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 While this is not exactly a "blog" - I'm including personal insights on a variety of topics, mostly related to emerging technologies and radical innovation topics that catch my interest, the changing role of the university, climate change issues, and perspectives on the future.
2012 Election - Shocking Scientific Ignorance - I have to admit that I was shocked by the scientific ignorance displayed during this year's election. I'm a Republican (who occasionally votes for Democrats) and I was particularly dismayed by the displays of scientific ignorance by candidates from my own party. Mitt Romney's emphasis on Coal without even adding "clean" was disturbing - my own graduate studies in environmental science confirmed that there is no such thing as "clean coal" - only "cleaner" coal. The comments about global warming, the EPA and FEMA were also disturbing.
I did my master's thesis in 2010 on The Paradoxes of Global Warming and it is clear that the debate is settled - as someone with some expertise in this area, I can say that human activity is causing global climate change, and something needs to be done to switch to cleaner energy sources, before we suffocate the planet. Think about this: CO2 levels were at 380 parts per million (ppm) when I began my graduate studies in 2007. Today, CO2 levels have risen to 400 ppm - at this rate it will only take 30 years to reach 550 ppm. Why is 550 ppm significant? In the 1970s, researchers studying poorly ventilated office buildings confirmed that workers start complaining about having difficult breathing when the CO2 levels reach 550 ppm. That means, in as little as 30 years, we will walk outside in the "fresh air" and we will have difficulty BREATHING. This is already happening in some industrial centers in India and China. There are MANY dire consequences looming on the near horizon. For example, more people will die younger from lung diseases caused by atmospheric pollution and rising CO2 and methane levels. It's even possible that humans will evolve into a race of odd-looking, barrel chested creatures with larger lungs that will be needed to breathe the depleted atmosphere we are creating. The saddest reality is that China is building a coal fired plant every month or so, so CO2 increases will probably continue no matter what we do to stop burning coal in the U.S. and Europe. I support conversion to natural gas and a carbon tax used to subsidize the commercialization of solar, wind, thermal and tidal energy sources.
Prospecting for Innovation - This year's hit reality series is a show called "Gold Rush" about amateur gold miners in Alaska. Innovation is like gold mining. You don't find gold in the obvious places, or in played-out mines. Likewise, it's not enough to rely exclusively on sources inside your organization, people you know, or contacts win your industry. Most innovation surprises - and opportunities - come from places you normally don't look - over the time horizon, in another industry, in a research lab, or off your radar screen.
Here are five ideas to improve your market scanning function: 1) give everyone in the company an opportunity to be an "emerging technology analyst" to scout for ideas (GE does this); 2) use open innovation services - or develop your own - to tap customers, vendors, students, academics, etc. - this can be done anonymously so competitors don't know that you're looking for a particular technology or market solution (Innocentive.com is the best example of this); 3) develop an "internal venturing" group to serve as an in-house venture capital group (this can also be done in partnership with a VC); 4) create a "dark blog" that functions as an internal network/expert system for employees and trusted partners, where innovations can be scouted, presented and evaluated in a closed but creative network; 5) use RSS feeds and portals to access daily technology updates, research reports, news, breakthroughs, venture deals, etc. My point? It's not just about the gold. It's about the prospecting system.
 Our Ability to Act Collectively - My favorite nonfiction author, Thomas Friedman, told Andrea Mitchell (MSNBC): "We've lost our ability to act collectively." This is clearly a time in the history of civilizations to be collaborating, compromising and pooling our best ideas to solve problems. This is not a time to be bickering, posturing or politicking in Congress or the EU - which to me looks frighteningly like Nero fiddling while Rome burned. Rome is not burning, but Rome - the world - is choking on CO2, greenhouse gases, oil dependency, economic imbalances and crises, which need everyone's best efforts to provide solutions...now. When the U.S. is between wars, unemployment is low and the economy is booming, we have the luxury of engaging in gamesmanship and political posturing. When the crises are daunting and extremely urgent, we no longer have this luxury. Too many politicians are fostering and following fractious factional families. This is a democracy and unfortunately, bickering, grandstanding and stonewalling are expressions of freedom, but if this polarization continues, it could put our democracy at risk. Tom Friedman is right. We are losing our ability to act collectively. Academic research confirms that teams solve problems better than individuals and diversity enhances the process. We are weakening our problem solving capability at a moment in history when we need it the most. If we don't heed the signs, we suffer the consequences of our actions...or inactions.
Ubiquitous Connectivity Can Reveal and Expose Atrocities, But Can't Stop Them. A disturbing reality is that being able to see genocide on TV - such as the Syrian attack on Homs - does not mean that anyone will act to stop these atrocities. We see babies being killed indiscriminantly in Syria - Anderson Cooper actually showed the death of an infant on his show - Western journalists are dying in Homs - yet, the Arab League, U.N., NATO and other enforcement agencies do nothing...isn't this what happened in the Holocaust? What happened to the words "never again?" Since the Holocaust, we've seen genocide in Cambodia, Rwanda, Sudan, and in many Arab nations.
During the Rwanda genocide, I can vividly recall a video of a young black woman pleading with a Dutch U.N. military commander not to leave because the people would be killed by men with machetes who were hiding in a nearby corn field. The commander shrugged his shoulders and said he had no choice. Is that insane? Photos the next day showed this same woman and a hundred of her fellow villagers lying dead in the road exactly where she was pleading with the U.N. commander to save them! My personal opinion as a former captain in the U.S. Army is that those pictures of the people he abandoned to die on the road should be placed in that U.N. commander's military personnel file and their names should be engraved on his tomb when he dies.
It is remarkable how many times the media and politicians at the highest levels proclaim that they will never again allow genocide, then they simply turn their backs when it happens. It is even more disturbing that modern technology now allows virtually every genocide to be shared over cellphones and Skype computer screens...still, many mass murders are allowed to happen by world leaders. Obviously, there is a serious disconnect between international crime and international leadership
 Lessons from the Mayans - During many visits to the Yucatan - I've explored (as a tourist) the remnants of Mayan culture with awe and fascination. During these explorations, I'm always struck by the realization that we Americans really don't have a billion years until the sun burns out. The clock is always ticking on our civilization, and how long we keep things going depends entirely on us. Unfortunately, as gatekeepers of our own civilization, we've been pretty lousy caretakers. Despite the warning signs and lots of historical examples, we still don't seem to realize how fragile civilizations can be.
The Mayan civilization disappeared due to a combination of factors, including depleted resources, drought and other climatic events, conquest and disease from the Spanish conquistadors. You can see what happens when a civilization collapses in the ruins at Ek Balam, once a bustling city, now covered by jungle (see photo at left).
 It is disturbing to think how so ma ny of the factors that destroyed the Mayan civilization are at play, in updated forms, in our modern world. You can see the crumbling stones of the Nohoch Mul pyramid at Cobá, the tallest pyramid in the Yucatan (photo, left). I've climbed this pyramid twice and walked on the raised limestone road created by the ancient Mayans, now reclaimed by the jungle.
Of course the most iconic symbol of the Mayan civilization is Chichen Itza, a magnificent complex of buildings dominated by the striking pyramid which I photographed during my second visit (see photo). On an earlier visit, I climbed the pyramid and saw the deep red jaguar pedestal in the room at the top where presumably sacrifices were made (climbing the pyramid is no longer allowed, unfortunately).
An American or European civilization can just as easily "disappear" or at least diminish, due to a combination of these same factors - as we saw the European civilization collapse so disastrously during the Dark Ages. There is a perfect storm scenario that needs to be considered. It's easy to find grim metaphors in the tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes that have devastated so many countries in the past few years. These "acts of God" can be interpreted as God-level warnings - and whether or not you believe in a supreme deity, these are definitely warning signs...whether they come from from God, from Gaia, from a protesting planet, or from human-caused climate change. Most scientists agree that we are currently in the midst of the SIXTH global Extinction Event, with as many as 50% of all species doomed for extinction by the end of this century. Mass extinctions are almost always accompanied by, or caused by, massive climate change. Sound familiar?
Linking Sustainability to Enterprise Innovation- Olympus President Mark Gumz invited me to address the company's 600 managers (some in person, some participating online) on the topic of Sustainability and Enterprise Innovation. I discussed innovation at the intersection of Product Innovation, Enterprise Innovation, and Sustainability. As I developed some insights for the presentation, I was struck by the notion that the most successful companies in the environmental space are NOT those who are engaged in environmental projects helter-skelter, or without strategic intent, or for PR purposes. The most successful companies are those that link sustainable practices to enterprise innovation, which produces not only a social and environmental impact, but also economic benefits. Too many companies pay lip service to green or sustainable practices, to make sure they're on the list of green companies. But as GE and other companies have demonstrated, "green is green" - there is value to be extracted in sustainable practices. These benefits can come not only from lowering energy costs, reducing waste, and engaging in "cradle to cradle" product management - but also from managing time, efficiency and operations in a way that makes the entire enterprise "sustainable."
My feeling is that the concept of sustainability should be broadened. The core definition of sustainability is managing today in a way that will sustain (and not damage or burden) the future. In an era of economic risk and crisis-level challenges, sustainability must include economic factors and this includes finding ways to work smarter, increase productivity (which in the U.S. is already high), and engage our employees and colleagues in an across-the-board "Green Team" effort that defines "green" as not only saving the environment and reducing fossil fuel reliance, but also providing financial benefits from practices that are simply more efficient and cost-effective. I was especially flattered that Mark invited me to keynote his last official appearance before his retirement, and enjoyed working with Mark and his superb staff at Olympus to develop some of the themes that the company wanted me to emphasize in my presentation at their annual meeting.
Practicing Ambidexterity. In May 2011, I delivered a webcast to the Intel Innovation Advocates Network and my theme was "The Ambidextrous Challenge." This is one of my favorite presentation themes and in the Intel webcast I introduced a few notions that expanded on Michael Tushman's original concept of the "Ambidextrous Organization." I believe that ambidexterity extends to markets as well as companies and that most modern markets are actually "multidextrous" -- requiring us to participate in many technology streams at once, without knowing which streams will prevail.
Ambidexterity involves balancing exploitation (of existing opportunities) with exploration (new opportunities). This concept also applies to existing products versus emerging products (that will replace the incumbent leaders). Most conceptual frameworks make this almost a black and white choice - new versus old, incumbents versus emergents, and so on. We have to choose between laptops and netbooks, or ebooks and tablets and smartphones. Actually, as innovators we need to think in terms of "tri-dexterity" - thinking of what we have now, working on what comes next...but also thinking of what comes after that. For example, at Intel, a fair amount of opportunity--and disruption--came from the somewhat sudden surge of tablet computing, and smartphones. However, in order to participate in the fast moving consumer electronics industry, innovators have to look at what comes AFTER tablets and smarter phones. I believe that there are things happening in stretchable electronics, photonics and nanoinnovation that offer some clues. These are just a few thoughts from my webcast and thought you might like to see my thought process.
Water, Water...Not Everywhere - A Thirsty Future. This summer, I addressed Stan Laskowski's class on environmental futures, leading them through a scenario exercise to show how they can analyze the future to account for many possible futures. Having earned my masters in environmental studies last year, I try to keep active in this area, since I feel strongly that the future of civilization depends on how we manage our resources, and especially how we repair the damage to the global environment that - whether people believe it or not - is really threatening our long-term existence.
About a year ago, I attended the annual conference of Wharton's Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership (IGEL), which was entitled: "Valuing Water: Business Challenges and Opportunities for Innovation." Here are a few observations gleaned from the presentations and written materials, salted with a few ideas of my own. Having done graduate research on this topic, I can attest that water is looming as a major challenge facing countries, regions, communities and companies in the next few decades. The problem threatens to create especially severe problems in the next half-decade for countries where shared watersheds cross national borders.
The global statistics involving water are shocking. Most people don't realize that we are reaching a tipping point where the demand for water is beginning to outpace the supply. By 2030, global water needs will be 40% or 50% greater than current water supplies, exceeding the available resources. My graduate advisor Stan Laskowski, founder and president of the Philadelphia Global Water Initiative, characterizes the problem as "Managing the Last One Percent." About 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by water, but over 97% of that water is salty, leaving less than 3% that is freshwater. However, 70% of that 3% freshwater is frozen in glaciers, ice and snow. A large amount of so-called "fresh" water is polluted or contaminated in some way. The rest is in freshwater lakes, reservoirs and waterways, and in underground aquifers. According to Geophysical Research Letters, the depletion of these aquifers has more than doubled from 1960 to 2000. The remaining accessible fresh ater for drinking and industrial use is less than 1%. So far, the world has been able to get by with the current supply - however, even that meager supply is dwindling.
We need to change our mindset from treating water as an infintely available resource, to a view of water as a commodity that needs to be conserved, recycled, purified, and valued. While some experts claim that "water is the new oil" and will rise in value, the reality is that water will remain relatively inexpensive and available in many parts of the world, but will become increasingly scarce in other areas as global warming reduces glacial runoff and dries up lakes and reservoirs. One solution is desalination, which may reach 130 million cubic meters per day by the end of 2016. A companion solution involves using solar and wind energy to power desalination systems. In many countries, especially in island nations in the Caribbean and elsewhere, rainwater collection and storage systems are common. Not all solutions will require radical innovations. A large amount of drinking water in cities is lost due to leakage from aging underground pipes. Obsolete, inefficient toilets that consume three to five times more water than is needed, are still in widespread use. These are a few examples.
A personal note about water contamination. In my home state of Wisconsin, we have 11,000 lakes. When I was growing up as an avid fisherman, we never spoke about or worried about contaminated fish. Today, more than 148 Wisconsin bodies of water carry "fish advisories" because the fish have dangerous levels of mercury and PCBs. PCBs include a group of 209 manmade chemicals called "aromatic hydrocarbons" that were widely used - and dumped in waterways - from the 1930s to the late 1970s when U.S. manufacturing of PCBs was halted. PCBs were found in electrical transformers, plastics, engine oils, paints, caulking, older fluorescent lights, etc. A generation ago, dumping paint, engine oil etc. in a lake or river was common. Often these materials were simply dumped on vacant land or buried in landfills, where they would leach into wells and spread through the underground water table. The result of the widespread industrial poisoning of waterways is that today we have much less "safe" drinking water than we did in the last two generations, and as everyone knows, we have a much higher rate of cancer in the U.S., some of which is the result of PCBs which are carcinogens. We have strong water pollution laws in the U.S. today, but the grim reality is that we also have an unacceptably high degree of lingering pollution - which, when combined with water shortages in many regions (California, Atlanta, Las Vegas) - makes water conservation, purification and recycling a major technological goal, not only in arid regions and rural countries, but in the U.S. as well.
In 1998 I designed a technology showcase called the "Emerging Technologies Update Day" where I invite high tech insiders to come to the Wharton campus to give our industry partners in the Mack Center an "update" on what's really happening with technologies that are looming on the near horizon that - if successful - will reshape our industries and markets, and require firms to adopt new strategies. I rely on my "nose for the future" to scope out the topics, often based on questions such as "What's the real limit of Moore's Law?" and "Can we really engineer an invisibility cloak?" Each year a theme is chosen to help frame the presentations.
This year we paid homage to science fiction as a source of innovation. Our first speaker was Bill Christensen, the founder of Technovelgy.com who provided examples of some of the 2,000 scientific innovations derived from science fiction - everything from cell phones to tablet computers, from exoskeletons to spaceships. NASA's Chief Technologist Dr. Bobby Braun described the agency's plans to put humans on Mars - but the most intriguing comment of the day was confirmation that there is a NASA group working on an "800 year plan" to colonize the solar system, and beyond - this may not be a formal initiative, but rather an "interest group" looking at the long-term prospects for space colonization. I personally believe that we need to colonize space. In addition to the obvious benefits of knowledge and technology advances, learning how to live on hostile worlds will teach us how to survive on our own planet, where climate change threatens to make our environment increasingly dangerous. Most civilizations perished due to strains on the ecosystem (Mayans, Romans, Egyptians, etc.) - this means that we don't have until our sun dies to save humanity. We could face resource shortages and dangerous atmospheric threats in the next 50 to 100 years, and we need to figure out how to prevent - or adapt to - these changes. NASA is helping, not only through space travel but through space-based monitoring systems. [Photo left to right: Michael Tomczyk, Bobby Braun/NASA's Chief Technologist, Congressman Chaka Fattah/ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee; and Nicolaj Siggelkow/Co-Director of the Mack Center and Chairman of the Management Dept. at Wharton]
Other highlights of the ET Update Day included comments by Congressman Chaka Fattah, the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee; an explanation of invisibility cloak research by Dr. Mikhal Lipson from Cornell; and a report by Markian Melnyk, founder of the Atlantic Wind Project, a $5 billion off-shore energy superhighway. We also heard about innovation at Google, Medtronic, and Federal Express. I originated this event in 1998 to provide an intraveneous injection of technology to our industry partners, faculty and students - featuring technology pioneers presenting the "inside story" of radical innovations looming on the near horizon - if successful, these innovations will transform our industries and markets, and require many companies to change their strategies. It is essential that companies keep scanning the horizon for disruptive and transformative technologies, and I'm proud to be able to support this effort through the ET Update Day at Wharton.
Wharton Aerospace 2011 - The Wharton Aerospace conference for communities of practice, was organized by Michael Langmann and sponsored by Wharton Executive Education - I led the panel on Innovation. "Strategic Agility" was a major theme of the conference, emphasized by Gerard DeMuro, EVP/Group Exec. at General Dynamics, who described how the company exited - then re-entered - the defense sector during the past decade, which greatly enhanced shareholder value. An implication that most people drew was that the Defense sector may have to shrink and consolidate in the coming decade, and this will require a great deal of agility which generally translates into 2 competing strategies. Companies can either exit parts of the Defense sector, or use the opportunites created by lower Defense spending to acquire and merge with firms that become attractive targets. I would like to propose a third strategy: see the writing on the wall and start leveraging innovation strategies to move into sectors that bridge defense and commercial sectors. There are many technologies that are used in the current war, for example, that could have exciting commercial applications. Unfortunately, many Defense/Aerospace giants that are trapped in the "RFP Dependency" (e.g. focused almost entirely on military contracts) aren't set up to make this commercial move.
One of the speakers on my panel - Mike Nemeth, from Zyvex Technologies, showed a video of a running prototype of an "unmanned" long-range, low-fuel ocean-going boat made of carbon nanotube sheets (graphene). Mike recalled taking the innovation to a large aerospace company, who told him that they couldn't consider it "because there is no RFP for this technology" - sort of a Catch-22. It appears that - at least in this case - there were structural impediments to considering and investing in radical innovations from outside the company. It is challenging to put "open innovation" in practice at large Defense/Aerospace firms that have walls of secrecy and tightly boundaried silos. The coming era of low government spending could shrink Defense investment in Defense/Aerospace companies from $700 billion to as low as $400 billion (the historic bottom during cyclical downturns) - which means that these firms will need to focus more attention on innovations - external as well as internal - to sustain revenues and profits, and keep their key technical groups gainfully employed (which is important because they may be needed 5 or 10 years from now when the next war or military threat emerges). I believe that this is the time, when Defense spending is still high, to explore commercial opportunities for technologies used in Defense/Aerospace, and to develop new technologies and applications with commercial potential. There is still time - maybe half a decade at most - time is running out. The innovation clock is ticking and if Defense budgets evaporate faster than expected the window could close faster than expected. The time to innovate is now.
As part of my presentation, I developed a "map" of current popular Innovation Systems that are used by successful best practice companies (Procter and Gamble, DuPont, IBM, Intel, DuPont...to name a few). If you'd like a copy of this map, drop me an email.
Nemawashi - There is a Japanese term that elegantly describes the convergence of innovation, transformation and collegial management. The term Nemawashi is described by Wikipedia as laying the foundation for a proposed change or project by talking to the people involved, including gathering support and feedback. Other variations include: "preparing the way for an idea" or "making decisions slowly by consensus."
This sounds remarkably similar to "collegial management" (see below) and applies to quite a few innovation projects and activities that I'm currently involved in. The original meaning of this word in Japanese was "digging around the roots of a tree to prepare it for transplant" (Wikipedia). The implication is this: Modern innovation is a complex process. There are very few if any simple innovations. That means, to develop a significant innovation we need to cast a wide net to tap into the best thinking, creativity, ideation, knowledge, expertise and experience -- including both consensus and contrarian inputs -- to grow and transplant the roots of innovation from labs to markets. While the Japanese have been criticized by their penchant for moving slowly and insisting on consensus, which can inhibit creativity, the process of thoroughly vetting an idea actually ties in very well with the concept of open innovation, which is the ultimate consensus building exercise. As long as nemawashi doesn't translate into "inertia"(e.g. debating ideas to death) this is a powerful concept for innovation.
I especially like the "roots" metaphor. The transformation that comes from innovation is often about transplanting roots, forming new roots, and cultivating or pruning those roots to grow innovation gardens and forests. Look how much has come from transplanting libraries of knowledge into computers, communities of interest into online networks, and dispersed expertise into open innovation projects. Nemawashi means we involve strengthen the foundations of innovation by involving all constituencies in the innovation process. Some people call this "open innovation." Another way to describe this is "Nemawashi." I want to thank Christian von Reventlow, a terrific innovation guru at Avaya, for re-introducing me to this term. During my career, I've competed with, collaborated with, and consulted to, Japanese firms - and all of my experiences have been rich and rewarding. I never stop learning from Japanese companies and their approach to business and technology.
A personal note on the 2011 Disasters in Japan - In environmental studies, we are taught to plan for "100 year" floods and other natural disasters, which is why the seawalls on the Japanese coast were not high enough to ward off the tsunami, which was a 1,000 year event. In an era of increasingly severe global climate change - characterized by extreme weather events as well as global warming which has been well documented - governments and industries need to revisit plans and safeguards that involve any type of geological or weather-related contingency. These events do not come without warnings. As I've discussed on this page (see "Tail Events"), most calamities, whether from Nature or humans, are signaled by one or more "tail events" that provide an early warning of consequences to come. Normally, these tail events are calls to action that are actually needed to provoke politically and financially reluctant governments to take precautionary steps that may be extreme, expensive or exceptional. We've had 2 major near-meltdowns at nuclear facilities - at 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl - and we've also seen what happens when seawalls and dikes fail, in New Orleans and we also saw the massive devastation and loss of life in the 2006 Pacific tsunami. As tail events, these were early warning signals of worst case scenarios that should have been incorporated into revised plans to protect the facilities and harden the power supplies and cooling systems of the nuclear plants damaged or destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami, and the ensuing fires and explosions. Tail events are warning signs. They need to be heeded and used to adjust and improve strategic plans. This is a lesson not only for disaster planning agencies, but also for community, industrial, government and military strategists in general.
Connecting to a Few Million Friends and Colleagues - One of my goals LAST year was to increase my LinkedIn network of "innovation leaders" to 500 people by December, which I did. However, I didn't anticipate the network effect which kept the network growing, so as of November 30 I had 803 people in my LinkedIn network, which connects me through them to over 14 million people! My LinkedIn network includes mostly business leaders in the field of innovation, science and technology, and are in addition to my professional industry and academic contacts at the Wharton School which exceeds 2,000. My professional networks are extremely functional and I use them for a variety of business purposes. Some of our partners in the Mack Center originated through LinkedIn contacts. During the past two years I have used my LinkedIn network to identify nanotechnology insiders for my book-in-progress on Nanoinnovation...this allowed me to identify, contact and interview approximately 100 nanotech pioneers, scientists and business leaders. And the network keeps growing. I doubt that I'll get to communicate with all 14 million people which is the total number of people who are in what is really an enormous multilayered array of networks and webs. It's only one example of how "ubiquitous connectivity" has put everyone in touch...literally. I should also note that I use LinkedIn instead of Facebook, which is more of a "public community" network. I just don't have time for Facebook or Twitter, although I recognize their value and reach.
 Insights from the Teradata Partners Conference - I have attended the annual Teradata Partners Conference twice - most recently in San Diego (Oct. 2010) - this remarkable event is entirely organized by Teradata's clients and was attended by nearly 3,000 people. Teradata is a world leader in data warehousing and business analytics. The company just announced the world's first petabyte data storage system. One of the top Teradatans told me when the company was spun off from NCR some people thought "teradata" was an unreachable goal...and now, half a decade later, they're doing petadata! This year I noticed that there was a lot of buzz around "business data analytics" compared to last year where the buzz was around data warehousing. At this year's conference, I interviewed several people for an article I'm writing on how far we've come in data storage and analytics in the past decade, and completed a draft of the article. I also scouted some presentation candidates for the 2011 ET Update Day. Shown in the photo (left) are Todd Walter, Teradata's Chief Technology Officer, and Mary Gros, Academic Director.Insights from the Conference: Data storage technology is moving from hard drives that use "spinning disks" to solid state drives. Spinning disks are less costly but also less efficient - for example, to gain rapid access to data you may only use 20% of the disk! Hard drives provide nearly full use of the disk space at fast speeds, but are much more expensive currently so there is a price/performance issue. The trend is toward solid state and prices will fall over time. This insight came from Teradata's CTO Todd Walter. I have to admit that at last year's conference, my eyes glazed over from so much talk of "data, data, data" - however, in the past year I gained a deep respect for the role of data in our lives. We normally don't think about this, but weather information is data. Highway traffic patterns are data. RFID tags on products in Wal-Mart are data. Combat information is data. The energy use statistics on your utility bill are data. Customer preferences are data. Everywhere we look, there is data being generated, collected, processed, analyzed, stored, archived and accessed. Data is one of the aspects of the computer revolution that is often out of sight - but at the core of all computing, from science and education to commerce and communication. Our ability to generate and utilize data keeps growing. This is very profound.
Some Thoughts on Artificial Intelligence - Back in the 1980s when I was leading product development of the first home computer at Commodore (the VIC-20), I felt that artificial intelligence would require massive increases in computing speed, memory and pattern-matching. I still believe this. In a speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in 1981 (where I shared the stage with Bill Gates), I predicted that one day we would be able to digitize and manipulate the image of a star like John Wayne and create a new movie or segment, even after his death. Imagine my surprise a couple of years ago when the late great "Duke" was digitally incorporated into a beer commercial! I can't tell you how amusing that was, since John Wayne was the example I used in 1981!
Today, we are approaching a point where the convergence and power needed for true A.I. is happening. The early signals include Google's ability to translate entire web pages into other languages with a high degree of accuracy, the widespread use of voice recognition and voice synthesis by customer service systems, and laptops and netbooks that contain computing power previously available only in supercomputers...to name a few examples. We've still got a way to go to achieve sci-fi quality androids and robots, or HAL style interfaces (seen in the books/films 2001 and 2010 - depicted by Arthur Clarke...Clarke died at age 90 in 2008 but left a nice video farewell)...but we're coming close.
In February 2011, IBM's Watson computer won a special edition of the Jeopardy game show, defeating two human champions. This was a truly impressive demonstration of artificial intelligence. Admittedly, there were some limits and flaws in Watson's capabilities, and even IBM admits that we haven't quite reached the level of the nefarious HAL in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Incidentally, HAL transliterates to IBM if you move each letter one letter foward in the alphabet (H=I, A=B, L+M). We've come a long way since the VIC-20 became the first million-seller microcomputer - the accompanying picture shows me with my mentor, Commodore founder Jack Tramiel, celebrating the one millionth VIC-20. (By the way, yes, I know - I had a lot more hair in those days!)
Why is artificial intelligence important? It's not just about robots and androids. We need more systems that will "intelligently" detect threats in airports and crowd centers that even humans can't detect. How about security systems that don't require us to take off our shoes in airports? It would be nice to detect contaminated foods and packaged goods before millions of packages are shipped to supermarkets and have to be recalled. The sophisticated threats posed by "bioterror" requires more intelligent systems. It would be nice if more of the two million or so people in prisons could be released to lead productive lives and monitored in some way (other than ankle bracelets) so we wouldn't have to keep them in cages and spend taxpayer dollars to feed and house them.
And of course, no one wants war, but whether we're avoiding wars or fighting them, we need to think about more efficient military systems that incorporate artificial intelligence. One day we will defend ourselves using aircraft and seacraft that are so intelligent they will almost all be remotely operated...providing security with greatly reduced military risk and attrition. For example, why does a military patrol boat or even a destroyer or submarine have to be operated by hundreds of humans? What happens if we remove all the humans from a military ship? Can an unmanned seacraft navigate, avoid collisions, identify and execute military missions without humans on board? Perhaps...if there is enough intelligence, including intelligent sensors as well as computers.
Corporate Innovation Ecosystems - I am a huge fan of insights developed by Marco Iansiti at Harvard, who describes modern corporations as "innovation ecosystems." For example, Microsoft, Google, Lockheed, IBM, Procter and Gamble and many other corporations are no longer corporations in the traditional sense. They are ecosystems that include customers, vendors, universities and venture partners in the innovation process. This has important implications for corporate strategy. For example, where do you want to be in your ecosystem? Are you the hub? A node in the network? How many access points do you have? These ecosystems can be extraordinarily complex, especially in the current era of "open innovation" where everyone is literally connected to everyone else--which means that anyone can provide a creative idea, a solution, or an innovation. Many of these networks overlap and exist on many different planes and dimensions, as "webs of alliances" or "webs of networks." Managing these webs, and extracting value in a focused way, is difficult. Finding ways to integrate the ideas and value propositions that come from these ecosystems requires new ways of thinking. Some of the emerging tactics that I've been thinking about and studying include dark blogs and expert webs, internal venturing, and ideation systems such as innovation tournaments. My Wharton colleagues Karl Ulrich and Christian Terwiescz have a new book called Innovation Tournaments which describes how a kind of ideation contest can be used to develop and filter ideas in an innovation pipeline.
The Changing Role of the University, As An Innovation Ecosystem - As innovation funding languishes in the quagmire caused by the economic crisis, some fascinating opportunities are emerging for universities to pick up the slack and integrate "downstream" as "innovation ecosystems." The most progressive and forward-looking universities are expanding on their traditional role in education and research, to include a broader, deeper role in economic development, venture formation, and community vitalization. The creation of university-led technology parks (note that I do NOT use the term "incubators") merge academic, government and industry networks into innovation-driven ecosystems. Properly planned and executed, these university ecosystems will support innovation that is actually commercialized, industry partnerships that yield tangible value to the partners, venture formation, career development (for students and working professionals) and job creation.
With property values (and interest rates) at historic lows, there is no better time for a progressive university to acquire vacant or unused industrial or government properties, which can be converted into technology parks, green development zones, venture communities, and ideally, holistic mixed use communities. The current liquidity drought has also created a venture capital shortage and as we all know, venture formation in the U.S. - despite the relatively high failure rate (40%+) - anchors America's lead in science and technology. This opens a door for universities and government agencies to creatively provide funding mechanisms to fill the financial vacuum, for startups as well as later stage ventures that need funding to drive across the commercial finish line. I should note that I am not the originator of this concept - visionaries such as Richard Florida have been promoting this concept for decades and currently, several university presidents I know are actively pursuing this approach. Their efforts are what academics call "weak signals" - early indications of significant changes that are looming on the near horizon.
Collegial Management - One of the most useful lessons I've learned during my 15 years at the Wharton School is "collegial management." This means that - while one person or a team may propose and implement a project - everyone involved is given a chance to provide input, and kept informed throughout the project. When the project ends, everyone takes ownership and receives credit. This approach is fairly common in academia but not so common in industry or government. This works well when planning a conference, framing a research initiative, or proposing a radical, complex or high risk strategy. Collegial management requires more coordination and communication, but it also enables the project team or team leader to get the very best ideas including contrary viewpoints and cautionary advice.
Radical/Disruptive Innovation - I've been involved in radical/disruptive innovation for most of my career, as a technology pioneer, management executive, consultant and director of an academic research center. The simplest "innovation framework" I've encountered was developed in the 1990s at Procter and Gamble. Larry Huston, P&G's renowned innovation guru (now retired and founder of 4inno) once asked me to "wallpaper" the entire front wall of a conference hall. He climbed a stepladder and drew this diagram: WHAT'S NEEDED? ------ WHAT'S POSSIBLE? Then he drew the word "factfinding." The concept works like this...you start by asking what's needed, then you ask what's possible, and you do factfinding to get the answers. This sounds amazingly simple, but it's a clear starting point for anyone who is tackling a project that involves (or requires) radical innovation. It's especially useful for filling in 'white spaces' where innovations are needed, but currently don't exist.
Developing a "Nose for the Future" - The best compliment I ever received came from Jack Tramiel the founder of Commodore the personal computer company. I joined Commodore as assistant to the president on April Fool's Day (1980) and within a few weeks I was in charge of the first affordable home computer (VIC-20). The VIC-20 and the next generation Commodore 64 helped grow the company from $150 million in revenues to over $1 billion in 3 years. On my first day with the company, I found myself in a meeting in London, England where Jack announced he wanted a new low-cost computer. He said, "We make computers for the masses, not the classes." Only 3 or 4 people out of 25 managers were in favor of tnew small computer. The second day, Jack told the group: "The Japanese are coming, so we will become the Japanese." That silenced the opposition, but the reality was, there were still only a handful of us that wanted to make this computer. When I got back to our offices in San Jose, I wrote a 30 page memo -- on the cover I drew a happy face with a beard and mustache. I tossed it on Jack's desk. "What's this?" he asked. "That's everything that needs to be done for the new computer. Make sure whoever's in charge makes that happen." A week later after showing my memo to Jack came into my office and tossed the memo on my desk. "What's that?" I asked. "That's everything that needs to be done with the new computer. Make sure it happens. I've told everyone involved that everything needs to be run by you. Nobody involved reports to you, so you'll have to do this by persuasion, but you have my authority."
That afternoon, Jack made this formal in a management meeting and as part of the announcement he said, "Michael has a better nose for the future than anyone in the company...except me." Actually, what Jack called a 'nose for the future' is what management researchers today call 'product champions' - my product team, who I dubbed the "VIC Commandos" - were what we now call a 'skunkworks.' When something needs to be developed that nobody understands or believes in, you need to find knowledgeable, visionary evangelistic leaders who will push, pull, cajole, maneuver, inspire, and do what is needed to bring a radical or disruptive innovation to the market. I consider myself fortunate and privileged to have played a role in the birth of the home computer, which earned me a listing in Wikipedia and a few other honors. My book The Home Computer Wars (1984) has become a collector's item. I receive a few emails every year from people around the world thanking me for introducing them to home computing, which got them started in computing and changed their lives. Can you teach someone to do this today? I believe so. You can train someone to develop a 'nose' for wine, or fine food, or innovation. But if for some reason you can't train them, you can find people with the kind of spark and drive and creativity and perseverance that are needed to develop radical, disruptive innovations like the first home computer...or the first regenerated organs...or the first gene therapy...or $100 DNA test...or invisibility cloaks...fuel cells...net-zero buildings...or anything else you can imagine.
Young Managers Don't Know What Can't Be Done - This story may be apochryphal, but I love it. When a major automaker wanted to make the very first cars with curved glass, they presented the concept to their engineers, who all agreed it simply couldn't be done. The glass was too fragile, the shapes wouldn't work, they couldn't be manufactured, and so on. So then the management team gathered together all their managers under the age of 30 and presented the same concept. Two weeks later they had the design and everything else they needed to make it happen. The reason is simple - the young managers didn't know what couldn't be done. They had no baggage. They were closer to emerging technologies than the older managers. This is not age-ism. It is simply a reminder that you need to include people under 30 in your development teams. Twentysomethings really are closer to emerging technologies like social media, virtual environments, hybrid materials, nanotechnology...and much more. They are learning about proteomics in high school today. They are learning about protein folding. They are experimenting with social media. They are becoming web entrepreneurs, designing their own websites. Incidentally, I designed this website myself in one weekend, in my spare time. I'm not a twentysomething, but I need to mention there that senior innovators don't lose their creativity with age. You need young and old people on your innovation teams - young people who are close to the emerging technologies and understand "what's possible" - and seasoned veterans who have made enough mistakes in their careers to avoid traps and pitfalls.
The Gulf Oil Crisis is a Tail Event - I've been asked to provide 'my take' on the Gulf Oil Crisis...which I would describe as a 'tail event.' A few years ago, Prof. Sid Winter discussed 'tail events' at a Wharton conference I helped organize entitled "Winners and Losers in Green Technologies." Sid described a tail event as a "low probability, unusual event that occurs at the extremes of the probability distribution of probable outcomes." The BP Gulf oil spill is rare, unexpected and definitely unusual. Tail events are often needed to compel legislators and policymakers to take action in an area where they are normally reluctant to tread. Often it takes a tail event involving loss of life, money and property to change political and public will, to support radical change. My current focus is on the impact and aftermath of this crisis. One obvious result will be a tightening of regulations governing emergency capping systems on deep water oil rigs. I would like to think that another result will be faster government response to future crises...but unfortunately, given the slow and inadequate (some say inept) response to the BP spill, it appears that we can expect more inertia and paralysis when the next tail event occurs. It's as if we learned nothing from Hurricane Katrina.
My personal hope is that the BP disaster will finally cause the U.S. to move "beyond petroleum" to utility-scale wind and solar farms, an updated smart grid, increased use of cleaner fuels such as nuclear power and natural gas, and the use of smart meters and smart buildings that achieve 'net-zero' energy use. The question remains: will this tail event wag the dog and force us to invest in and adopt clean energy? Or will the dirty beaches of the Gulf do nothing to change our dirty energy policies?
Why We Need to Go to MARS - Okay, I have to admit it. I'm a space enthusiast. I believe we need to go to Mars for one simple reason. Learning to live on a barren, hostile planet - whether there is life there or not - will teach us how to live on Earth, as our planet becomes increasingly hot, dry, flooded and plagued by extremes in climate. By 2030 here on Earth, we are going to start seeing supply shortages of at least 14 minerals, according to a June 2010 report by the European Union. Many regions of the world will also run short of water by then. Ironically, glacial melting will raise sea levels over the next two generations so we're going to see an odd combination of flooding and drought. Some of the scarce minerals that are going to be in short supply are used for desalination of seawater, by the way, as well as in computer displays, semiconductor chips, solar energy systems and fuel cells...to name a few technologies that are going to need alternatives. I discuss this a bit in my book-in-progress on Nanoinnovation which I'm working to complete this summer for publication in 2011. Nanoinnovation will hopefully leverage quantum properties of nanoscale carbon, silicon and other readily available materials, to substitute for indium, gallium and other minerals that are rapidly being depleted. Okay, so what does this have to do with Mars? Well, if our planet is under stress and there is scant political will or economic impetus to relieve that stress (by cutting back fossil fuels, recycling, conserving scarce resources, etc.) then we need to: 1) take a close and personal look at Mars because that is what the Earth is going to become, and 2) we need to learn how to live on a hostile dry, barren environment with a poisonous atmosphere. And if we're lucky, we might find some indium or gallium or gold or diamonds which would help pay for the trip to Mars and back.
 One Reason We Need to Worry About Global Warming - In 2010, I completed my master's in environmental studies (at the University of Pennsylvania) - my capstone project was a webzine series entitled "The Paradoxes of Global Warming." One of the points I make is that we don't have to wait for carbon dioxide levels to increase from 393 parts per million (Current CO2 Levels Measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii) to 550 parts per million (considered by some to be a tipping point), to find out what the effects will be. Several scholarly studies have confirmed that CO2 levels can reach 550 parts per million in a poorly ventilated office building. At this level (according to the studies), office workers report trouble breathing, experience a "stuffy" feeling in their lungs, and begin to suffer ill effects. Now...imagine walking around outside, playing baseball or going fishing or golfing with a constant stuffiness in your lungs. Any exertion may cause you to gasp to catch your breath. Some people with weak lungs may faint or get light-headed, or suffer a heart attack or stroke. Many routine activities will become impossible unless we carry oxygen bottles to boost our energy levels like mountain climbers on Mount Everest. Some workers will need to do their jobs outside with bottles of oxygen handy for times when they exert themselves. Indoors, office ventillation systems will not only have to clean the air, but add oxygen to the air! Oceans which are already absorbing CO2 at record levels, will become increasingly acidic, destroying reefs and fish. As we've already seen, many species that were mainstays of the human food chain a century ago, are already gone from the fishmarkets and off the dinner table. The worst part is, even if we stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere today, it will take decades - perhaps as long as a century - for the chemical reactions to reverse themselves.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - which is the United Nations' climate watchdog organization - projects that CO2 levels will reach 535 to 983 parts per million by the year 2100. When that happens, we won't be able to leave the Earth like we leave a poorly-ventilated office building. We will cough and struggle to breathe inside the building, and outside as well...unless we cut back our use of fossil fuels. Personally, I think the higher estimates are more accurate, simply because most of the IPCC estimates were made based on current levels of CO2 generation. What is NOT included in most of these projections is the increase in CO2 that will come when the warming Earth releases CO2 that is currently trapped or dissolved in permafrost, frozen soil, and ocean waters. This CO2 will be released very quickly as the Earth continues to heat up. This "naturally sequestered" CO2 represents a huge amount most of which is not included in climate projections. The question is, how soon will this happen? Atmospheric CO2 measured by the NOAA at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii (shown in the accompanying chart) record an increase in CO2 from 320 ppm in 1958 to 392.94 in May 2010--an increase of 23% in about 50 years. If CO2 increases at the same rate (23%) in the next 50 years, CO2 levels will reach 483 ppm by 2060. However, CO2 rates are rising faster than this. The real question is -when will we need to have oxygen generators in addition to air conditioners in our cars and trucks? At what point does the Earth's air become unbreathable? Is it when CO2 reaches 550 ppm, or 650 ppm or 800 or 900? How soon will we reach a tipping point where we can't put the CO2 genie back in the bottle?
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