get a whole lot smoother for patients where Pipette is involved! And Congratulations to RockHealth for providing to be a successful incubator for start-ups in healthcare. Because of you, everyone's future is a little better and perhaps longer!

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This week we've been talking a lot about the past and future, possibly we are avoiding the stressful, immediate present which is measured against shipping dates. Visual.ly sums it up nicely.

Last week we wrote about Facebook's timeline. This week, FastCompany made a compelling argument as to why the Facebook timeline might not be good for certain brands.

That said, in the face of adversity Jawbone UP took some timely and noteworthy action. They announced a no-questions-asked refund policy.

Apple continues to impress Grand Central as the newest NYC store.... Genius! Talk about a marvelous intersection of the past, present, future.

Speaking of Apple, this tweet doesn't make the Andriod's future look too bright

Similarly, this video make us wonder if the era of flashmobs has come to a close..

Instead of planning flashmobs, young heroes have moved on to greater aspirations like.. curing cancer. This has restored our hope and faith in future.

Lastly, speaking of heroes and great things, while multitasking (holiday shopping) online we doubt you can avoid this beautifully crafted, inviting and elegant celebration of past heroes that define and shape our present lives. Enjoy! Hidden Heroes exhibit at the Vitra Design Museum.

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This week the sCoop is all about celebrating and planning. We have a few great reasons to celebrate: Alan Cooper was a big hit as the keynote at CETI this week. We just launched our new Cooper UX Bootcamp class in March in Columbus, Ohio. And whenever Cooper has reason to celebrate, we do!

We wish Facebook would just release its new timeline already, it might have helped during our game of "Two Truths and a Lie" over our celebratory drinks! Seriously, who lived on the commune?

Speaking of drinking, this trusty info graphic to help you toe the line when drinking at the holiday party

But if you cross the line, REALLY cross the line... We can't stop talking about this service that help you come up with a plan for prison.

We imagine that people in prison have a lot of time to think about how to move forward. But if you don't have a lot of time on your hands and need help getting unstuck, check out this app.

Unstuck promises to help you overcome those challenges that prevent you from being your best.

Sometimes its not about overcoming obstacles but better planning. We've been talking about the ways in which Google's Schemer is going to help us do all the fun and interesting things in life that we wanted to do.

Because "we always gotta have a plan" according to the fabulous, famous Ice Cube, would apparently schemed and studied to be an architect before becoming well...Ice Cube.

Finally, we're not sure if Steve Jobs would agree with Ice Cube's take on the good, the bad and the ugly, but we love this poster about his thoughts on crazy!

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I had the opportunity to sit in on our new Design Communication & Collaboration class, and it changed my perspective about how to work better with people! Instead of trying to persuade collaborators to work with me, this course focused on empowering them to better work with me. The class goes beyond design as an outcome, beyond pictures and pixels. It discusses design as an act of facilitation, digging into why great products and services get upended while tackling the difficulties of communication and collaboration that get in the way of great design.

Have you ever been on a project team that had a killer idea, ran with it at full speed, and came up with some amazing work, only to have a silent stakeholder finally voice their concerns and “torpedo” the project 8 months down the road? Had the team been able to address these concerns early on and often, the meltdown could have been avoided and the idea come to fruition. The message of the class is clear and powerful: Successful design is as much about how well you work with others as being a good designer. Effective design is never a one-person show; it is a co-creative process made up of designers and non-designers coming together from a variety of business and technical perspectives. Anyone who has to touch, bless, give input, feedback on "the design" is a co-creator. The sooner the design process is understood to be about the facilitation of co-creation, the sooner the outcomes will be more successful.

Kendra illuminated the importance of facilitation by giving the class tools to assess their co-creation process (people, skills, needs, goals), and to diagnose and overcome roadblocks. By being more inclusive, transparent, and targeted in the design of workshops, meetings, and communication, designers can inject more opportunities for "non-designer" collaborators to be more effective co-creators.

Big ideas from the Design Communication & Collaboration class

• Illuminate assumptions and facilitate goal-directed design thinking
• Empathize with your collaborators; identify and address their needs and fears; build trust, and spark their interest in the creative process
• Gain buy-in through participation

The stars of the show are these awesome method cards! Cooper designers created a set of cards that explained some methods, tools, tips, and tricks for addressing the various communication and collaboration challenges. Never run a vision workshop before? No problem, these cards provide simple frameworks for how to successfully set up and facilitate a vision workshop with business stakeholders. Having a hard time socializing your designs? No worries — start an information radiator, and soon, everyone around you will know exactly what you are doing, the vision you’re driving towards, and how you intend to get there.

My prediction: After taking the class and putting its lessons into action, participants are going to be using the priority wall method to manage all the great new ideas and abundance of participation from their newly energized collaborators!

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