Future – Page 12 – Public Intelligence Blog

2009/07/132009/10/16

Review: Critical Path

5 Star, Atlases & State of the World, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Economics, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Future, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

History, Philosophy, Engineering, Architecture, & Education,

July 13, 2009

R. Buckminster Fuller

Although I heard Fuller speak at Muhlenberg College in 1973 or so, I had not read his books and for me Critical Path was a very healthy reminder that long before many of the current authors, Buckminster Fuller had a grip on the basics:

1) Economic theory of scarcity and secrecy is evil, benefitting the few at the expense of the many

2) Earth is NOT a zero sum Darwinian game for humans, in fact it is the human role–the human mind's role–to “synergize” Earth into a win-win for all.

3) Money is not wealth only an artifact that is representative of empty bank vaults and gross misrepresentation by the alleged wealthy. Only time-energy accounting and “true cost” of goods and services should be used.

4) Obstacles to displacing rule by scarcity and secrecy are the public ignorance of natural science and the collaboration among governments, corporations and large organizations such as religions and labor unions that “divide and keep conquered.”

5) Computers–and Fuller was clearly envisioning today's computers, not those of his time–if properly fed all of the relevant data can alter perceptions on a just enough, just in time basis. This coincides with my own view that we can and must educate the five billion poor one cell call at a time, but it also favors the ideas gaining currency of connecting the one billion rich (80% of whom do not give to charity) directly with the needs of the five billion poor at the household level of need.

I am hugely impressed with both specific actionable visions and specific actionable facts:

1) Now possible to create a global electrical grid that runs across Alaska into Canada and China, and eliminate the electrical shortfalls in both those countries and in Canada and the US West Coast.

2) In time-energy “true cost” accounting, every gallon of oil that we use cost $1 million (in 1981 dollars, which is to say, around $10 after the current Administration finished with its massive devaluation plans).

3) There are two critical paths that are not understood by the public or those who profess to represent the public: path one is those natural trends that proceed with or without human errors, omissions, and interventions; path two is the human path both local and as a global aggregate.

4) Considered in time-energy terms, both our industrial-era schools and our industrial-era office buildings are lunacy. He provides a fascinating discussion of inland versus island dwellers, concludes that most urban office buildings should be converted into mixed dwelling-telecommuting centers and is generally brutal about our national policies being 50 years out of date (in 1981–that would make them 80 years out of date today, and I agree).

5) He provides a BRUTAL discussion of banking and government bail-outs of banking as well as mortgage fraud that led to the Great Depression, how banks dispossessed the farmers not realizing that the land was over-valued AND that no one else wanted to do the hard work of farming, and I am generally thunder-struck by how history has repeated itself.

I am especially impressed by his “cosmic costing” which does not allow for hoarding (he joins others in cursing money as both a hoardable good and one that can draw interest beyond reason).

A goodly portion of the book covers the art of doing more with less; doing it faster; and ultimately benefitting increasing numbers of humans with the same technologies.

His discussion of “precession” revolves around not competing with anyone else, instead attending to the unattended. He has a gift for “comprehensive consideration” that we could all draw upon for inspiration.

I am completely absorbed by this book, which includes in the final third:

1) The challenge is to educate all humans, and to teach humans to learn in the shortest possible time–my kids have two answers: cell phones and video games. This is a no-brainer.

2) I offer some quotes below but am totally engaged with his discussion of the Geoscope, what some today might call an Earth Monitoring System, and his view that we can create a 200 foot version of the Earth where one inch equals three miles, and using computers, be able to illuminate for any human–however poorly educated or ideologically stunted–what actually IS the reality.

3) He spends time describing the World Game and cites two books by Medard Gabel that are no longer available via Amazon (but see the EarthGame(TM) technical description offered by Earth Intelligence Network), and describes it as a problem-solving choice-making educational game.

On page 287 I am stunned by his anticipation of the “de-sovereignization” of the United States of America, coincident with the bankruptcy of the US Nation at the hands of its out of control federal government.

On the architectural side I am fascinated by his discussion of flat slab building as the worst possible time-energy construction, and his discussion of the alternatives that he created, including floating cities that I now regard as inevitable.

The book contains an unexpected gem, a compendium created by Fuller based on US contractor experiences in Russia that was delivered to Brazil. It is still valid and it is a model for the kind of clear thinking that government engineers should be able to, but cannot do. [With credit to Chuck Spinney, I have learned that “government specification cost plus engineering” has fried the brains of multiple generations of engineers who are unable to computer biomimicry, cradle to cradle, green to gold, etc. We must wait for our children to rule the world, they are the “digital natives” who will not tolerate rankism, secrecy, scarcity, or lies.

A few quotes are in the comment as I must respect Amazon's 1000 word limit.

Below are some other books that strike me as very complementary of this one, but more recent.
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past
The Philosophy of Sustainable Design
Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time
The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State
Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids
Don't Bother Me Mom–I'm Learning!
Conscious Evolution: Awakening Our Social Potential
Conscious Globalism: What's Wrong with the World and How to Fix It
Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time

Additional in Comment:

A couple of quotes:

xxv: “It is sa matter of converting the high technology from weaponry to livingry.”

xxxvi: “The race is between a better-informed, hopefully inspired young world versus a running-scared, misinformed brain-conditioned, older world.”

xxxviii: “The political and economic systems and the political and economic leaders of humanity are not in the final examination; it is the integrity of each individual human that is in the final examination. On personal integrity hangs humanity's fate.”

118-119 “The USA is not run by its would-be “democratic” governance…..Nothing could be more pathetic than the role thats has to be played by the President of the United States, whose power is approximately zero.”

169 “The objective of the game would be to explore ways to make it possible for anybody and everybody in the human family to enjoy the total Earth without any human interfering with any other human and without any human gaining advantage at the expense of another.”

See also page 199, page 202, 208, 221, 225, 287, 346

Simple awesome. If you want your children and grand-children to have an intellectual advantage, nurture their thinking on sustainable development and read in yourself on Buckminster Fuller.

Click Here to Vote on Review at Amazon,

on Cover Above to Buy or Read Other Reviews,

I Respond to Comments Here or There

2009/06/272009/12/04

Review: Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth

6 Star Top 10%, Atlases & State of the World, Change & Innovation, Consciousness & Social IQ, Corruption, Crime (Government), Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Environment (Solutions), Future, Games, Models, & Simulations, Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Philosophy, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Not What I Expected But Hugely Satisfying,

June 27, 2009

R. Buckminster Fuller

I was actually expecting an Operating Manual. Although what I ended up with is a 136-page double-spaced “overview” by Buckminster Fuller, a sort of “history and future of the Earth in 5,000 words or less, bracketed by a *wonderful* introduction by grandchild Jamie Snyder, an index, a two-page resource guides, and some photos and illustrations including the Fuller Projections of the Earth.

First, the “core quote” that I can never seem to find when I need it:

OUR MISSION IS “To make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.” Inside front cover.

The introduction is a treat–I note “impressive” and appreciate the many insights that could only come from a grandchild of and lifelong apprentice to Buckminster Fuller.

Highlights for me:

Founder of Design Science, a company by that name is now led by Medard Gabel who served as his #2 for so long. I just attended one of their summer laboratories and was blown away by the creativity and insights. It is a life-changing experience for those with a passion for Earth.

He imagined an inventory of global data. I am just now coming into contact with all of this great man's ideas, but my third book, Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time, also online at the Strategic Studies Institute in very short monograph form, is totally in harmony with this man's vision for a global inventory of global data.

“Sovereignness” was for him a ridiculous idea, and a much later work out of Cambridge agrees, Philip Allot tells us the Treaty of Westphalia was a huge wrong turn in his book The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State.

“Great Pirates” that mastered the oceans as the means of linking far-flung lands with diversity of offerings was the beginning of global commerce and also the beginning of the separation between globalists who knew the whole, and specialists whom Buckminster Fuller scathingly describes as an advanced form of slave.

He was frustrated with the phrases “sunrise” and sunset” as they are inaccurate, and finally settled for “sunsight” and “suneclipse” to more properly describe the fact that it is the Earth that is moving around the sun, not the other way around.

In 1927 he concluded that it is possible for forecast with some accuracy 25 years in advance, and I find this remarkably consist with Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's view that it takes 25 years to move the beast–see for instance Miles to Go: A Personal History of Social Policy.

He has an excellent discussion of the failure of politics and the ignorance of kings and courtiers, noting that our core problem is that everyone over-estimates the cost of doing good and under-estimates the cost of doing bad, i.e. we will fund war but not peace.

He described how World War I killed off the Great Pirates and introduces a competition among scientists empowered by war, politicians, and religions. He says the Great Pirates, accustomed to the physical challenges, could not comprehend the electromagnetic spectrum.

He states that man's challenge is to comprehend the metaphysical whole, and much of the book is focused on the fact, in his view, that computers are the salvation of mankind in that they can take over all the automaton work, and free man to think, experiment, and innovate. He is particularly forceful in his view that unemployed people should be given academic scholarships, not have to worry about food or shelter, and unleash their innovation. I am reminded of Barry Carter's Infinite Wealth: A New World of Collaboration and Abundance in the Knowledge Era as well as Thomas Stewart's The Wealth of Knowledge: Intellectual Capital and the Twenty-first Century Organization.

There is a fascinating discussion of two disconnected scholars, one studying the extinction of human groups, the other the extinction of animal species, and when someone brings them together, they discover that precisely the same cause applied to both: over-specialization and a loss of diversity.

Synergy is the uniqueness of the whole, unpredictable from the sum of the parts or any part individually.

On page 87 he forecasts in 1969 when this book was first published, both the Bush and the Obama Administration's ease in finding trillions for war and the economic crisis, while refusing to recognize that we must address the needs of the “have nots” or be in eternal war. I quote:

“The adequately macro-comprehensive and micro-incisive solutions to any and all problems never cost too much.”

I agree. I drove to Des Moines and got a memo under Obama's hotel door recommending that he open up to all those not represented by the two party crime family, and also providing him with the strategic analytic model developed by the Earth Intelligence Network. Obviously he did not attend, and today he is a pale reflection of Bush. See the images I have loaded, and Obama: The Postmodern Coup – Making of a Manchurian Candidate.

Early on he identified “information pollution” as co-equal to physical pollution, I am totally taken with this phrase (see my own illustration of “data pathologies” in the image above). I recognize that Buckminster Fuller was about feedback loops and the integrity of all the feedback loops, and this is one explanation for why US Presidents fail: they live in “closed circles” and are more or less “captive” and held hostage by their party and their advisor who fear and block all iconoclasts less they lose their parking spot at the White House.

Most interestingly, and consistent with the book I just read the other day, Fighting Identity: Sacred War and World Change (The Changing Face of War), he concludes that wars recycle industry and reinvigorate science, and concludes that every 25 years is about right for a “scorched earth” recycling of forces.

He observes that we must preserve our fossil fuels as the “battery” of our Spaceship Earth, and focus on creating our true “engine,” regenerative renewable life and energy.

He joins with Will Durant in Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers: education is our most formidable task.

I am astonished to have him explain why the Pacific coast of the US is so avant guarde and innovative (as well as loony). He states that the US has been a melting pot for centuries, and that the West Coast is where two completely different cultural and racial patterns integrated, one from Africa and the east, the other from the Pacific and the west.

I learn that he owned 54 cars in his lifetime, and kept leaving them at airports and forgetting when and where. He migrated to renting, and concluded that “possession” is burdensome.

2009/05/302009/12/04

Review: The Next 100 Years–A Forecast for the 21st Century

2 Star, Future

Glib, Unprofessional, Splintered, Not Even Good Fantasy, May 30, 2009

George Friedman

I actually bought this book anticipating a very positive review (see my review of the author's original first-rate book:
The Future of War: Power, Technology and American World Dominance in the Twenty-first Century I did that after berating him over an idiotic STRATFOR comment on torture and rendition being “understandable,” something better understood by searching for the Op Ed by someone else on “The Banality of Evil.”

This book is a tragic mess. I actually wonder if the author wrote it, or if this is staff work and part of marketing for STRATFOR, which despite its mixed track record and lack of sourcing or analytic coherence, appears to be a success as an online opinion feed and rapid response “go fer” service.

There are no other books mentioned in this long essay; no notes; no index, no nothing–just one long essay that is completely lacking in any kind of strategic analytic framework.

Here are some of my flyleaf notes:

China not expanding into Siberia? This is completely at odds with the reality that China has a massive and aggressive program to move immigrants into Siberia at the same time that Russian occupation of the southeastern region of Russia is dropping.

Mexico defeated? Although later in the book the author provides a graphic that shows Hispanics largely dominating back up to the Hidalgo-Guadalupe line that pioneers of Spanish heritage developed in the first place, he reeks of the conventional wisdom that Mexico was “defeated” by the USA rather than attacked and pushed out. As a friend of mine related, when he asked his grandfather when the family immigrated, the answer was: “we didn't–they moved the border on us.”

America Centric. This book–whoever wrote it–is so out of touch with global realities and so blindly America-centric that I really have to wonder if this is a serious offering. While it was no doubt written in pieces over time, probably beginning in 2007, it reflects ZERO insights or after-the-fact acknowledgement of all that has happened since Business Week ran the cover story in October 2007 on the coming recession, or the very obvious fact that the eight demographic actors (Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and Wild Cards such as Congo, Malaysia, South Africa, and Turkey) will define the future, not the USA, which has lost its integrity and its intelligence (I will respond to comments on this point, see the seven books I have sponsored).

Humanity. There is none in this book. The author appears to be primarily a techno-state geek and still thinks in terms of trends at the macro-organizational and macro-technology level. I have a note, “No humanity in this book.” There is ZERO understanding of political-legal, socio-economic, ideo-cultural, or even techno-demographic and natural-geographic. While the author(s) have a stab as geographic erudicity, it is pathetic. Robert Kaplan does it better in “The Revenge of Geography,” from which I extract the following righteously intelligent observation by Kaplan:

BEGIN KAPLAN. These deepening connections are transforming the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Indian and Pacific oceans into a vast continuum, in which the narrow and vulnerable Strait of Malacca will be the Fulda Gap of the 21st century. The fates of the Islamic Middle East and Islamic Indonesia are therefore becoming inextricable. But it is the geographic connections, not religious ones, that matter most. END KAPLAN.

That one sentence is better than this entire book.

There are a few small elements of the book that were worthy of noting.

1. The author is convinced that Poland will invade Russia from the west while Japan invades Russia from the east. I take the first seriously and the second–as someone who spent a third of their life in Asia–with shocked amusement.

2. The author believes there will be a Russian-Turkish war over Central Asia. I find this worthy of future alertness and reflection.

3. The author believes that Russia's being “landlocked” in the east (the part that I have suggested the Alaska Independence Movement and Christian Exodus both seek permission to develop as part of the Russian strategy to slow the calculated Chinese creep north and northeast), and I have a note to myself: Vladivostok? Global warming? NW Passage?

4. Five cycles of the West. The book identifies five cycles, from founders to pioneers, pioneers to small town America, small town to industrial, and industrial-suburban to migrant class, and I just shake my head. I know some, but not all, of the rest of the world, and this is so grossly generic and US-specific as to make me cringe.

5. China is Japan on steroids. Wow. Can anyone be this ignorant of cultural and historical reality? Even if intended as a throw-away line on industrial prowess, this thought is so ill-conceived as to be frightening in its ignorance. Incidentally, China did not sign the post war treaty and they still have a right to claim reparations from both Japan and the USA (see Gold Warriors by the Sterlings).

6. Space, the final frontier. The book stresses space in a techno-geek sort of way, and I pretty much give up on the book at this point. There is nothing in here about RapidSMS, cell phone and renewable energy lighting up the Southern Hemisphere, etcetera.

The author(s) have been very lazy in this book, to the point that I wonder if organizational un-intelligence has blinded them to their own arrogance in thinking that such an essay, absent both an analytic framework and respect for the vast non-fiction literature covering every aspect of all that this book ignores, would be well received. Evidently they are right, the book ranks well, but that may say more about the marketing than the book. I am sure the author(s) would be delighted to be as wealthy as Bill Gates, using first-rate marketing to sell second-rate thinking.

For one analytic framework that is properly holistic in thinking about both the next 100 years and what we as a collective can do about it, visit Earth Intelligence Network (501c3 Public Charity).

I list nine better books below (and include the author's first book above as a much better book):
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
FOOTSTEPS INTO THE FUTURE (Preferred Worlds for the 1990's)
The Road to 2015: Profiles of the Future
The Nine Nations of North America
Next Global Stage: The: Challenges and Opportunities in Our Borderless World
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World
The Future of Life
Earth: The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming

There are so many others, but Amazon limits me to ten links and the books above are drawn from my futures shelf, one of 85 categories in which I read.

2009/01/082012/10/27

2008 World Brain as EarthGame

Articles & Chapters, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Democracy, Environment (Solutions), Future, Information Society, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Public), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

EarthGame is a trademarked representation of the original work of Professor Medard Gabel. Visit his web site by clicking on his photographl, and read his overview of the EarthGame by clicking on the EIN seal.

2008/08/222010/01/05

The Rise of Global Civil Society: Building Communities and Nations from the Bottom Up

5 Star, Civil Society, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Future, United Nations & NGOs

Superb Overview, A Bright Light Into the Future,April 22, 2008

Don Eberly

I would normally penalize the publisher one star for being lazy about providing basic information using Amazon's excellent digital loading dock.

Here's the part the publisher should have provided:

Foreword: Poverty Reduction in the Age of Globalization
01 Compassion: America's Most Consequential Export
02 Core Elements of Community and Nation-Building: The American Debate
03 The Great Foreign Aid Debate: Stingy or Generous
04 From Aid Bureaucracy to Civil Society: Participation & Partnership
05 Wealth, Poverty, and the Rise of Corporate Citizenship
06 Microenterprise: Tapping Native Capability at the Bottom of the Pyramid
07 The Great Tsunami of 2004 and America's Generosity
08 Conflict or Collaboration: Religion and Democratic Civil Society
09 Understanding Anti-Americanism
10 Civil Society and Nation-Building: Prospects for Democratization
11 Conflict and Reconciliation in the Context of Nation-Building
12 Habits of the Heart: The Case for a Global Civic Culture
13 Roadmap for Bottom-Up Nation-Building in the 21st Century

Although there are omissions and correspondences that are not addressed in this book, which relies on a handful of core readings, I have nothing but admiration for the author's talent, insight, and art in bringing this all together. This one book is easily a substitute for 10-25 other books, and the author communicates some key ideas with discipline.

Highlights for me:

+ Shift from vertical to horizontal power

+ 85% of aid is NOT from governments

+ Key trends include citizen-led development; provision of opportunity instead of charity; and use of electronic devices, notably the cell phone, to counter corruption and the abuse of power (while also increasing individual and group productivity)

+ Propaganda (public diplomacy or strategic communication or covert action media placements and influence operations) DOES NOT WORK. What works is good works for the right reasons.

+ We are in the midst of an association revolution at the same time that corporate citizenship and social responsibility is on the rise.

+ Local ownership and local innovation are the heart of success

+ There is an emerging role for religion and culture that is distinct from the negative role now played by extremists on both sides

+ Anti-Americanism is making US government aid ineffective at same time that door is being left open to non-governmental aid from US sources

+ Goal is to cultivate democratic citizens by creating civil society, which the author reminds us citing Tocqueville, is what actually nurtures citizenship–not state or government directives

+ Capital trapped in poverty far exceed all combined sources of aid

+ Third World is a hot-bed of innovation and small-scale experimentation, and the cell phone is playing a huge role in helping individuals climb out of poverty

+ Pushing democracy before civil society has been established, or before reconciliation and stabilization have been achieved, will not work

+ In next 25 years 31-41 trillion dollars in wealth will become available for philanthropy (or debauchery, but the author is an optimist)

+ In the age of networks collaboration, the concept of sound governance is one that needs development–I thought immediately of a sparse matrix in which various organizations have metrics associated with a specific project, and they strive to turn each from red to yellow to green.

+ 75% of US individual taxpayers did not itemize deductions, this is a huge untapped source of charity–however, while the author focuses on increasing individual donations to intermediaries like the Red Cross, we at Earth Intelligence Network would much prefer to create global range of gifts tables that allow all individuals to opt in at any level ($10 and up) and start peer-to-peer giving on a global scale at the household level of precision.

+ Key trends: from the giant to the small; from the remote to the local; from the bureaucratic to the non-bureaucratic; from the impersonal to the personal; from the compartmentalized to the holistic

+ More key trends: from clientelism to citizenship; from giantism to human scale; from credentialism to capacity building (see EIN's idea for teaching the poor one cell call at a time using global virtual networks of volunteers–they do not need diplomas, they need knowledge on demand); from fragmentation to integration (e.g. must harmonize all twelve policies to eradicate any given threat); from aid bureaucracies to civil society

+ Bottom-line: empower the indigenous and do not pretend you know what they need. It is NOT “on us” to do anything other than practice the Golden Rule and be compassionate and generous.

+ The final section of the book needs to be read in detail but includes ideas such as government becoming a catalyst rather than a supplier (steer not row); achieving a means of tracking (and we hope, orchestrating) government, private and NGO giving, and remittances, which the author feels must be counted.

+ He speaks of a third way that combines conditionality (give us a good legal environment) with anti-corruption (on this point his focus is on mis-direction of aid, not on the Canadian gold company paying a single Colonel to move a village so they can loot billions in gold from the Peruvian commonwealth)

+ Corporate strategic or venture giving is a favorable emerging trend, along with social entrepreneurship and I would add, hybrid enterprises

+ Web-based giving is in its infancy (and still gives control of the money to large organizations with huge staffs–EIN wants to get to P2P Web 3.0 giving that is both point to point and on the record for all to see

The book concludes with 26 suggestions spanning the full eight tribes as I call them (government, military, law enforcement, academia, business, media, NGOs, and civil society) and for this alone you must buy the book or check it out of the library. Solid common sense.

Amazon does not provide a capability to link to lists, so I can only offer a couple of examples in several literatures. If I point to a book you can read my review and find 10 more links there.

Poverty Potential
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

Capitalism 3.0
Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage

Civilization Building
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition

Tao of Democracy
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Failure of Government and the Two-Party Spoils System
Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025
Running On Empty: How The Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It

2008/07/292009/12/04

Review: Seeing What’s Next–Using Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change

5 Star, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Future

Book-End for Prahalad's Fortune at the Bottom, July 29, 2008

Clayton M. Christensen

The primary author's first two books were each sensational in their own way–.I was particularly gripped by his description of the throw-away camara as being unattractive to the high-end camara shops, but when adopted by grocery stores, led to the 90% of the non-consumers of high-end camaras getting into photography. The key: low-cost offering for the non-consumers introduced outside the incumbent arena.

That is the heart of this new book, and the addition of two co-authors suggest that the author's vision is spreading.

I actually read the two chapters on education and health care first–the first because my oldest son blew off his senior year in high school at not worthy of his time, and is now racking up community college credits at very low cost (with the same instructors from the higher cost Geroge Mason University) and is a living embodiment of the education chapters first focus: what matters is not credentialling from the higher end universities, but the low cost acquisition of “just enough just right” learning from key teachers (the brand is shifting from schools to teachers).

Both the education and the health chapters drive home three big points that I find compelling and exciting in the context of C. K. Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks):

1. The innovation and profit opportunities are with the non-consumers–the ultimate non-0consumers today are the five billion poor, and especially the 1.5 billion each in China and in India, two countries that have the capability to create call centers for “just enough just in time” learning via cell phone.

2. The keys to health innovation, both in the developed world of one billioin rich and in the undeveloped world of the five billion poor, are:

a. Creating “good enough” solutions that are very low cost and easy to push into remote areas that could not afford high end care; and

b. Pushing innovation down the pyramid from the expensive sites and specialists to the nurse-practitioners and ultimately to the patient themselves; while also moving the diagnostics and the remedies down to the point of care and aware from the hospital “hubs” that are now as antiquated as the airline “hubs” that block point to point travel.

Chapter Ten on “The Future of Telecommunications gave me goose-bumps. No kidding. Thunderclaps and blinding lighting accompanied the third page of this chapter, in part because I have been thinking about Open Spectrum (see David Weinberger's brilliant chapter on this, free online, and also his new book, a sensational new book, Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder. Althought the chapter focuses priimarily on wireless versus hardline hardware options, and does not mention either the obvious fact that satellites still have too much delay for ubiquitous wireless from outer space (something that should go away in ten years with higher energy pulses), or the other obvious fact, that even wireless is being commoditized and that on demand services and sense-making are the next big offering from the innovators, I found this chapter compelling. Arthur Clarke said long ago that telecommunications should be more or less free as an enabler, and I agree. We need to make both communications and education free to all, and monetize the transactions, the patterns, the early warning, and the aggregate sense-making.

The next most important chapter for me was Chapter 3, “Strategic Choices: Identifying Which Choices Matter.” What stuck with me are three things:

1. Start early–don't wait for everyone else to realize the need

2. Hire accordingly. This is HUGE. Most companies have a profile for new employees that is 20 years out of date. Most companies have no clue that Digital Natives are completely different from Digital Immigrants (as one author notes: this is the first generation where the kids are not little version of us–they are a metaphysical transformation well beyond us and anything we can comprehend). Hence, companies have to have the leadership needed to create a “safe” skunkworks where iconoclasts and others who are largely antithetical to the gerbils and drones hired in the past, can innovate without having to deal with the insecurities, ignorance, bad habits, and “rankism” of those trapped in the pyramidal paradigms of the past.

The Appendix provides a summary of key concepts and has some really excellent illustrations that are very helpful. The point within the Appendex that escaped me earlier in the book and was driven home here is that ultimately the innovative firms make investments as a means of learning, not as a means of realizing their pre-conceived notions of what is needed next. I continue to recommend the Business Week cover story of 20 June 2005, “The Power of Us.” Innovation, it appears to me, works best when firms both hire and invest to learn, *and* dramatically and deliberately expand the stakeholder circle to embrace the end-user being sought as a customer.

The rest of the book is very worthwhile for those that do not read broadly in the business or innovation leadership.

Other books that I have found as exciting at this one:
Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies
Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web2.0 Technologies to Recruit, Organize and Engage Youth
The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

Finally, a book I published with 55 contributors, free online but utterly wonderful in

2008/05/022009/10/30

Review: Earth–The Sequel–The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming

5 Star, Environment (Solutions), Future, Survival & Sustainment, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Double Spaced Very Useful Tour of the Energy Horizon, May 2, 2008

Miriam Horn

I like this book and recommend it for students of any age from high school to the geriatric crowd that I represent. It has a super index but no mention of Lester Brown or Herman Daly, but that is offset by back cover recomendations from E. O. Wilson, Mark Lewis, and Michael Bloomberg.

Highlights from my fly leaf notes:

+ 1977 Clean Air was a command and control one size fits all that did not pass the market test

+ Lead author and others with the Environmental Defense Fund were instrumental in getting the 1990 Clear Air Act passed.

+ Making clean air a commodity makes the environment a profit center

+ Although there is no mention of Paul Hawkin's “true cost” meme, Hawkins does get listed in the index twice, see his Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World; the author mentions the urgency of accounting for the cost of pollution.

+ USA must cut its emissions by 80%

+ The author is fully aware that Acts of God are in fact Acts of Man. Another book, I cannot remember which, tells us that changes to the planet that used to take 10,000 years now take three. Not only do we need real time science, but we also need The Precautionary Principle: A Critical Appraisal

+ Clean energy is described by one sources as “the mother of all markets.”

+ The author considers the energy markets to be completely “rigged” and notes that grain based ethanol, which I have called idiocy on more than one occasion, exists because of lobbying from Archer Daniels Midland among others.

+ In 2005 solar power grew by 45%.

+ Solar is distributed power, storage is a major obstacle.

+ The author clearly excited by Silicon Valley nano-tech, and also cautious about what we do not know when it is destabilized.

+ The solar energy industry is shooting for the Home Depot marketplace, stuff so simple I could install it. The author also tells us that banks are starting to get into power purchase agreements that will finance clean energy the way a home or car might be mortgaged. Home depot level will also mean graceful degradation and no “crash” or energy equivalent of Bill Gate's “blue screen of death”.

+ Concentrating the sun is another promising approach. The author tells us that solar energy is six times more land efficient than wind energy.

+ Cuba is sitting on a sugar cane gold mine, biofuels with zero emissions are on the way from sugar modification.

+ Algae is covered, as well as bacteria.

+ Ocean power is also making headway, and is consistent, predictable, and has a high energy density.

+ Earth thermal includes hot water that comes with oil, previously considered a nusiance.

+ Coal is getting a make-over, and biomimicry is helping. It must get a make-over because it is an essential part of the mid-term power solution.

+ Sequestration is working and will work long enough to matter.

+ Regenerative reserves (e.g. the Amazon) are an essential part of the future. More more on this see the lovely and informative Climate Change and Biodiversity

+ Manure is turning into a major league energy source (when it's not contaminating our spinach, there is a whole land under surface water use deal here that we just do not understand.

+ Energy efficiency, hybrid cars, and smarter land use (compacting towns and cities to increase efficiency of public transportation) are part of the solution.

+ All parties will spend $10 trillion over the next thirty years to achieve clean energy.

See Other books I recommend:
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition
Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications
The Future of Life
The Mighty Acts of God
The Republican War on Science
Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature
Green Chemistry and the Ten Commandments of Sustainability, 2nd ed

This is a fine book. See also the WIRED Magazine Cover Story from 2000, it came out the same month Dick Cheney was meeting secretly with Enron and Exxon executives.