Ray Podder

ONE

2012-01-01T10:23:00.000-08:00

I’ve spent most of a creative and entrepreneurial career over the last two decades designing stuff that gets people to buy stuff they don't need with money they don't have to impress people they don't like. I even got caught up in it myself.

Then I found myself doing more of the same for energy companies. However, this time it was different. The effect of overconsumption of brand product experiences seemed benign compared to the damage now evident from continuing an socioeconomic paradigm based on the scarcity of dirty energy. Especially as I’d discovered that most of our renewable energy strategies were just greenwashing propaganda over real solutions now available.

So I decided to do something about it.

I spent the last couple of years researching emerging ideas in economics, social psychology, nanotech, biotech and other emerging science innovations, and spent most of 2011 speaking with breakthrough innovators and writing this book.

This is a scientific, sociopolitical and spiritual mashup about our use of energy. Energy to empower us to make the next leaps forward. Energy that is actually abundant despite what we have been told and what we have been sold. Renewable energy that is soon to be abundant enough to be free of charge and free us from the delusions of our past.

This is for every one of us.

Your support is critical to make this and the next projects instrumental for positive change. Many thanks in advance.

—Ray Podder

About the book and upcoming projects:

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It all started with a question.

If you could do anything to change the world for the better, where would you start? For me, it was a culmination of all the experiences I have had personally and professionally put into my first book and more in the works. It goes something like this:

Let's start with what is possible now.  

1. Make renewable energy into a free platform, using nano, bio, info and other emerging technologies. Too cheap to meter renewable energy technologies are real and available now, they just need accelerated innovation networks to make them accessible to all of us.

2. Make it ubiquitously accessible to all without wires like how we transmit data signals . Unprecedented achievements in transfer efficiency are here. From induction charging to nano technology based wireless electricity solutions can transform the renewable energy landscape if only we could design a business model that rewards users for sharing rather than charging them for consuming.

3. Accelerate innovation so no one has to depend on a job they don't like to make a living.   Distributed and collaborative co-creation environments are transforming everything from crowdsourcing innovation to raising startup capital. The next iteration of global economic systems will be built from network constructs that redefine wealth, access and consumption.

These ideas and more are now explained in our new socioeconomic narrative in the book:

ONE

The New Abundant Energy Revolution and The Power of You

Releasing next week 1/11/12

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Many thanks for your attention and support. 

* ONE: The New Abundant Energy Revolution and The Power of You by Ray Podder is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at raypodder.blogspot.com.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://raypodder.blogspot.com/.

Brightest at Our Darkest Hour?

2011-03-18T21:27:00.001-07:00

The state of the world has caused me to lose a lot of sleep lately. Fortunately, those I am closest to were there to remind me that the real value any of us have is in the quality and strength of our relationships.

As obvious as that is, it’s ironic that we live in a world that still puts like souls in unlikely situations of largely invented perpetual competitions to acquire, consume and produce at the expense of the planet and each other.

While the worries over losing the value of institutions that guaranteed our current advancement and worth are legitimately founded, its’ also obvious that the old energy world order paradigms are inevitably coming to their logical conclusions.

Ideas and institutions like Wall Street and the debt based pyramid scheme of the Federal Reserve Bank version of global economics are now showing real cracks as natural and political tragedies devastate us worldwide. The industrial economy relics like the once necessary capital-intensive centralized energy and resources production and distribution are now about to bear unmanageable costs.

Unmanageable because the fossil fuel reserves that drive those practices of our modern world are getting permanently depleted. As the old energy world order that depended on oil and institutional guarantees start to erode, everything from the mass production of agriculture, medicine, materials and their manufacturing down to how we live and communicate are going to be challenged along with them. Why? Because, when consumption costs more than production while we generate waste faster for both, we have nothing short of the makings of a mass systemic fail. Yet...

I have hope. I, like many of you, have hope not just because human beings innately can project their future, but the reason why we do so in the first place. The answer I believe lies in the first statement. We know that ultimately we have each other.

If the global tragedies of the last week has taught us anything, it’s that bravery and compassion are most boundless in times of crisis. People and of course animals are more amazing than we give them credit for, and ingenuity, innovation and persistence are in all of us and not just the few who told us otherwise.

The old energy world order had sold us the perceptions that served their best interests. If you want people to consume finite resources at ever increasing paces, then propagating the behaviors that assume infinite growth regardless of consequences is the way to go.

That is what we have been doing and that's what we are dealing with now. That meant that as long as we kept believing that resources are scarce and location specific things, rather than information specific ideas connecting unlikely dots, we were not in control of our destiny. Those who controlled our collective destiny had built a society controlled by the man made fictions of currency, country and competition, much like religion and royalty had done in the pre industrial age. In the wake of current events some of us are starting to feel that maybe these assumptions were not right. The fact is that we've actually known it all along.

For example, the myth and irony of modern competition is that the winners still are those who compete against no one other than the standards they’ve set for themselves, yet as a whole we still continue to believe in the idea that we are not entitled equal access to the resources and the information marking them so we have to fight each other for it. In our desperate attempts to control the outcome of things beyond our control we forget the simple truths others have realized before us:

"Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit!" —Henry Adams

The habits born from a fossil fuel based economy felt good for a long time, but as we all know, all addictions have diminishing returns. Unfortunately this time the sequence of systemic glitches and failures over the coming months will be more than a hangover, not only for the unfortunate salt on the wound to Japan, but also on the global scale, it simply and mathematically cannot translate to business as usual afterwards.

All of us had the hunch that our system of inequities was fragile and would eventually give way to the truth, if geological devastation didn’t beat us to it. The sad part is that it’s all happening now, and not in some distant future we don't have to deal with. We don’t yet know the full impact to our way of life with recent events unfolding but we can be sure of one thing:

We survive and thrive together, not apart.

“Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves”—Nagarjuna

There is no better time than right now to recognize those interdependencies. What matters now is what always mattered, our relationships. Reconnect with them, nourish them, and reach out to those who suffer from a scarcity of them.

The good news is that the world is not going to end. We’ve survived worse and even the worse of our fears about it. What will actually happen is rejuvenation for a better world whose time has come. There are no lack of ideas, insights and viable solutions ready to take the reins as the old drivers collapse. The only thing standing in the way of how fast we can recover and get there, is our openness to each other and the possibilities ahead:

“The powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.” –Vivekananda

Let's open our eyes and take in the beauty of our relationships. Relationships that make us feel good and even those that challenge our worldviews and assumptions. A better world awaits with more love and understanding not because its politically correct to say so, but because our future actually depends on it.

I'll continue to list the solution references I know of on Facebook, Twitter and in other media formats I've been working on to date. I urge all of you who took the time to read this to look for more of the same where you are and post and produce the most viable of solutions you know of.

Many thanks in advance for your attention and contribution.

What’s More Important: Being First or Being Right?

2010-07-22T17:33:00.001-07:00

The iPad was not the first tablet PC, Facebook was not the first social network, Google was not the first search engine, Foursquare was not the first place-based app, Tesla was not the first Electric Car, Walmart was not the first megastore retailer and even popular memes like Seth Godin’s Ideavirus and Chris Andersen’s FREE were actually concepts originated from Dawkin’s 1976 The Selfish Gene and from Kevin Kelly’s New Rules respectively. The list goes on and on…and even in the case of Twitter; as those of you with tech street cred already know, microblogging Tumblogs existed long before it!

So why rush to be first? Why the need to attract the early adopters when the real measure of success is on the other side of the Tipping point? Maybe the recent phenomena of the iPhone4 outselling the original iPhone by a factor of ten can illustrate this point: See, if there were no expectations set by the original smartphone innovator, the desire for the latter would be nonexistent? Right? Well, then the question is, was Apple really the first in the smartphone category? Old-school PDA and Blackberry owners already know the answer!

First is way overrated: As the cheeky image above illustrates, maybe the advantages of being the “first” that everyone rushes towards is just a matter of perception. In other words, it not only is embedded with unforeseen risks because you were just rushing to get there, but it also just seems like the first. The seemingly first may have reinvented the rules of the game with better design, marketing and/or business model innovation at the right time with the right conditions. It doesn't account for those who were truly first, and those are not truly your same conditions! The keywords here are “reinvent” and “right”. What that really means that the category was already “invented”, but there was not enough understanding and/or “right readiness” for it to hit. The “reinvention” and “rightness” are really based on the understanding of what’s missing that helps secure the apparent new thing into a power position.

Really, the race to being “first” is not really about being first at all, but rather, it’s about being the first to be right!

So how do we get to “right-ready”? For all of us trying to introduce better ways of doing things in the world, here are some things to consider:

Right is about Feeling: The first question to ask if you want to get it right is why. Why should anyone care about what you are offering? What do you believe you are trying to do that also resonates with what they are feeling? If you can’t tap into the collective feeling that answers the why, then it’s already game over.

Right is about Timing: You may be ready to scratch your itch because you want to make your world better, but is the world ready for your change? Have you considered the real gap of expectation vs. experience or are you just ready to push your agenda? Whose need are you really satisfying?

Right is about Rules: No, not the ones already established by those before you, but the new ones you set. All of the examples I’ve mentioned before operate under new conditions they’ve created for themselves. They don’t try to be a better version of the accepted norm; they reinvent the new norm based on the feeling, timing and passion they both have for their brand and what people are missing most from the status quo offerings. Those are their rules, what about yours?

Are you ready to be the first to be right?

Posted via email from raypodder's posterous

Is Your Brand Really About “You”?

2010-06-07T13:55:00.001-07:00

From the people who camp out overnight to buy the first iPads to the thousands who’d showed up to hear Barack Obama campaign, did a single person take those actions based on what either Apple or Obama said about themselves, or was it simply something that those brands fulfilled in each individual?

Whether it’s a company that drives us to choose their offerings over another, or an individual who drives a global movement, how much is their success of becoming influential icons really about them? While the rest focus on trying to differentiate from the pack, with knowledge from the design process at Apple, the culture at Google to the bestselling insights from the leaders of great causes, why is it that the success for icons seems exclusive to them? Maybe the answer is less about how they represent themselves, and more about how they make us feel about us?

Because when we look deeper at us, the fans and patrons of these brands, it becomes more and more self-evident:

It’s not about them, but about us.

Think about a product, service or individual that has moved you to join their cause, and ask yourself what is it about them that make them so attractive? When we choose these iconic examples like the ones below, are we really thinking about their “positioning” or “features” pitches, or is our inner dialogue a little closer to the following:

Apple: I believe I think different…

Obama: I have hope. I want change…

Lady Gaga: I’m cool as I am…

Harley: I am a rebel against the status quo too…

If you’ve loved the experience of any of the brands above, chances are you can identify why in a similar way. So why do you continue to focus on communicating what makes you/your brand so special, if the real driver is contrary to that logic? Perhaps building an iconic brand should be less about “differentiating” to something more like this:

1. Stand for something first: Forget how you are going to be better with more clever marketing claims or product features. If you really want a devoted following, first answer why what you believe should matter to your audience. If our beliefs aren’t aligned, our respective audiences really don’t have a compelling reason to care. However, if what you stand for matches what your audience does or aspires to stand for, they now have a reason to see themselves manifested in you.

2. There is no “target” audience: If your focus is which demographic your brand is ideal for, you’ve already lost the battle. No one wants to be told why you should be chosen; they choose you because you do something for them that they want to be a part of. When you most identify with your audience/customers and believe in the better version of the world you both share; you create a connection. Sometimes that connection is as you’d expected, and sometimes you simply don’t know. Whatever the outcome, a positive following is never about pitching to a demographic; it’s being that which means something to those who want in.

3. Give them the reasons to keep coming back: Staying connected is less about your media strategy, and more about fulfilling and exceeding expectations. Your audience will stay true to you if you continue to empower them in creating a better them. When what you stand for matches their worldview, they want more reasons to validate why that is still true. Great brands to it with the service and product innovations that answer those reasons over and over again and do not compromise by focusing on the immediate gain over a meaningful relationship.

If you really want to affect change in what your brand represents, don’t take my word for it, just look around. As Simon Sinek eloquently describes in the last video above, every iconic individual and organization rises above the rest in their category by reflecting back the motivations and aspirations of their followers. It is their principle or core values that drive action, not their positioning! This is truer today in the networked world more than ever before…as in why Twitter and why not Plurk? “Better” does not ever win over “Better for who I see myself as”! So if you’re still on the “I’m better than you because…” treadmill, maybe it’s time for a reevaluation of what really matters. Don’t you think?

Can You Really Afford the Scarcity of Integrity?

2010-05-25T10:51:00.001-07:00

I was fortunate enough to grow up in a family that insisted on Doing What You Say, Saying What You Do as a prerequisite for membership. Like many of you who also grew up with such standards, I believed that taking those lessons with me to my professional life would also reward me positively much like my family did for keeping my word.

Unfortunately, throughout my career the harsh realities were somewhat different. People often took credit for my ideas and hard work to advance their own agendas. I have been lied to for everything from sharing profits, compensation, and ownership to promises for advancement and commitments to accessing influential contacts. If that wasn’t enough, I’ve seen these same exact people actually move ahead, get rewarded for lying, manipulating and self-promoting at the expense of others. So has that changed me? Should my life lessons change how you should operate in the “real” world? Hardly. Why not? Well, the reason is quite simple:

Lack of integrity is very expensive!

Yes, even with live examples of the disingenuity thriving in the modern workplace, the true cost of the scarcity of integrity is not worth joining their ranks. Here’s why:

Integrity=Trust=Profits

In the age of ponzi schemes, get-rich quick seminars and smoke and mirrors sales pitches, the reality of long term business relationships are still about trust. People will pay a premium to do business with someone they trust over someone they have to monitor. It takes way more resources to keep tabs on an inexpensive option versus a more expensive yet trustworthy one. Whether it’s a small-scale mom and pop operation, or a global investment with a foreign government, the equation is still the same. The clearest example is outsourcing overseas to build a web service. Regardless of the cost savings, I have yet to meet a successful startup founder that will freely share their web innovation to be developed by a team abroad that they do not know. We would much rather raise money at home and work with people we know and trust that deliver what they promise vs. going with a vendor that not only may not deliver the quality you need, but that can easily walk away with your idea, NDA or not!

Brand-Integrity=Expense

When people who work with you don’t believe in what you believe, you cannot get them to give a shit about anything other than their paycheck! When people work only for the money, they don’t evangelize your brand; in fact, they repeatedly hurt it by their negative feelings about what they don’t like about you and your organization. And if the people building the brand don’t care about the brand, guess what? You don’t have a brand! What you have is dispassionate people drudging along to deliver substandard work to give you the illusion of progress, when in reality all that is happening is the systematic erosion of your brand. That translates to not only higher costs of running an organization, but costs higher yet of sustaining a true valuation of the product or service your brand offers. Eventually, the costs wear you down and while you blame undercapitalization, unprofessional people and less than ideal market conditions, your competitors take over.

Integrity+Passion=Success!

On the flip side, when you run a meritocracy vs. an organization with fancy titled delegators, reward people for keeping promises and align your brand’s passions with those who bring it to life, the outcome is quite different. If you’ve had any amount of sustainable success in life, you already know that belief=behavior. When people believe in the passion behind your brand’s cause, they will work the extra hours without asking for overtime, tell all their friends, family and extended social network about why they are excited about their work and deliver what no amount of financial capital ever could: sustainable success!

The real world examples of what lack of integrity really costs are abundant if we just look beyond the surface. From people who clock in and wait for their shift to be over at your cable company call centers to people who love their jobs at a company like Zappos, the distinction is clear both from the macro level view as well as the actual interactions we experience when we call for support at each of these organizations respectively.

So what can we do to hold on to the short supply of integrity today? How about the following to start:

1. Hire people based on trust before experience: If you evaluate someone based on integrity first, motivation second, capacity third, ability fourth and experience last; you are on your way to develop passionate leaders that build on each attribute vs. those who are just in it for themselves and probably misrepresent their expertise before it’s too late. The reason this particular order makes a ton of sense is because each lays the foundation for the other, but rarely does it work the other way around. You’ve probably already done this unconsciously when you’ve picked your best partners and friends in life, so why wouldn’t you do it in business?

2. Share the good and the good will follow: Networks form to share ideas that sustain the connections, or in other words, they form to share the good. Think about what keeps a family together. Isn’t it to share resources to nurture the developing members? What if you extended that thinking to see what keeps your personal and professional networks connected? When you deliver the good in a professional environment, i.e. opportunities or great service, people stay connected. When you deliver whines, problems or malicious gossip, the network moves on without you. This principle is not just a theory but has been actually proven in a scientific network model referenced at the end of this post.

3. Reward integrity with recognition: People don’t want money for their good behavior, though in a capitalist society rewarding positive performance with cash doesn’t hurt. What really motivates though is peer recognition or feedback for Doing What You Say, Saying What You Do. My family did it for me with great “special” food, your reward system might be with a public reward at a convention or on the company website.

I hope presenting the topic this way helps us see the scarcity of integrity for what it really is: a valuable asset that is not only a nice to have, but a prerequisite for sustained success in a networked world that gravitates towards the good. As network relationships define progress for the 21^st century, transparency and sharing the good becomes the norm not the exception. Assholes are easier to spot and get excluded faster from the action. Can you think of more ways integrity is nurtured and thus leveraged for the good of all of us? Love to get your thoughts…thanks in advance for your attention :)

Some additional reference to get a better understanding of the role of integrity today:

Watch the influence of networks

Read Umair’s article on betterness

Read Dee Hock’s principles on hiring

Gordon Gekko Image: 20th Century Fox

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Is Influence the Real Value of Currency?

2010-05-12T17:50:00.001-07:00

Money. It’s what makes the world go around. Whether you think of it as a measure of success or a byproduct of it to serve as a tool to realize your passions, it’s still a critical element of modern society. People need it, businesses want it; governments bow down to the suppliers of it and most would agree that it is synonymous with power in our modern society. However, in the wake of recent financial meltdowns, bailouts, and the emergence of new online constructs that both remove the frictions as described in this Wired Article, and innovations in microlending, p2p financing, digicash and virtual goods, can what we’ve accepted about money still ring true? Is it possible that in a networked planet with measurable intangible value systems might just reinvent the model of money itself?

Consider Doug Rushkoff’s history lesson on abundance-based currency vs. the scarcity based model we’ve come to accept. Why is it that the few control the many by a set of rules and standards invented by them without our collective input? Rules that haven’t really applied since the feudal kings imprinted money with their images to wield power away from the citizens who traded based on their real product output. Why is this still the norm of how the world works today? Consider also what is already happening in a multibillion market for virtual goods in games, to intangible value of brands and then ask yourself what is the relevance of a gold standard when the ability to create gold is in our immediate nanotech future? Do you pay a premium for something because it’s really scarce, or are you influenced by the intangibles of that purchase decision?

The answer might be as simple as Influence=Currency.

It’s what we’ve known about influence all along. Except that now, socially networked systems can account for the intangibility of influence because the technology is letting us. Let’s look at three key factors in this mix and then decide for yourself if Influence IS the New Currency or not:

Influence=Leadership=Currency

We buy things from those whose ideologies align with ours. We love Apple because we also believe that we can change the status quo, for those who helped usher in Barack Obama, it’s because of the shared belief of hope and change. In short, we elevate market leaders to power because of the way they influence us, not because they “pay” us in the traditional sense. Their currency is social. It’s what they use to achieve their respective dent in the universe. Interestingly, with the proliferation of digital networks like Facebook, our currency is increasingly becoming about social influence too. If you get retweeted often on Twitter, brands want to align with you and give you free products and services to talk about. If you move up the influence chain within a virtual game like World of Warcraft, there is a market with people wanting to pay you cold hard cash for your in game “abilities”. If you are a power user on a location-based social network like Fourquare, you are rewarded with discounts and freebies when you “check-in” to a particular area. How different is that than paying you?

Technical Frictions are Getting Out of the Way

P2P lending services like Zopa may be just a novelty now, and digicash players like Obopay, Zong, and gWallet are just fringe novelties for the technorati, but a billion plus people connected online may just redefine banking using these constructs. Virtual cash startups are revving their engines now to participate in a frictionless transaction economy where merchant fees will soon be a thing of the past. Early adopters like AMEX who recently acquired Revolution Money are already on it, and as technology evolves to smart systems talking to one another, the middleman model of underwriting the value of money will seem as archaic as bartering chickens for a bag of salt. Paypal is already integrating with Facebook for us to “Pay with Facebook” soon, and chances are, the value of what makes your currency more valuable than mine is not going to be determined by Forex regulations, but the actual social influence I have in my network through the stuff my friends and I “Like”. Confusing? What if I told you that the actions you do for free like sharing, saving and commenting would one day be worth points that you could convert into real goods and services? As traditional mass marketing practices become a relic from the industrial economy, people like myself are already inventing solutions that marketers are willing to pay for right now. Your influence is now worth cash because technology is finally getting out of the way.

Reinvention is Imminent

How long will we put up with These Fuc*ing Guys as satirized by Jon Stewart of the Daily Show? When the world was less connected and virtual digicash was just a dream, one could argue that that’s just the way the world works and some things never change. However, today the market incentives for removing transactional frictions, and leveraging social influence to create value is much too lucrative for both individuals and institutions to accept the status quo. From reinventing the media model to exchanging credits for smart energy, the next big shifts of our progress as a civilization depend on making value tangible to the way people understand it in a connected world. Why do we need a degree in economics to understand WTF a GDP in Parity means when all it really means is what your particular currency brand can buy you vs. what you’re getting for it at the exchange rate. There’s no reason to have multiple meanings of the same thing if value is calculated directly by your creditworthiness deemed valid by your influence in your social network.

While it’s evident that I’m neither an economist or a subject matter expert in this area, the signs I’ve pointed to here is evident of the undercurrent of something about to change here. Money as we knew it will probably not be the money our children transact with when they get to be our age, and that can be a great thing to finally move us forward to a brighter future. Thoughts?

Image: Futurebrand

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Does Creativity Have a Department?

2010-05-06T13:49:00.001-07:00

Albert Einstein was a patent clerk, Thomas Edison used to operate a train station news stand, Elizabeth Arden was a receptionist, Obama worked behind the counter at Baskin Robbins, and Jane Goodall was an untrained animal enthusiast who made the breakthrough discovery of Chimps using tools!

History has shown us time and again that remarkable ideas come from people who weren’t necessarily qualified to deliver them. Yet, most corporate thinking today still tries to compartmentalize people’s aptitudes and create departments that actually counter the necessary innovation to move forward.

I suppose it’s difficult to convert a production line industrial economy mentality to the networked innovation economy shift that’s already taken place, but does it really have to be that way? Consider that today leading companies are mostly small and agile and compartmentalizing workflow is not only expensive, but it can significantly reduce time to market that the Aerospace industry is already addressing with department agnostic real time collaboration.

If you’ve ever watched the hilarious but sad NASA parody video that prevents a good idea from getting implemented, you already know the trappings of a “process” that kills competitive advantage for the sake of maintaining the status quo. Worst yet, departmentalizing their talents sets up another problem: Experts who think that their contribution is the most important, and disregard the input of people who are closest to the problem.

Today, we are no longer in a situation where outcomes are predictable from one project or venture to the next, so why even implement a process for delivery when delivering what is expected can largely miss the mark? Creativity is not and was never discipline specific, and innovation never really worked as a particular department.

What does work is a multidisciplinary group coming together to solve a problem they are close to. Each person brings their knowledge and perspective rather than the usual suspects who bang their hammer at every problem they think is a nail. Unique solutions have always come from the unlikely, and it’s time we included them early in the mix. Thoughts?

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Does Knowledge Really Affect Behavior Change?

2010-04-29T11:11:00.001-07:00

If you ever travel to Asia or Europe you’ll likely notice these big bold signs on the side of cigarette packaging, and the reason you’ll notice these often is that everyone seems to smoke despite them!

While the proponents of the programs such as anti-smoking generate reports that validate the millions spent on awareness campaigns, the reality is obviously something different. We’ve noticed this trend time and again with anti-obesity, anti-litter and more recently with energy efficiency programs across the US and internationally. So why does all of this knowledge and awareness not change the core behavior of its intended recipients?

The answer lies in the fundamentals of human behavior:

Knowledge does not change behavior, experience does.

We’ve all known obese doctors, crazy therapists, divorced marriage counselors, and financial advisors who still have to work for a living, so why do we still believe knowledge and awareness is the answer to solving the problem?

The answer may be simpler than you think. Behavior change boils down to understanding how our rational and emotional minds connect and given the right context and framework, it is not only possible, it is happening successfully everyday when you choose one brand over another in your daily life. So what does that framework/context look like? Something like this:

Goal = Motivation + Feedback

Where the goal is the intended change and the motivation is the emotional trigger to action and the feedback is the mechanism to show progress to the recipient. So let’s take a look at this in action in terms of changing behavior like losing weight.

Scale Success: There are healthy and fit people amongst unhealthy, obese populations. They do something different despite the commonly shared stimuli and are successful. Instead of trying to solve the systemic problem of the larger population, use what psychologists called a “Solution focused” approach and see what is common amongst the people who are successful. This usually boils down to a few simple behaviors. According to a recent study, it turns out that it’s just eating a healthy breakfast, daily weigh-ins and owning exercise equipment at home. OK. Now we have a starting point. Next we make it cool to do just these three things. For that we need to know the emotional triggers standing in the way of adopting these desired behaviors within the personal, social and structural contexts of the individual.
Pull Triggers: Emotional triggers are both personal and social. The personal in this case may be a sense of accomplishment and social may be fitting in with my peers. In order for the behavior change to take, the emotional triggers will have to make the desired behavior both tangible and socially desired. Tangibility comes from examples, as in stories of people like you who have done it, and social desirability comes from “de-normalizing” the behavior by giving indicators that if you continue to engage in the wrong behavior, you’re out of the club. Successful websites do this effectively by sharing the number of users and/or the leader boards to let people know that more people are doing this than not, and you should really consider getting in or be left out. These triggers are easy to pull when the barriers are removed and we make it easy to adopt.
Make it Easy: Ease of adoption comes from the structure of choice (choice architecture) and the clarity of the options. Structural choice is like smoke free buildings where smokers feel like outcasts having to go outside to light up, and in the case of losing weight, it’s as simple as throwing out all the unhealthy food in the fridge. Clarity is about specificity of what and when. Some is not a number and soon is not a time! I will lose 10 pounds by July 24^th, 2010 is clear and concrete. Without clarity and structural choice, it becomes harder not easier to stick to it.
Report Progress: Now that we’ve addressed motivation, it is important to look at the kind of feedback required to make the behavior change work. For energy efficiency, it may be your thermostat as offered by OpenPeak or Google Powermeter. In terms of weight loss. It’s a bathroom scale or an app like LoseIt!. The point is that we need to know how we are performing against our objective regularly.
Reward Success: Last but not least, to make behavior change permanent, there needs to be an ongoing confirmation and validation that we’ve made the correct choice. It makes the switching cost a non-issue and reinforces the desired positive behavior. It doesn’t have to be monetary, it can be just reinforcements along the last four pillars already described. Location-based mobile services like Foursquare do this with badges and mayorships for revealing your location to your connections, posting useful and/or relevant updates on Twitter rewards you with retweets and followers, and successful weight loss can be confirmed with rewards such as public compliments. The critical factor is choosing the right rewards to affect behavior change is simply about answering the question: Is it worth it?

Although this arbitrary topic of weight loss served as an example here, the truth is that this thinking is already working across much needed behavior change across initiatives like energy efficiency, poverty alleviation, world hunger and more. Behavior change is more critical today than ever, and especially useful to understand when you are creating web services and/or experiences that get people to engage with brands in a new and meaningful way.

I hope I’ve simplified and illustrated the challenge in a way that helps you think of how you will approach needed behavior change within your current personal and professional challenges. If you understand that “Knowledge does not change behavior, experience does” you might just use this framework or something of your own to apply proven techniques to common problems. To learn more about great thinking in this area, I’d also recommend further reading with these books and reference Game Mechanics as well:

Game Mechanics Overview

Games to Change the World

Posted via web from raypodder's posterous

Can You Sell Something You Won’t Buy?

2010-04-29T11:00:00.001-07:00

When lawyers lie to get the guilty off and they say that I’m just upholding legal system, do you buy it? So when marketers sell you something they’d never use in a million years, why do we think it’s fine? As users of services and products we already know that the best market research is being your most discerning customer, and the market examples of that are abundant from Apple to Zappos.

Most marketing pros working today unfortunately grew up in a mass marketing era where limited communication channels created the conditions that made them believe that if they position well enough, or target segments clearly enough, people will buy what they are selling. This is simply not true and here’s why:

Trust Trumps Control: In a networked world, control is fast becoming the cool aid only marketers drink while empowered customers reject it with a vengeance! In a pre-networked world, if you didn’t like the product or service the marketer was selling you couldn’t really complain about it other than send a sternly worded letter to the complaint department. Now the Internet is your complaint department and everyone is your audience. The only meaningful dialogue you can have with your brand is one with a brand that has earned your trust. Not one that tries to woo you with a slick sales pitch but one that gets who you are and what you care about. That brings us to the next point.
Markets are Conversations: Just like the Cluetrain ranted nearly a decade ago, its’ back to basics if you want to connect with your customers. People don’t have conversations with people they don’t like when they have a choice, and boy do they ever have choices now! With barriers to entry dropping everyday with new advances in technology in terms of production, distribution and communication, there are more individuals and companies ready to take your place if you mess up with customers.
No One Scratches Your Itch Better than You: In a networked marketplace, you can’t fake authenticity. While some may claim that “Authenticity” is simply about the executing its appearance, a networked marketplace quickly dispels that illusion no matter how big you are and how much you’ve spent defending your turf. Authenticity occurs from 1^st hand experience of your product or service as a customer. This is the reason Richard Branson chats up customers on his Virgin flights, Howard Schultz works the counter, and Tony Hseih of Zappos requires everyone on his staff to answer phone calls regardless of position. Because without that 1^st hand experience, the authenticity and passion for what you’re bringing to market is lost, and the empowered customer who feels that is immediately turned off.

The takeaway: Use your product. Often. Use it more than your customers, and look for all its failings way harder than what pleases your customers. Then talk about it, teach it and sell it because you truly care. If you don’t you will fail. Because, now more than ever, the market knows when you’re faking it, and not only that, they have many more ways and more connected voices to amplify their discontent.

Posted via web from raypodder's posterous

Do Big Problems Need Big Solutions?

2010-04-27T15:43:00.001-07:00

Why is obesity still an epidemic in the US with a multi-billion dollar diet industry? Why does the farming industry produce 4.3lbs of food per individual/per day and global hunger is still an issue? Our prehistoric wiring naturally gravitates towards answering a complex problem with a complex solution, but is that really necessary?

Whether you are trying to solve world hunger, world poverty or just a business problem like removing the frictions that keeps Expedia and Ticketmaster in business or the utilities trying to get their customers to adopt new energy efficient behaviors, the answer may not be a systemic overhaul after all.

First of all, systemic overhauls are rare if they occur at all, mostly because the train has already left the station and the switching cost is too high for both customers and the market ecosystem that already profits from the broken system. The real solution lies in disruption and the answers may already exist in the problem itself. That is, if we can look at the problem through a different lens than the common wisdom that believes that problems are proportional to the money and resources you throw at them. They’re not! Let’s take a look at the thinking that works time and again for successful web solutions and see if looking at it and approaching the problem differently answers the premise presented:

1.Solve the Right Problem: When we see a complex problem like workflow collaboration or real time news updates, our minds spin and we start to make an exhaustive laundry list of all the things wrong with how it is currently done and come up with a complex solutions with tons of features and a multi-year roadmap to getting it all done. This sounds good in theory, but the reality is that it’s flawed from the start! Basecamp and Twitter has already shown us that success lies in solving for the core problem now, without worrying about potential problems that are either not important or cannot really be seen clearly as problems as we do not know what the future holds. These solutions address the core actions that get the job done, and does not worry about the jobs that no one is losing any sleep over. Basecamp avoids the bells and whistles like project roadmaps, videoconferencing or real-time group document editing, because when it comes to getting something done with multiple contributors, the only important things are uploading files and links and then commenting on them together. It focuses on the real problem and does that exceptionally well. The same is true of Twitter. It doesn’t worry about creating timelines, hosting images or any number of things a news organization’s website does, because it’s 140 character format addresses the basic need to post anything anywhere from any location. The rest, including maps, pics and even lengthy hyperlinks are addressed by a growing ecosystem of players who continue to add value to the core service. How do you know what the right problems are? They are the things you can’t stop thinking about after you’ve forgotten all the market research, focus group feedback and wish lists from designers and coders. In other words, they are what matters, the rest are mostly a waste of time.

2.Do Less Not More: The iPad does not have a camera, or a great keyboard or the ability to run editing software, but it continues to fly off the shelves. The Flip camera does not have ninety percent of the features of a standard camcorder. It too is leading in its category. The reason is simple and makes a case back to the previous point. It does less than the competition, because it focuses on what matters and only what matters. When you focus on everything, you focus on nothing. Doing less is about doing what people really care about, doing more is about trying to please everyone. With on and offline products just as in life, trying to please everyone gets you nowhere fast!

3.There are No Experts: When a problem seems bigger than something we are comfortable solving, the first reaction is to bring in the experts. You know the people with industry accolades, awards and impressive resumes. It’s only when you start to work with these experts do you realize that what they are experts at is the business of being experts. See, an expert is usually someone who has spent a lot of time with a particular subject matter to come up with conclusions along the way and figured out how to validate those conclusions with arguments so that at the end of the day they can tell you all the ways something won’t work. The truth is that in changing times, no one really knows what is actually going to work, but you can be sure if you solve the real problem from the point of view of someone who is experiencing it 1st hand, you have a greater chance of success. The greatest market research is always to be your most discerning customer, and no expert is ever going to have the same identical itch that you’re trying to solve for. Be your own expert and hire where you have gaps in knowledge. That’s about it. There really is no such thing as an expert, just points of view. The point of view that’s not yours is not really going to solve YOUR problem.

4.No One is as Smart as Everyone: The old adage of rejecting what’s “not invented here” is the equivalent of the modern day death sentence for any product or service. The reason is simply that it is a networked interconnected world where what you produce has to work with what the world at large needs and wants. Locking down proprietary methodology, toolkits or code only prolongs the misery that’s going to follow. If your creation is to survive in the wild, it needs to play with everyone who plays in your space. Connected leaders learn by interacting with others outside the company, and connected products gain value by opening up access through APIs and knowledge sharing. The city of San Francisco recently released government data to usher in a whole host of connected services like mobile apps. The city of New York preceded it with NYC BigApps. Apple does it with its iPhone and iPad developer’s kits; Facebook does it with its apps and games. The last two examples might seem contradictory because of the control both of those companies keep on their respective ecosystems, but that’s not the point. The real issue is not about the level of business control these companies are trying to exercise, but the level of access to get others to add value to a platform they’ve successfully established. That’s the point. Control as the market allows, but include others in the network to add value or you’re toast!

5.Focus on Success: All big hairy problems have success stories within their current context. Regardless of what the larger systemic problem is, there are always cases of individuals who are beating the odds in their favor. When it comes to what works on the web, focus on what people are doing right and scale that vs. focusing on what’s wrong. Because when you focus on what’s wrong, the list is endless, and you may end up solving for a problem no one really needed solved. Going back to my earlier point of solving the right problem, it is always easier to replicate success than to solve a situation from the root cause. Let’s take a web success like YouTube. YouTube has lots of problems most obvious is a revenue model that needs to surpass the cost of maintaining the service. However, all the also ran video sites never come close to it, and some even go out of existence because they try to fix the ad model problem without realizing that the power of YouTube comes from its ubiquity. Get an experience that puts users first before you fix the peripheral problems. That’s the point here. Focus on success. The rest will follow.

I hope this post provided some perspective on what really matters in trying to solve big problems on the web or otherwise. For more insights and perspective on addressing your own BHAG (Big hairy Audacious Goals), you might also want to check out these reads:

ReWork
New Rules

Posted via web from raypodder's posterous

Is Fun the Real Indicator of Success?

2009-08-31T14:56:00.000-07:00

Recently I came across this paper on the “Engagement Economy” that talked about the social and behavioral motivators for turning the focus of current crowdsourcing from simply getting people’s attention to getting people’s engagement.

While the benefit of getting people to innovate, contribute and deliver value on a mass scale is obvious, the drivers for what creates such participation often eludes current business thinking. As someone who works on complex web services to get people to participate on a mass scale, the focus on behavioral drivers is obviously key. In the process of delivering successful projects and ventures, I’ve even identified the construct for what creates such behavior change:

Goal = Motivation + Feedback

In other words, in order to achieve the desired outcome, you need to first identify people’s motivations towards that outcome and then design the feedback mechanisms so that they can immediately gauge the benefits of their efforts towards it. A simple example is weight loss. Making that goal engaging has to tie in the motivation of why you are trying to lose the weight in the first place, and then deliver the feedback mechanisms such as your bathroom scale to inform you of your progress. The mechanics of less calories and more exercise is a given, the motivation and feedback measurement as indicated here are the most important factors.

The key factor driving that behavior towards sustained success is whether or not I’m having fun doing it. What? Neither going to the gym or foregoing dessert is fun for most of us, so what the hell am I talking about?

Consider what “Fun” is in the first place. From the perspective of game designers and piles of research on behavior change, “Fun” basically boils down to a specific type of self elected work we find rewarding. How is fun work? Well, think of what you do for fun. Play games? Watch a movie? Take a holiday? Aren’t all of those things about “doing” what gives you satisfaction? It’s even simpler than that when you consider that everything you enjoy doing is just work that makes you feel like you’ve achieved something and you got the benefit of it almost immediately after starting to do it. In other words:

Fun = Activity + Joy

So what does fun have to do with Success? Especially when we typically think of success both in our business and personal lives as a result of hard work? It’s the “work” part. We work for a payoff that we believe the work will result in. The closer the payoff is to reality, the more “Fun” we have, and the further it is from reality, the more depressed and disappointed we get.

Understanding this construct may be the real key to success. When we can design activities that give us immediate feedback towards our objective and we can compare them in relationship with others, we now have the framework for success in any context.

Simply put: Fun=Success.

Think about it. Whether success equals profits, market share, popularity, loyalty, love or any number of things we crave both professionally and personally, the path to getting there inevitably involves work that gives us immediate feedback to let us know we are getting there. In other words it involves having fun!

So the next time you think success involves dissatisfying work that you have to do, maybe it’s time to readjust your radar. If you’re not having fun, you most likely are off course.

Photo: Nunshavingfun

Social commerce = Data transparency?

2009-08-25T15:48:00.001-07:00

This book promo video above makes a compelling case for the power of social media, but for those of us who are trying to create value on the emerging web, it’s still wishful thinking for interactions that have yet to materialize.

Today Readwriteweb announced that Google is offering revenue sharing through Adsense for videos that become YouTube sensations. That’s a cool thing for the creator and advertisers, but what about the millions of us that helped make the video popular in the first place? Anyone with a basic understanding of crowdsourcing already understands that the motivation of promoters isn’t financial but social credibility. So if you want your recommendation to be relevant, be prepared to be exploited by those who see your activity data that you still do not have access to!

While that may be the case today, does that really have to be the construct to usher in the next era of social commerce? Especially given the flux in the content space as voiced by thinkers like Gerd, the flux in the commerce space with Free vs. Paid debate and the flurry of privacy issue headlines around providers of platforms trying to leverage user data to their benefit?

A while ago, I proposed three shifts I observed and one in particular was about the democratization of intelligence. I believe that this may be the most significant factor in opening up the access to all as Anil talks about here and alleviating the core issues of privacy, piracy and promotion in the highly volatile content space. The next market innovations around energy and finance (what is money other than a exchange of information) may well be dependent on whether or not we can democratize data simply and transparently.

The real data to be democratized is not really about a users’ personal data mined in the process of interacting in the vast social ocean of the web. Besides the obvious privacy implications evident with the recent Facebook privacy lawsuit, the usefulness of such data is still predicated on the assumption that the consumer user is on the receiving end of the platform provider and advertiser’s “targeted” strategy. Meanwhile, all the benefit indicators for making data transparent are becoming apparent when we look at web constructs as ecosystems vs. channels. Simply put, data in an open system creates value for all participants, while data mined with the intent of the one-sided capitalization of it looks lame and discourages participation, such as this botched experiment with the marketing of the Tron release.

OK. So the problem may be evident, and you may even buy into the notion that I’m actually making some sense, but how do we even begin to propose revealing usage information consumable by everyone? A major interaction design challenge to say the least, we are also talking about a new behavior of sharing a common context of information across various parties with completely different motivations.

The trade secrets of how I’m actually approaching it for solutions I’m currently working out is obviously not for this post. However, the quick blog post answer is simply about perspective. In other words, it’s just a matter of how you look at it.
For example, the weather is nothing more than ecological data that is shared within a common context for all life on the planet. A dark cloud formation is interpreted and reinterpreted depending on the context of the recipient,but the context of the sky is common to all. A farmer looks at it differently than a little girl who made plans to play outside that day, but the meaning of the cloudy day (or data set) is both simple and commonly understood regardless of individual context. If we can start to think of sharing data with all participants in our market ecosystem this way, we may actually be on our way to creating value for all and even create new value for the next wave of prosperity to come. Thoughts?

Is Top Heavy Bound to Topple?

2009-04-14T14:25:00.000-07:00

While the headline may be obvious, the modern organization, steeped in traditions from the industrial economy is still struggling to find meaning around where the value is these days. The compensation and status infrastructure is still catering to those who fudge the numbers, sell the creations of others they do not fully understand and woo the investors with their schmoozing prowess.

While the social web is quietly leveling the playing field in the background the seduction of creating nothing yet earning everything from cash to accolades shine like dollar signs in the eyes of hopefuls in the back room cranking out the innovations. These hopefuls now think “One day, I too will have the corner office and my underlings will drop the blood, sweat and vacation days to make me look good just like I do for my boss!”…and the cycle continues…but does it have to?

As Obama points out in his recent speech on the economy: “We need less of people who move numbers around and more Scientists and Engineers” he says, with what I hope is a clear message to those who hoard access and contacts because its their only leverage in a world that is quickly becoming a real meritocracy over the illusion of it and back room power plays.

This is not just about organizations that think they are invincible, but the entire economic construct today which put its faith at the top. When we build in silos and look to the top for our salvation, we are ignoring the emerging networked power all of us have to change the way the world works. The next may seem disturbing to the status quo, but is asking why the CTO makes less than the CEO not a valid question? Why does the founder profit less than the VC? Why does the scientist earn less than the marketing executive?

The answers to these questions may seem obvious to those who’ve accepted the current business paradigm where access to the sales and investment channels were scarce. However, in a world where the value actually comes from those who create complex innovative things without the friction to entry into markets of the past, these are more than just questions, they just may be an indicator what type of skills are valued more than ever. If you’ve built a career on not much more than the ability to persuade things in your favor, you’d better watch it! A new breed of innovators who understand brand, behavior change and social connectivity are about to change the rules.
Now more than ever it’s the creators turn to rule. Those who innovate real value no longer need the name on your building to get to the buyer, they also don’t need your marketing department when they have Facebook friends and Twitter followers, and very soon will not need your capital when p2p lending soon turns into the standard financial instrument for change. Capital is already chasing ideas and not the other way around, and the value is across the network and what’s at the top is merely an illusion.

So will the top heavy fall? If Wall Street is any indicator, I think you already have your answer. Thoughts?

Is Talent Getting The Flock Out?

2009-03-24T17:09:00.000-07:00

Gourmet cafeterias, martini hours, casual Fridays and more were supposed to keep talent confined to the organizations that invested heavily in the brand mantras that glued the less connected in the past, but is that still true now? Xing’d, Spoke’d, Facebook’d, Twitter’d and LinkedIn workforces may not be paying attention to the company credo much when it comes to working with people who raise their game and careers to the next level.

I’ve written about the natural migration of talent networks as theory in years past, but the reality of it is taking shape worldwide now! The smart people in your company no longer trust the company to contain all the resources they need to move forward. They get their knowledge from others who have nothing to do with the organization and figure out new ways to connect, share and collaborate with people outside the corporate walls.

Highly sensitive innovations subject to NDAs have cross-pollinated with FrieNDAs (NDAs between friends), and there’s no turning back. Relationships based on shared creative contexts trump those based on those sharing a common signature on their paychecks and option grants. So what does all this mean for organizations going forward? Can innovation really be contained? Does the corporate structure really make sense for how people actually work?

Maybe in the short-term; however, I have a feeling that the alliances of the future have nothing to do with artificial constructs like “Company” or “Administration”, but the social constructs we’ve known all along like friends and family. What do you think?

The Next 3 Shifts?

2009-01-13T14:34:00.000-08:00

Keeping up with the incremental changes in social media, emerging technologies, energy, education and more is often a thankless job until the knowledge acquired suddenly becomes relevant for an objective where it can be applied. Even so, what is really happening is often clouded by what appears on the surface. Why is Twitter important? Why should we look at eWallets in relationship to credit markets? Why does the holy grail of mobile marketing still seem to elude the savviest of marketers? Why is P2P sharing ReMixing the media landscape? Why does business move at lightning speed compared to the speed of the education system? Why are there layoffs now in the emerging cleantech industries like solar, when alternative energy is the darling of the media and investment communities?

The answers I think are more about the underlying shifts over the topical movements that make the headlines. These shifts affect society, economics and culture in fundamental ways that never really surfaced ‘till now. The thinking here isn’t new, the ideas behind a connected world of all things living and created date back to king Ashoka’s time, but the manifestations enabled by a connected population is more than just the ideas, but the active manifestations of what they mean to all of us. From my humble perspective, I think they are the following:

1.The personalization of time:

The ability to quantify time directly contributed to the productivity of the relatively advanced society we know today. As the measurement became standardized, i.e. clocks, time zones, etc., we created other commonly shared contexts like the workday or the weekend. In other words, time, or the measure of it against our ability to contribute towards progress remained constant. That is, constant until now.

Today, as most of the knowledge working population can attest to, time is relative to how they manage their personal schedules against what they need to achieve to be productive in society. We work around the clock within windows of time most convenient to us, sync calendars for meetings and errands, and manage time mostly on our own terms.

The large organizations that fight this shift are increasingly finding themselves at a competitive disadvantage. “I’m working when my competition sleeping” is not only commonly heard, but how groups manage idea creation/time variables win in the marketplace as evidenced by agile startups toppling legacy businesses everywhere. Time now, for all intents and purposes is relative to the individual and beneficial those who understand how to leverage it to their benefit.

2.The virtualization of self:

Whether we realize it or not, our asynchronous virtual existence is everywhere we look. The virtual and the real is merging at a rapid pace as more and more physical objects and locations become data points and our digital profiles become aggregators and curators of all of that information relative to our worldviews.

Geeks like me now manage the activity on the profiles I’ve set up on various socially connected services like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed etc., but as my life becomes more and more digitally complex, my inclination is to automate managing my relationships rather than burn hours managing my profiles. The global brain of our collective consciousness is too vast a resource to navigate without our virtual selves guiding the way.

This is not unique to me, but to all the digirati who for example use SocialToo to manage their activity on Twitter. The net effect is that we have limited attention available to connect to all things and people important to us. We didn’t have this problem when our “social network” was limited to the people we knew around us, and our desires for things were limited to physical objects we can see and touch within immediate transport. The world is now bigger and smaller at the same time, giving rise to a need to aggregate and manage our connections from a customizable virtual concierge paradigm over distributing our attention to individual profiles. We are now both virtual and real to the rest of us, and there is no turning back.

3.The democratization of intelligence:

What the virtureal YOU living in asynchronous time need more than anything else to function is actionable information to make sense of what to do next. When our mobile devices give us turn-by-turn directions or when we pull up a saved bookmark, we are already participating in the next shift: the democratization of intelligence.

Of course we’ve already been participating in managing our activities based on data patterns giving us predictive signs to act such as a cloudy day prompting us to carry an umbrella, but this is much more significant, because the data is far more granular and specifically relevant to us than ever before. From where to eat, what to buy, who to talk to, where to go, what to expect, when to invest and in what, and even actually when to take out your umbrella, meaningful displays of relevant data is morphing our actions into predictable patterns we are forecasting at any given point in time. This is significant because this frees us from trusting any singular source of information to act on to acting on aggregated, relevant information we trust.

We are now in a position to teach ourselves and ultimately think for ourselves independent of external bias. If we look at the relationship between belief vs. understanding historically, it is evident that the more you can prove with certainty (science), the less we need to rely on faith and the proportionately the stuff we can prove has a larger share than the stuff we still “believe”. Ideologies around “knowledge leading to true freedom” have been the beacon of all human wisdom through the ages. Now we may actually be headed there.

These concurrent shifts are not yet felt in totality but the signs are ever present. The idea that all things are connected and interdependent is not new, but the ability to feel it is evident each time we put a query in a search box of the world’s biggest information repository. The business of energy creation and distribution from renewable resources is not just a trend for the times, but an inevitable realization that capital is connected in a networked system that lives and breathes with others. Unidirectional distribution of everything from information (old school advertising) to energy (pollution) to capital (financial system crash) is making that point over and over.

The obstacles (though temporary) are the creative destruction of power structures that have traditionally benefitted from this unidirectional distribution. Change however is less tolerant of what “was” regardless of how much the powers that be want it to be so. So, of course the status quo is busy trying to figure out a workaround to preserve their powers in this shifting landscape, but as history has confirmed, change always wins out in the end. The real question is that if these indeed are the underlying shifts, how will we make them work to our advantage?

Can We Teach Ourselves?

2008-09-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

Sugata Mitra shares his research on educating children in developing countries with the TED audience above, and it brings up a compelling point we may understand intellectually, but never quite muster the courage to implement in real life.

This next video makes a similar point about today's education system legacy that hasn't really evolved past the Victorian era even as we experience the current state of flux in the knowledge economy:

While most of us in the knowledge economy achieve our expertise from self-directed learning, somehow it seems to elude the educational establishment. The objective viewpoint of "power vs. progress" is not such a simple equation when it is emotionally charged with the activity that gives people the means to succeed in the system.

Intellectually we can agree that it is no longer about "Knowledge" but "Learning" as Alvin Toffler famously quoted: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

However, practically, rote learning to pass the SATs is not only common practice, but a formidable institution.

Meanwhile, technologies like Context Discovery can potentially make consuming information less time intensive and creating info mashups towards value a higher priority, but sadly that doesn't quite exist yet in the mainstream wisdom.

So how does the education system reform itself globally? Can we really teach ourselves? What is the design of the system that makes that a reality? What are the barriers to adoption for such a system? What is the first step? Thoughts?

What is the Future of Money?

2008-09-09T19:50:00.000-07:00

From the developing:

to the Developed markets:

We've heard the cashless world predictions at 2008 Lift Asia recently, a couple of years ago from Bruce Sterling and even from Howard Rheingold back in the late 90's, but where is the realizable vision headed?

The benefits of a self adjusting mobilized version of transactional value are obvious. Less crime, better market value as its adjusted to market demand in real time, ubiquity and transportability in a borderless world are just a few of its merits.

But will the powers that be let it fly?

When six companies that control all the transactions in the world try to snuff out a direct transaction platform like Revolution Money, is mCommerce really going to keep much more powerful governments from stopping the next financial innovations? Those who benefit from currency being a closed system will not cede their apparent powers in the name of progress. Just as they will not truly educate the public to question them as we see in the political process in the US.

So what is then the Future of Money?

Maybe the real question to ask is what is the objective of money? If at the core it is a vehicle to transfer value, then the visions are already clear. If however, it is a tool to protect national interests over global progress, than it's a different issue requiring different strategies to to move forward.

If you are trying to reinvent money for a connected, interdependent market ecosystem of a world, what would you do? What would it look like? Thoughts?

Concept to Reality?

2008-09-08T20:57:00.000-07:00

Cool ideas like this wearable motorcycle capture our imaginations, but what does it really take to turn such innovations into reality? Of course there are infrastructure investments, a business model and supporting ecosystem to make something like this both a viable and affordable, not to mention government support to fend off the current commercial interests (think big oil lobbyists) to keep such innovations off the road for good...

I'm a big fan of Shai's efforts with the Better Place Electric Car as recently featured in this Wired article, but the road is long and hard as any entrepreneur trying to bring truly disruptive change can attest to. Even the simple fact that the original design for the iPod (see image below) was conceived back in 1979!

The truth is that there will always be a gap between a solution and market adoption. Because demand alone cannot navigate through the politics of commerce. What is possible though is the momentum of demand accountability we can now generate with social media tools available to us all. The video was posted on YouTube so that I can comment on it here, and you can share it with people who can actually make the case for bringing it mainstream. That's the power WE now have, and we should exercise it fully. Thoughts?

What Drives Three?

2008-08-23T19:15:00.000-07:00

Ancient concepts of three interdependent components contributing to the well being of the whole, like the third eye depicted in the mask above have remained integral to many cultures over the ages for a reason. The rational explanation may be that it is easy for humans to process three interrelated things such as father-mother-child for the nuclear family or CEO-CMO-COO for the global business, but maybe it goes a bit deeper than that...

After a recent conversation with a friend about the three components that keep a business going (Distribution-Development-Operations), it suddenly occurred to me that maybe there is a deeper truth here that applies to all the three-pronged dynamics in the universe.

The obvious examples of the minimum requirements of legs on a stool, spokes on wheel, etc. are a given. They are about the structural rules which even translates to everything from writing to persuasion to choice architecture. The "a-ha" wasn't really that, it was the nature of the relationship which hold the three together that is most fascinating.

Within every architectural case there is a:

-Driver: Something that inspires the need
-Developer: Something that answers the need by creating
-Derivative: Something that is produced as a result needing to be managed in order for the cycle to continue

In most business paradigms, the "Driver" equals creating and delivering the market, i.e., sales and marketing..., The "Developer" equals the development of the product and/or service, i.e. R&D, engineering, design, architecture, etc... and the "Derivative" is the management challenges of a growing organization, i.e. operations.

The realization that the other two cannot exist without the "Driver" is crucial in understanding how all three pronged systems work. It's very easy to get distracted and spend energy on the "Developer" (trying to make the product perfect) or the "Derivative" (designing the most efficient operation management system) while losing focus on what drives them.

This is universal regardless of context, and definitely not limited to business. Here are some other examples:

1. Family: Providing, Nurturing, Prioritizing
2. Learning: Stimulus, Knowledge, Recall
3. Relevance: Need, Choice, Context

See what I'm getting at? What do you think?

Venture Communism?

2008-08-11T15:51:00.000-07:00

This video from the Fortune 2018 conference panel raises some interesting insights that may actually shape the Internet businesses and experiences to come.

The key takeaway for me was the discrepancy between the short term thinking of those who control the money against the long term value equation the connected commercial landscape enabled by the Internet actually IS.

I've written about my systemic approach to brands, experiences, business models and more here many times, so I won't bore you with another reiteration of the same concepts, however, I want to ask just one question that may set the context:

If the world is truly becoming an interconnected and interdependent ecosystem virtually just as it is physically, how long will traditional power structure paradigms (governments, VCs, companies) actually benefit by trying to control it?

BTW, Here's an interesting take from Bill Gates on a related matter.

Digital Objects Merging with Physical Spaces?

2008-08-05T19:38:00.000-07:00

Is a Mass Innovation Future Closer Than We Think?

2008-07-14T16:58:00.000-07:00

Within the last couple of days of the iPhone launch and the Google Android platform's contests a little earlier, it's not that difficult to imagine that what can be dreamed of today is actually closer than its projection.

As I'd illustrated in an earlier post here, and on the GrowAhead blog the missing components of a vision at the time of conception evolve at a more rapid rate (like the availability of multi-touch surfaces or nanomaterials) once the purpose driven meme is set loose to a imaginative and connected audience. In other words, when we can collectively imagine a need like finding the cool spots recommended by our friends, the means to do just that happen much faster than in the singular incomplete imagination of the original visionary.

Understanding the real constraints of political, social and technological execution limitations that can't match the boundlessness of imaginations, the discussion is about not visions for next month, but rather projections that are years away. If you buy my theory though, I think that timeframe is shorter yet, when you factor in collective visions that self-correct the assumptions over singular ones (such as these video examples that have been shared on a public forum like YouTube).

Anyway, that's my take on it, and here's another perspective (see video below). What do you think?

What's Your Motivation OS?

2008-06-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

Tony Robbins masterfully repackages Maslow's Hierarchy / Vedic Chakra based perspective that's definitely worth the 20min time investment.

Designing 3.0?

2008-06-09T10:01:00.000-07:00

Ever since Tim Brown dropped the Design as Strategy meme, the business world has been waking up to what we designers knew all along: Good design=Good business. While why it is more important than ever can be looked at from many perspectives, the fact that it actually IS is a no-brainer.

We are more and more likely to focus on its importance living more and more immersed in VirtuReality, so what does that mean for Design Thinkers and Design Professionals? More importantly, what does that mean for organizations who needs the knowledge capital of design to create its competitive advantage?

Being a designer at my core, I've seen my own career mature through the following transition first hand, and this is what I've observed:

Design 1.0: Attention
In the mass communication era, the primary advantage of design was grabbing attention. Visual aesthetics defined design, and designers were introduced into the mix after the strategic heavy lifting was already managed. Design set trends that influenced visual sensibilities of particular eras. Think about the iconography of the 20th century, like 20's Art Deco, 40's Hollywood, 50's Kitsch, 60's Flower Power, 70's Disco, and 80's Nagel prints and Miami Vice, 90's Hip Hop, etc...

Design 2.0: Interaction
In the post Cluetrain era of the connection economy, we realized how taking human usability factors into account can disrupt markets like the iPod did. Suddenly, interaction drove the design and measuring everything from web traffic to prescription labels mattered. Design is no longer just about looks, it's about engaging people.

Design 3.0: Integration
As heatmaps, sentiment analytics and even the design of the building blocks become second nature in considering design solutions, the real question becomes about design's relevance to the ecosystem. Design becomes more than just the front end "skinning" of the thought product or service, but rather part of the thought process to arrive at creating itself. Will your idea consider business model, brand and competitive strategy with design considerations at the onset, or will it do it after the fact. Can you really afford post-strategy design? Probably not.

While this post may seem self-serving, my honest intent is not that. I truly think that the quality of our thinking will directly affect the quality of life we all enjoy. Design is no longer for "designers", it is a Whole New Mindset for all of us to design the future we want for ourselves. Thoughts?

What's the Worst That Can Happen?

2008-05-23T11:58:00.000-07:00

Brilliant logic for choosing wisely. The Nudgers will surely agree :)

Make Money and/or Change the World?

2008-04-22T12:30:00.000-07:00

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David Heinemeir Hansson of 37 Signals makes a great case for entrepreneurial practicality in the video above. A case for common sense that seems to elude majority of the 2.0 bubble hopefuls that are still chasing YouTube acquisition like stardom that come by as often as winning the lottery.

He has some great points and the video is a must watch. It's a reality check that all who chase the next gold mine should pay attention to. If you don't cover the basics (i.e. a business model that can actually sustain you), than you can't build anything...

While I love his no-nonsense rant fueled by an obvious ego, I still have to question whether it applies to everyone.

Can you really change the world by DHH's logic? For example, if you were in the alternate transportation business like Shai, reinventing the mobile internet like Anand or running against the grain of a broken legacy system like Barack?

I think there's a fundamental difference between thriving in a system (like capitalism) and trying to change the game rules of the system itself. Shai is changing the business model, Anand is changing the carrier model, and Barack changed the fundraising model.

The lesson is here is to not be tempted to apply a one-size fits all common wisdom. Understanding the context of where it applies is just as, if not more important. Can you really change the world? It depends how you approach the change from a systemic perspective. What do you think?

The Theory of Everything?

2008-04-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

TADD: What Are We Really Seeking?

2008-04-03T12:49:00.000-07:00

TADD (Technological Attention Deficit Disorder) as coined by Jay here is all too familiar. Some say its a psychological disorder, but all I know is that my daily RSS feed diet can be pretty bloating. Like most next tech enthusiasts (OK, geeks:), knowing what's happening now can be an all consuming obsession if I let it. But how much do I really get from scanning 1000+ feeds a day, plus social streams from my network, and not to mention magazines, videos, TV, podcasts and more besides confusion?

Of course, I've asked the signal to noise question both publicly and to myself, and I do understand the value of discovering a curated gem from one of my trusted peers over the overwhelming number of PR posts on the tech blogs.

I've also unplugged (mostly by arm twisting from my wife) for many days at a time to discover either that I'd not really missed much, or feel that I'm completely out of the loop. But should the fear of not knowing really be a motivator?

Until there's possibly a better way to to receive more relevant (curated), easily digestible info; the real question may just fundamentally be in why I was seeking that knowledge in the first place? In other words, in a world where attention is scarce what is the most efficient means of spending it?

Instead of looking for more technical means like Feedhub or SocialThing to reign in the beast, maybe the filter should 1st and foremost be driven by our main purpose. What is it that I/we are trying to achieve by voraciously devouring information?

-Are we looking for inspiration to create, or sizing up the competition?

-Are we looking to challenge our thinking or validate an existing point of view?

-Are we seeking knowledge or ammunition?

The deeper answer may reveal more about us than we might realize. Kurzweilian or Bell's theories of memory enhancements not withstanding, it may be a good idea nonetheless to consider purpose over practice :)

The Future of HealthCare?

2008-04-01T17:13:00.000-07:00

Interesting visualizations to help us think of the possibilities...

Is Packing Your Company with "Experience" Too Much to Bear?

2008-03-26T19:43:00.000-07:00

Over the years I've been very fortunate to be involved with innovative people who create companies from just ideas to market leadership. I've also seen missteps, misconceptions and more from companies and their competition regarding how they are "supposed" to behave once funding, talent and advisers come into the mix.

At the early stages, ideas flow freely and execution is much quicker and more efficient for no other reason but survivability. However, as their efforts are recognized by revenue streams and/or the investor community, the stuff that made them great starts to get replaced by the stuff that plagues legacy organizations they were invented to disrupt in the first place.

There's a guy who now documents the most insignificant of requirements. There's another person who takes copious notes at every meeting. There's more people who spend hours debating the effectiveness of blue vs. green while being completely removed from the strategic objectives relevant to the marketplace. Why?

The reason is as simple as the cheesy plot lines of predictable Hollywood blockbusters. There's money and reputations at stake now and most of the energy is spent managing that over the "survivability" instinct that propelled them to this point.

The new hires come from big companies with impressive track records only to repeat their legacy which was often born out of a different set of circumstances than their current situation. The advisory board is formed less for real advice, and more to "attach" themselves to a potential notch on their portfolio belt. Management egos move from humility (which made them wise earlier) to hubris (which makes them believe they're right regardless of the market reality).

Sound familiar?

It's easy enough to point to the ideal M.O. from Dee Hock which I've written and spoken about before, but that idealism doesn't get you the dollars the way the game is currently played. Of course, money is never the motivation for people wanting to create positive change through innovation, but money, amongst other things are the sad reality.

Instead of frustration, maybe the thing to look at who you invite to the party organizationally, and how do you enforce the criteria. The details are beyond the scope of a blog post, but maybe the simplest way to see this is by asking these three questions:

1. What's this person's real talent (over what their credentials say)?
2. What is their typical response to challenges (motivation and character)?
3. Is the answer to Q1 complimentary, and is the answer to Q2 a cultural fit?

Experience can be valuable, but the real question is: Experienced at WHAT exactly?

VirtuReal Memory?

2008-03-20T11:45:00.000-07:00

Move over SecondBrain, Evernote and other emerging Web 2.0 innovations in managing our virtual lives. These dorky glasses might be the start of Gordon Bell's mission applied in our VirtuReal life yet!

Nanomagination

2008-02-27T14:50:00.000-08:00

Aggregating Towards Signal or Noise?

2008-02-15T16:03:00.000-08:00

The hyper-connected users like me have been promised some new toys to make our lives simpler lately.

From Yahoo's OneConnect to PageOnce, Alltop, Twine, SignOn are all promising simplicity by aggregation.

Being an avid user of tools like iGoogle, Google Reader, and even a little app called Orgoo I'd helped design, I like the idea of being able to manage all my connections from one place. But are they really simplifying the info overload my attention span is bombarded with everyday?

Bringing all my news items, social streams, identities, contacts and more together can be a cool thing. But does that really help us understand the insights that drive our decisions, enable us to trust each other, help one another or be productive in society and the marketplace?

I'm not so sure.

More in one place is still MORE than ever to deal with. Growing Bacn on my startpage aside, the real questions about why we do what we do seem to go unanswered. Do we trust by volume of ratings or by people whose opinion we value? Do we act based on past behavior, or our present understanding of the context?

These are just some of the fundamentals we may want to revisit before investing energy in next killer "aggregator" app? What do you think?

Is the Noise Really the Signal?

2008-02-12T11:19:00.000-08:00

Sure we need inspiration, not aggregation, but how does that inspiration manifest itself?

Reducing the noise through recommendations is evolving into a significant discussion.

Maybe the way to think about it is how we see clear signals from other complex systems, i.e. nature. Take weather for example: a cloudy day is a simple signal for what to anticipate from a lot of complex activity. The Ambient Devices guys got a good head start capitalizing on this idea, how about you?

Fictional HelpLine?

2007-12-10T14:28:00.000-08:00

The fictional heroic character Americans would want to help them in an emergency, 2007:

MacGuyver 27%
Indiana Jones 16%
John McClane 14%
Jason Bourne 8%
James Bond 8%
Jack Bauer 7%
Larra Croft 7%

Virtureal or what?

Supercomputing Breakthrough!

2007-12-06T12:21:00.000-08:00

Now how will the future of personal computing look like?

Mixed Reality UIs: VirtuReal Now!

2007-11-30T11:19:00.000-08:00

Are Creators and Businesspeople Mutually Exclusive?

2007-11-21T15:41:00.000-08:00

This parody to shed light on the recent writers guild strike is amusing to be sure, but it also brings up an interesting point. It seems most of the "suits" still subscribe to this type of "dealmaker take-all while the creative grunts produce the stuff we sell" philosophy is sadly more delusional than reality.

I think the key reason is that people like the dude in the video are still conditioned to believe that our economy is still structured to produce "Goods". The unfortunate reality is that the value is no longer derived from "product" but from "thought." In other words, as illustrated in this Wired article, we are becoming a society of puzzle solvers not factory drones.

What was once a a component for "dealmakers" to sell, is now another puzzle for creative minds to solve. Think what kind of person comes up with a truly effective Viral Video, Facebook or OpenSocial app? Is it a market analyst or media buyer or a multimedia designer/software developer?

It's not so much creative types are now the new suits, but rather, creatives who can channel their creativity to capitalize on the changing marketplace that have the real advantage. If you're a writer, designer, musician, programmer, etc. forget about adjusting to fit into the "factory mindset" and instead think about people and connections and the world might be yours yet :)

Why Do Predictions Capture Our Imaginations?

2007-09-12T19:15:00.000-07:00

Sounds possible, but is it really?

If everything wants to talk to you when will you possibly have the time to listen to your own thoughts?

That's just the obvious. I'm sure we can think of more...

The real point though is about belief vs. understanding.
Understanding takes work. It's much easier to follow a beautifully paved path :)

Where Do We Go NOW?

2007-09-12T18:47:00.000-07:00

The past is no longer a viable indicator of the future.

The reference systems that we've used to measure progress are disappearing quickly.

The pain is in between where you are now and where you wanted to be now.

Predictions based on today will undoubtedly look silly tomorrow.

So how do we move?

The same way we navigate when we are lost:

1. Find where you are now.

2. Map where you want to go.

3. Repeat. Readjust. Redirect.

eCommerce Prediction Circa 1967

2007-09-10T17:31:00.000-07:00

Isn't it interesting how our current frame of reference sets our vision? You'll find more gems and other inspirations on Technovelgy here.

Are Real "or" Virtual Still Relevant?

2007-09-10T12:37:00.000-07:00

Are virtual worlds really the future of commerce?

Are all tomorrows really visible?

Can virtual environments really heal the planet?

Can you profit from Singularity?

Will the office actually become obsolete?

While the scenaric thinking referenced above is inspiring, and at times visionary, I don't think that they are definitive. The reason is "Virtureal" as you might have guessed. More specifically, these are not Real "or" Virtual scenarios, they are BOTH. The virtual interactions not only affect our collective consciousness, but also the physical world manifestations of that consciousness.

The furniture design image from MIxko above succinctly explains it non-verbally :)

Free Hug Day :)

2007-09-09T23:20:00.000-07:00

Hug someone. Repeat.

When the benefits need no explanation, isn't it worth doing? The insight too should be obvious. If not, you're not hugging enough:)

Getting Ego to Work?

2007-09-08T17:50:00.000-07:00

Guy posted this insightful piece about Egonomics recently that really struck a chord with me.

For better or worse, I've not only worked with egomaniacs, but have also been a victim of my own ego. Sometimes, my ego has gotten the best of me even when I thought I was past it...

The Egonomics book undoubtedly will spark conversations about "the real business costs" of ego, but I wonder if there are strategic advantages/opportunities to capitalizing on the egos of your competition?

No is as smart as everyone.

Those that think they are, might just be presenting you with ready opportunities.

Is Your Copy an Improvement?

2007-09-08T17:42:00.000-07:00

We all copy.

We copy because it is innate to our survival, and because it works. But we still want to be original. Why?

Because when we copy naturally, we are not really seeking duplication, but improvement.

However, the easier copying becomes, the easier it is to confuse causation with correlation.

We see the pitfalls when we mimic the wrong things in culture, commerce and technology all the time. We also see the enormous potential to biomimic, design, evolve and become more than what we'd previously imagined when we copy the right things. So the real question is not whether or not we copy. That's a given. But...

...Is your copy an improvement?

What If Startups ARE the Establishment?

2007-09-04T10:53:00.000-07:00

The topple rate for large established organizations have been at an all time high for some time as this McKinsey paper outlines.

Some of the most powerful players online are small, agile organizations, and like Seth says, Small is the new Big.

Emerging web companies have disrupted everything from media, commerce and telecom and there is no letting up.

Independent, connected knowledge workers make up the emerging workforce, not seniority based on time on the job and loyalty.

_______

If you are in any business context today, you don't need Tom Peters or me telling you the current reality.

_______

So why is it, that the Startup ecosystem (the Angels, VCs, Entrepreneurs, C-Level execs, Technology partners) are all geared to play to the potential M&A play, the IPO and other constructs based on the assumption that large organizations will always rule?

Why is it, that despite all the disruptive thinking of the founders that created the market advantage, most mid stage startups OUTSOURCE their leadership to ex-corporate execs? People who continue to mimic their large organization upbringing and stifle the original innovation and prepare for an exit (often to ensure a fat personal compensation over organizational health)!

How come people still hire or give credence to people based on pedigrees without 1st checking on their integrity or motivation?

_______

The reasons for the above are as human as any other time in history. It's tough to change, even if our life depended on it. We make decisions based on our "feelings", and our feelings are the direct result of our primitive hardwiring for survival.

I get it.

However, a HyperLocal, VirtuReal and hyperconnected world is very different than any other in history.

So in the age of disruptive creative destruction of everything from advertising, financial markets, telecom, media and more, is it really that outrageous to imagine the commercial power in the hands of us all?

More specifically, as change becomes a constant, what if legacy companies are a thing of the past and those agile enough to reinvent on the fly are the real power players?

How Much is "Post Strategy" Design Really Costing You?

2007-09-03T12:54:00.000-07:00

This classic video always gets a few smirks and chuckles from the marketing community, but is its message really clear? While it's always convenient to bash Microsoft, I believe the real culprit is not the "best practices" of large companies, but rather the way most people still think of the role of design within their strategic objectives.

While myself and others with more impressive credentials tout the accolades of "design thinking", most marketing and corporate strategists still view design as aesthetics after the strategic "heavy lifting" has been decided. The end result is obvious in this parody video, but is it really obvious in your organization?

The cool factor of design centric organizations is just that: DESIGN is at the CENTER.

That means, involve designers and design thinkers when you are conceiving the plan, not bring them in when you need to "execute" the plan. As the video clearly states, the conventional thinking will yield not much more than crap!

Are You Hungry Enough to Stay Smart?

2007-09-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

The social commentary at this poor girl's expense has been all over the media recently, but is it just about the poor education system in the US? Or is it more about complacency, as in the desire to learn when you grow up and get through life on your appearance?

Just as this Miss Teen USA contestant is clueless about geography, aren't some companies with growth on their side guilty of bonehead moves because they think they don't have to learn anymore? If we could all get by on how we "appear" to the marketplace, what is the real incentive to reinvent the game? When we can "acquire" the smart technologies and the companies that produce them, why bother with understanding what all this Web 2.0 stuff means? Just say some words like "social media" and "user generated" and look good to your board and convention goers such as... and we should be good right?

Think again.

When is Now?

2007-08-29T15:17:00.000-07:00

The Just In Time watch (above) and the Relatime watches are capitalizing on the non-linearity of time we are experiencing in VirtuReality. When we start to ask about "Relative time" over linear time, as in times we anticipate an event or plan a meeting, new opportunities to share context emerge.

We can't share meaning until we have shared context.

In the VirtuReal life, relative time might just be the most important context creator yet...

Hello PICO!

2007-08-26T12:33:00.000-07:00

See James Patten's work on merging the virtual and real at PICO here.

Does Your Idea Still Work?

2007-08-24T11:58:00.000-07:00

We live in the age of ideas. It's ideas that make jeans worth $300 and water no longer available for free. The idea to brand relationships are fairly obvious. If not to all of us, at least to savvy marketers who use them to their advantage everyday.

Obviously, some ideas have a longer shelf life than others. The question is, do you know when yours is expiring?

-Grameen Bank had a brilliant idea of empowering bangladeshi women out of poverty as mobile rental providers at a time when mobile phones were expensive. Now mobiles are more available and affordable than ever in Bangladesh. Is it still wise to reinvest in the program or is it time to retire the idea or keep feeding the path to obsolescence?

-The idea of "walled content" saved universities like Harvard Business School from declining enrollments. More professionals and entrepreneurs (myself included) contribute to their bottom line than all of their students combined. But in the emerging age of Free Content, will the "premium content" model still hold up?

-Ever since Google was up for IPO, everyone and their cousin tried their hand in the search game. From A9 to Chacha, cool technologies sit by the curb like the homeless begging for visitors to elevate them to "The Next Google". Do you really think that's going to happen, or did the destination site boat already sail?

-Wired recently had a post about the lamest social networks. Do I need to elaborate further about starting your own? Is it really about yet another community, or offering value wherever people may be connecting to each other?

-Even investing in The Internet as is might prove dangerous with increasing security threats as we migrate offline infrastructure systems online. Not to mention the inherent inefficiencies of distributing bandwidth hogging content like HD video that Bittorrent and others are trying to address.

See, in the current flux, the rate of change is faster than ever before. The moving parts intersecting cultural vibe, technical possibilities and the current geopolitical influence is exactly that: MOVING!

If you don't understand what moves and when, your brilliant idea might easily become the black hole of organizational and personal energy suck because the premise under which your idea originally bloomed no longer exists!

Does Your Agenda Follow Network Rules?

2007-08-22T19:35:00.000-07:00

The human network is more than a brand position for Cisco. It's real. We experience it everyday.

It should be obvious because "The nature of information is biological".

Drucker said it, and so have numerous others who see the obvious connection.

Irving recently posted this thoughtful piece on the nature of networks and changes emerging in the IT industry.

That's a vision some of us can see and work towards, and we try with our respective thoughts and innovations.

Unfortunately however, the myopic focus on next quarter's earnings is still the prevalent mantra in the business world.

Industry changing innovations that honor the network dynamic often don't make it (I know that all too well 1st hand).

-The kind of frenzy that results in moves like this for advertisers do.

-So does the hype around the Ethanol bandwagon over real green changes like Electric Cars or rebuilding Chinese cities.

-The oil company agenda still continues despite the occasional dissenting expos�.

Why they do is obvious.

With constant change, short term profitability seems a surer bet than long term sustainability.

But does it have to be?

Won't sustainable innovations give better return for energy spent in times of constant change?

or better yet, do you really think you can control a system to your benefit for long? See vid below:

In Vibe We Trust?

2007-08-20T19:18:00.000-07:00

Why does the Nova light show video above change colors according to the collective mood in the room?

Why is Scoble calling Microblogging the new email?

What does beer and kitty litter have in common?

There's a reason we look for people like Scoble, Cashmore, Arrington, Malik and others to filter down the thousands pieces of info they and their staff go through to bring me what I need to know (even that's getting to be way too much now)

Two years ago, when someone I trusted recommended something worth reading or watching, I'd make time for it. Today, I prioritize based on level of relationship, agenda, and relevance to what I'm doing now.

I'm sure I'm not alone.

While services like Filtrbox attempt to lift more relevant signal from the noise, the volume of stuff created everyday (and some of it actually very good and relevant) is rising even faster.

So what is the ultimate filter factor?

The same thing we make subconscious decisions on when dealing with the other information overload we've come to accept as nature.

We operate on "Vibe" and "Feel" over fact.

Why? Because it is next to impossible to make evaluated, informed and logical decisions with such a huge volume. So how does "intuition" and "insight" translate to our VirtuReal existence?

Spatially experiencing information.

Twittering thoughts via Brain-to-Computer UIs, Mood sensing surfaces via Ambient Devices are just previews. I suspect we will rely on each other to filter their interpretation of "Vibes" relative to us.

What's Charmr Got to do with VirtuReality?

2007-08-14T15:03:00.000-07:00

Charmr is a product concept for diabetes monitoring from AdaptivePath that Mike Arrington recently blogged about over at Techcrunch. Like Ambient Devices I'd mentioned earlier, it represents the some of the best of systemic design thinking that is a key driver of VirtuReality. In this case, the "system" is the human body, but what Charmr does for diabetics, we can soon do for Brand Sentiment, User Ratings or any other information that is essential for systemic performance, regardless of the system.

The VirtuReality connection for devices like the Charmr is more straightforward than it might initially appear. As materially REAL things (like the body in this case) become VIRTUALIZED through initiatives like Google Health, our actions change based on how we interpret network "vibe" in real time. That's a huge shift, and I look forward to more design thinking along the lines of Charmr leading the way...

Olly Girls, The Parker Hotel, Dr. 90210 and More Riding the VirtuReality Wave?

2007-08-12T16:06:00.000-07:00

Whether or not they know it, some U.S. based reality TV shows like Sunset Tan, Welcome to the Parker, Flip This House, Dr. 90210 and more are already capitalizing on our VirtuReal sensibilities.

Having real material business establishments along with their TV counterparts often puts these entrepreneurs ahead of their competition. Their perception of value (brand) is heightened with their audiences' involvement with their story lines, no matter how cheesy they may seem...

Can you think of other "Real World" businesses capitalizing on VirtuReality like them?

Where is the Next VR Melding?

2007-08-12T15:49:00.000-07:00

My friend Jafer pointed me to VirtuReality melding in the fashion world here.

As our consciousness between the real and virtual get increasingly blurred, I suspect we'll see even more manifestations of VirtuReality in action.

-In Japan, one can sample goods to make the kinetic connections over message driven ones.

-Kidpreneurs can dabble in low risk businesses online through venues like Habbo hotel.

-Crowdsourced ideas can have more environmental impact than their company originated counterparts.

-In an earlier post comment here, Jonathan mentioned Ron Paul who is using VirtuReality to his advantage within the campaign he's running for US president...

Can you recognize other interesting opportunities to capitalize on our emerging VirtuReal consciousness?

Posting Up to VirtuReality...

2007-08-09T18:57:00.000-07:00

The observations in VirtuReality are not new.

We've all experienced it by the simple fact of watching TV, a mental construct of participating in a Real occurrence that IS NOT really happening in the screen in front of you.

Just like you, I've been experiencing it for some time too and have even posted about my observations before I wrote the article:

? The VirtuReal Meld 6/14/07

? Does Online and Offline Matter Anymore? 5/28/07

? What We Call The News! (Jib Jab) 3/29/07

? Immersive MindSpace1/18/07

? The Virtual Me 12/3/06

? When Will Then Be Now? 11/13/06

? Album Cover Mashups 10/23/06

There's more...but I think I bored you enough. The point is that VirtuReality is all around us.

The question is, how will you capitalize on it?

What's Your Competitive Attitude?

2007-08-09T09:37:00.000-07:00

When facing the competition, do you work to:

a) Improve your service and/or features relative to the competitor's?

b) Outspend your competition's marketing efforts?

c) Reinvent the category/change the playing field?

Guess which one moves your brand to market leadership?

Hint: It's the same principle that keeps Apple innovating way ahead of the personal electronics game, Wallmart ahead of the retail game, and (sadly) Al Qaeda staying alive while bleeding U.S. government resources trying to fight an "understood" enemy...

So why is it that emerging brands mimic the organizational behavior of industry Goliaths with fewer resources? How do you think their stories will end? Just think about that the next time you see a Startup more concerned with "appearing" like industry giants rather than being clever enough to actually change the game.

Is the Virtual to Blame for "Real" Disconnects?

2007-08-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

A recent note from my cousin accounts his friend from Boston telling him several years ago that the cafes (near the university) would be filled with young people in the evening. People chatting, falling in and out of love, discussing...now the cafes are empty...everyone...yes everyone is in their dorm room...living their SecondLife or chatting electronically.

The issue of immersion into Virtual worlds can be argued both for (as in the case of emerging experiences like this documentary) and against as in the case for waning effectiveness of the Virtual advertising business.

However, our Virtual consciousness permeating our reality is a indisputable fact in motion showing no signs of slowing down. So the question becomes less about Virtual vs. Real, and more about identifying the disconnect between the two.

For example, are the cafes going empty because people are busier with their virtual lives, or are their virtual lives less connected to the cafes? We know the effect of free WiFi on gathering crowds to cafes already, the question is what's next? If I was in the cafe business, what would connect me to patrons? Is it:

? Having my patrons Geotagging my establishment and favoriting it?

? Get acknowledged for accomplishments in the virtual lives in the form of convertible goods and services in the material (Real) life?

? Get to participate in activities at the cafe that boost their activities online and vice versa? For example, can it be "the place" to meet virtual dates because positive ratings entitles them to the best seats or a free snack/meal?

______

In the case of the declining effectiveness of the Virtual world advertising covered in Wired, maybe the question isn't so much about advertising not working because the branded environments staying empty. Maybe the real questions to ask are more along these lines:

? Should the model for ads be based on number of impressions across number of people (as in the "Real" world) or should it be based on sharability, recommendations and favoriting native to the Virtual world?

? Does the virtual effort have a real counterpart to make the experience more meaningful? For example, RedBull created their business by distributing their beverage in on the ground long before it gave its drinkers "wings".

? Why is the virtual experience separate from the real and vice versa? Why can't it be more like phoning your friend (Virtual) and meeting her in person (Real)?

Some things to think about for cafes (any "Real" business for that matter) and 2nd Life (any "Virtual" business as well) in VirtuReality.

Why Does Syd Mead Still Rock?

2007-08-04T16:26:00.000-07:00

Syd Mead imagined scenarios based on his time, yet left it open for us to still imagine beyond it.

Spirits in the Material World?

2007-08-03T16:51:00.000-07:00

Mike just posted this, and asked a very interesting question. Join in on the conversation here.

More VirtuReality Love up in da Club!

2007-08-03T16:36:00.000-07:00

Harry Webber dropped some VirtuReality love by publishing the article on Madisonavenew. Thanks Harry.

Ernie Mosteller dropped some VirtuReality examples he spotted in a recent eMail:

"I just experienced it in NYC. I have three pet new technologies I love. One is the new Bank of America ATM that scans my checks and reads the amount with OCR. I confirm the amount, see the check, approve the deposit, and am provided with a thermal print of the check I deposited as a receipt. The other two, I experienced in the Marriott in Times Square (don't ask - somebody else picked the hotel, but now, I'm glad.) First was the elevators. Instead of punching the button and waiting for whatever elevator, you go to a central keypad, and tell the thing which floor you're going to. It sends you to the elevator that will get you there the fastest, or that is already going there. Cool. But, cooler -- I got thirsty, and decided to drink the $5 bottle of water in my room. The next morning, it was already on my bill, because a sensor recorded that I didn't put it back. That's virtureality."

Thanks Ernie.

More innovators and players amongst my Facebook and Ning friends joined our respective VirtuReality group(s).

Nice!

Now I want to introduce the topics that we can all hopefully benefit from. For example:

-When a brand gains momentum online (VIRTUAL), what is its counterpart offline (REAL) momentum?

-What kinds of virtual and real innovations coexist to create value right now? For example, a restaurant where we design the food virtually and then it becomes part of the menu based on other diners' ratings?

-We already know that VirtuReality effects our consumption consciousness individually and as a community. Where can we apply this principle now for maximum benefit?

Just food for thought. Let me what you think here or on the Facebook or Ning groups.

The VirtuReal Yin and Yang?

2007-07-31T18:26:00.000-07:00

Gabe sent me this link on The Metaverse today which outlines a totally Virtureal scenario from the not too distant future.

This got me thinking about where's the "balance" between experiencing what's real and what's virtual? I think one way to look at this is see VirtuReality like the Yin and Yang concept.

On one side, we have VIRTUAL items connecting to physically real objects, appliances, etc. to affect change such as:

Ambient Devices and Bug Labs Crowdsourced Gadgets

On the other, we have REAL locations and objects being connected with geotagged input from all of us.

The combination of the two offer balance of connected consciousness in a VirtuReal world.

Device Innovations in VirtuReality?

2007-07-30T12:34:00.000-07:00

Cool post here from 37 signals shows some interesting VirtuReal innovations here and on the way.

VirtuReality for Eco-Sustainability?

2007-07-26T11:49:00.000-07:00

Cool story from Om Malik at GigaOM here.

Antinormalizer or Normal in a VirtuReal World?

2007-07-25T19:04:00.000-07:00

These students redefine mobile interaction with unexpected mental constructs. In other words, they do some weird stuff! They've blurred the lines and stepped into VirtuReality.

What is VirtuReality?

2007-07-23T16:23:00.000-07:00

I originally wrote VirtuReality as an article based on some observations within our changing marketplace.

Before I distributed it to publishers like BrandChannel or MarketingProfs; who have been very generous in the past about publishing my thoughts, I shared it with a few trusted friends and colleagues in this current draft form.

Interestingly, people started giving me examples of what could best be described as "VirtuReality Spotting". So I thought I'd share those and more here to turn the VirtuReality experience from my own to everyone's.

My intention with this blog is to hopefully pick up enough momentum to become a resource for all of us living in VirtuReality to better navigate it. I hope you'll take the time to read my initial article and then share your VirtuReal experiences.

Thanks again for your kind words and support so far, and welcome to VIRTUREALITY.

Can Energy Really Be Free?

2007-07-06T11:12:00.000-07:00

Whether this seemingly impossible claim is true or not, their effort to stand behind their claims publicly in the face of adversity is admirable at any measure. While the reality may be closer to this AlwaysOn post, I'm still optimistic about their willingness to try against the accepted wisdom of the day [ eventually anyway, since their demo flopped yesterday :( ]. You can see more at the Steorn site. One more free energy video below:

Is a Little Evil OK?

2007-07-04T11:50:00.000-07:00

The argument from advertisers and those making a fat living from the last paradigm of advertising models (PPC, pageviews, etc.) for invasive advertising practices is that data mining is essential for personalization.

This recent Mashable and TechCrunch post outlines some of that thinking in action.

But are these approaches really inevitable? Can we not think of better ways to exchange information about value relative to us (the Real Advertising 2.0) than invasive measures? Of course we can.

BlueOrganizer, Pownce, StumbleUpon and more are living testaments to that.

The question here is not about what are the facts, but rather whose AGENDA do they serve? No one in power ever ceded it, it was either forcefully taken away, the environment changed or a disruptor introduced a new meme to change the game completely.

I know I have some ideas about utilizing the power of recommendations based on shared contexts to redefine advertising, and I?m sure some of you have powerful game changing ideas of your own. The question is, will you introduce those ideas in time to undo the damage the repetition=awareness=relevance thinkers have already done and are planning to do?

A little ?Evil? is not OK. No matter how cute it may seem at first.

Is Artificial Life the Ultimate Mashup?

2007-07-04T10:03:00.000-07:00

Craig Venter shares his research here at the TED conference with some amazing findings. Watch the last few minutes of this video to just imagine the potential of what these artificial lifeforms mean for society, commerce and more...

The most astounding discovery arising from Craig Venter's work is the potential to in effect "mashup" cellular systems (species). Learn more from the Edge site here.

What's on Your Mind?

2007-06-26T15:37:00.000-07:00

The video above might just be a preview of the way we interact with virtual spaces in the very near future. While the iPhone, MS Surface and other cool ways of interacting with machines as I?d previously illustrated are already capturing our imaginations, the biggest shift yet is the one at the speed of our thoughts.

I?m a big fan of the ideology that our thoughts create our reality, and as we head into a world where we blur the lines between real and virtual, it takes on an entirely more profound meaning.

The idea that advertising is content was not just my rants like this one, but actually coming true here with the Geico Cavemen and characters from your media entertainment spaces having footprints like this in our mental realities. That, with a real marketplace for virtual goods are just more indicators that the physical and metaphysical are indeed becoming one and the same.

Though I?m not a big believer of following a linear logic to the future, it?s likely that the influence of brand stories in today?s transitory semi-meta virtual existence might translate quite seamlessly in our more immersive mind spaces in the very near future. As traditional advertising models of awareness=relevance dies its much deserved death, the brand stories that move us might just be driven by our own imaginations.

What do you think? (double meaning obviously intended)

Do You Understand What Does Not Change?

2007-06-26T15:35:00.000-07:00

To adapt ahead of change, we need to know what does not change. Though the common wisdom says that we have a set of governing core beliefs to maintain the integrity of our brand, what we know always changes what we believe over time. Our ability to anchor our thinking in principles while adapting new challenges requires a set of understandings, not beliefs. Here?s what I understand to stay relevant regardless of change:

1. Thought shapes reality.

2. Nature is the design manual.

3. Value is the only currency.

4. Everything is connected.

5. Every choice is self defining.

6. Motivation is rooted in (the perception of) survivability.

7. Activity should never be confused with understanding.

What Matters First?

2007-06-26T14:43:00.000-07:00

Some people are making a big deal about Markus Frind who was smart enough to ask the most important questions first and capitalized on the corresponding answers:

Q: What?s missing from online dating sites?
A: Free Services!

Q: How can I capitalize on it?
A: While advertisers still bet on ?page views? to be a viable conversion tool, it's a no-brainer : Online Ads!

To me, as I?m sure to many of you it?s blatantly obvious. The question though, is that is it obvious now that I?ve pointed it out, or that Markus is making serious money, or both?

As The Black Swan points out, we often see the logic of solutions after the fact and deduce that ?the logic? we reconstructed may be the formula for future success. It?s not! The four dimensional paths of intersecting possibilities made the apparent success real only seem unidirectional after the fact!

However, asking what matters first (like having a engaging story line) may guarantee a better return than this type of a multi-million dollar doozey...but that?s another topic for another post...

Air Car!

2007-06-24T17:05:00.000-07:00

Visionary Democracy?

2007-06-22T11:28:00.000-07:00

When sites like this pop-up, who becomes the visionary in organizations? The "leader" or everyone?

Is The Future Really A Linear Progression?

2007-06-18T10:05:00.000-07:00

Circa 2007

Circa 1962

Where is Your Mind in the Business Ecosystem?

2007-06-14T11:44:00.000-07:00

-Do you respect and grow the talent of your peers, or do you leverage it so you can shine?

-Do you have transparency with your vendors, or do you try to squeeze every drop of value from them until they move on and you find someone else?

-Do you feel good or bad when you?ve clearly exploited someone?s position to your benefit?

-Do you weaken or strengthen the power of the people around you?

-Do you still maintain relationships where you benefit much more than you contribute?

These are but a few questions that define whether or not you can play a more significant role in the global business ecosystem you participate in. As the world becomes more connected and thus transparent, the rules that apply to biological ecosystem apply here as well.

The big difference though is that in nature, parasitic, symbiotic and dynamic relationships are played by the same players without the possibility of moving up or down the change (apart from evolution over time). With people in business, the evolutionary cycles are faster and more immediate than ever, and growth is dependent on the ability to adopt to new mind shifts from ?small timer? to major player.

The real question then is about your mentality. I?d written earlier about Landlord vs Trader mentality, but this is far more fundamental. It?s about nobility. The best definition of nobility I?ve hear to date is:

Nobility is not about how much better you are than someone else, but rather, how much better are you than your former self.

So now, truthfully ask yourself:

Are you just a bottom feeder, a leach, a coattail rider, a predator, or can you shift your mentality to be an integral part of the business ecosystem you play in? Your survivability in the bold new world might just depend on it.

WiTricity!

2007-06-08T12:04:00.000-07:00

Time Travel?

2007-06-02T12:14:00.000-07:00

Extended version below:

Few more theories:

Does "Online" and "Offline" Matter Anymore?

2007-05-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

Besides the entertainment value of the clip above, the sheer fact that core motivator for pleasure in the physical world (sex) has now been virtualized brings up a much more interesting question. Are we still operating in the physical world, or is this the transition to mindspace?

I'll write more on this soon (as an article or paper), but I just wanted to throw out the concept to get you all thinking...

-Brands and their respective stories determine the real value in the marketplace (a mental construct)
-It often costs more to create a movie, a website or produce intellectual property than a building.
-We are becoming desensitized to violence (fear of death) through virtual experiences like Video Games.
-We do more things virtually (email, SMS, blog, etc.) in our workday than physically.
-We seek pleasure in peace of mind and avoid experiences that make us feel crazy. Contrast that with seeking pleasure through actual sex and avoiding actual death...
-Real businesses have virtual counterparts and vice versa. Have you seen 2nd Life? How about a TV show based on a real tattoo parlor (Miami Ink)? Blog with characters from ABC's Lost? Yes I said "Characters"...

The shift is happening...

It opens up different ways to look for opportunity, different ways to look for value, and different ways to be relevant. What do you think? I'm not just asking that for feedback BTW; what YOU THINK might be the biggest factor of all...

Can You Trust Immutability?

2007-05-28T12:28:00.000-07:00

In the branding world, Al Ries seemed to have a lock on the time tested concepts on brands (they were actually on human nature), but even some of those things are anything but, as indicated with this article from Mike Schultz and my GBN colleague Dr. Dan Herman.

This post is not to bash Al Ries, these guys have already done the job. More importantly, it got me thinking about what the bigger function of declaring immutability is really about. I think it simply comes down to establishing one's own authority.

Take for example the "logic" of theology. Whatever your beliefs are, you'll see this same pattern when you look closer into any religious doctrine (Bhagavad Gita, The Bible, The Q'uoran, you name it):

1. Ask a big question like the meaning of life.

2. Ponder the emotional dilemma posed by this question.

3. Create a circular logic that points to one immutable source for the answer (i.e. God).

Maybe the reason to cling to concepts of immutability is our fear of having to adapt to yet more change. Whatever the reason, the real question is: Can we really afford to think in terms of immutability when the cycle of change is faster than its ever been in human history?

Can Capitalism Still Exist in a Transparent World?

2007-05-28T12:13:00.000-07:00

Let?s face it, the top dog in a capitalist economy stays that way through opacity regardless of the feel good business reality of transparency on the horizon. We don?t know Apple?s real plans, nor do we know what Google?s really cooking up behind closed doors despite Paul Bucheit?s ?Don?t Be Evil? quip that happened to make it?s way into the public G-manifesto.

Today a country stays a superpower by manipulating energy and the need for arms. How else do you keep paying your citizens a higher wage for the same work in another part of the world? Start a war, bring the fear, then sell the stuff that keeps the fear alive so your stuff is worth more and you make more money for the same effort... Ok, ok, it?s a bit simplistic, but you divorce your mind from the emotion, I?m sure you?ve also had the same insight, right?

Why media censorship, web access censorship, PR spins and more still exist in a post Cluetrain world may be baffling to the 2.0 digirati, but I can?t say that it surprises me. We need opacity to keep the wheels of Capitalism rolling....but where its? going though is a whole other question.

Enter a transparent world. Blogs in the workplace, SMS revolts that overthrow autocratic governments, and even the Twitter-ization of politics. Now the real questions surface:

If your enemy can be humanized on MySpace, do you really need guns to protect yourself from him?

If we can actually generate energy without depleting the Earth?s natural resources, do we still need to invade new ?markets? geographically or has the competition shifted to the realm of intellectual property?

When you can truly outsource in a uber-connected world, how will you justify your inflated salary living in a ?developed? country? For that matter, when it?s all connected, where is it really ?developed?, and where is it not?

If the world is indeed becoming transparent, can Capitalism still exist?

I?m lucky to live in a country where I can raise these issues and my web is generally accessible. Even so, the powers that be would like to blind you this reality, but they may not have long. Transparency is the new currency of business, and an inevitable byproduct of a connection economy. Can the connection economy and Capitalism co-exist? In other words, will the connection economy actually bring about a re-distribution of wealth where somebody doesn?t have to lose for my gain? We?ll just have to wait and see...

Wise or Foolish?

2007-05-10T17:39:00.000-07:00

It is only two kinds of people who are 100% certain of their decisions. The wise and the foolish. The irony is that you don?t know which one you are until the actions of your decisions reveal themselves :(

A Life of Happiness or Meaning?

2007-05-10T17:22:00.000-07:00

Of all the areas of your life to live with paradox, it seems ambition is the biggest bitch! While self help gurus, business wisdom and even the Jeffersonian ?Pursuit? of it, does ?Happiness? really fit in a life of meaning?

Sages, yogis and the like have always extolled the virtues of ?Living in the moment? and ?Giving freely? to travel the road of happiness, but can you really do so if your ambition (or calling if you prefer) is a life of ?Meaning? instead?

Recently, a TV character put it into perspective for me:

?A life of happiness is living in the moment without baggage from the past or anxiety for the future. A life of meaning involves constantly examining your past to continue to shape your future. So, either you choose a life of happiness or you choose a life of meaning. You can?t have both!?

Of course! I?ve always known It?s the pissed off people who change the world! Doh!

Are You Ready for The Shift?

2007-04-12T17:12:00.000-07:00

glumbert.com - Shift Happens

Thank You David Lynch !!!

2007-04-03T21:12:00.000-07:00

I couldn't have said it better myself!

Belief or Understanding?

2007-04-01T18:18:00.000-07:00

I watched this video again today, and it further confirmed how the world operates on belief over understanding.

Hans Rosling makes some compelling data points very clear through the great work of the Gapminder project, yet the world still operates like my last post as "What we call the news" video below indicates. He thinks if we can access the same rich global data with ease, there will be understanding that benefits us all. I?d like to ?believe? that too.

Do You Know What Efficiency Really Looks Like?

2007-03-04T17:24:00.000-08:00

Recently, some of my advisory engagements have transitioned into design gigs. Coming back full circle from the client side back to the service side, I couldn?t help but notice the inefficiencies of how design gigs work...or rather the way they?ve always worked, but I'd failed to notice because I too was selling the kool aid I was drinking back in the day.

For example, why do we need multiple design options to arrive at a solution when we?ve not yet fully understood what problem for the customer we're really solving?

Being involved with startups, I already know that agile, iterative prototyping is far superior to linear "button down" methodologies. I?ve also noticed that most established companies spend more energy on ?looking? efficient, than actually being efficient. The ?meetings about meetings? are the obvious signs, but lately I also notice things like expensive research reports vs. just experiencing what it?s like to be your own customer.

Design, marketing and IT shops seem to spend a lot of energy on looking like they know what they?re talking about and you don?t. Unfortunately, a large percentage of service businesses feel they need to operate this way to keep their business model of playing to your insecurities or resource constraints. People who seem smarter and bigger than you seem to buy into it, so why shouldn?t you?

If you?ve built a successful business from scratch, or been around people who have, you should already know it. Efficient people and processes are far too busy being efficient to spend energy to look that way. That should be your first clue.

These two parody sites do a great job at exposing the BS. Can you?

How Immersive Will Our Mindspace Get?

2007-01-18T22:34:00.000-08:00

Here are some very cool previews starting with this moving clip of the image above. The web 4 scenario from Seth here and the gel screen created by Yoichiro Kawaguchi (story here). The "screenless screen" video above and more scenarios with mobile devices below from Nokia. Enjoy!

What is Real?

2007-01-18T18:28:00.000-08:00

Interesting concepts in this film to show how we create reality, including how we choose to interpret what is shown in this film (this film is not exactly substantiated by the scientific community). To me it brings up an interesting point about the mindspace in which we increasingly dwell and how that creates the desires which will shape our future.

What Do People Really Want?

2007-01-18T17:00:00.000-08:00

Fear and desire have always gone hand in hand. Our deepest fears have always revealed our truest desires. For example, if you fear being insignificant, you definitely desire fame. If you fear being poor, you are bound to desire riches, and so on...

While surface needs are always debatable and open to interpretation, all people at their core want to SURVIVE. But what does ?survival? really mean? Obviously, it?s the FEAR of their demise and the DESIRE of pleasure, but within which context?

Interestingly, while we are wired for survival in the physical world, our daily existence is increasingly becoming virtual, or more about the the things we can?t really see or touch. It used be that we took a break from our geographically bound physical world to engage the mind with media or thoughts; but isn?t it the other way around now?

Don?t we spend most of our time (work or play) thinking, worrying, imagining, escaping and staring into a screen or attaching our senses to some other attention occupying device (iPods, phones, etc.) most of the time, and THEN take a break to deal with reality (i.e, take out the trash)?

What?s happened here?

Has the context of survival shifted from the physical reality to the space in our heads? If we?ve indeed moved from body to mind, (and before you debate it, just consider what you are doing reading this blog post right now) what are the new rules of survival? What constitutes our real fears here? What equates to our real desires here?

In the physical world, its pretty simple. We fear things leading to death and desire things leading to sex. Before you consider that too simplistic an assessment, just ask yourself why you avoid driving into oncoming traffic and why you really want any possession.

The most powerful force to shape human destiny has always been our desires. The opposite of what we fear most have always been desirous. The question here is not about that basic understanding, but what those fears and desires are when our context changes from the physical to the mental. In other words, in the new world of our mind spaces is it still the same? The answer to that may not only reveal how to market and participate in next market reality, but also reveal who we are and who we are all becoming.

Can It Really Be That Simple?

2007-01-05T16:12:00.000-08:00

I remembered this quote about the personal journey of a martial artist that went something like this:

?When I was a novice, a punch was just a punch and a kick was just a kick.

Then, when I started to study the art, the punch was way more than a punch and a kick was way more than a kick.

Now after many years with the art, a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick.?

The point is obviously about the process and how things really are that simple once you?ve gone through it.

For those of us participating in our changing marketplace, I hope your own journey brings out the realization that everything about what we can do better next IS about the fusion of Human+Nature.

As simple as that sounds, it?s far more profound if you?ve worked to understand HUMAN behavior and potential and also see that there is no better blueprint for efficient, sustainable design of everything from communications to systems than NATURE.

The key here as always is the PROCESS.

Why Do People Do What They Do?

2007-01-03T11:20:00.000-08:00

Getting to the right question is more than half the battle. Amidst a bevy of predictions that start off the year, most of them seem to be answers to questions that may be the most popular but not necessarily relevant or useful.

For example, it?s easy to say that marketing will go more mobile and social in 2007 based on obvious advances in social and mobile technologies but does that really mean people will opt-in to socially recommended advertising on their mobile devices?

Or is it likely that they will just trust their own opinions because in times of constant change, it?s the easiest and most reliable thing to do? If the latter is more likely, then shouldn?t the mobile apps be based on personal opinion validation rather than network recommendation? See what I mean about asking the right questions?

Thinking about the future is a constant for us, especially when the rules we thought were true have suddenly been challenged. It seems that if we can just keep up with the rate of change, we?ll have the advantage, but could it be that keeping up with change is more about identifying what is constant rather than what is changing?

For me, that constant is trying to better understand why people do what they do.

My Top Ten for 2006

2006-12-31T08:24:00.000-08:00

Nuckin' Futs! The JibJab Year in Review | Send To Friends | Funny Animations at JibJab

This time of year somehow compels people to assess the key events of the year and I suppose I?m no different.

There?s been lists galore from Yahoo Top Searches, IT Products of 2006, Doc?s Top Blogs, Mashable?s 2007 predictions Round 1 and Round 2, the FutureLabs? marketing trends, the Social Entrepreneur?s Toolkit to even the Amazon website about lists themselves. I?m not part of the cool club yet to participate in Blog Tagging, so I'll spare you my secrets...

So what to post, what to post?

Well, I?m certainly immersed into the future enough to spout my own perspective on the evolution of the web like this and Web 3.0, but I still believe the best way to predict the future is to create it yourself!

There?s no need to end the year with discussion of social controversy. That's not really my bag, and others are already at it. During this I wondered if people in power want racism to continue because it's a way for them to manage otherwise fragmented voter market spaces?. After all, the irony of community is ultimately the fear of the outsider, is it not? Or whether or not its delusional to believe in God...

I also wondered whether ?We are really smarter than me? is really true when less than 1% of the community is responsible for more than 90% of the content on sites like Wikipedia? Or, are currencies going to be the new countries as these virtual examples are already showing us the way?

Finally I decided on sharing the most meaningful things I?ve learned this year, and I hope by sharing them will benefit others as they?ve enlightened me:

1. You can?t share meaning until you?ve shared context.

2. You can?t be any more intelligent, you can however, be less stupid.

3. People don?t ignore you because they don?t know you, they ignore you because they think that they already do.

4. Of course the game is rigged! But if you don?t play, you can?t win.

5. Most people can?t handle real authenticity or transparency, only the illusion of them.

6. Most people will put what they consider to be their means of survival ahead of any ?bigger than themselves? cause they claim to participate in.

7. No one is smarter than everyone but it?s still individual insight who originates direction.

8. You can?t really change anyone?s mind, you can however, change their context.

9. Efficiency=Satisfaction=Value

10. It takes much more effort to know than to believe; but it?s always better to know.

If Everyone?s Talking At Once, Is Anyone Listening?

2006-12-28T18:54:00.000-08:00

I loved this cartoon on Hugh?s Blog the other day. If you?re still under the delusion that blogs are about the conversations that the Cluetrain imagined, you?re in for a rude awakening!

For starters, who has the time to read even the stuff that?s actually worth reading (such as the Z List), forget the scores of new blogs cropping up every minute? If you actually are trying to do stuff like run a business or have a life, it?s daunting at best.

Secondly, even if you comment on one of these blogs, the blog owner/editor will generally publish the comments that will further strengthen their point of view. It?s as forgettable as the bulletin board back in High School (unless you?re in student council)

But mostly, the information is not quickly applicable when I most need it. In other words, unless I decide to make an ongoing investment by adding your blog to my RSS reader and spend more time I don?t have interrupting my day with your feeds, the wisdom is lost into the ether as fast it appeared. So what to do?

Are good blogs valuable? Absolutely! Do I get to read my growing blogroll regularly? No. Am I missing out? Am I under informed? No and maybe but so be it.

Those of us honest enough to admit that blogs are an exercise in our own narcissism may be closer to getting more value from the wealth of info available online. Once you realize that, the information has a clearer context and thus easier to filter.

So my next question is:

Are connection economy markets really about conversation or is it about the end result of what conversations in real life achieve?

The end result of conversation in the real world is intelligence. We learn stuff about each other when we talk. In a hyper connected world, can that not also happen by seeing the choices we make and the patterns that emerge from them?

So maybe it?s actually one step further:

Markets are about the exchange of intelligence.

Does Talent Equal Popularity?

2006-12-20T10:15:00.000-08:00

As the video above illustrates, true talent has little to do with what elevates people like Diddy, Britney Spears, Donald Trump and others like them to superstar status. Considering their more talented counterparts like Dr. Dre, Christina Aguilerra, Bruce Ratner and others occupy the lesser degrees of the same limelight, the obvious parallels to other brands who compete with substance vs. sizzle is definitely something to consider.

So why do we as a group choose the less talented and the less substantive? Is it because as Machiavelli had said that we judge by the results and not the process? Is it because the less talented remind us more of ourselves and thus more accepted? Or is it purely biological as our reptilian brains unconsciously gravitate towards the better looking (both physically and financially) to ensure our survival and the talent or substance just doesn?t feature in the process?

The truth is generally a combination of all factors relevant, but more importantly I believe the cause is less important than the outcome. Regardless of the reason, people gravitate towards perceptions. Positive "perceptions" of truth, wealth, beauty, philanthropy and authenticity always win over the real deal. If you've ever visited Paris in Las Vegas with the annoying faux French accents adorned by the staff and marveled at their profitability, you've seen it 1st hand.

Contrary to popular belief, the availability of information in our connection economy does little to change perceptions, rather the info only validates existing world views. Perceptions are still shaped by disinformation and cultural biases. I believe understanding the root of both the disinformation and the culture codes are more essential than ever. Because as Gottfried Helnwin had once said:

?Of course the game is rigged. But if you don?t play, you can?t win!?

How can we be more intelligent?

2006-12-08T15:53:00.000-08:00

We are only as intelligent as we are. We can however, be less stupid.

Starting with Trust

2006-12-04T18:09:00.000-08:00

Can you see applications of this kind of thinking in another commercial context?
Some Social Entrepreneurs are already setting the stage for the next world changing innovations here.

My question is this: If we are all part of the same market ecosystem in our connected global economy, then why should there be any distinction between "social" and "entrepreneur"?

Is Addiction Efficient?

2006-12-03T20:17:00.000-08:00

Not to put the horse before Descartes, ?I post, therefore I am? is a common sentiment shared by me and every other blogger addicted to putting their thoughts out in the cyber ether. Indeed the addiction to media, the Internet, to shopping, smoking, drugs, sex, etc. is pervasive in modern society to say the least. It?s safe to say that the pillars of capitalism are built on addiction. In other words, if you?re hooked, you ?consume? and if you consume, you keep the economic engine chugging along...but has that ideology reached a point of diminishing returns? Here's an amusing little video that captures media addiction all too accurately:

So what's the point really? Is it not true that all addicts are essentially searching for satisfaction through their addiction but are coming up short every time? Thus, the cycle continues and the fat capitalists get fatter, right? But at what cost?

If at the core of addiction is a universal need for satisfaction, wouldn't it make more sense to organize commercial systems around satisfaction itself? What would "consumption" look like if we did that? Would economies be less beneficial to society or more?

Though this is a larger topic that warrants discussion beyond my blog post, my feelings on this are clear. I believe we now live in connected paradigm of civilization where the real costs of ?consuming? have little choice but to be balanced by serving the ecosystem in which we participate. If we don't benefit the network as a participant, we don't survive here. The natural analogy is pretty obvious. Accounting for waste and provisioning for creating new customers shouldn't be just ?ideals? but essential for creating sustainable satisfaction. A brand must not only entice you to merely buy to feed the addiction, but enable you to participate in the system which creates ongoing satisfaction.

The Virtual Me

2006-12-03T18:08:00.000-08:00

There?s been a lot of talk of virtual reality communities lately. As with anything that gets people?s attention when money moves in a new direction, the focus on the revenue can blind us to what?s really at work. Sure we can generalize that social networks serve our very human need for recognition and acknowledgment and for the most part we?d be right. So what is the one thing about virtual worlds that?s so appealing? Most non-participants would say that it?s anonymity, but Cyworld does over $300K a day in virtual commerce based on being yourself.

I believe virtual worlds represent a significant shift in civilization we?re already participating in. How we present ourselves on our ?about me? pages on our bios and profiles, and who we choose to be seen with both on and offline are all part of the larger phenomenon of amplifying who we ideally want to be. In short, virtual avatars are nothing more than our desires to create and recreate our ideal selves. Our desire to continuously create ourselves in our ideal image is a desire that is finally being enabled, and it's a pretty cool thing. It?s safe to say that we?ll be participating in such activities as the lines between the physical and metaphysical continue to blur.