I love this quote from Kirby Ferguson, a New York-based filmmaker, in his series “Everything is a Remix”:
the most dramatic results can happen when ideas are combined. By connecting ideas together creative leaps can be made, producing some of history’s biggest breakthroughs.
His video series has the foundation of some serious reading, and harks to the work of Steven Johnson. Watch the video for some more context to this quote..
Over the weekend I was interviewed on Radio New Zealand about a initiative to forecast the future of Christchurch (my home town that has been devastated by a series of earthquakes since Sept 2010). It was called Magnetic South and was a version of the Foresight Engine developed by the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto.
It’s a way of scaling public engagement so that ideas can not only be submitted, but can also be built upon in a transparent manner. The software also adds a game layer which turns the initiative from something potentially dry, into something that becomes compelling and addictive.
Magnetic South went extremely well, with over 8000 ideas submitted, built upon and improved by collaboration from the time the game commenced.
You can see the threads of the game here, where some very sharp visualisation enables the tracking of individual ideas as the are commented on and built upon.
Although I was the one that was interviewed, kudos needs to go to Richard Gordon, CEO of Landcare Research who backed the game, Bob Frame who drove it (and who took some conversations we had a couple of years ago to places that I didn’t expect) and Stephanie Pride who got very little sleep for the 5 weeks prior to the game, and during the game itself.
(However my interview did cause a hiccup in the process, when Radio NZ listeners took the chance to logon in such numbers that the server in Silicon Vally crashed the game prematurely.)
You can hear the full interview here.
Echoing some of the trends that we’re seeing emerge from Future Agenda, Dr Moody holds that the global financial crisis of heralded the start of a sixth major wave of innovation — that of resource efficiency. You can take a look at his book called The Sixth Wave, or scan this Wired article for a precis of his four main points:
Recommended reading.
via Resource Efficiency: The Sixth Wave of Innovation | Epicenter | Wired.com.
Governments around the world have repeatedly tried to transplant the Silicon Valley culture to their own localities. It never works.
It never works because they fail to understand the long term view. Silicon Valley exists because of a truly unique institution – Stanford University. It’s more of a research facility than a university, and this point was hammered home to me in a visit there last year. When talking to one of the professors – who is an expert on long term thinking – he said that that university doesn’t really care about publishing. It cares about industry partnerships. That culture was born out of the private sector – Stanford was born from a grant from a railroad tycoon in the 1890s.
However while this beginning was critical, it was the 50s that saw the real impacts of the university. After WWII the focus was very much on creating new businesses, and this created companies like HP. In addition, some research points to the fact that a “powerful sense of regional solidarity” was critical in the birth of Silicon Valley.
So where are the parallels? At the moment Christchurch has three things:
Here’s my argument – Christchurch should be aiming to take a very long term view in order to create an environment of innovation that rivals the best. We have no shortage of talent in the at respect. The question therefore should be – what’s the focus?
Given that the CBD is essentially a greenfields rebuild, then why not engage with companies like GE and Cisco (who would jump at the chance to deploy leading edge technologies) and create a city that’s a living lab for urban living?
The infrastructure that powers a city could be built in a lego type fashion, where the old could be easily swapped out for the new. As companies come and go (as they are prone to do) the city could attract new players who are seeking to deploy their technologies in a real world laboratory. Alongside this the university would establish a business focused research facility that leveraged the living lab, and spun out businesses that based themselves in the region.
Attempting this from scratch would be madness. But Christchurch has a window of opportunity at the moment that most cities never get, and never will. This is a long term play to develop an ecosystem of business, talent and research that could be unrivalled in the world, and position New Zealand extremely well for the future.
Why wouldn’t we do it?
Few cities in the world have ever had the opportunity to rethink the future like Christchurch (my home town that has been devastated by two large earthquakes). The opportunity goes much deeper than a vision which encompasses unique architecture, but extends into the very fabric of a city. When you consider the opportunity around infrastructure rebuilds, there is a chance to put the city at the forefront of many areas.
Consider water.
While it would be straightforward to simply replace the existing water mains, why not partner with the smartest minds to develop a large scale living lab for how people think about water?
Be combining IT infrastructure with water infrastructure, the Christchurch CBD could be the first city to monitor water use, test incentive schemes and attract international business solely on it’s water use technology. The city could position itself as a docking point for water technology in the 21st century.
This is not merely fanciful thinking – big business is already thinking along these lines. To put this in context, consider the an article from a recent edition of Fast Company:
One revealing sign that business has entered a new age of water is water’s sudden appearance in the financial reporting of companies as diverse as Intel and Coca-Cola. Intel’s website now lists the company’s total water use, broken down by each manufacturing plant around the world, including the names of the rivers and aquifers each factory taps. Coca-Cola seems to have just discovered water’s importance. In its 2002 annual filing with the SEC, under the heading “Raw Materials,” the word water does not appear. But in the 10-K filing submitted in February 2010, the “Raw Materials” section begins this way: “Water is a main ingredient in substantially all our products… . our Company recognizes water availability, quality, and sustainability … as one of the key challenges facing our business.”
Tell me why you wouldn’t do this.
via Why GE, Coca-Cola, and IBM Are Getting Into the Water Business | Fast Company.
When someone challenges existing paradigms, it’s all to easy to scoff. My favourite paradigm smasher was Columbus. Prior to his epic adventure, everyone knew the world was flat – what else could it be? Now the world is round – what else could it be?
A more recent example of paradigm smashing was profiled in this wonderful article in Wired. It’s the story of the invention of a craft that was presumed to be impossible:
Since Cavallaro first proposed Blackbird’s design on the Internet, his concept has been ridiculed and lampooned in blogs and forums, and the idea has even been refuted in a national magazine. The debate recently reached a fever pitch among a certain type of geek, especially in Silicon Valley, so much so that some notable entrepreneurs, including Google’s Larry Page, forked over the cash to let Cavallaro finally build the vehicle. After four years of online arguments, explanations, and insults, Cavallaro has brought his vision here—to the Dirt Cup—to prove he can beat the wind.
This snippet – outlining a new technology that allows lights to be controlled via wi-fi – needs to be filed under the title “the future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed…”
Greenchip uses 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi signals (over an 802.15.4 short range wireless protocol that won’t compete with your normal home 802.11 g/n computer network). They use the new Ipv6 protocol too, so there’s no worries that your lightbulbs will use up all the world’s available Internet addresses. Plus, the JenNetIP system that NXP’s built to let your computers talk to your lights is being open-sourced–in the hope that other manufacturers will embrace it. In fact, Google’s already doing so, with its recently revealed Android Home automation system
via Wi-Fi-Connected Lightbulbs, Coming To Smart Homes In 2012 | Fast Company.
Yesterday I spent the day in conversation with Prof Venkat Ramaswamy (in 2004 he wrote “The Future of Competition” with C. K. Prahalad). The subject of the conversation was co-creation, and the power of tools such as Spigit. In essence, co-creation is working alongside stakeholders (employees, customers, suppliers etc) to create a win-win situation. It’s a powerful concept, and something that I’ve been working on with a couple of clients for a while now.
This morning I read a great example that broadly fits the concept: designer works with the masses to get funding for his idea, he takes pre-orders to ensure that there’s enough demand, brings it to market and then Apple comes to the party:
It’s the ultimate Kickstarter success story. Unable to secure a manufacturer, the Chicago-based designer Scott Wilson placed his TikTok and LunaTik wristbands — which convert the Nano into a watch — on the funding site. Within a month, he raised nearly $1 million from 13,500 backers — a Kickstarter record. All of a sudden, retailers came calling, including the most prestigious of all: Apple, which is rolling out the wristbands in North American stores this week.
via Kickstarter’s Biggest Success Ever: Nano Wristbands Raise $1M, Jump To Apple Store | Co.Design.
The story above broadly fits the concept – however I’d recommend a closer look at the concept in Prof Ramaswamy’s book called “The Power of Co-Creation.” It’s attracted some very powerful reviews, including a Twitter recommendation from Tom Peters (which conveyed so much excitement I thought his next Tweet was going to be requesting paramedics).
Today I’m humbled by the help offered by friends over at the extraordinary Brains on Fire, who have blogged a request for help about how to spread a vision for building an iconic Christchurch (my home city). The wonderful Robbin Phillips sums it up below:
So I have a request, how in your opinion, can a small band of passionate leaders in Christchurch create excitement and hope about rebuilding an iconic Christchurch?
Like elevatedgardencity.com (Which I love BTW!)
How can they rally support in a town with a population of about 400,000 at a time when even finding spaces to meet are hard? (Most of the 80,000 people that fled town have now returned, but many are finding it hard with constant aftershocks – over 1600 since Feb 22nd.)
How can they get the community to take shared ownership when many are still caught up in the grind of survival?
If you’ve ever been hit with personal loss, you know that dreaming again is a very good sign. Let’s help the people of Christchurch dream BIG.
Let’s show our support. Share this idea with your friends. Let’s start a conversation. Do you like the idea of an Elevated Garden City? Have you seen anything like it? Would you visit it?
I am humbled at how connected my community and my world has become lately.
Even if you just send a word of encouragement or retweet using the hashtag #elevatedgardencity, let’s toss some big time love out in the world on this Tuesday morning.
Please take the time to check out Elevated Garden City, link to the Brains on Fire blog (below) or simply spread the word on Twitter. Thanks.
via Brains On Fire Blog » Blog Archive » More thoughts on community, connections and being human..
(below is a conceptual image from Elevated Garden City)
Over the last few years Dow Corning has made a significant push in innovation to strengthen its growth momentum. The CEO and CTO were interviewed by McKinsey and discussed how the organisation links foresight to innovation:
We are on the lookout for developments that are truly going to be disruptive and try to tie ourselves to them. We constantly challenge ourselves and refresh that list of the large trends that we should be looking at, and then we ask, how can silicon-based materials provide a solution?
Stephanie Burns (CEO): What we’ve been doing over the past four years is to take these megatrends and apply filters that narrow them down to what really could be the opportunity, and identify how best our technology and competencies match that. We’re not just saying there’s a wonderful megatrend out there in the demographic of an aging population and we’re going to invest all our projects against it, but instead, we’re defining where the opportunities are for Dow Corning. We’ve been improving that process and have started to integrate it across the company.
McKinsey: How does the process work?
Gregg Zank (CTO): Our underlying challenge was to improve the way we develop a raw idea into something tangible. The approach we now use is to work very intensively for a highly compressed period of time—10 to 12 weeks. We will take something as large as the societal impact of an aging population and distill that down with numerous interviews outside the company. We dedicate a group of employees around the world to undertake a lot of strategic marketing—both technical people, who are in my opinion very good early-stage strategic marketers because they ask a lot of difficult questions, and commercial folks. Then we have weekly meetings to say, what have we learned about this area? It’s got to be a large opportunity, it’s got to get marketplace acceptance within a certain time frame, and it’s got to be something that is not incremental to what we are already doing. We assess the applicability of our scientific tool kit against the opportunity and create an early proposal.
