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Vancouver startup FlyingFlips wants to build a community of socially conscious graphic designers.

The ecommerce platform lets shoppers vote for their favorite sandal designs, which they’d like to see become available for retail. The most-popular options will be manufactured and the artists will receive a portion of the sale proceeds.

“We’re trying to build a really good social network of graphic designers,” FlyingFlips designer co-founder Trevor Broad told Mashable. “We call it open source flip flops.”

The site, which is hoping to receive funding from Kickstarter, says its flip flops are eco-friendly, made from 20% to 30% recycled materials, and lets you trade in used pairs.

Once designers have submitted designs to the FlyingFlips community, the startup encourages them to share their submissions with their social networks to vote.

For each purchase made, FlyingFlips donates one pair of flip flops to a person in need in the developing world, through Soles4Souls and Fundacion A. Jean Brugger.

The Kickstarter campaign, which runs until the end of May, will fund the first run of flip flops and the creation of the online store. The store will launch one week into June, right after the Kickstarter ends.

FlyingFlips hopes to make eight pairs available by June — the two pairs advertised as Kickstarter rewards, five pairs crowd sourced by designers and one blank pair. Though the team was initially split on creating blank flip flops, lacking a crowdsourced design, they ultimately decided more people could join the buy one give one movement, if they offered a blank slate option.

Would you buy a pair of FlyingFlips? Let us know if you would back this project.

Bonus: Crazy Kickstarter Projects

Layla Revis is vice president of digital influence at Ogilvy PR Worldwide. Her specialties include international affairs, tourism, and multicultural marketing.

With the recent acquisition of Instagram by Facebook, hedging bets on what may be the next application to be acquired for $1 billion is all the rage among geeks. Although most developers are putting emphasis on consumer-facing apps, the app sector with the ability to generate income from acquisition is likely in the business-to-business space.

Social business tools are going to become more popular as tablets and smartphones become the norm at companies and the consumerization of IT is adapted at a rapid pace. And there’s no question the market will be huge, what with mobile application downloads approaching 48 billion by 2015. But what business apps are leading the way? Here are four examples of mobile business applications to watch.

1. BoardVantage

BoardVantage is a collaboration app for boards of directors at large companies. It is programmed with extensive security policies and allows a board meeting to take place entirely on an iPad, which stores all related important information in an IT-secure application. The app is a must for CIOs who want to transform their company so that instead of the C-suite using laptops, they are all armed with iPads. Although it’s free to download, it requires a subscription to use.

2. IBM bCase

IBM’s bCase for IBM Business Partners helps businesses create amazing sales presentations on an iPad. Ed Abrams, vice president of marketing for IBM Midmarket, says the app is highly dynamic and can pull in content from a wide variety of sources, allowing for a much more vibrant experience than you get from, say, Microsoft PowerPoint. It’s free to download, but requires a password issued by IBM.

3. The Merck Manual

The 100-year-old manual’s content has been transferred from book to iPad in both a home and professional edition. The app can be accessed anywhere via wi-fi and allows doctors to find symptom information for patients and email a relevant link to either the patient or a patient’s specialist. Robert S. Porter MD, an editor of the app, said, “The Manual has always been highly regarded for its clarity and focus on delivering just the right amount of information. This app for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch now provides that information in a convenient form that will make it even more valuable for healthcare professionals on the go.”

4. Cisco WebEx

This applicationallows anyone to join a web conference from an iPad or iPhone. Any number of people can attend these meetings, but a WebEx host account is needed to schedule or host a meeting. The app also allows one to attend a meeting from anywhere in the world and present PowerPoint presentations. It makes the possibility of conferencing from anywhere very simple.Image courtesy of iStockphoto, franckreporter

As apartment-dwelling New Yorkers, we’re always on the hunt for clever furnishing designs that optimize small spaces. This time, we bring you the DeskBox, which is exactly as it sounds: a wall-mounted box that extends into a full-size writing surface.

The compact DeskBox is the handiwork of Yael Mer and Shay Akalay, a young Israeli duo who founded their London-based studio Raw Edges shortly after graduating from the Royal College of Art. Last year, they pitched a similar concept to the Dutch manufacturer Arco: a bread box with a hinge mechanism inspired by those found on sewing-machine boxes. “Arco used to produce these kind of traditional wooden sewing boxes more than 100 years ago,” Akalay tells Co.Design. “We took the same mechanism and applied it toward more of an up-to-date use.”

The desk version is made from a combination of metal, for the wall base, and wood, for a warm work surface. “We wanted to make it as light-looking as possible and also to have the cost as low as possible, so the DeskBox will not only end up on magazine pages but at people’s homes,” Akalay says. But that didn’t mean scrapping the details. When the desk is closed, it still provides ample space for writing notes, with a small hole for a single-pencil holder; when open, it features two compartments and a cutout for routing electrical wires. Akalay assures us that it can withstand the weight of a laptop and a few books. “I guess there would be a limit, but there won’t be any problem for any normal use … of a desk.”

Namsa Leuba is a young photographer who grew up in Switzerland with a European father and a Guinean mother. As a student, she studied the rituals and cosmology of her mother’s native country, and received a grant to visit Guinea-Conakry in her final year at the University of Art and Design Lausanne. In early 2011, Leuba spent three months living and working in a village that had been founded by her great-grandfather. Ya Kala Ben is the award-winning thesis Leuba shot during those months.

Leuba says that her fieldwork was a chance for her to discover her origins, and she knew she wanted to explore the traditional spirituality of Guinean tribes. In Guinea, Islam is the majority religion followed by Christianity. But like many cultures where mass conversion has taken place, devotion to an earlier religion is still common, and 7% of the population practices the traditional Guinean animist faith.

In Guinean cosmology, says Leuba, ritual statuettes are used symbolically to represent “modesty, luck, fecundity or a channel for exorcism.” The statuettes are typically used in ceremonies to represent the yearnings of the worshippers–they are “not the gods of this community,” she writes, “but their prayers.”

Working with members of her mother’s community, Leuba staged portraits where humans play the parts of the traditional statuettes. She asked her subjects to dress in complicated garments representing the ritual tools. According to Leuba, this was interpreted as a fairly sacrilegious act: “I had to deal with sometimes violent reactions… While some were afraid and were struck with astonishment.”

There’s (obviously) a complicated colonial subtext to Ya Kala Ben. European depictions of African identity have ranged from the British exploitation of Sara Baartman to artist Phyllis Galembo’s recent tribal portraiture. As a Westerner photographing tribal community members dressed in garb based on ritual tools, Leuba plays a game of cultural telephone. “When we look at my pictures,” Leuba recently told Andrea Diaz, “it makes us think of statuettes and we look at the statuettes, we think of a human figure.” In this way, Leuba’s photos are a visual ethnography. By reimagining the ritual artifacts and capturing them in images, she’s documenting her own biases.

“I brought them in a framework meant for Western aesthetic choices and tastes,” says Leuba. “The photographic eye makes them speak differently.”

Collaboration. Everyone talks about it, but only a few know how to do it well. Here’s Motley Fool’s chief collaboration officer on best practices for working together better.

Collaboration. It’s a $1 billion industry, according to an ABI Research study on worker mobility and enterprise social collaboration. And it’s projected to grow to $3.5 billion by 2016.

No wonder lots of ink has been spilled on this business buzzword on everything from how to start (hint: build trust) to doing it better with social platforms, to using it as a way to achieve that holy grail of business: innovation.

Two years ago, the Harvard Business Review even touted the need for another C-suite executive: the CCO. A chief collaboration officer would be charged with integrating the enterprise as companies scramble to innovate from within. Authors Morten T. Hansen and Scott Tapp argued that with a little flexibility, existing execs such as the head of HR or the CIO could take on that task.

But in an ideal scenario, this most critical of business strategies would have a dedicated individual toiling to make collaboration part of the daily doings of the company. The CCO would have their place among the top brass. Despite the highly trained focus on the benefits of collaboration, according to Jacob Morgan, a principal of the social media consultancy Chess Media Group and scourer of collaboration practices, there’s only one CCO in the U.S. And The Motley Fool has him.

Todd Etter, one of the founders of the multimedia financial-services company that dishes advice on stocks and personal finance, has held the title for the past two years. Now, The Motley Fool is well known for its tongue-in-cheek approach to management (all the employees are called “fools”), and its “rule breaker” investment advice, but the company’s stuck to a core philosophy of  enhancing productivity through unconventional practices such as unlimited vacation and an Etter institution, The Foolympics, a two-week event in which employees compete for small prizes (and bragging rights) in challenges that range from brain teasers to business puzzlers to physical competitions. Etter says it’s “silly,” but tapping into the diversity of things the staff loves for five or 10 minutes at a time bonds employees and enhances overall productivity. 

They even have proof. Last year, voluntary turnover was 1.6% at the company, as compared to CNN Money findings of 2% at SAS, 5% at Microsoft, and 8% at Zappos. Not to mention the cost savings. Motley Fool’s head “People Fool” Lee Burbage says the cost to hire and train a new employee averages about 1.5 times their salary.

Tom Gardner, Motley Fool’s cofounder and CEO says that when you’re working on a project, the easiest route is often to just do it yourself–but it’s not often the best idea.

“You don’t have to compromise, you don’t have to teach someone, you don’t have to deal with other people’s timetables,” Gardner says. “Doing it yourself works well for the short-term, but it’s toxic if you’re trying to create a workplace culture that supports learning and employee development.”

With than in mind, Etter –who just happens to have 20 years experience as an improv teacher (we’ve reported on how well that works in corporate environments) and is member of the National Puzzlers League– shared some of his best practices to encourage better collaboration with Fast Company.

Understand What Collaboration Is…and What It Isn’t

Etter says there’s a big difference between working alongside other staff members and actually collaborating. He was surprised to find out exactly how true this was at a recent Foolympics that featured guest speaker Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball and The Blind Side. For the event, Etter created a puzzle based on the titles of Lewis’ books to encourage engagement between bites of salad during lunch. 

Gardner says Lewis’s team was a shoo-in to win but they came in dead last. Etter says it was likely because the team hadn’t worked together before and weren’t quick to provide feedback and challenging positions. 

Use Responsibly

Etter says he’s always trying to find a balance between the Motley Fool’s core values of competition and collaboration. So he tries to mix up events and offer only small prizes such a store gift card to avoid overzealous competitors and sore losers. “The reward is the event,” he says.

“Too much of anything will start to be criticized,” adds Etter, so he makes sure to have a variety of events and is careful to do small internal tests before rolling out to the company’s 200 employees. Most companies sign up for a ropes course once and call it bonding. Etter presents such physical challenges in addition to pub trivia quizzes (with financial trivia mixed in, natch) and quick puzzles to start long meetings. 

Brainstorm Effectively

“Brainstorming is a two-way street,” says Etter. One thing he teaches his improv workshops is that you have to create but you also have to listen. The “Yes, and…” technique ensures you are building on an original ideal. “Brainstorming is more than just throwing it all out there. Otherwise you have 30 ideas and picking one may hurt you,” says Etter. Instead try to figure out how to riff off two or three. “That’s fewer ideas but more conversation and thought about what is suggested,” he says.

Hack the “Hackathon”

Though Etter confesses he wasn’t aware of Facebook’s famous “Hackathons,” a.k.a. cram sessions designed to spur innovative solutions, he does say he wants to start doing more intensive exercises with Motley Fool’s programmers. Taking a lesson from the “marshmallow challenge” inspired by a TED talk in which teams compete to build a structure out of spaghetti strands holding a marshmallow aloft, he’s intrigued by the results observed so far among his colleagues.

“There are no guidelines, other than the end result to get the marshmallow as high off the table as possible,” says Etter. The lack of instructions is a constant theme in his own puzzles, Etter says, because it pushes the team to discover patterns and come up with creative solutions.

But he’s also found that teams often spend too much time planning and not enough time building. “Kindergarteners are the most successful,” Etter asserts, because they don’t plan they just start on the structure. 

“If it collapses they are are only four minutes in and start over.” Conversely, business school students fare worse because they busy themselves drawing up strategies and run out of time before the first strand is place.

This carries larger lessons for collaboration, says Etter. “You have to modify and adapt as you go.”

Images Provided by Motley Fool