Category / Emerging Technology

by Roger Dennis

Shell Technology Futures

From 2006-2008 I spent the majority of my time working alongside the Shell Gamechanger team in The Hague. It was a fascinating exercise on many fronts.

Firstly I was based in New Zealand and working for Innovaro in London for a client which although had some of it’s team in The Hague, could meet anywhere in the world.Β  Inevitably London and The Hague worked fine for us, although Houston or Bangalore would have equally fine. Personally Europe worked well for me as I could regularly visit Singapore on the way – a city with a firm view on the future (but that’s another story).

Secondly, as an organisation Shell is arguably the best user of scenarios in the world. Innovaro’s Technology Futures programme dovetailed into – and fed – the scenario development.Β  Innovaro ran the programme in 2004, again in 2007 and there should be another update in 2010.

The Technology Futures programme built a view of the impact of technology on society in the next twenty years. To construct something that was robustΒ  – but still captured enough leading edge thinking – was a detailed process.Β  the summary is as follows : identify which adjacent sectors can impact upon the core business (either postively or negatively), seek out the subject matter experts in these sectors, gather them together for a week and then synthesise the output of the sessions.

We assembled a huge variety of people – from those who are pioneering the creation of life from scratch, to Mars roboticists and architects that are designing massive new green cities in China (the workshops are held under Chatham House rules which means that I cannot name the people or organisations that were represented). The conversations that resulted were compelling, intriguing, confronting, dynamic and never dull.

From the discussion we created a view of the world in twenty years time.Β  What is interesting about this view is that we can track everything back to a spark in a peer reviewed journal, or the commentary of a world expert in a certain field.

In this instance there were a series of outputs, the most visible being the book I co-edited and breathed into life (along with Barry Fox of New Scientist fame).Β  The book is also the only publicly accessible output from the programme, and you can download it here (5MB PDF).

The book is also the only publication to leave Shell without being edited by the PR department and as such is an untouched view of the Technology Futures programme.

The Innovaro Futures programmes are a proven way of seeking out white space opportunities for organisations looking to find new high-growth businesses, but they are also applicable at a macro level.Β  Innovaro has been talking to Governments about the possibility of running the programme at a country level, and this would be a natural fit for the process.

People get intrigued by the programme, but in the interests of blogging brevity I will close this post.Β  Howewver if you are interested to know more, please drop me a mail (now *at* rogerdennis.com)

by Roger Dennis

Indicators of the future

It’s one thing to spend time talking about where things are going, it’s another when you encounter some of those things. Sometimes even I fail to mentally move things from theΒ  theoretical world to the real world.Β  Two recent examples:

1. Most people know about the potential for hybrid and electric vehicles, but not many extend that knowledge to a business context.Β  I now use hybrid taxis where ever possible, and have some fascinating conversations with drivers. Each one tells the same story about fuel consumption: in a petrol taxi they would spend up to $80 every two days. In the hybrid they spend less than this each week. It’s a quantum shift in the economics of transportation.Β  Note that it’s economics and not the feel good factor that drives cabbies to move to hybrids.

2. On a completely different note (if you’ll excuse the pun) I was listening to an interview with David Byrne (ex-Talking Heads singer).Β  He said that the last music-superstore just closed down in New York, and now it’s no longer easy to buy CDs in this type of retail environment.Β  People know that digital music is the leading format, but it’s not until this sort of shift happens in the real world that you start to see tipping points.

Here endeth the lesson for today…

by Roger Dennis

Science fiction as an influence

A recent issue of Wired highlighted yet another instance where science fiction is an influencer – especially on those that have the money to fulfill their childhood dreams.

Sonny Astani, a 55-year-old real estate mogul is planning to bring 2019 Los Angeles to life in the form of two 14-story animated billboards modeled on Ridley Scott’s opening sequence. “I saw Blade Runner at least five times”, says Astani, whose empire encompasses thousands of Southern California apartment units. “The billboards always struck me.”

copyright Wired

by Roger Dennis

CNN article on mobile sensors

Over at CNN, there’s a piece about the use of patterns found in populations that carry cell phones. I make the point in the article that this data is like watching river flows.

Novel and original applications for consumer technology are not new. For example the packs of hacked robotic dogs that were programmed to “sniff” out harmful levels of chemical emissions from landfill sites.

So why is pattern sensing via mobiles – which initially requires heavy modification of cellphones – emerging now?

In only a few short years the cell phone has morphed from a gadget used to make phone calls into the only computer that you take everywhere, that connects you to everything and never gets switched off. As businesses begin to understand the implications of this, the incidence of unexpected uses will burgeon.

Accompanying this corporate awakening is another trend – the the rise of “techno-tinkerers” – people who are happy to ignore the warranty-voiding stickers that warn against open heart surgery on their newest gadget.

Resources such as YouTube detail exactly how to open your phone, while the best hacks are immortalised in Make magazine. In doing so gadgets are being transformed in ways that the original creators could never have imagined.

It’s almost like years of pent up DIY frustration have been unleashed on Asia’s best technology exports as increasing numbers of people are no longer intimidated by taking a soldering iron to the insides of their precious purchases.

Watch this space.

Update: the Sydney Morning Herald Innovator blog also picked up on this article in CNN.

by Roger Dennis

The connected generation

The Economist has a great video piece about a week in the life of Jan Chipchase, corporate ethnographer for Nokia in Tokyo.

There was a comment that Jan makes during the clip that was particularly poignant. I did not write it down a the time but it has stuck with me to the point that I’m compelled to note it.

He said something along the lines of :


Ten years ago I would have had to make a conscious effort to go online. Today I have to make a conscious effort to go offline.

Now think of the connected generation that will be around in ten years from now.Β  How does your business model cope with that?

by Roger Dennis

Unevenly distributed futures

William Gibson once insightfully observed that “the future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.”

As if you needed more proof, the BBC reports that a neuro-headset which interprets the interaction of neurons in the brain will go on sale later this year.

Bike helmets will never be the same again

Still not convinced of Mr Gibsons forsight? I recommend you read this article in MIT Tech Review from August 2007 entitled Second Earth (free registration required), which details real world data being used in Second Life.

The photo below gives a glimpse of what is possible – this is real time weather inside Second Life.

Real weather, real time but virtual world

by Roger Dennis

Looking back to look forward

Even to a technophobe it’s very clear how much computers have changed in the last twenty years. However it’s often difficult to try and translate this change back into real world information. Economists do it really well when they make statements like :
“When adjusted for inflation and [……..] (insert your least favourite bit of technical economist speak here), the price of a McDonalds hamburger in 1980 could today finance an entire award winning documentary about fast food.”

So it was fascinating to read a quote on the BBC site which did the equivalent of the above statement (without, of course, the reference to fast food). When talking about the technical advances in Intels new chip design, one of the people on the project had this to say :


“Had we used the same transistors that we used in our chips 15 to 20 years ago, the chip would be about the size of a two-storey building,” said Bill Kircos of Intel.

by Roger Dennis

Problems with predictions

During a bunch of meetings earlier in the week, I was asked some questions about some of the insights which came out of the Shell Technology Futures programme we ran at Innovaro over the last eighteen months. More specifically, people wanted to know how the work helps to get a better understanding of possible futures.

Then last night, I came across a quote which summed this up quite elegantly. It’s from a draft of a book from Bob Johansen at the IFTF:

Foresight is a particularly good way to stimulate insights. While prediction is impossible, provocation is easy. Insights arise from differences: different ideas, different angles, and different moods. If insights were obvious, everyone would be having them. What new development might be createdβ€”given the external future forces that are at play? This is a search for β€œAha’s!” It is a search for insights, a search for coherence in the midst of confusion.

One of the outputs from the Technology Futures programme this year was a presentation which went under the working title of “Ah-ha’s and Insights.”Β  It was key comments, quotes and insights into some of the discussions which happened at the workshops in Bangalore and London.Β Β  It is designed as an entry point into the complexity of some of the material – namely a book – which also came out of the programme.

Rather than endless words, it’s a series of striking images with very minimal text – and it works well to stimulate further thinking in different directions.

Less is always more.

(The original quote above is from Boing Boing (of all places) via a very circuitous route…)

by Roger Dennis

Mesh networks

Back in 2005, Technology Review editor Jason Pontin was looking for ideas for his next column. I suggested that he look at mesh networks, which he did.

Now the latest issue of TR has the TR35 – the top innovators under 35 – has a great profile on twenty five year old Sanjit Biswas of Meraki Networks. He is bringing mesh to the masses – and often the poor masses.

Watch as mesh networks slowly but surely make their way into the mainstream.

by Roger Dennis

Open innovation in virtual worlds

From the BBC comes this fascinating piece about a company that has developed a way for anyone to start their own virtual world in a few minutes. Spearheaded by Ralph Koster, who, if my memory serves me correctly, cut his teeth on developing Star Wars Online, the development is a a classic disruptive innovation.

Want to play at my place?

Rather than needing serious capital to start your own virtual world, anyone can now play – in every sense of the word – in this space.

Quoting Koster, the article says :

Developers, he said, cannot afford to get it wrong when they are juggling multi million pound budgets. He hopes that his free tool will start to solve this.

“We want to see 10,000 virtual worlds so that lots of wild and crazy stuff gets made because that is the only way it will advance as a medium.”

This will certainly pave the way for the development of communities which the corporate world cannot hope to foresee. Expect lots mistakes, but plenty of fringe innovation which leads to bigger things…