There’s no doubt that the phrase “think outside the box” is the most overused term in management today.  Yet sometimes a box is just what’s needed.  This week’s Friday Five looks at projects that are designed with simplicity - and the box - in mind:

 Data Center in a Box

The box may be big but Sun Microsystem’s Project Blackbox is taking the concept of portable computing to a whole new level. It’s a data-center-in-a-box: as many as 250 servers inside a standard 20-foot shipping container provide up to seven terabytes of active memory and more than two petabytes of disk storage - at 1/100^th the cost of a traditional corporate data center.  Rather than building out increasing expensive server farms in high-rent offices, Sun is betting that its customers will choose a portable Blackbox which can deployed anywhere there’s a power cable and an Internet connection. In addition to saving corporations millions in power costs, Blackbox could also be useful for other organizations that need mobile data centers such as humanitarian relief efforts and the military.   

Hospital in a Box

Produced by Global Medical Systems, the Hospital in a Box is a portable, off-grid emergency medical system that can be dropped by helicopter to allow doctors to carry out common surgeries in remote or natural-disaster stricken areas.  The self-contained unit weighs about 150 lbs, can be run by solar power and contains anesthetic equipment, a defibrillator, a burns unit, surgical equipment and a built-in operating table.

For Sale (in a box)

This Trendhunter photo gallery showcases 16 innovations in the most ubiquitous box in the world - the vending machine.  From mobile phones to soccer balls to charity donations, these big boxes deliver the goods.  Notable: the Bike Dispenser (available in Amsterdam); Japan’s charity vending machine, and my personal favorite: the Art-o-Mat: retired cigarette dispensing machines filled with pocket-size art pieces.

The History of the Box

 

Now for a look at the box itself: if you’ve never thought of truck drivers as masters of innovation, think again. Fifty years ago a trucker by the name of Malcom McLean devised the standardized shipping container - and in doing so ushered in one of the first waves of globalization. This great read,  THE BOX: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the Economy Bigger by Mark Levinson combines an economist’s view with a novel-writer’s tone to explore one of the most important innovations of the 20^th century. 

School in a Box

To ensure the continuation of children’s education in the first 72 hours of an emergency, UNICEF’s School-in-a-Box contains classroom supplies for up to 80 students.  The culturally neutral materials include writing utensils, notebooks, rulers, counting blocks and posters and are and are often supplemented by locally purchased products, such as books in local languages, toys, games and musical instruments.