Month / July 2008

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

Excellent summary of discontinous innovation approaches

If you are after a good overview of disruptive/discontinuous approaches to innovation, then look no further than the UK organisation Advanced Institute of Management.  It has compiled an Executive Briefing that is comprehensive in its coverage of the field. The blurb reads:

In a fast moving world, one of the biggest challenges facing organisations is dealing with discontinuous innovation (DI).  This briefing document  focuses on at what some leading organisations are doing in this area it suggests 12 different strategies for developing a search capability to detect triggers of discontinuous innovation. These strategies are also useful for more conventional innovation, and all organisations should employ some at least, if they aim to remain both competitive and durable.

The Futures approach we use at Innovaro with clients such as Shell and GM (Europe) is referenced, although not quite in the full context.

Direct download of the PDF is also available.

by Roger Dennis

The Economist on Alternative Energy

I’ve been flat out with clients over the last couple of weeks, but my attention has been drawn to an interesting special report in the Economist about the future of energy. It makes the same points that have come out of the Technology Futures workshops that we’ve been running for the Shell GameChanger team. In a nutshell, these are that the hydrogen economy will never take off (too much infrastructure to build), the jury is still out of biofuels and that ‘electronification’ (an electron economy) is one of the most likely paths for energy.

One of the articles also succinctly states the case against wind power:

The ultimate goal is to harvest the sun’s energy directly by intercepting sunlight, rather than by waiting for that sunlight to stir up the atmosphere and sticking turbines in the resulting airstreams.

Recommended reading.