Category / Fringe scanning / peripheral vision

by Roger Dennis

Making Sense of Current VUCA Levels: Carlota Perez

Among colleagues around the world at the moment, there’s a definite recognition that VUCA is increasing.  One of more interesting theories about why this is happening comes from the work of academic Carlota Perez who has studied long-wave change theories for three decades.  In a nutshell, she believes that we’re currently transitioning from what she calls the “installation period” (where technology is developed) to the “deployment period” (where economic booms occur).  Perez believes that the levels of VUCA we are seeing now are reflective of the transition.

So how do you know when you’re in the gap between the two?  Here’s one metric that she uses to support her view:

During Installation, there is always strong asset inflation (both in equity and in real estate) while incomes and consumption products do not keep pace. This creates a growing imbalance in which the asset-rich get richer and the asset-poor get poorer. When salaries can buy houses again, we will be closer to the golden age.

In many countries around the world there is a profound disconnect between average income and the ability to buy a house. For example in Canada the average home price was $480,743 for July 2016 while the average Canadian employee makes just over $49,000 a year. 

In parts of the UK such as Trafford (and it’s important to note that this isn’t London) house prices are now 8.9 times higher than average wages and 7 times higher in Stockport. In Manchester, the number has risen to 5.1 times in 2015.

In New Zealand the average house price is now six times the annual household income.

One of the other key changes Perez points to as an indicator, is the birth of new economic instruments:

…there need to be innumerable investments and business innovations to complete the fabric of the new economy. Here’s one small example: Millions of self-employed entrepreneurs work from home with uneven sources of income. Where are the financial instruments to smooth out their money flow so they can work and live without anxiety?

This sounds remarkably like the innovations surrounding the deployment of blockchain, where one of the best quotes that I’ve heard about this technology is that:

If the Internet is a disruptive platform designed to facilitate the dissemination of information, then Blockchain technology is a disruptive platform designed to facilitate the exchange of value.

Perez quotes two other indicators that can be used to spot the transition: the first is more financial regulation at a global level.  However the complexity at play here is that in a world that is heading away from globalisation, it’s very difficult to bring nations together to agree on these types of initiatives.  It may take another severe financial crisis to induce a global agreement.

The final indicator is increasingly stable industry structures, and I’d argue that currently this is harder to discern.  However one signal may be in the form of  digital consolidation of internet traffic by Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon.  Most of the world’s internet flows through one of these organisations and they also act as enablers – for example the creation of a store front with Amazon with promotion via Facebook/Google.

Whichever way you look at the current macro global situation, it’s clear we’re not in what Perez calls the “Golden Age.”  Perez herself notes that the Golden Age might not even eventuate, and that patterns from the past might not foretell the future:

Historical regularities are not a blueprint; they only indicate likelihood. We are at the crossroads right now.

by Roger Dennis

Media reporting and chaos

This is a long but very worthwhile read from The Guardian that feeds into some of the reasons why VUCA is increasing.  The key paragraphs are below:

Twenty-five years after the first website went online, it is clear that we are living through a period of dizzying transition. For 500 years after Gutenberg, the dominant form of information was the printed page: knowledge was primarily delivered in a fixed format, one that encouraged readers to believe in stable and settled truths.

Now, we are caught in a series of confusing battles between opposing forces: between truth and falsehood, fact and rumour, kindness and cruelty; between the few and the many, the connected and the alienated; between the open platform of the web as its architects envisioned it and the gated enclosures of Facebook and other social networks; between an informed public and a misguided mob.What is common to these struggles – and what makes their resolution an urgent matter – is that they all involve the diminishing status of truth. This does not mean that there are no truths. It simply means, as this year has made very clear, that we cannot agree on what those truths are, and when there is no consensus about the truth and no way to achieve it, chaos soon follows.

Source: How technology disrupted the truth | Katharine Viner | Media | The Guardian

by Roger Dennis

VUCA gets an ‘S’ and a ‘T’

Eric McNulty is the director of research for Harvard’s National Preparedness Leadership Initiative.  On O’Reilly he’s published a very accessible piece about VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) where he’s added S and T.

The two additions are system-scale change and ubiquitous transparency, and Eric explains them further:

If VUCA were not daunting enough, I will add two new elements that take us from VUCA to VUCAST. They are system-scale change and ubiquitous transparency.

System-scale change can be seen in four mega-trends that I have been following since 2008. These are what I call “Pillar Trends” because they are global, will affect virtually everyone, have a discernable long-term trend curve (even if final outcomes are not clear), and no single individual or organization can alter their basic trajectory (the pillars are climate change, aging, urbanisation and technology).

Ubiquitous transparency is a direct outgrowth of the last component of system-scale change. You have to assume that almost anyone can know almost anything in almost real time. While this will cause some organizations to try to lock things down more tightly than ever, expectations of transparency will also grow.

I’ve also noticed these two components on the rise – my term for transparency is “the perfectly informed consumer” (however this cannot be added to VUCA to make a better acronym).

Leading in a time of tumultuous change: Our VUCAST world – O’Reilly Media

by Roger Dennis

Complexity and technology

This is an insightful piece from the NY Times about the rise of American tech giants, but it also touches on an issue which increases the VUCA score of the world (my emphasis in bold below):

“What’s happening right now is the nation-state is losing its grip,” said Jane K. Winn, also a professor at the University of Washington School of Law, who studies international business transactions. “One of the hallmarks of modernity is that you have a nation-state that claims they are the exclusive source of a universal legal system that addresses all legal issues. But now people in one jurisdiction are subject to rules that come from outside the government — and often it’s companies that run these huge networks that are pushing their own rules.”

Ms. Winn pointed to Amazon as an example. The e-commerce giant sells both its own goods and those from other merchants through its marketplace. In this way, it imposes a universal set of rules on many merchants in countries in which it operates. The larger Amazon gets, the more its rules — rather than any particular nation’s — can come to be regarded as the most important regulations governing commerce.

Source: Why the World Is Drawing Battle Lines Against American Tech Giants

by Roger Dennis

Strategy, disruption and scanning

This is a long but worthwhile post from a VC taking aim at the overuse of the word ‘disruption’ when it’s linked to strategy.  About half way down the piece is a quote which is worth repeating. It’s from an HBR article written by the former president of PepsiCo:

…most of PepsiCo’s major strategic successes are ideas we borrowed from the marketplace–often from small regional or local competitors.

For large companies that find it hard to innovate internally, it’s worth keeping an eye on smaller ones that are more nimble.

Constantly scanning innovation both in your sector, and in adjacent sectors, is a valuable capability but one that very few organisations invest in. I recall that Texas Instruments used to employ a guy called Gene Frantz who described his role as looking for lunatics within TI with ideas that could spark new directions for the company.

Back to the article that sparked this post – it goes on to close with another great original quote:

Without a strategy you might predict the market and the technology exactly and still lose to someone who does have a strategy.

Source: Disruption is not a strategy | Reaction Wheel

by Roger Dennis

Cities, companies and innovation

Geoffrey West is a physicist by training, but has crossed over into theories of biology, and then to theories about cities.  More recently he has started to look at companies, and some of his research is illuminating with respect to the need for innovation in organisations.

His observation about cities is that they need diversity in order to grow, and companies need similar:

“…in what way can you make a company more like a city?” West asks. “You allow at least part of it to be a little more organic, to grow in a natural way, and let it be much more open to having mavericks, naysayers, and people with odd ideas hanging around. Allow a little bit more room for bullshit. You need some mechanism to somehow break this straitjacket that big companies take on as they grow.”

You can get further context from the full article here:  The Fortune 500 Teller

by Roger Dennis

Economist on the relevance of the blockchain

 

 

 

 

If you are not familiar with the BlockChain, the Economist has an excellent primer on it which goes beyond the simple first-mover of BitCoin.

The graphic below is a good explanation about how the chain is built, and how it’s kept unique.

Towards the end of the article is a section that nails why it’s important beyond currency:

One of the areas where such ideas could have radical effects is in the “internet of things”—a network of billions of previously mute everyday objects such as fridges, doorstops and lawn sprinklers. A recent report from IBM entitled “Device Democracy” argues that it would be impossible to keep track of and manage these billions of devices centrally, and unwise to to try; such attempts would make them vulnerable to hacking attacks and government surveillance. Distributed registers seem a good alternative.

The sort of programmability Ethereum offers does not just allow people’s property to be tracked and registered. It allows it to be used in new sorts of ways. Thus a car-key embedded in the Ethereum blockchain could be sold or rented out in all manner of rule-based ways, enabling new peer-to-peer schemes for renting or sharing cars. Further out, some talk of using the technology to make by-then-self-driving cars self-owning, to boot. Such vehicles could stash away some of the digital money they make from renting out their keys to pay for fuel, repairs and parking spaces, all according to preprogrammed rules.

 

Source: The great chain of being sure about things

by Roger Dennis

Scanning to stop being ‘Ubered’

Over the last couple of years, and connected to the work on Sensing City, I’ve been advising Infratil on technology advances that could disrupt their business or provide opportunity.  This was referenced in the annual meeting where the Chair, Mark Tume said

…the challenge was to stop their investments from energy to the retirement sector getting “Uber-ed” or being able to “Uber” some else, in a reference to the Uber taxi service. Infratil would not be able to recognise the next Uber, Tume said and it was “incredibly difficult” to pick winners in new technology.

But Infratil’s board and management had to be open to the risks and how to react.  “So we don’t act like possums in the headlights” he said.

For example, Infratil had seen the rapid rise of solar power in Australia and the potential for new battery technology which would change the power sector landscape.

“The one I’m scared of is the one that blind-sides you”

Many organisations are increasingly susceptible to being blindsided, but only a few – like Infratil – have the foresight to seek to understand the risks and opportunities.

 

Full article here.

by Roger Dennis

strategy and business article: 20/20 Foresight

strategy and business have published a very readable article with specific tips for developing foresight capability, and it’s well worth the five minute read:

Many business leaders need to improve their perceptual acuity. Here’s how you can develop the ability to look around corners — and become a catalyst for change.

Source: 20/20 Foresight

by Roger Dennis

Biohackers develop night vision eye drops to see in the dark

Expect to see a lot more of this in the future, as the cost of biohacking falls significantly, and interest picks up from students, tinkerers and makers:

A biohacking group in California has managed to develop eye drops that temporarily give a human being powerful night vision. The chemicals used are still very much at the experimental stage – this isn’t something you’d want to try at home just yet – but the first trial has been very successful.

Source: Biohackers develop night vision eye drops to see in the dark