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Singing From the Inside Out – The Personal, the Public, The Private and The Penal: The Innovation Interview with Julian Arahanga, Ruia Aperahama and Evan Rhys Davies

Posted on June 9, 2012 | 1 comment

Innovation and Inspiration can be sought, and found, in some of the most surprising places. Of course, it will come as no surprise to regular readers of the ‘Capital I’ Innovation Series, that I am a firm believe in the necessity of innovation in all things, be it in art, technology, science, education or social sciences.

I shall be ever grateful to my Kiwi connection, Steve Gray, for introducing me to ‘Songs From the Inside,’ a music therapy programme in New Zealand, which brings established musicians into the Rimutaka and Arohata correction facilities to teach songwriting to prisoners. Though music therapy is used in correctional facilities worldwide, this is the first time established musicians have been brought in and the program recorded for public viewing.

‘Songs From the Inside‘ Artists: Ruia Aperahama, Maisey Rika, Anika Moa and Warren Maxwell,

Screened on Mauri TV, and also available online, ‘Songs From the Inside,’ brilliantly follows and films musicians Ruia Aperahama, Warren Maxwell (original lead singer with Trinity Roots and founding member of Fat Freddy’s Drop), Anika Moa and Maisey Rika along with ten prisoners, through their workshops, challenges and culminating outcomes.

In the thirteenth episode, an hour-long special, songs that the prisoners wrote, sang and recorded will be revealed, with an album released and available to download the next day, June 11.

I have had the immense pleasure to interview the programme director, Julian Arahanga; participating musician, Ruia Aperahama; and the instigator of the Innovative program, Evan Rhys Davies. Speaking with each of them was both inspiring, enticing, exciting and deeply moving – I hope you find following our conversations as interesting as did having them.

Songs From the Inside: Capital I Interview Series – Number 19

PART ONE: JULIAN ARAHANGA – DIRECTOR

Congratulations on the project! I just think it’s magnificent work. I can only imagine how proud you must be of it.

Thank you very much. I do feel proud. I always knew that we were doing something good but it turned out quite a bit bigger than what I’d originally envisioned.

I knew there was the possibility of it being a breakthrough type of show… Everybody is always very interested in what goes on inside prisons, and with the quality of the musicians that we had… I always thought that if we were able to weave those elements together we were going to come out with something powerful.

And you did! One of the things that shines through, along with the quality of the musicians artistry, is their quality as human beings. The level to which they gave of themselves so generously to the project is extremely beautiful.

That was part of selection criteria that we had. We didn’t want to select pop stars per say. The people that we needed, to make show successful, were people who had a social consciousness and who had lived a little; they had some life experiences, and a world view of their own to fall back on.

Maisey Rika

From the very early stages, as a group, we talked about the type of things we were setting out to do. Everybody knew we were trying to get a little deeper than just the surface. To do that we needed to reach out and make ourselves vulnerable in order to achieve our goal of getting these people [the prisoners] to open up.

If you were to look at the programme as a journey, was there a place along that road you hoped the prisoners involved would reach?

I think there were a few goals. The first was hinged around the music. With the musicians our goal was to help these people [the prisoners] create and produce music that only they, as individuals, could have made… songs that were written from the heart.

Secondly, it was about showing the human side of the prisoners… Showing that they’re not just stats and numbers but actual human beings who are very much like you and I. They have their ups and downs, but various circumstances and their actions have landed them in this place.

Another goal we had for the project was to show people at home, even if just subconsciously, how to write their own songs. I hope that from watching the show people will be able to understand what a hook line is, what a bridge is and why you need one… we gave them the basic tools to be able to create their own song. Anyone can write a song and everybody has got at least one song in them.

It’s a whole new take on ‘The Voice’ or ‘The Idol’ franchises. It’s the ultimate reality in reality television. You’ve brought clarity to a genre that has, at best, been muddied, and that is to be applauded.

I think that reality TV can be a different experience to how we perceive it currently.

I can only assume that there were many issues you had to deal with due to the fact that your subjects were incarcerated… even such mundane things as having a shortened filming period. Did these issues necessitate you having to come up with different ways of approaching the production?

Certainly. Every production has its challenges. We just adapted to the playing field that was given to us. If we were filming soldiers in Iraq, we’d be dealing with a whole lot of circumstances there. You’ve just got to evaluate the situation and find the solutions to the parameters you’re given.

The shortened day was a big issue… we only had three or four hours with our students, so that was when the cameras pretty much didn’t stop rolling. We were constantly evaluating what worked and what didn’t… because if one of the cameras hadn’t got the shot when it happened then we didn’t have it… it’s not in the show.

The biggest challenge, which was at the heart of the show, was to make a connection with, and gain the trust of, our students. That was the true challenge because without that connection and trust we really wouldn’t have had a show.

Was there a danger of the artists connecting too much, or being overwhelmed and drowning in the prisoners’ stories and personal dramas? And, if so, how did you help them to protect themselves from those dangers?

Think that danger was very present. So, we had mentors… we had Jim Moriarty who has worked in prisons for 25 years. He has taught male and female prisoners drama – a situation where you really try to evoke emotions, such as anger – and has worked with both medium and high risk offenders.

During the process of making ‘Songs From the Inside,’ if we felt that anyone was feeling under pressure and in need of assistance the mentors were there for them.

As Maori people we’re very giving and open. We treated the people that we dealt with in prison like they were our cousin, our brother, uncle, auntie or sister. Once we had met them and begun the process, the barrier perception: “They’re prisoners and they’re bad,” was pretty much nonexistent.

So many of the prisoners are, at least to a certain extent, Maori. Do you think that was important in being able to achieve the level of connection you did? I ask that because I wonder if the programme could be replicated in another part of the world, where that brother/cousin connection is not so strong – if there at all.

I have no doubt that the process can be replicated in any country where there are prisons and people who love music.

I think that, in trying to connect with them, it helped us immensely that our students were Maori. But I’m hopeful that next year we’ll do another series of ‘Songs From the Inside’ at a different location in New Zealand where we will have a more mixed representation of ethnicities.

I think by the end of that process we will have proven the theory that we have developed: that the process of song writing, and drawing out songs from people’s hearts, can work with anybody in any scenario.

It’s a very inspirational, Innovative process. Were you looking to make a change within the correction system when you set out to do the project.

Well, you aim high with everything that you do.

I didn’t know how we might be able to affect the Corrections Department in New Zealand but I think that, by getting them involved in the process, we’ve already made some form of change.

Have you had feedback from the correction system?

The Corrections Department is 100% behind the project, and they’re already behind the second series. Their CEO has even used the project in his speeches to prison managers nationally.

Frankly, I’d like to see music departments in every prison in New Zealand. Long term, on a national scale, I’d like to see music departments, instruments and tutors going in, using song writing, poetry, writing and music.

I don’t like to call it rehabilitation or reforming people. I’m not a criminal psychologist; I don’t know how you determine whether someone is rehabilitated or reformed. What I do know is that life is about steps and this is one step.

The programme and the people involved had been given a commendation from the New Zealand Parliament, which must be quite marvellous to receive. Did receiving it come as a surprise to you?

It was a surprise… a very nice surprise that was very welcomed by everybody in the whole production, along with our supporters and our families.

Along with that, the programme is being talked about a lot internationally. That too may have been something of a surprise as was screened on Maori TV rather than on large, national channel. Though, I understand it is has large, international online viewer numbers – which is where was able to watch the episodes.

I’m currently close to having a team ready in Ireland. We’ve got a prison in Dublin that houses male and female prisoners that is interested in replicating the program. They’ve been able to watch the episodes on the Maori Television website, and they get it. They’re from another culture, and they’ve got different sensibilities, but they get it and they know it would work in Ireland.

We’re also trying to have it made in Australia. We’ve got one correctional facility already on board, we just need to get a female correctional facility and then I think we can make it there next year.

When you look back I imagine that there are all sorts of memories that jump out. What are some of your strongest ones?

If I use a timeline as my guide, I think talking with Evan [Rhys Davies] while he was living in Hong Kong… I told him I’d like to make a television series based loosely around the music programme that he ran in Spring Hill Prison in the Waikato. That’s when I really thought this could work.

There are just so many moments, like the day when I signed all the artists… And they didn’t have to think twice!

I sent them a few paragraphs about what we wanted to do and they all wrote back saying: “Yes, I want to be a part of this!” Obviously, the day we got funded which meant it was happening… The first day of filming, when we all came together.

A super highlight was the day we went into the prison. The amount of emotion in there and the amount of belief, openness, forgiveness and willingness to learn. That was a very special day.

And of course, the recording day, when we recorded everybody’s songs. That’s the big payoff for everybody who buys into and watches the series. When you get to episode 13, you get paid off for your loyalty; I think that’s going be really rewarding for viewers.

I’m told there are some very beautiful songs well worth watching for and I’m very much looking forward to their release.

Prior to speaking to you, I did a small, online search of songs either written about, from, or just after release from prison. Many of them gave me goosebumps. They were very different pieces… be it the Ska of ‘54-46 That’s My Number’ or the rockabilly-blues of ‘Folsom Prison Blues‘ for instance. And yet there was a reality – a truth – that they shared.

Some of the songs are so personal, nobody else could have written them.

It’s not the kind of album that you’re going to be having a party to. It’s the kind you set aside some time in your day to sit down and listen to. You can pull out the booklet, read the lyrics as it’s all going down, and enjoy the whole experience. If you watched the TV series, you can relive the experience in a new way.

When is the album going to be released?

The 13th episode is on the June 10th and the album will be in stores on the 11th. It will be downloadable from iTunes at midnight (NZST).

How exciting! I can hear from you voice that it means a great deal to you. Do you feel that being involved with the programme has changed you in some way?

Definitely. This particular project has shown me the value in people… in lifting others up, trying to enhance their lives and give them opportunity

I’ve been involved with a lot of projects and generally every one changes you in some way, but I feel like this project has given me the clarity to know what I want to do with my life. I’m going to focus a lot more on projects that deal with social issues… Not just for Maori people but for all people, particularly in New Zealand, but on a global scale as well.

It’s a great culmination and conjoining of both artistry and activism; it’s Innovative and Inspiring!

You know what the good thing is? We’re ‘good’ from both sides!

The Corrections [department] love us. We’re the best thing that’s happened to them in years because, lets face it, they don’t get a lot of good press. Even the Sensible Sentencing Trust haven’t slammed the project, and they’re about as right-wing as you can get in terms of recognised groups with a media voice.

Maybe it’s because the project is so sincere and honest. It’s people talking about their lives and trying to help one another. And it goes both ways – the musicians get an amazing life experience; they’re being challenged in all kinds of ways, so everybody is growing together.

PART TWO: EVAN RHYS DAVIES – INSTIGATOR

Songs From the Inside seems a perfect synthesis of your talents as a teacher, musician and activist.

First and foremost I’m interested in people. My motivation comes from believing that people have an intrinsic value and we need to find a way to let people know that. For me that connection with, and working with, the prisoners was an extension of what I feel passionately about: connecting with people and helping them find their place in the world.

‘Songs From the Inside’ is based on a programme you devised earlier. What was your impetus for beginning it; was there something that happened, something you saw or heard that made you think this was a necessary thing to do?

I got a call from a friend saying: “We’ve got this pilot programme at Spring Hill prison… Would you be interested in teaching creative writing and maybe branch into song writing? You can pretty well write the programme. What do you think?” I thought: Yes!

In the first class there were about 20 guys and a lot of them had issues with writing in general. In the second there were eight to ten guys and they just rocked up to class; there’d be eight guys and three guitars. They’d heard the words ‘song writing’ and missed the creative writing part, so straight away I was getting these guys offering me songs.

The first song one of the guys played had the lyrics “It’s your birthday today and I’m not with you.” It was to his two year old daughter, and I just thought, what a start to a song! No one else is going to come up with a lyric like that.

In the first class we mainly focused on developing technical skills the guys could take away to use to express themselves better. We focused the second class more on song writing. One guy, who had barely said a word for seven weeks agreed to share a song one day. When he did, he sounded like Jack Johnson; he had an amazing voice and it was a beautiful song about saying sorry. That’s when I knew we had to record the songs.

At first the idea raised a few eyebrows, but eventually the officials gave me clearance for my gear. I took in an engineer and we did it. We called the album “If These Walls Could Speak – Live Recordings from Spring Hill Prison.” One of the guys made it pretty clear when he said, “Next to having kids this is the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”

Then a few months later I got a call from Awa, the Songs From the Inside production company, who said: “We were really moved by the project. We’re not quite sure what format we’re looking at but we’re keen to discuss a television show or film.”

What was your goal for the project? Was it mainly to fill the prisoners’ time and bring them some peace while they’re inside, or was there a view to them being able to use these skills in some way once they get outside?

I know that the ‘Songs From the Inside’ production team would say that they aren’t trying to reduce the crime rate dramatically in New Zealand. The idea is that we’re trying to give people tools and one of the most powerful tools is self-expression.

I’m sure anyone would recognise that if you can express yourself well… if you can understand how to say what you want to say – what you need to say! – then you’re going to be a lot healthier on the inside. You’re a lot likelier to get along with people rather, than getting on top of them, and a lot less likely to get yourself in situations where you express yourself through other [more aggressive] means.

How important has it been to have Julian Arahanga involved?

He is obviously a very talented director but, more importantly, he’s a guy who is more interested in the welfare of the prisoners than making his television show. Of course he is an incredible professional and he’s doing a great job on the TV show, but the way he handles and respects people has really blown me away.

Throughout the programme Maori was being spoken and, as a viewer, I revelled in how beautiful and musical that language is. That must have been interesting to you, due to your love of language and music.

Ruia Aperahama, one of the musicians involved in the project, is an incredible guy… An amazing storyteller, and an incredible linguist as well. He speaks fluent French and Maori as well as English.

One minute he’d be talking to us in English, then get a call from someone in New Caledonia about music and he’d switch to French, then turn to his eight year old son and talk to him in Maori. He’s very interested in language and the musicality of it.

Through the series you see that he’s an incredible orator and communicator. He really engages with language and helps other people to do so as well.

And he’s also incredibly talented in the use of body language.

Very much so. You have to see the last episode… I was crying like a baby because it was just beautiful, there were so many amazing moments.

Ruia came to these occasions with a heart for the people, especially for the Maori, who were inside the prisons. Because, let’s be honest, we need to look at other ways of trying to restore faith and confidence in a lot of disenfranchised Maori people who’ve ended up in prison. That’s not a generalisation – that’s a fact.

PART THREE: RUIA APERAHAMA – ARTIST

‘Songs From the Inside,’ which is such a success, seems to reflect something of New Zealand culture – and certainly of Maori culture – in that it celebrates and honours coming together as a community. Was that part of what led you to get involved in the project, and did that affect how you approached it?

I come from a strong Maori community, from a Marae which has significance in New Zealand history. And, I’ve had some previous experience in prisons, and other places, helping out second chance seekers.

To do a project of this nature… To go in with a teaching angle – sharing, facilitating and creating opportunities – while working with other high-profile artists, for me was a once in a lifetime experience. Though, I hope that we might be able to do something similar again.

We all knew it was going to have some impact on our lives… And not just for us, not just for the inmates but for everyone that worked on the project.

As well as being a gifted musician I understand that you trained as a teacher. The project must have been a quite serendipitous melding of the two paths in your life.

I trained at teachers college in the eighties, so when Julian asked me if I wanted to do this project and described what we would be doing, I jumped at it very quickly.

I was honoured to be asked to go into the prison because most of our [New Zealand] prison population is made up of our [Maori] people. I’ve got relations and family who are either in the system as prison officers, administrators or in some kind of government departments; but they’re also somehow related to and connected to inmates. So, at the end of the day, it was a blessing to be asked to share that environment with our relations.

When you began the project were you able to walk in clean and clear without any assumptions about potential outcomes?

There were some anxieties about the unknown, but that’s part of taking risks and not having much control over the environment we were going into.

We were pretty limited in what we could shoot, so we had to create opportunities, while we were challenged with the concept of having to deliver almost a ‘wonderful world of rehabilitation’ type of programme.

When I say rehabilitation, I mean that there are components for inmates not only to learn about constructing and creating songs, but also to learn how to conduct their life. When you’re composing songs you have to do a lot of collaborating and with collaborating you have to learn to compromise. You have to learn how to share and when to step back. You learn that it’s not just about the artist or the singer; it’s an industry. You’ve got directors producers, engineers, technicians, programme managers… There are a whole lot of people in the industry.

If they wanted, the inmates can explore this further. We’ve just given them a taste of an alternative lifestyle; an option outside of the prison and outside of gangs. Hopefully at the end of the day we gave them an insight, just as the programme gives the New Zealand public an insight into prison culture.

They [the prisoners] have made mistakes – that’s why they’re in prison and paying for their crime. In my opinion, the programme not only shows some different options and alternative lifestyles that inmates might choose outside of prison, but it also helps to humanise the inmate.

I don’t think that after seeing the programme you can generalise any longer about ‘them and us’.

One of my strongest memories from the programme is in the initial episode when you acknowledged everyone within a speaking circle. It seemed to be incredibly important in building the initial bridge between the project makers and the inmates. Is that something that you set out to do consciously or was that just a natural thing that happened?

That’s the opportunity I think that our culture and our customs provide. In our [Maori] culture, through our customs and rituals, the art of oratory speech making has an obligation to create and an opportunity to acknowledge things that should be acknowledged.

For me it reminds us how important our humanness is. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an inmate, a high-profile musician, an administrator, a prison officer or anybody else involved in the justice system. What’s important is to reconnect to being human.

I wanted to challenge the stereotypes of prison inmates and prison guards. I certainly saw not only the opportunity and the willingness to change in the inmates, but I also saw the human side of the prison guards every time we came through security. It is very important to make all people feel valued.

You were able to empower the prisoners to give expression to their feelings, hopes and fears in ways that, perhaps, they’ve never done before – or at least had never been acknowledged for doing so before.

I know many males find it very difficult connecting with, for lack of a better word, their feminine side… To connect to feelings instead of lashing out, using verbal abuse or other forms of violence, like the ones that put them in prison in the first place.

Instead of using those tactics in communicating they had to learn that vulnerability is the first thing to transform your life. We showed that only when you’re vulnerable can you surrender; only when you surrender can you make transformation and change in your life, so you can make different choices. Otherwise you just become part of the high statistics and vicious cycle of reoffending.

Personal Innovation, at a very deep, core level, can touch anyone anywhere.

I agree.

Reaching back to my culture and upbringing on the Marae… It’s not an excuse, but the history and colonisation that happened in our country, for me, has contributed to the large percent of Maori making up our prison population. For me that’s a driving factor to make a change – to make a difference.

As I understand it, a Marae is a sacred meeting place. Is that correct?

It’s the central point of our community. It’s represented by a tribal house, which is the focal point, and would usually be the main ancestor of the region that the Marae stands on. Through that, through the genealogical line of that ancestor, you can connect to members of different communities.

Is it possible to carry a Marae with you? The reason I ask is, it seems to me that in some way you brought the spirit and strength of your Marae with you into the prison.

I understand, and yeah, I agree.

A Marae isn’t just a physical location. Marae is a lifestyle, its how we choose to live our lives and interact with each other.

You bring a deep, palpable level of emotional strength to the programme, which is very inspiring.

Without getting too profound, in our vulnerability and humanness there are lot of exciting things we can share and give one another whether we are inmates, rich, poor, celebrity or not. There are wonderful moments that we can give one another and, certainly in ‘Songs From the Inside,’ there were a lot of those moments that will continue to help me on my journey.

What are your strongest memories of the project?

The strongest memories would be the connecting and the humanness, the breaking down of barriers and stereotypes; and there are a lot of stereotypes out there about prisons.

The hardest time was having to leave every day; going back to our families, to our sense of freedom and the normality in our lives after having spent a day taking on board the things that the guys needed to talk about. We’d have touched on vulnerability and surrendering and that’s not easy for anybody… admitting that you’re wrong or you have things you need to improve on.

Of course if you want to sing from the inside, from your heart and soul, you have to break down all of your stereotypes and your barriers so that you can connect and access what you want to say and how you want to say it. The crafting of that, and helping to develop people’s personality and characters, was a wonderful experience.

If it was difficult to leave at the end of each day’s filming, how was it to leave on the final day? That must have been particularly emotive.

For me, the last episode was reaching a milestone. It was a time to summarise everything: Did we achieve what we set out to do? Did we make an impact and change in somebody’s life somehow?

I was really excited because I could see how hard the inmates had worked and how far they had come! The result of having produced and recorded a song, in allowing and admitting their vulnerabilities – and our vulnerabilities – created a collective strength. The programme and album is, I suppose, a montage of that journey.

To be a part of that, to celebrate people’s successes and the changes that they’ve made, is not only an honour but, to be able to help, them along the journey… that’s an even greater blessing.

Have you been changed by the project?

It’s certainly helped me to have more gratitude about what I have in my life. It helped me reconnect and see how important it is to reach out and be a part of people’s lives… networking, growing and learning something every day.

But, most of all, I think the whole experience is about humanness. It underlined how it is in our humanness that we are all vulnerable, and when we are all being vulnerable we are all equal.

Kim, Julian, Evan and Ruia Skyped from their homes in Sydney and New Zealand.

Songs From the Inside is available for download purchase from iTunes; the CD and DVD can be purchased from Amplifier.

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This is the final interview in the ‘Capital I’ Innovation Interview Series, as due to its popularity the series grew into the book, Innovation: How Innovators Think, Act and Change Our World (published in print, and as an eBook by Kogan Page in October 2013).

It introduces readers to a select number of pioneers who have broken the mould, led the pack, and moved their own particular mountains in a wide range of fields (including business, technology and travel, engineering and energy, government and social policy, the arts and advertising, media, medicine and more).

It is also available as an innovative, industry-first, Enhanced Edition/ Online Ecosystem, which integrates the latest interactivity, web publishing, cloud, mobile and responsive technologies along with KimmiC’s FlatWorld ‘secret sauce’ and SmartMarks – interactive, intelligent bookmarks.

Innovation: How Innovators Think, Act and Change Our World, recently won a Best Business Book award and was translated into Korean for sale in that market.

I’d like to thank the many thousands of series fans and readers, who were integral in making the book possible!

I AM NOW HARD AT WORK ON MY NEXT BOOK, (DUE TO BE PUBLISHED BY KOGAN PAGE IN DECEMBER, 2015), WHICH EXPLORES COLLABORATION AND FLAT WORLD NAVIGATION – WATCH THIS SPACE FOR DETAILS!

UNTIL THEN, I WISH YOU ALL NOTHING BUT THE BEST INNOVATION IN EVERYTHING YOU DO!!

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Posted in 'Capital I' Innovation, Creativity, Digital Media, Innovation

Tagged 54-46 That's My Number, Anika Moa, Corrections Department, Evan Rhys Davies, Fat Freddy's Drop, Folsom Prison Blues, innovation, Inspiration, Jim Moriarty, Julian Arahanga, Kiwi, Maisey Rika, Maori, Maori TV, marae, music, music therapy, New Zealand, New Zealand Parliament, prison, prisoners, reality TV, Ruia Aperahama, self-expression, Social Science, song writing, songs, Songs From the Inside, Steve Gray, Trinity Roots, vulnerability, Warren Maxwell

Computer Mediated to Computer Meditated: Innovation Interview with Ajit Jaokar, author of ‘Meditation in the Age of Facebook and Twitter – From Shamanism to Transhumanism’

Posted on May 18, 2012 | 2 comments

World renowned as a thought leader in the area of Mobile Applications, Ajit Jaokar has long been recognised as a thought leader in the Mobile Data Industry. Among other things, he has chaired Oxford University’s Next Generation Mobile Applications Panel, acts as an advisor to mobile startups, governments and trade missions around the world. In 2009, he was invited to be a part of the World Economic Forum’s Future of the Internet Council.

Ajit Jaokar: Capital I Interview Series – Number 18

Ajit is a man on a mission, and that mission is as multifaceted as it is fascinating. At the heart of all of his projects and practices is a deep felt belief in the need to make a positive difference. This is resoundingly reflected in futuretext, the publishing and consulting firm, which he co founded in 1999. Most recently, Ajit has authored, ‘Meditation in the Age of Facebook and Twitter – From Shamanism to Transhumanism,’ which explores the efforts and effects of attempting to manage life in the digital age through meditation.

His sixth book, it looks at the potential of Innovating meditation, through neural techniques, so as to assist society as a whole, and individuals in particular, in making the most out of our technologically expanding – and for many, overwhelming – world. It is no mean feat to bind together meditation and technology, and yet that is what Ajit has managed to do; if his mission is not yet complete, it is certainly ‘game on.’

Ajit, welcome to the Capital I Innovation Series!

Firstly, many thanks Kim for the insightful questions you sent me about the ideas covered in my book. I shall cover many of these ideas, but since they and the book are evolving, I will try to extend my thinking beyond the book in this interview.

In the book you posit that meditation cannot be separated from society. Why?

Meditation, as I describe it in this book, is a technique for personal development and reflective of a wider social change that we see today. In that sense, the idea of meditation i.e. introspection – is based on the cultural context.

The traditional view of meditation is that of a monk who renounces the world and maintains a state of calm, peaceful demeanour. But, here is another viewpoint: In January 2009, due to a bird strike, US Airways Flight 1549 was forced to land in the Hudson River in New York City; it did so successfully, with no loss of life. When I first heard of this incident, I was fascinated by it. The actual technique of landing the plane is complex enough, but even more interesting for me is the mind-set of the pilot and the pilot’s perspective.

The metaphor of an airline pilot (Captain Chesley Sullenberger) is an excellent example of a meditative mind. While most of us will never have to deal with a situation remotely as complex as landing a plane on a river, the incident points to how the meditative state of mind is absolutely relevant today.

Captain Chesley Sullenberger (Image courtesy of Time.com)

In a curious sense, the situation is like our work today: we have many distractions, the stakes are high and we have to focus on the relevant instead of trying to shut down the distractions. Thus, there is a need to bring the mind-set of meditation to the (more complex) age of today

Do you think meditation has to evolve to be compatible with today’s social networks, or should social networks be made to evolve to be compatible with meditative/calm states?

We have always had ‘social networks’. Even the smallest village has a social network – we call it gossip. The issue is more that of a ‘rate of change’.

However, if you phrase the question as an ‘either – or’ i.e. should meditation evolve or should social networks evolve – the answer is the former. The rate of change of society will accelerate. This is independent of ‘social networks’ but is rather a function of technology in general.

In his book Future Shock (New York: Bantam Books, 1970), Alvin Toffler argued back in 1970 that society was undergoing an enormous structural change, a revolution from an industrial society to a ‘super-industrial society.’ He predicted this change would overwhelm people, with the accelerated rate of technological and social change leaving them disconnected and suffering from ‘shattering stress and disorientation.’ Toffler called this the ‘future shock.’ and stated that the majority of social problems were symptoms of this future shock. He also popularised the term ‘information overload.’

Alvin Toffler

Toffler’s shortest definition of future shock is a personal perception of “too much change in too short a period of time.” For many, that sounds familiar – they are indeed living in a Toffleresque world. Living in such a world is very relevant to meditation because meditation involves detachment, the ability to ‘unplug.’ So, meditation will evolve to meet these new challenges.

Will true mastery of our digital presence require an Innovation of our neural networks, be it within the context of dreams, meditation, and/or awareness?

There are two aspects to my response here. I view a common theme in all networks, a leitmotif if you will. In that sense, if we see that we are living in a world of networks with a breakdown of hierarchies – we are becoming aware of the significance of neural networks.

Another way to look at this idea is to think of the unified theory of science. In simplistic terms, the unified theory (or a theory of everything) is a superset of existing theories in physics. The term was coined by Einstein, who attempted to unify the general theory of relativity with electromagnetism, hoping to recover an approximation for quantum theory. So too, I see ‘networks’ unifying many aspects of our world – both neural and social.

Secondly, many authors such as Nicholas Carr worry about what the Internet is doing to our brains [as he posited] in his book The Shallows. Others, like the neuroscientist Susan Greenfield [Baroness Greenfield, CBE] claim that social sites such as Facebook are causing alarming changes in the brains of little children. It appears that many of us are now left with a longing to disconnect, to unplug, and academics and gurus are tapping into that trend.

Nicholas Carr

Thus, if you take the view of the ‘scaremongering’ experts like Carr and Greenfield – then there is a negative relationship between social networks and the brain. I do not agree to this view.

I take a more optimistic view that the brain is evolving to higher domains because social networks facilitate more connections – and these connections will cause a positive innovation in our neural networks because as we have more elements to connect – we create innovations from new combinations of existing ideas.

For many, mediation and networking are mutually exclusive as mediation is individual and internal and networking is collective and external? What are your views on this perspective?

Here is a question: Were monks ever meant to be on Facebook and Twitter? Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, the Japanese author and teacher of Buddhism, describes the traditional lifestyle of a monk eloquently in his book ‘The Training of the Zen Buddhist Monk’, when he emphasises the importance of begging.

Traditionally, a monk needs very few possessions. These include a bamboo hat, straw sandals, and cotton leggings. He dresses in traveling attire, and even when modern transportation is available, he walks. These and other meagre possessions are designed to be carried in a bundle on the monk’s back. The monk limits his possessions to a minimum and thereby also limits his desire to possess. He (and yes, monks were always male) leads a life of humility and also often makes his income through begging.

The point is: The monks’ original lifestyle (a frugal existence based on begging) is not compatible with our current lifestyle. By that I mean, we want to meditate but not beg! Thus, while all meditation involves looking inwards, I believe that the act of looking inwards will strengthen our outward interactions and we have to accept that these outward interactions have changed and will continue to evolve – and hence so will our inward introspection.

As individuals are attempting to retain and/or regain power over their own data and online privacy, is there a correlation between this and using mediation to regain control over our own attention economy?

The attention economy, as defined by marketers, is a more serious threat to our online attention rather than merely social media. There is a common factor between media/marketing and social networks (I define ‘social networks’ here loosely as a collection of your friends).

The common factor is: both play on ‘emotion’ i.e. you like your friends’ posts because you have some emotional connection with your friend. Media does the same – but for commercial reasons. It is increasingly difficult for media to get attention with so much choice – so media has to make content more outrageous, violent etc etc. Thus, while both appeal to emotion – and both lead to ‘distraction of attention’ – with social media you can choose – with traditional media – the choice is made for you.

Thus, I see meditation as an attempt to gain more power over our own attention – but not necessarily our data. Having said that, there are already advertising companies trying to gain understanding of their customers through ‘neural’ data. However, I think the power of meditation and brain wave meditation is better used for us to manage our attention

How do you see meditation enhancing our powers of intuition and thus our power to ‘thin slice’ all the information we are receiving, to determine what does and does not need our attention?

Intuition is an important goal in today’s world. In general, Intuition is seen to be ‘positive’ i.e. you benefit from hidden insights or insights ‘under the radar’. Intuition will also be an important part of my thinking in subsequent versions of this book.

The question I want to address is: How can intuition be improved in a world of social media? I believe that more connections equal more intelligence as long as you can process the inputs from the connections. Here is where meditation is extremely valuable in today’s context.

There is an excellent book I read with great interest recently, ‘Thinking Fast and Slow‘ by [Nobel Laureate] Daniel Kahneman. In this book, Daniel talks of two modes of thought – “System 1” and “System 2“. System 1 is fast; it’s intuitive, associative, metaphorical, automatic, impressionistic, and it can’t be switched off. Its operations involve no sense of intentional control, but it’s the “secret author of many of the choices and judgments you make“. System 2 is slow, deliberate, effortful. Its operations require attention.

One of the key points of the book is: We identify with System 2 but we are really profoundly System 1. So, System 2 is seen to be a supporting character, it needs a lot of effort to activate and gets tired easily. System 1 is active most of the time and it is right – most of the time. But it is also error prone because it has to work fast and loves to simplify.

At the conclusion of the book, Kahneman links ‘watercooler conversations’ to ‘better decisions’ – which depend on intuition – when he refers to the idea of creating valuable insights/decisions based on water cooler conversations.

Now, let’s consider this: today we have many, many such ‘water cooler’ conversations on social media. How can they be used to create better intuitive judgements? Furthermore, is it possible that we could integrate both these systems in meditation and thereby gain new intuition?

What do you believe is the impact of social technologies on meditation and how does that reflect on what you term emergence and synchronisation?

I have always been interested in the wider implications of the mind/evolution. Especially on the theories of emergence – which are network based and are at the edges of current scientific thinking.

Arthur Winfree, a scientist who studies biological rhythms, studied the problem of coupled oscillators across many different domains. Specifically, he studied the problem of biological oscillators, i.e. the ability of neurons and fireflies and other organisms to synchronise with each other on a massive scale.

Prior to Winfree’s work, scientists had restricted their investigations to two oscillators or a small number of oscillators. Winfree conducted his experiments with a system comprising a very large number of oscillators with a range of frequencies. His objective was to see under what conditions these oscillators synchronised. He discovered that such oscillators display a cooperative behaviour and that at a certain threshold the oscillators begin to synchronise spontaneously.

This is one of the first examples of a self-organising system observed under experimental conditions. The phenomenon applies to many domains like the circadian rhythm (body clock) and in general to all fields where natural oscillators are seen. Winfree’s work is significant because he was the first scientist to explore the phenomenon mathematically, and by increasing coupling, all oscillators in his experiment became locked.

If we view the brain as an oscillator, I speculate we may see the same effect with the brain at some point, especially if the brain capacity is enhanced by BCI [Brain Computer Interface] – probably as implants. This may sound far-fetched, but many of the elements exist – and I have faith in the limitless possibility of the human mind!

You discuss mediation being enhanced by BCI technology, which you say is the ‘next generation of neuro-social networks.’ How do you see this giving us an advantage, as individuals, and as a society?

I am a big believer of using BCI technology in understanding and improving meditation. It is the next natural evolution in mediation. But I also believe in understanding the past and the future together. In that sense, my thinking differs from current thinking (which focusses on either the past or the future).

It also makes the book very comprehensive i.e. it needs a lot of research to look at BOTH the past and the future (from Shamanism to Transhumanism). I already describe in the book a lot of work I am exploring with [biosensor manufacturer] NeuroSky. Today, an individual is the most granular unit of a social network. But, in future, what if you could extend this to a neural level? To take social networking to the neural level (Facebook of the connected mind), we need the ability to do the following:

record brainwaves and see them
create a visual representation of the mind at a point in time (a thought form)
share that thought form with others
do so cheaply and globally
possibly, do so using a neural implant, i.e. without a headset (using implants)

This image would look like a ‘shared hologram,’ i.e. your state of mind projected as a three-dimensional object which can be viewed by others with whom you share it. This means you will get biofeedback at two levels: 1) the individual level and 2) the social level. The very act of sharing your ‘neural profile’ with others will create the opportunity to build a shared/social/collective profile. Here, meditation using the brain as an object of meditation has two roles: at an individual level, with the ability to develop the mind; but likewise it also has a role at the social level where meditation becomes a shared/collective experience.

You might want to check the work by Brainbot, originating out of Stanford University, who also use BCI technology with monks.

You suggest that meditation, networks and technology could be used together to increase our intelligence. What makes you believe that this greater intelligence would be used in a positive way for the greater good?

Actually, the goal of my thinking is to adapt existing knowledge to the world of today – and ultimately to extend it to the future. In that sense it is agnostic of good or bad. However, networks lead to connectivity and connectivity leads to empathy – hence an overall tendency towards good.

What is your vision of the future for mankind, if, as you posit, the evolution of our neural networks through meditation and social/digital technology brings about a liberalised, borderless global society with more independent thought and fewer hierarchies?

Yes, we see the rise of the liberal mind-set as seen in many areas: the rise of women, green issues, the “springs”(Arab springs) etc. I am optimistic about the future of mankind because this is not the first time that we, as a species, have been united. The last time that happened 70,000 years ago, when we undertook a quantum leap in our evolution.

Around 70,000 to 80,000 years ago, the Toba super volcano erupted in what is now Lake Toba, Indonesia, causing a six- to ten-year-long global winter that led to a near extinction of the human population. The survivors, probably numbering as low as 1,000 individuals, were most likely forced to live and work together to overcome the dire climatic conditions. In doing so, they evolved language and social skills that we, their descendants, inherited.

So, crisis brought all humanity together and when we did connect together as a species there was a quantum leap in human evolution via networking. This evolution also impacted our brains because, in general, the more complex the society and its communication patterns, the more evolved the brain. It led to development of culture. Around 70,000 years ago, human beings deviated from other primates by evolving a culture such as is evident in the rock paintings in the Blombos Caves of South Africa.

Blombos Cave Rock Painting

After 70,000 years, humanity is being connected together again, but not by a crisis – by technology. Once again, like we did so many years ago, we can expect a quantum uptake in intelligence, adoption of new identities, and a new culture.

It has been posited that social networks may, in the future, lessen the onset of wars as it is thought that it will be more difficult to invade and kill someone you’ve ‘friended’ on Facebook. Is this what you meant when you wrote, “Once we are able to see conflicting points of view through networks, our sense of local identity is complemented by a sense of global identity”?

Ok. I love a song by Sting called the ‘Russians’ especially the section:

How can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer’s deadly toy

There is no monopoly in common sense

On either side of the political fence

We share the same biology

Regardless of ideology

Believe me when I say to you

I hope the Russians love their children too

I think the song encapsulates the sentiment i.e. once we see conflicting points of view – we have hope for humanity. People who meditate are more likely to look for weapons of mass distraction – rather than weapons of mass destruction – and find them too.

You cite Howard Rheingold in your book, noting that he helped you understand “communities from first principals.” You also mention that, prior to his 1993 book, researchers focussed on ‘computer mediated communication.’ Are you envisaging a future where the focus changes to ‘computed meditative’ communication?

In a nutshell – yes. Howard is a great visionary and a mentor. He knows networks from first principles – long before the ‘Internet’ was created, and he understands the ethos of the Internet more than most.

Deep Blue vs Kasparov

We are seeing a continuum in the evolution of the Internet. However, there is one interesting fork on the road. Currently we have a dichotomy of ‘man vs. machine’ – such as in a chess game of human (Kasparov) vs machine (the IBM Deep Blue computer). When it comes to man vs. machine, we want the human to win! But we could soon have machines complementing human ability.

This is already happening with the Cochlear Implant – the bionic ear – and could happen with future neural implants. In that sense, I agree with the question that we could see increased computer mediated communication.

To come back to the origins of the Internet, the visions of the original founders of the Internet were based on socially utopian ideas (the ‘Hippie’ counterculture). Those ideas have survived and thrived through technology – Steve Jobs is an example of this – and they will continue to evolve.

If we take it as a given that positive thoughts have a positive effect on neural networks, do you think positive thoughts may come to have an effect on digital/social networks?

The short answer is – I don’t know. There is a co-relation between positive thinking and the brain – so I would presume that there is a relationship between thoughts and social networks – but I do not know.

How are your suggestions being received by the general public and the ‘establishment’? They could be seen as somewhat frightening to the former and dangerous by the latter.

Interesting you should ask this .. I think people relate to different aspects of the book. Some, who practised mediation in the seventies, see it as an evolution of meditation. Younger people see it in a totally new context (i.e. with no previous reference to compare with). Professionals see it for pragmatic reasons (being able to focus better in a world of distractions). I think the real impact on the ‘establishment’ is yet to be felt.

I cover this in the last segment of the book ‘Living in a Post Tipping Point World’. I think in many cases, people are beginning to see the impact of grassroots change (and not just from meditation). However, most people steeped in traditional structures will never see the impact until it is upon them. This is because network led changes are based on science – but do not follow the scientific principle of ‘cause and effect’.

Global warming is a good example of a change at the network level: events leading to global warming are interconnected, but their impact is felt only over a long period of time. When we do see the impact, it is often felt separately from the changes that trigger it. For instance you cannot know exactly how the ozone layer will change due to every plastic bag that you fail to recycle, but most people would agree that the environment is impacted by every plastic bag that ends up on the ocean floor.

I believe that these changes will be ‘under the radar’ until they reach a tipping point – at which time the establishment notices! Having said that, the effects of meditation can only be beneficial – so it is a good thing.

And finally Ajit, do you believe that mastery of meditation can have an effect on our digital presence, thus enabling and empowering Innovation in Collaboration and Cooperation?

Yes, as I alluded to earlier. If we consider that networks are holistic and that neural and social networks have common properties – and furthermore, networks lead to more connections, which in turn leads to more innovation; then we are empowered by meditation and social networks.

And may I add finally, many thanks for your insightful questions! You made me think even beyond my current book!

You can learn more about Ajit via his blog and Tweets. You can purchase a copy of ‘Meditation in the Age of Facebook and Twitter – From Shamanism to Transhumanism’ on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

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Posted in 'Capital I' Innovation, Creativity, Innovation, Technology

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Dishing up Science to the Public, One Project at a Time: The Innovation Interview with PetriDish.org’s Matt Salzberg

Posted on April 13, 2012 | 2 comments

If you had been given an opportunity to be part, in some small way, of the Apollo Missions, would you have jumped at the chance? Personally, I’d have been over the moon!

Unfortunately, it has been rare indeed for the general public to be invited to become involved in scientific research. That has now changed with the launch of PetriDish.org, a website designed to crowdsource funding for scientific research projects.

A true Innovation in funding scientific research I recently spoke to PetriDish.org founder Matt Salzberg about the passion, potential and possibilities that PetriDish encompasses.

Matt Salzberg: Capital I Interview Series – Number 17

Your path to this crowdfunding project is not necessarily a standard one. How did you get involved with PetriDish?

I used to work at the Blackstone Group doing large media and software buyouts. Then I went to Harvard Business School as I really wanted to do something more creative, more innovative with my career. I explored a couple of different business ideas and decided that the best way for me to get a good overview of the technology world, and what’s going on in innovation, was to join a venture capital firm. So, I joined Bessemer Venture Partners, which is a big international venture capital firm.

For about a year and a half I worked on investments in mobile digital media, the internet, etc. And one of the things I observed there was that a lot of really, really transformative businesses were being created using the internet as a reach medium to pool the collective actions of many small people to make bigger things happen.

There are a couple of examples of this. Groupon is an innovative company that pools the collective buying power of people to get deals on stuff. Kiva is a good example of a company that’s pooled the collective actions of small people to microfinance in the developing world. DonorsChoose is another example of an innovative company that has pooled collective resource to help fund classroom projects.

There had been nothing really done applying this to science and research; and they’re obviously areas that dramatically need greater funding. Science and research fuel future innovation; the advancement of society is very dependent upon new discoveries and advances in a variety of fields.

This has always been a passion area of mine. I wanted to take this business model, which I had sort of seen being applied in other areas, and use it to transform the way that research and science is funded.

Do you see it as a business model that is focussed on profits or is it something that you’re doing from a position of altruism?

It’s somewhat a combination of both.

We’re a very small, lean team at the moment, with a small group of investors. We just launched at the end of February, so we’re still putting a lot of the pieces in place to continue to scale up quite frankly.

We wanted to create a sustainable organisation and we think the for-profit model, for this particular business, is the right one because it allows us to take on investors and be self-sustainable over time.

But, the reason we’re doing it is because of the mission, which is to help accelerate the pace of innovation by making the funding process more researcher-friendly. Right now to get funding is a very long, bureaucratic and difficult process.

Isn’t it just.

It could take as much as a year and for many reasons, including political ones, certain areas of science don’t get funded as they should.

The public is very interested in these things; there is an educational component wherein the public can get involved and learn about science and be involved in new discoveries. We’re very mission-focused in that sense. Our goal is to really transform the way science is funded in order to accelerate innovation. We chose the for-profit model because we think it’s the right way to bring the proper resources to bear.

We take a five percent share of the money being raised to help fund our ongoing operations. That’s in comparison to a typical charity, which takes 20 percent or more in terms of overhead because of all the inefficiencies that exist within a non-profit infrastructure. We are able to attract more talent and more resources and then allow more money to go to the end researcher.

You mentioned politics and it brought to mind that there are groups within America, where you are based, that bring to bear their own beliefs, be it religious or political, in determining what research can and cannot be funded – stem cell research comes to mind. Is that something that you are going to have to deal with?

I think that’s one of the inefficiencies that exist in the current funding process. I think stem cell research is one example of a really interesting area of science that is underfunded because of political reasons. And that’s okay. I think it’s totally acceptable for a government that has multiple agendas to not fund science that, for one reason or the other, they aren’t a good fit for.

That just means there is an opportunity to pick up the slack there, and we’re trying to facilitate that for the private individuals who do want to see stem cell research. Though we haven’t done a stem cell research project yet, we would.

There are other areas as well, like certain kinds of areas of social science or climate change research or ecology, which are relatively underfunded areas. The government has, in some cases, very different priorities than individuals may or may not have depending on the project at hand. We’re here to democratise that decision where individuals can step up and say: “I want to see this project happen.” We provide an avenue to make that happen.

You’ve already got some extremely reputable institutions onboard, such as NASA and Stanford. How did you involve them so early on?

We appealed directly to the researchers. As we bring the researchers directly to donors, we don’t have to go through a process of specifically working out of partnership with the whole organisation or institution. We post the project and if people want to connect directly with the researchers, they can; it allows us to do it much faster that way quite frankly.

What is the average age of your research participants? Are they very established researchers or are they students?

It’s a big range. We have projects from very established tenured professors who are somewhat older to graduate students, and we have everything in between. We have post-docs, young professors, full tenured professors, all across the board. And everyone comes to us for different reasons.

Some come to us because they are a grad students and they want to raise a small amount of money to do something and they don’t have access to capital. Or they’re a tenured professor, and already have funding, but they want to do an incremental piece of work that their current funding doesn’t allow for, or they want to share their research with the public and get the public involved. There’s a ton of reasons why people do it.

How do you look to involve the public; for instance, would you look to connect with schools?

We’re trying to get the public involved in a variety of different ways. Right now our awareness efforts are mostly focused in the online sphere, thanks to people like you who are helping us get the word out there.

Via a variety of other channels such as the press, online social media and other kinds of marketing we’re getting the word out. In the future we expect to be doing organisational partnerships and maybe even some partnerships with schools, as you suggest. But right now we’re very focused on press, social media and online marketing.

And how do you envisage funders getting involved?

There are a lot of things that the backers get. In the minimum they receive updates and information on the research over time, so they can hear about the latest discoveries and interesting things happening there. That’s a cool experience in itself.

Then there are different rewards that they can get for backing projects at different levels. They might get naming rights to a new species of animal… we had people do that on our site. We had one project, which was a Harvard astronomer [Dave Kipping] doing a search for an exomoon outside the Solar system.

The person who backed his project [Mike Dodds] at the highest level was able to name the supercomputer Dave bought.

We have another researcher who is doing research on the size and composition of algae spore structures, and if you back his project he’ll do a pressing of a dried algae specimen for you to hang up in your apartment or your house. The public gets all sorts of things.

And there is a field component too, if the public wants. If a researcher is able to offer in-person lectures or a trip into the field with a researcher, the public can get involved that way as well. There are a lot of different interesting things there.

I can imagine people getting very excited about things like that. Do you think at some point it would be possible for people who are supporting PetriDish projects to nominate research projects that they think would be of interest?

Absolutely. We’ve already had people suggest projects to us they think we should work with. If the public has a research project they’re aware of, we’d love to hear about it; we’re very open to that.

I know that you recently launched some new projects covering such varied areas of research as the redrawing of an ancient supercontinent, decoding hyena calls in the Maasai Mara, saving Nicaragua’s last population of jaguars, and investigating estrogen levels in back yards. How do you choose which projects you get involved with?

Fundamentally we want to be a place where the public can decide what project they want to see happen. Our fundamental philosophy is one of the democratisation. However, we do screen projects to some extent and the projects we choose, we choose on basis of a couple of things.

First, the affiliation and quality of the researcher, they have to be from a reputable university or institution. The second screening is on the project itself. Is this project interesting? Is it meaningful science? Is it accessible to the public, so that they can understand it well enough to decide if they want to get involved? And thirdly, we do a little bit of screen when we weed out obvious junk science: things like perpetual motion machines or paranormal activity. But, aside from that, we really want to be a place where the public acumen finds interesting projects and decides what they want to see happen.

Do you have a pet project? Something that you personally would like to see funded?

Well, there are tons of them. I’d rather not name one of them at the risk of eliminating someone else.

You don’t want to admit to having a favourite child.

Exactly. But in many ways some of the projects are a little bit of a reflection of the areas that I personally am very interested in. We focus on field work, astronomy, biology, ecology, archaeology…. we have some very cool archaeology projects coming up. We’re going to have some medical and biotech projects coming up, too.

Were you a science geek in school?

I was. I wasn’t a scientist but I was definitely very interested in doing research. I was an economics major and did a lot of economics research when I was an undergrad. I’ve always been personally passionate about science. I’m the kind of person that consumes a lot of content, I always loved reading about the latest discoveries.

Can I assume it’s not important for these projects to have the potential to become profit-making enterprises?

It’s not important at all for us. In fact most of the projects are not going to be profit-making enterprises at all. People back the projects so that they can be a part of the story, learn about the research and feel like they’ve helped make a new discovery happen.

So the funders are, in essence, patrons of science rather than investors.

Right. Our backers don’t get equity in the projects. They get an affiliation with them, a reward and a great story out of it.

Is there a minimum or maximum amount of funds that you’re generally seeking?

There’s no minimum for PetriDish projects and technically there won’t be a maximum, but we don’t allow projects that are so large that we don’t think they will get funded because of their size.

If someone came to us and said, “I need 100 million dollars to build a particle collider,” we’d say “This is not the right place to raise that money.” Right now we’re focusing on projects that are less than $15,000. Although if a project comes to us that we think is so exciting, and the people behind it really understand this medium and how to raise awareness… We actually have a couple of projects we’re going to take a little bit higher.

How do you measure success for a project?

Well, there’s a timeline. At the outset, the project creator sets a timeframe and the goal they have to hit. If they hit the goal by the end of the time, then the project gets funded; if they don’t, it doesn’t. That’s a very clear metric of success.

So you see a successful endeavour as getting the project funded rather than measuring on the successful conclusion of the project itself?

Well, there are two components. We’re trying to help these projects get funded and get off the ground. We don’t get involved after the projects are funded in terms of doing the science. Though, of course we would love to see the science find useful and interesting results and great discoveries. That would certainly be another element of success… that would be wonderful!

Are you involved in building an ecosystem around the project?

Once we, hopefully, get the projects funded, we don’t step away. We’ve built this community around the projects, where project creators can provide updates and people can learn about the results over time.

On the PetriDish website.

We stay involved, but we don’t contribute to doing the science per se. Perhaps the community we’re building can help in some ways.

And the website enables people to keep up to date with the projects and see how they’re moving forward.

Yeah.

If intellectual property is created during the project, is that solely owned by the researchers, or the organisation that they’re working with?

Yes. Backers don’t get any intellectual property. It stays with the existing structure.

And nor does PetriDish?

We don’t either.

That’s very altruistic of you.

How would you characterise the people you think will get involved in the funding, as I think they may be somewhat different to typical investors.

The kind of people that back our projects are the ones that get excited about being part of new discoveries, that want to build relationships with researchers. They’re your typical viewer of National Geographic or Discovery Channel and ScienceMedia.

You’re buying an experience by being a part of the research in action and in many case you’re getting tangible rewards. Those are the kind of people who back stuff on our site.

PetriDish may also be the thing that begins to make science sexy again. It’s been a long time since science was something that students yearned to get into.

Absolutely; that’s part of the hope.

You’re based in the US, but will you be looking at funding international project as well as US-based projects?

Yeah, absolutely.

So, researchers from around the world can connect with you?

Yes. We’ve already talked with many of them who reached out to us and we have a couple of international projects in the pipeline.

What is going to define success with regards to PetriDish for you personally?

My hope is that over time we transform the way science is funded and allow new capital to come in, which enables new discoveries to happen that otherwise wouldn’t be. We’re raising hundreds of millions of dollars a year for science and research projects.

You can learn more about, and get involved with, PetriDish.org and their many research projects via their website and follow Matt on his Twitter account.

[Kim and Matt Skyped from their homes in Sydney and New York.]

— MORE —

Curious about some of the researchers? Well I had an opportunity to ask a few of them some questions:

JOHN VUCETICH: Associate Professor at Michigan Technological University, John is working with the wolves of Isle Royale National Park

With the Wolves of Isle Royale in an extremely precarious position, how important is a successful Petridish round of fundraising to the your project?

The wolves of Isle Royale have never disappointed – when we observe them carefully they always teach something valuable. In the past, these wolves and their DNA taught us about “the old grey guy,” – a wolf that had immigrated from Canada in 1997, when it crossed an ice bridge that had formed that year. The old grey guy – and his infusion of new genes g the population with of new genes – changed the history of wolves on Isle Royale. The details of that finding contained insight that has been of valuable for the conservation of many endangered species.

Isle Royale wolves have survived many tough times. And when they survive this threat it will almost certainly involve a great comeback. And DNA from wolf scats will be the only way to know the details of that comeback. Help us be a part of discovering what happens next to this historically and scientifically important population of wolves.

This project will either be a remarkably detailed case study of how a population goes extinct (if that’s what happens), or it will be a remarkably detailed case study of how a scientifically and culturally important wolf population comes back from the edge of extinction.” Either outcome is scientifically important

RACHEL ARONSON: Master’s Candidate at the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, University of Washington and currently a Science Writing Fellow at Washington Sea Grant

I believe that your project, ‘Climate Refugees: Don’t let their culture melt away‘ will resonate with people from all over the globe. Along with funding, how else could people assist you with your research? Would you be interested in hearing from Climate Refugees from around the world?

I am actually in Iceland for a seminar on Inuit sovereignty, writing a paper on Inuit-led education reform as an adaptation to climate change. So I’ve been thinking a lot this week about my petridish project!

Shishmaref (Alaska) Graveyard

Climate change is a global issue that affects every living being. “Climate refugees” are just some of the first people to experience some of the worst effects of climate change, the physical loss of their home places. Through accidents of geography, economics and culture, it could really be any of us.

I think every person on the planet has a valid story to tell about the effect of climate change on their lives. I would love it if people sent me their stories (great idea!), especially since I plan to use interviewing as my primary research technique for this project. Right now, I think I’m the only Petridish researcher in the social sciences, and I really want to explore what that means over the next month of funding time– maybe I can share climate stories from people around the world!

GEOFF GILLER: Graduate student at Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Funding for your project ‘Are there Estrogens in Your Backyard‘ is progressing very quickly – over half way there in only four days! – and you’re welcoming donations ranging anywhere from $1 – $1,000. For $1,000 donors are invited to come and spend a day in the field, “flipping logs and getting muddy” with you and your team. How important is the PetriDish funding to your research?

We’re thrilled by the rapidity of our fund-raising. Part of the reason is where the donations are coming from; naturally, the first people to hear about this project are our family and friends, who are more likely to donate because they know us personally. But as the project gets re-posted and re-Tweeted and forwarded, the circle of supporters has expanded; there are several donors on the page that none of us knows. That’s one of the great things about this site: on top of raising funds, we’re also raising awareness about our topic of research. Since we’re dealing with contamination in residential areas, it’s something that is pretty universally relevant.

Taricha rivularis and researcher Max Lambert

For our project, this money is extremely important. Water testing for chemicals like these is extremely expensive. We’ll be purchasing specialized devices that are designed to be used in situations like these, when the concentrations of the chemicals in question are quite small. The devices remain in the bodies of water for extended periods of time, which concentrates the chemicals we’re looking for and increases the likelihood of their detection. The problem with these chemicals is that they can have health impacts at very low concentrations, so we need more specialized equipment to detect them; typical water sampling might not detect them, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not present or causing health problems for humans and wildlife.

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Golden Nuggets: The ‘Mini Inny’* Innovation Interview with Howard Rheingold

Posted on April 6, 2012 | 5 comments

The life and times of Howard Rheingold encapsulate so much of our technological, online world, that at times it seems simpler to list what he hasn’t done, rather than attempt to encapsulate all that he has. That said, I shall attempt to corral a part of his wild ride into a few sentences.

To say that Howard is a freelance journalist is like saying that Steve Jobs sold computers. Yes, he is, but that goes nowhere near encapsulating his influence over defining social media and virtual communities, which he began detailing in his 1985 work Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind Expanding Technology (revised in 2000) and 1993’s The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier.

Howard’s influence and enthusiasm have not slackened, and his writing continues to interest and inform. This writer, teacher, artist and critic was one of the first to understand and explain the potential of an online and engaged community, in his use of San Francisco’s Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link (WELL) in 1993. [The WELL is one of the oldest, continually running online communities. Founded by Larry Brilliant and Stewart Brand (of Whole Earth Catalog fame), The WELL is currently owned by Salon.com. An early site for the merging of online and counter culture, WELL was a well known meeting place for fans of the Grateful Dead – Deadheads – in the 1980s and 1990s.]

Howard has continued to be a thought leader in the technology, mobile tech in particular, and what effects it will have on society and individuals. Net Smart: How to Thrive Online is Howard’s most recent publication [2012]. Within its pages, he shares the answers he has gleaned to questions he has been asking for many years: “how to use social media intelligently, humanely, and above all mindfully.”

Howard Rheingold: Capital I Interview Series – Number 16 (A ‘Mini Inny’ Interview)

Among many things, ‘Net Smart: How to Thrive Online’ looks to enable and empower us to manage our social media, rather than allow it to manage us. How do you manage your social media?

I manage my attention. At the beginning of each day, I write down in a few words my two or three goals for the day — what I want or need to get accomplished. I put the piece of paper on my desk at the periphery of my vision. When my eye catches sight of the paper, later in the day, I ask myself where my attention is pointing and whether the way I am deploying my attention at the moment is helping me achieve my own goals.

At first, the exercise is nothing more than that — training myself to ask myself what I am paying attention to and comparing it to what I have decided I need to pay attention to. Repetition of this process grows a new habit of being self-aware of how I am using online media — mindfulness or metacognition. The best news about information-attention (infotention) training is that any amount of self-awareness of your media practices at all is far better than no awareness of how media are dragging your mind from place to place.

Will our learning to manage our digital presence enable Innovation in digital technology. And if so, how do you see this evolving?

Doug Engelbart, who invented much of personal computing and digital networks, wrote in his 1962 paper “Augmenting Human Intellect,” that humans are self-reprogramming, self-amplifying innovators through our use of “artifacts, methodology, and training.”

The artifacts (personal computers, communication media) have evolved multi-billion-fold since Engelbart’s time, but the language, methodology, and training — the literacy of using these media by billions of people — is evolving more slowly.

Doug Engelbart (image courtesy of New Media Consortium - nme.org)

With virtual communities, smart mobs, and collective intelligence, we’re seeing the beginning of what people are learning to do with our new technologies. Most important is the lowering of barriers to collective action of all kinds: people will be able to organize and act together with others socially, politically, economically in ways, on scales, and in places never before possible.

Will true mastery of our digital presence require an Innovation of our neural networks be it within the context of dreams, meditation, and or awareness?

Dreams and meditation ARE forms of awareness. Knowing how to read and right is a highly trained synchroniztion of different cognitive capabilities. A similar highly trained synchronization of human minds, media, and social objectives requires a more widespread and sophisticated individual awareness of how minds and media interact. From that awareness, innovations will emerge, just as they did after the literacies of writing, the alphabet, and print spread.

You can learn more about Howard via his website, Tweets and the Rheingold U site. You can download an introduction to Net Smart here, and purchase a copy on Amazon.

*Mini Innys (mini interviews) are bite-sized interview-lettes.

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Tagged cognitive capability, computing, Deadheads, digital presence, digital technology, Doug Engelbart, dreams, Grateful Dead, Howard Rheingold, innovation, meditation, Net Smart, Net Smart: How to Thrive Online, neural networks, social media, Technology, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier, Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind Expanding Technology, WELL

What’s so Fab about Fab Labs? : The Innovation Interview with ‘Collaboriginal’ Peter Troxler

Posted on February 1, 2012 | 3 comments

Peter Troxler: Capital I Interview Series – Number 12

As I was traversing the flat world, which is LinkedIn, I came across Peter Troxler’s fascinating profile. There were many things that intrigued me and instigated my reaching out and inviting him to take part in the Innovation Interview Series. In particular, his research at the intersection of business administration, society and technology along with his expertise in applying the Internet and Web 2.0 technology to support the implementation of management systems.

When it comes to hats, General Secretary at International FabLab Association, owner/director at p&s culture net and owner of the research company Square One are only three of the more than a dozen he currently wears. That said, it was Peter’s perspective as a serial enabler, which prompted my invitation… that and his moniker, the ‘Collaboriginal’, earned due to his determination to enable and empower collaboration and innovation.

Peter, do you see a difference between ‘little i’ and ‘Capital I’ Innovation?

I have not made such a distinction so far and cannot think of a real need to differentiate the two. However, I think there is a big difference between invention and innovation, and the terms are often confused — even in public dialogue and ‘innovation’ awards that pretend to award innovation, but often just give money to people who are inventors so they can start to sell their inventions.

Maybe it could help to explain what I understand when I say innovation:

innovation = putting a new idea into practice, continuously improving it interactively with the customers (or similar) beyond a singular prototype (and in a minimal profitable way, say ‘ramen profitable‘
invention = prototypical, singular realization of a new idea
new idea = a principle for a new product, service or practice (without actually realizing it, not even as a prototype)

All of these need not be ‘globally’ new; innovation, in particular, can be completely local.

What do you see as the main barriers to the success of innovation?

The sit-and-wait-mentality of many inventors, who think that a good idea alone (or maybe with a prototype) will convince ‘entrepreneurs’ to take it and run with it.
The idea that an ‘innovation’ has to be global.
The belief that every innovation has to have a website 😉
The belief that people ‘have to’ buy into an innovative product or service just because it is an ‘innovation’ (and has got an award that proves it).
The belief that innovation is finished when its results are put into practice (or that there is a predictable way those results will take off and develop).

How essential has innovation been in your career?
Innovation has played a key role in many professional activities I’ve been involved in — be it in the arts, academic research or business. In many ways I’ve been involved in making innovation happen.

I’m not a serial entrepreneur; but I’d like to see myself as a serial innovation enabler. My passion is, together with others, to put new ideas into practice and to grow them beyond singular prototypes. When the innovation makes the transition to routine, I lose interest.

You’re one of the three founders of p&s culture net, can you tell me a bit about why you started it?

In the late nineties I started p&s culture net together with two friends in Switzerland. We set out to investigate what the impact of the internet would be on literature.

It began with workshops and small events, and grew into quite a substantial business, doing quite large public events in Switzerland. We work around literature and try to make literature accessible in new ways.

And who, typically, would be involved in your workshops?

We try to get a good mix of people including researchers, academics, philosophers, historians, artists and even engineers. We use the workshops as a kind of ‘think tank’. For instance, when we were investigating what the internet does to literature, literary production, and literary consumption, it was extremely helpful to have all these different types peoples around the table.

I’m sure. And did your investigation come up with an answer as to what effect the internet has on literature?

No, not really. When I think back on that particular series… it [the internet] just creates so many new ways to work with text. And that text, and writing, are still very important and very relevant skills.

You are also the General Secretary of the International FabLab Association, which you’ve been involved with since 2007. What is FabLab?

FabLab stands for Fabrication Laboratory. It’s a concept that was developed at MIT by a physics professor, Neil Gershenfeld, about ten years ago while he was investigating how to create self-replicating matter.

Neil uses all sorts of machinery to do his experiments; and created the ‘How to Make Almost Anything’ course, which has been over-subscribed ever since it started.

People learn to use digital machinery like laser cutters, milling machines and 3D printers. There’s a standard set of, relatively, simple machines that make up a FabLab.

FabLab image courtesy of Arnold Roosch

The set-up is relatively easy to use, so, about ten years ago Neil started to set up FabLabs in third-world countries, and in deprived areas in cities such as Boston, to give people instruments to play with and make their own stuff.

The idea took off, and suddenly everybody wanted to have a FabLab. Currently there are over 70 FabLabs in the world… on almost every continent. I think Australia and New Zealand are just waking up to the idea, but there are FabLabs all over Europe, in Africa, South America, Russia and a few in Japan.

How are FabLabs being used developing nations in particular?

They are used to make everyday stuff. There is a beautiful project in Africa… They buy lamps from China, which would run on batteries and have conventional light bulbs in them. The lamps are disassembled in the FabLab, the conventional light bulbs are replaced with LEDs, the batteries are replaced and LED cells are added. Now the lamps can be charged by sunlight and are sold on.

This sounds like the implementation of innovation.

Yes.

You have spoken in the past about businesses exploring and using open source and open innovation. How have found businesses reacting to the idea?

Businesses are extremely nervous about it. Business owners have been told, “You have to protect your ideas. It’s dangerous to share your ideas because anybody could pick them up, run with them and make big bucks, while you starve to death because you haven’t protected your IP.”

However, if you look at it more closely, the first thing you notice is that protecting your IP is extremely expensive and time consuming, and it distracts you from the real purpose of business, which is making money… there is so much time and money spent waiting for bureaucrats to file applications.

The other thing you notice is that there’s this axiom ‘IP protection helps innovation;’ so people think, “If there is no IP protection, there will be no innovation.” There’s absolutely no proof of that.

There is no empirical evidence that IP protection helps to grow businesses, except probably in two sectors… one is a no brainer, the lawyers. And the other, though I haven’t looked at it very closely, is the pharmaceutical sector. If you get counterfeit medicine, which doesn’t do what it says on the tin, that’s an obvious problem.

Are you attempting to convince business that they should be exploring the ‘Open’ option?

I am indeed. I’m working with various people, from the industrial design corner of the world, to really look into the issue and find ways for designers to make a living in an open source context.

Square One seems to sit in a very interesting niche, at the intersection of business, administration, society and technology. How would you use technologies such as Web 2.0 and 3.0 to support the implementation of management systems.

The intersection of business, administration, society and technology in the whole context of open source, open innovation… it’s huge! It’s massive! What I’m trying to do is break it down and apply it in very specific contexts. Currently the main context I am working in is the FabLab context, because they refined everything.

FabLab is the thing that is socially relevant. They are open to the general public and are, obviously, technology based. But, I would say, half of the FabLabs existing right now are struggling to find sustainable business models.

They’re being set up with subsidies of some kind, which helps them run for a couple of years. Since we have such a massive growth in the number of labs – the number is doubling every 12 to 18 months – there is no real experience of the post-subsidy period. Because many of the people who set-up FabLabs are enthusiastic tech people, they don’t have the kind of business understanding that would enable them to set up such an animal to survive long term. That’s the specific area of complication where I try to bring all those aspects together.

Where do you think the FabLabs movement will be in ten years?

That’s a very interesting question. Because ten years is quite a long period, if we look at the technology we’re dealing with. It could be that by the time certain machines are cheaply available the raw material won’t be. It’s kind of hard to predict.

The other thing is that, currently, FabLabs are mainly either community based initiatives, or school/university based initiatives. But, that said, we’re seeing things happening in France at the moment where large ‘teach yourself ’ chain stores are starting to jump on the train and say, “Hey! You know, we could attach a FabLab to our stores.”

What kind of stores?

DIY stores, for instance. You’d buy material, then go next door to the FabLab and build something. It makes complete sense.

FabLab image courtesy of Arnold Roosch

But then, on the other side, you’ve got the community based FabLabs who are thinking, “Whoa! This is not the way we think about FabLabs.”

The classic clash between corporate and communal. Do you have an opinion as to which is a better t?

I would have to imagine a world where both exist side by side. Not everybody would go to a community-run FabLab and wish to have this type of community. But, it makes so much sense to produce a lot of stuff yourself.

Maybe I am oversimplifying, but it seems to me that you can go and brew your own beer… many people do. Personally I prefer to go to the store and buy it, but that’s me. I think there’s room for all of us who like beer to do whatever is most comfortable. Here’s hoping that FabLabs become as ubiquitous as beer!

Speaking of which – and yes, I’m segueing from beer to thoughts of Holland – there is a FabLab opening today in Rotterdam, isn’t there.

Yes, and its happened really quickly [though not as quickly as Fablab Amersfoort, which was set up in 7 days – here’s how]. They got the financing to do it in May and the first iteration opened in September. Today it opens for real.

To move this fast, we had to bring all sorts of concepts together: open source, the unconference, the possibilities and mentality of the internet – where sharing suddenly is much more easily achievable – and rapid prototyping. It’s a completely different approach to the more conventional control mentality approach.

It’s an entirely new ecosystem… it’s research AND development – rather than the more common research THEN development.

P: Yup.

Well harkening back to my beer analogy… Cheers to that!

(Kim and Peter Skype’d from their homes in Sydney and Rotterdam.)

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Tagged 3D printers, Amersfoort, business administration, Capital I innovation, collaboration, Collaboriginal, FabLab, How to Make Almost Anything, innovation, Innovation Interview Series, Internet, invention, IP Protection, MIT, Neil Gershenfeld, open source, p&s culture net, Peter Troxer, prototype, rapid prototyping, Rotterdam, Square One, technoology, unconference, Web 2.0, Web 3.0

Occupying the Management of Innovation

Posted on November 15, 2011 | 1 comment

Occupying the Management of Innovation: A talk with Sami Makelainen Innovation Manager at Telstra and External Expert at the European Commission.

Capital I Interview Series – Number 8

Sami Makelainen occupies a position which is finely balanced between Australia and Europe. Manifesting what some might say was a true Finnish trait, Sami is a straight talker who doesn’t let a false sense of political correctness stop him from calling things as he sees them – be it broadband connectivity, vested interests in the coal industry, innovation (or the lack thereof) in telecoms, seed funding for innovation and the current economic crisis. We talked about all that and much more for the Innovation Interview Series.

How do you define innovation Sami; and do you see a difference between small ‘i’ and Capital ‘I’ Innovation?

There’s always a problem in speaking about innovation because everybody has their own definition. Having said that, there are certainly two vastly different styles of innovations, or new things out there. Things that are more important, more fundamental and more disruptive would tend to fall into Innovation. But in terms of volume, the vast majority of stuff that’s going around is going to be incremental innovation. What I would consider true Innovations are few and far between.

Can you give me some examples of what you think are Capital I Innovations?

One of the most recent Innovations is the Gemasolar CSP plant (Concentrated Solar Power plant) in Spain that’s producing electricity 24/7. It’s a baseload solar power plant, the first commercial of it’s kind. I’m not sure how much of the energy debate you’ve been following, but one of the primary objections people have to solar power is that it can’t do baseload production – because the Sun only shines eight hours a day. Well, [Gemasolar] is beginning to show that’s not quite true.

The Gemsolar Power Plant

When I moved to Australia I was surprised more wasn’t being done to take advantage of the Sun.

Inevitability [they] will, but it’s going to take a long time, particularly because we have a hell of a lot of coal in Australia. It’s cheap and there are big vested interests for it going as long as possible. [There are] people who don’t really care about emissions, or believe in Global Warming. They just want to maintain business as usual.

How do you think the carbon tax will affect that?

It’s probably going to start at too low a level to have any meaningful impact in the first few years and it’s probably going to have too many concession to various stake-holders. It’s going to be baby steps in the first, let’s say, five to ten years unless there’s some massive global shift. But, with the speed things have been progressing in the past twenty years in terms of the climate debate, I’m not expecting that to change any time soon.

Do you think your perspective on the subject is tempered by the fact that you’re European, as there seems to be quite a different perspective to these issues in Europe in comparison to that in Australia?

Probably. All of our opinions are colored by our background, whether we acknowledge that or not.

How long have you been in Australia?

Coming up to two years now. Ironically we’ve got tired of the cold Finnish winters and arrived in the coldest and wettest winter that Australia had in forty years.

Seeking sunny days

Can you tell me something about your role as Innovation Manager at (Australian Telecoms firm) Telstra?

One of the key responsibilities I have is managing the funnel of ideas. We have a relatively open innovation process, so it’s fairly quick to deal with ideas. They enter from a number of sources, whether it’s our staff within the Chief Technology Office or wider Telstra [organization], from start-ups, universities, research entities, external individuals, or our vendor partners. Ideas come from different sources into our innovation process and then it’s a matter of managing, weeding, refining and deciding what to go forward with and how to go forward with them.

My background is from the Nokia Siemens Network where I was with the Application Innovation unit. If you go even further back then my background is in systems research, program management, systems architecture, solution architecture and a whole lot of other roles in the telecommunications, banking, electronic banking and online services space.

It’s amazing to me how many people in the innovation community seem to have a background in telecommunications.

That’s even more ironic because telecommunications is an industry that’s far from innovative.

How would you compare the culture of innovation between Finland’s Nokia and Australia’s Telstra?

There are similarities in that both are relatively big organizations and big organizations come with both opportunities and challenges. There are big opportunities in terms of having the resources to do something if we decide to. But then of course it comes back to the risk-averse nature of stake holders. Trying to push something truly disruptive and truly innovative… I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, but it just takes a lot of effort. Having said that, if you have a truly disruptive idea, while working within your start-up might be easy, it’s not going to be easy bringing it to market.

It’s never a clear-cut path. And, depending on what level of innovation you’re talking about, the bigger and the more Innovative they are the more you can, and should, expect people to hate them. Howard Aiken, the US computer scientist who died [almost forty] years ago, very accurately said,

“Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats.”

In terms of similarities in innovation between Nokia Siemens and Telstra I think one of the common features is that most of the innovations we’re doing [at Telstra], and were doing at Nokia Siemens, are customer-centric. It’s not just about business to business and it’s not just about how to make our bottom line better, but how to make our bottom line better in a way that helps the customer.

Even at Nokia Siemens, which was more a business to business company selling to operators, the applications and services that we came up with there were mostly originating from end-user research. There is a genuine attempt at figuring out what people actually want rather than just pushing new stuff out for the sake of new stuff.

Does that entail asking what people want rather than telling them what they need?

Yes, but it’s not just about asking what they want; it’s about observation of future behavior. Asking people what they want is one of the traditional market research methods and it sucks! If you ask anybody how would they like this and that to work, you’re not going be able to get a good answer out of them.

If you had asked two years ago (before the Apple iPad was out), “How would you like your next portable electronic device to look?” – nobody would have answered – Well, I want an iPad, or a tablet, or anything like that, because the previous incarnations of those were unusable and terrible. Nobody felt at the time that they could actually be such a big hit.

With a view to ‘observations of future behaviour,’ how do you see Telstra making use of the opportunity that the NBN (broadband) is going to provide for engendering innovation?

The NBN is obviously going to change a lot, but it’s mostly going to change things on the wholesale and fixed business side. One of the thing that the NBN will bring, that is going to be hugely beneficial to all companies, is the fast connectivity to a majority of Australian households. Right now, as we all know, Australia isn’t exactly a leading broadband country.

That’s certainly true.

When I came here two years ago, I almost had a heart attack when I looked at the speeds and the prices when subscribing to a broadband connection. I was like… “What!? They are capped by gigabyte?? I’m not gonna take that!” But I don’t necessarily think that the NBN is going to get rid of the caps or the limits altogether. The economics just don’t work.

Having said that, if the NBN achieves it’s goal – and that’s if because I don’t think everybody will have understood how much it’s actually going to end up costing the consumer – there’s going to be big broadband connectivity to all Australian households (practically all of them anyway). That’s obviously going to offer huge opportunities in terms of changing how people live their lives and how they work. So, there’s more or less unlimited opportunities there.

One of the biggest opportunities, which I am personally interested in, is allowing people to work from home in a more efficient manner. Right now if you live outside the core metropolitan areas, the connection that you get at home isn’t sufficient for many corporate uses. Allowing people more flexibility over where to work from and even when to work is going to be critical as we deal with energy, congestion and population growth [issues].

If we agree that Innovation is critical, looking back, what is the most important Innovation that has launched in your life time?

That’s a bloody good question. I would have to say the mobile phone. This is a biased answer of course, since I have been in the mobile business for fifteen years, but if you think about the device that’s truly changed the way people communicate and live their lives, there are few rivals to the mobile phone.

Pretty much everybody in the world has one…. almost everybody. There are still a billion people or so at the very, very low end of the economic scale in developing countries [who don’t], but you still have hundreds of millions of subscribers in the poorest countries of the world.

There was an interesting Vodafone study done some years ago showing that mobile phones in significant quantities materially impacts a countries’ GDP. While I’m not a big proponent of measuring progress in terms of GDP in poor nations it does make a big difference. I mean, if the farmers are able to check market prices it can increase their income substantially and help improve their lives a lot.

And it helps remove the power of the middle-man to set unfair prices.

The socioeconomic benefits are best in the developing countries, but it’s changed the world in developed countries also.

If you think about it, you always have your mobile phone with you. You know, if you loose your wallet… The average time it takes to report a stolen credit card or a stolen wallet can be twelve hours or so, the average time it takes to report a stolen mobile phone is twenty eight minutes. And, you know, more than half the people who use a mobile phone sleep with the mobile within arms reach. You don’t do that with your TV, DVD player, or microwave oven. The mobile is integrated into peoples’ lives in a way unlike any other device.

Along with being Telstra’s Innovation Manager, you are also an external expert at the European Commission. What does that entail?

The European Commission has this thing called the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) which is a multi billion dollar euro initiative that hands out research funds to research organizations, universities and even companies. Companies and universities propose projects and ideas to the European Commission and then the Commission puts together a panel of subject matter experts to decide who gets the money. I’m there doing that work.

So in a sense it is a way for government to support innovation.

Yes. Most of the time the companies that are applying for this funding are big entities that in turn fund things on a national level things. So, for example, one of the biggest entities in Finland getting funding from the European Commission is the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, which then supports smaller companies in Finland.

That feeds into one of my other questions: Does location matter?

Yes, I’m not sure it matters in terms of coming up with the ideas, because most of the time ideation is easy, but it does matter in terms of executing those ideas. There are definitely hot beds of innovation and lively little innovation groups and clusters of companies scattered around the planet, but in terms of executing on innovative ideas the best place arguably is still Silicon Valley, not Europe, especially in the ICT space.

Location does matter – particularly for execution of the innovation, but also in terms of access to financing. For instance, seed financing is really difficult in Australia, comparatively speaking. There’s obviously a lot of competition for Venture Capital in the Bay Area, but there is a hell of a lot more money to go around, too.

Speaking of money to go around, what are your thoughts on the current economic crisis and what part, if any, Innovation can play in solving it?

I recently finished reading Mats Larsson’s book “The Limits of Business Development and Economic Growth” – which is a great book in its own right, that I can warmly recommend – but the most interesting point to me was that there are now three or more distinct lines of credible analysis, all of which come to a similar conclusion. Whether you look at it from the limited-resources perspective, from the purely economic debt-laden economies perspective or from analyzing some simple, fundamental limits of business development as in this book, all signs point convincingly to the economic growth of the world coming to an end, and doing so soon. Looking at all the evidence, the scenario of ‘business as usual’ that is still the official truth driven by most governments and media is the least probable development for the 21st century. For a world running and highly dependent upon the current financial system, which is only stable when growing, all this presents huge challenges on a scale that the world has never faced before.

The “Limits of Business Development” was written in 2004, before the most recent rounds of global financial crisis; yet recent years just serve to highlight the importance of its message – on the financial front, aside from the economic chaos and ruin, we are now seeing societal movements such as the Occupy Wall Street-movement as just one early signal of changing times. While the protesters do not, for the most part, have a single message or a concrete, actionable goal aside, perhaps, from calling for tax increases, the reactions of the rest of the economy have been more telling – the mainstream media doing their best to ignore the entire groundswell movement, and the governments cracking down on peaceful protesters. The Occupy-protests constitute a signal that governments will ignore to their detriment; even though highly visible now, they’re still an early-warning sign – an early warning sign that, if not acknowledged and dealt with, can morph into something much more serious.

Many of the macro trends over the past decades – urbanization, globalization, supply chain and other process optimizations, reliance on electricity and fossil fuels for our basic needs, etc – have had the unintended consequence of dramatically reducing the resilience of the society. It’s time we reversed this trend and focus heavily on increasing the resilience of our communities; resilience that would’ve already come in handy in many cases. All of these will desperately be needed as the world moves towards a new era, called by some the age of Scarcity Industrialism. There is tremendous scope for innovation here – from recycling to efficiency gains to renewable and distributed energy production, to better farming practices, to upgrading critical pieces of the infrastructure in fundamentally new ways, to actually changing the way the society works.

As in most innovations, coming up with good ideas is the easy part of the equation. There are no shortage of those. For example on the financial crisis side, we already have good evidence that rolling out complementary local currency systems, ones not based on the model of fractional reserve banking, help lower unemployment while increasing the resilience of the society. There are already hundreds of LETS (Local Exchange Trading System) schemes in operation globally, but what we need is a systematic effort of encouraging LETS schemes and participation in them globally. This is not innovation as in “new ideas” – it’s innovation, as in changing the way the world works, for the better. That, in my opinion, is a far more important aspect of innovation than any (necessarily arbitrary) concept of novelty.

(Kim and Sami Skype’d between from their homes in Sydney and Melbourne.)

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Posted in 'Capital I' Innovation, Innovation, Technology

Tagged Australia, baseload, Broadband, Capital I innovation, carbon tax, economic crisis, emissions, entrepreneurship, European Commission, financing, Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, FP7, Gemasolar CSP Solar Plant, global warming, government, Howard Aiken, ICT, innovation, invention, LETS, Mats Larsson, mobile phone, NBN, Nokia Siemens Network, Occupy Wall Street, Scarcity Industrialism, seed funding, Seventh Frame Programme, Silicon Valley, Technology, telecommunications, Telstra, The Limits of Business Development and Economic Growth, Venture Capital

Kent Healy – Maverick on a Mission

Posted on October 12, 2011 | 5 comments

A chat with author, publisher, entrepreneur, speaker, coach and real estate investor Kent Healy – a Maverick on a Mission

Capital I Innovation Interview Series – Number 7

The recent loss of an Innovation Giant in the technology world gave me pause. His name, so well known, was often mentioned in this series, in particular in answer to the question, “Who would you give a ‘Capital I’ Innovation Award to?” It also led me to ask, who next – who will step into, or at least grow into Steve Jobs’ shoes? Who is the next creative thinker, the ‘Capital I Innovator’ who thinks out of the box enough to engender real change?

With that question in mind, I chose to share my interview with a young man who leads the way in encouraging entrepreneurship and Innovation from a young age. Instead of teaching students how to pass standardized tests, Kent Healy believes in teaching them to think, to understand, to yearn to learn.

I’m going to begin with one of my ‘foundation’ questions, Kent. If you could give a ‘Capital I’ Innovation Award to anyone, who would that be?

Gosh, that’s a great question. There are so many people we rely on that remain nameless… people that don’t get the PR. [However] people who obviously come to mind immediately are Steve Jobs and Richard Branson.

[Editor’s Note: Steve Jobs was the entrepreneur Richard Branson most admired according to a recent statement by Mr. Branson.]

I say that because I use their products and every time I do, I think: “Duh!” I put my palm on my forehead and [think]: “Why didn’t someone do that earlier?”

How essential has innovation been in your career to date?

Extremely important. At fifteen, I was living in New Zealand… I went to California and saw skim boarding, which I loved and wanted to bring back to New Zealand. Once I returned I went to my surf shop and started looking for a skimboard. I couldn’t find the type that I was looking for anywhere, so I decided to make my own.

Long story short, my brother and I ended up making different models and selling them to local surf shops and internationally. It was a lot of fun. And that opportunity would never have come about if I didn’t ask: “How can I fix this problem?”

Kent Healy (right) with his brother Kyle (left)

When I was about nineteen I finished my first manuscript. I started working with an agent to get a publisher; I met with a lot of them but I just didn’t see eye to eye with what they wanted. I stuck to my guns and my brother and I started a publishing company. We did everything from the cover to the marketing, and I think it turned out to be a better product.

Why do you feel so strongly that collaboration is important?

It goes back to an underlying maxim, ‘one mind is never smarter than two or more combined’. I think that the mind is designed as a collaborative tool and I don’t think humans were made to live in isolation.

"We do better with collaboration and we feed off of different ideas."

The brain is a network filled with synapses taking one idea and trying to link it to another. I think there are many time when ideas are simply inspired… when a connection is made, which never would have been made if somebody else hadn’t thrown down a random idea, completely unrelated, that managed to bridge the two separate ideas.

When you’re thinking, it’s still somewhat linear if you’re on your own. If you’re working with other people the conversation can take many unexpected turns, and that can lead to an immense Innovation.

I think if you’re working on a specific solution isolated research can certainly help. But, if you want to improve something and do the giant Innovation, collaboration is extremely helpful.

That could be a useful example to young people who may feel disconnected, if you will, from the possible positive outcomes their Innovative ideas could develop.

Absolutely. I think that we learn so much from example. It’s easy to write about innovation, but it is a nebulous topic. It’s really hard to say: “This is how you innovate.” I think it’s much easier to say: “Here is something that this person did. Isn’t that great?” That’s what inspires me. Earlier you mentioned New Zealand, are you a natural born Kiwi?

I was born in northern California, San Jose. But, when I was ten, my family moved to New Zealand because they thought it would be a great place to raise kids. So, we packed up and left, not knowing anybody in New Zealand. We lived there for eight years. Those were my teenage years, which were very formative, so New Zealand is a big part of my life.

With that in mind, do you think that location matters… does Innovation have a nation?

Absolutely. In more ways than one. I think there is your immediate environment, be it a coffee shop, library or busy mall. I think all of those things, as energies, are going to influence the way that you think.

Culture is another big thing – how do people in that culture look at Innovation. Some people really encourage it, and some people don’t. I think it’s really important to be around a group of people that encourage it, that will say, “I like where you’re going with that,” and start looking for the benefits before they shoot down the idea. It’s always good to have a devil’s advocate, I agree; but you want more supporters than you do devil’s advocates, if you want innovation to continue to occur.

And then, finally, there are magnet cities that draw in certain like-minded people. Silicon Valley is an example probably everybody [knows]. If you want to do a start-up venture in the tech world, there really are a few places to be that are as buzzing and as influential as that.

Bearing that in mind, could you compare New Zealand to the US as far as being an ‘Innovation nation’?

That’s a really good question. In New Zealand I really admire the propensity that people have to come up with a solution. If it’s a problem… fix it! That means, go into your shed, pick up your tools and your tape, and try to figure it out by yourself before going to the store and buying a replacement. I was so young when I was there that I didn’t really notice the difference, but I do now.

I pretty much grew up in a shed. My neighbor had a massive shed full of tools and we would spend every day building something and improving it again and again and again. I developed the attitude, “where there’s a will, there’s a way,” which was very important.

I do think it’s a little different when it comes to business, though. I would say that business innovation is definitely more supported in The United States than it is in New Zealand, where there is still is a little bit of that ‘tall poppy’ syndrome. However, I think the global culture is starting to stamp that out a little.

For entrepreneurship I’ve found the States to have a very supportive community, which is now moving on-line, so it doesn’t really matter where you are.

Do you think there is such a thing as a ‘natural entrepreneur’?

I think that people vary so much in their natural abilities and their tendencies that it’s hard to generalize. [But] I’ve met some people who, to me, are absolutely born entrepreneurs; they just look at the world from a different perspective.

I’m pretty divided on the issue, but if I had to give a short answer I would say, as human beings we do have a propensity, a drive and an interest, to innovate. I think it becomes suppressed largely because of our environment. That includes culture, role models, authority and laws… all those things make a difference. As Pablo Picasso once said, “All children are born artists, the challenges is remaining one when we get older.”

That’s a lovely quote, and leads me quite tidily to ask you about your interactive eBook, ‘Maxims for Mavericks’. How did that inspirational bolt strike you? Maxims for Mavericks came about when I was really [getting] into quotations and thought: “Gosh, these are great; there is so much intelligence, and so much wisdom in so few words!” I started collecting quotes I thought were great, and then had the idea of writing a short reflection on each quotation.

What makes quotes unique is that they really express peoples’ personal belief systems. Once you understand, or adopt, a new belief system, everything about yourself and your life begins to change… your perception of yourself, your perception of the world around you.

How did the title come about?

The more research I did, the [more the word] ‘maxim’ came into my head, and then I always loved the concept of being a maverick. I married the two together and I thought: “Wow, that makes perfect sense.”

In the 1800s, Samuel Augustus Maverick went to Texas and became known for not branding his cattle. He was more interested in keeping track of the land he owned than the livestock on it… unbranded cattle, then, were called ‘Maverick’s.’ The name came to mean anyone who didn’t bear another’s brand. – New York Times

I put a few together and published a little book, in physical form, that I would give away when I would speak. I started getting messages and e-mails from people around the world who really liked it, and I thought: “I need to make this more available. Now that we are in a digital age, let’s start applying this maverick mentality.” And that’s what I did.

I created an eBook to give away. I asked myself: “How can I reach more people efficiently and cost-effectively?” The obvious solution was to create it in digital form.

Would you then equate mavericks and innovators as being the same thing?

I definitely think there’s a huge amount of overlap.

I think a maverick is somebody who is simply original, [someone] who embraces who they are and is willing to take risks by pursuing something they think is important. They question the status quo, conventional thought, old systems and tired assumptions. That’s what mavericks do as people, and that leads to innovation.

Do you think your education assisted your savoring the maverick within you?

For me the division between education and action started at such an early age. It’s hard to say if education actually changed me. What I will say is that starting businesses at an early age changed the way that I looked at education and, therefore, it really changed my relationship with education.

If I were relying on my education to be innovative, to be a successful business person, I think I would fail miserably. I don’t think that school inspires or encourages the innovative entrepreneurial mentality.

So where would you direct young people to go to get inspiration or to find a path they can follow?

First of all, the earlier [they start] the better. Just like you develop physical habits, you can develop mental habits. Start young.

It pains me so much to hear a student say: “Well, I’m a student now, so I’m just going to enjoy. When I’m out of school then I’ll do ‘this’.” I call that the ‘defective student’ label.

If you’re a student that means that you’re trying to educate yourself, in some way, shape or form. And that’s exactly what you should be doing. Join groups! I think that business groups are fantastic to organize or be part of.

They have something called NFTE here in the States, the Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship, and it’s fantastic. Its an entrepreneurial program for people to get involved, to start thinking differently, at a young age. You can turn to books and you can also turn to places like Youtube… Yes, believe or not, there’s more than just animals doing silly things on there. There’s unbelievable videos that you can learn from: speeches, keynotes and so forth.

There is mentorship as well. Reach out to people and say: “Would you mind spending some time with me?” Once a week, twice a week, once a month. [Youth} can be a huge benefit here, you can use it to your advantage and get to people who wouldn’t normally do it, or who would normally charge a fee.

You’re proud of the relationships you’ve formed with world leaders in the field of personal development. Who are some of these world leaders and why did you seek them out in particular?

Just to name a few Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Richard Carlson. Those were the three most important. Of course I’ve met a lot of others along the way that I have exchanged e-mails and conversations with, but in terms of personal relationship, I’d identify those three. It started with each of then when I [began] writing my first book. When I started ‘Cool Stuff They Should Teach in School’ I was consumed [by] self-help and non-fiction. I would do anything: read it, listen to it, go to it, talk to somebody who embodied it.

It started to rub off on me and eventually I wanted to think bigger and bigger and bigger. So I asked myself: “Who is the leader in this field of self publishing?” Jack Canfield came to mind as co-creator of the ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ series, of course. I thought it would be excellent to meet this person, so that’s exactly what I did.

I put him on my vision board, sought him out and told him a little bit about my idea. That was pretty terrifying as a teenager, but I caught his attention. I asked for his support, he agreed and we stayed in touch. The same thing happened with Mark Victor Hansen, who is also the co-creator of the ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ series, and Richard Carlson, who was the creator of the ‘Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff’ series.

Unfortunately [Richard] passed away, but he was unbelievable as a role model in terms of showing me a bright, supportive, constructive side of the world.

Of course I’m going to have to ask, what is the ‘Cool Stuff They Should Teach in School’?

Good question. The book (since you’re referencing that) covers everything from basic ideas about psychology, motivation, attitude and goal setting to more practical skills such as money management and communication. Those were all topics I thought were extremely important that should be taught.

And where can people get their hands on the book?

It’s available at Amazon [and] at Coolstuffmedia.com.

Ironically it’s become required reading in schools. I never thought that was possible, but a lot of teachers have really embraced it. They order it every year and have classes based on it. In your eBook, you talk about the importance of unlearning. So, I’m wondering, what is the most unimportant peace of information you’ve unlearned.

Ironically, it’s that you don’t have to have a college degree to be educated. You don’t have to have college degree to do something important and to make a positive impact.

Growing up everything was about: “Get good grades and then work your way towards an excellent job.” That’s what I was told and I had to unlearn that.

I think unlearning that has been unbelievably liberating. It took a lot of pressure off. [But] the problem with doing that is you become very critical about what you are learning. Which is both good and bad. I now question everything. If it doesn’t make sense to me and I really can’t come up with a reason to do it, I’ll usually put up some sort of a fight until I can understand why it’s worth my time.

Is it safe to say that yours will be a never ending study of life?

Absolutely. I subscribe to the maxim that says: “Investment in self yields the greatest return.” I think you’d be silly to stop your education, because that’s the only edge you have. Without it, it’s really hard to stay inspired and be creative.

The Uncommon Life Blog

You can’t associate creativity and innovation with stagnation, it just doesn’t work. You need to be in motion at all times.

The minute you stop doing something I think you really put yourself in a very risky situation, both in your physical and mental health. This is why studies have shown that a lot of people end up dying within two to five years after their retirement. You know, they fail to engage in something.

With innovation that is absolutely true. You have to not only consciously try to be creative and innovative, but you have to seek it out, you have to look for it… you have to actually want to learn.

Steve Jobs… what a loss. Kent Healy, quite a find.

Kent Healy is twenty-eight years old. One can only imagine what he will accomplish in the coming decades!

Readers are invited to follow Kent on Twitter as well as join his The Uncommon Life groups on Facebook and LinkedIn and his Maxims for Mavericks group on Facebook.

If you would like to know what Kent’s favourite Maxims are, watch this video to find out!

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Posted in 'Capital I' Innovation, Creativity, Digital Media, Innovation, Marketing, Technology

Tagged Capital I innovation, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Cool Stuff Coaching Course, Cool Stuff Media, Cool Stuff They Should Teach in School, innovation, Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Marketing, Maxims for Mavericks, Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, New Zealand, NFTE, quotations, Reactor, Richard Branson, Richard Carlson, Silicon Valley, startup, Steve Jobs, Technology, The One Minute Student, The Success Principles for Teens, The Uncommon Life

Barry Flaherty – A Trend Spotter’s Perspective

Posted on August 18, 2011 | 1 comment

Barry Flaherty has worn many hats on his route to his current incarnation as a digital media expert. These include being an International Business Development Director, and a technology early adopter for over 15 years, driving global innovative solutions in marketing, digital media, and mobile technology. His client experience has covered Vodafone, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, Nike, and the Qatar Foundation to name but a few.

An avid blogger and trend spotter, Barry is currently engaged on projects with a variety of clients ranging from start-ups, fast growing organisations, corporates, broadcasters and digital media agencies in the UK, Europe and the Middle East. Added to this, he sits on the Advisory Boards of several high profile digital media networks.

Currently working with Mediaventura in London on M&A advisory work and fund raising for fast growing digital businesses, Barry is also crowd sourcing digital case studies for inclusion in a new version of ‘Understanding Digital Marketing’.

This follows hot on the heels of the recently launched, ‘The Best Digital Marketing Campaigns in the World‘ published by Kogan Page.

Barry, you’ve been searching for, and driving forward Innovation for many years. How do you define Innovation?

Innovation to me is like a Rubix Cube. Multi-faceted, full of different colours and almost impossible to crack UNLESS you happen to be very good; be that as an individual or an organisation. I suppose a good place to start is understanding the essence and meaning of Innovation.

A convenient definition, from an organisational perspective, is given by Luecke and Katz (2003):

“Innovation is generally understood as the successful introduction of a better thing or method. [It] is the embodiment, combination, or synthesis of knowledge in original, relevant, valued new products, processes, or services.”

Do you think entrepreneurs are born or ‘made’?

Good question. Depends what life throws at you. There’s probably ten or twenty different ways in which entrepreneurs are created.

There’s a great quote from Twelfth Night:

“some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”

Many entrepreneurs are born out of many years of relentless effort – pushing themselves, and those around them, to the limit – and of course, having many failed business ventures before they finally become successful.

Right now trying to raise money from the market is like a trip to the dentist for root canal surgery. So if you have got a rich mummy or daddy or family member who can set you up on the path, well…

Many of today’s so called Entrepreneurs have had a helping hand in life. Sometimes this comes from billionaire families or trust funds, which have allowed many to start with the necessary ‘oxygen’ and capital to make turning their ideas into reality that much easier. Stelios Haji-Ioannou from Easyjet is an example of this. Kerry Packer, the Australian media mogul, created an opening for his son James to flourish and take over the reins of their Empire.

Kerry and James Packer

We need entrepreneurs in society. They provide inspiration. They provide case studies for the plethora of Business Schools and MBA courses, and keep income rolling into the country. Innovation fosters dreams. The end product is a conveyor belt of ‘leaders of tomorrow’ entering the workplace armed with MBA’s and case studies in their heads from some of the world’s greatest innovators and entrepreneurs.

Speaking of a helping hand, you are about to become a father for the first time. What do you want to pass on to your child?

Common sense. This is where someone like Paul McCartney is a good example. He’s got hundreds of millions in the bank from years of royalties, and he still sent his kids to a normal school. Its about arming your kids for life.

Do you see a difference between ‘little i’ and ‘Capital I’ Innovation?

Innovation is an important topic in the study of most things in society, be that economics, business, entrepreneurship, design, technology, sociology or engineering.

Innovation is, unfortunately, one of those words that you hear lots but is rarely practiced. I’ve attended many Conferences at the European Union, and within industry, on the topic of Innovation; and there seems to be a whole industry of people hell-bent on commentating on Innovation and policy making to foster it. But, these are not the true innovators. I hardly think a policy ‘wonk’ in Brussels is going to become the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg.

Once innovation occurs, innovations may be spread from the innovator to other individuals and groups. This life cycle of innovations can be described using the ‘s-curve’ or diffusion curve. The s-curve maps growth of revenue or productivity against time.

In the early stage of a particular innovation, growth is relatively slow as the new product establishes itself. At some point customers begin to demand [it] and the product growth increases more rapidly. I think it would be fair to say that lots of little i’s make up one big I.

It could be argued that innovation is one continuous journey rather than the final destination. Innovation is fluid, continuous and ever evolving. It’s a shame the big CAPITAL I seems to be the one that gets most column inches as there are innovative discoveries and successes happening on this planet on an almost daily basis.

Do you think innovation is an overused term?

I think it would be fair to say that it’s a term that is timeless but slightly jaded around the edges. There are a lot of so called ‘ambulance chasers’ who like to pontificate and tell the world they are innovative without really demonstrating or executing this.

We like Innovation. It’s like a warm blanket on a cold night. We are proud of it and we like to tell the world how innovative we are.

So what do we like to do?

That’s right! We create awards. Here is a recent example of one from the www.d-media.co.uk network in the UK. We have become good at giving ourselves a good pat on the back for just about everything. There seem to be more award ceremonies, for just about everything, than there are Companies!

Enter the IET Innovation Awards to raise the profile of your invention amongst those leading the way in science, engineering and technology innovation. Typical Award categories include:

Asset Management
Built Environment
Electronics
Embedded and Critical Systems
Emerging Technologies
Healthcare Technologies
Information Technology
Measurement in Action
Power / Energy
Product Design
Software in Design
Sustainability
Team
Telecommunications
Transport

How essential has innovation been in your career to date; and how important do you envisage it being going forward?

I’ve leant towards creative industries and this has led me to come into contact with many entrepreneurs and creative minds that have built successful businesses from scratch, or created true measurable value for the Organisations they work for.

In the organisational context, innovation may be linked to positive changes in efficiency, productivity, quality, competitive positioning, market share, etc. All of which can be affected positively by innovative forces. All organisations can innovate, including, for example, hospitals, universities and local governments. Some will flourish under its influence. Other will die. It’s survival of the fittest.

In my digital world, the ‘King of the Jungle’ one minute can be obsolete the next. Take MySpace or Friends Re-United for example. They were top for a matter of months, then swept aside by the likes of Facebook and Google. And even they have reached saturation now in many mature markets. They need growth in developing countries to stay on target for their target of 1 billion users and their over justified and bloated valuations.

On a wider level, car companies and manufacturing industries are making way for knowledge economies, knowledge clusters and an increasingly mobile workforce. The travel industry has been taken over by online offerings, disinter-mediation is ripping through more industries and supply chains than ever before.

Going forward, I want to stay involved with working at the sharp end of Innovation, thus working in Mergers and Acquisitions with fast growing organizations. That way, I stay close to the capital markets and also get to court the Innovators and entrepreneurs, feeding my desire for knowledge and having a pulse on the future.

As an extremely avid fan, Barry also stays close to Celtic FC.

You can read Barry’s piece on Celtic and New Media in the August edition of CQ Magazine (pgs 38 & 39) here

What do you think is imperative to allow ‘Capital I’ Innovation to occur?

That is of course the million dollar conundrum. Innovation isn’t always welcome in practice, in my experience. I’ve spent/wasted years of my life delivering solutions that promise change and progress and, let me tell you, they’re not always welcome!

Governments talk about creating innovation, Science & Technology parks and Innovation parks and, to their credit, most governments in the Western world have built these. They’ve created jobs and been responsible for breakthroughs in medicine, technology, life sciences and so on. The UK has clusters of Innovation Centres and Science Parks, and the European Union is one big Innovation hub, mostly because it sits on budgets of billions to throw at ‘so called’ Innovation projects.

Innovation with a CAPITAL I without cash will never materialise – governments realise this. Expensive public sector modernisation projects, transport infrastructure, new schools and educational institutions need private enterprise and money to allow this.

In the digital world, places like Silicon Valley play a crucial role in funding innovation, leading to new frameworks including user centric design, interoperability, co-operation, portfolio management and processes to shorten product development cycles.

I was fortunate enough to spend some time in the Middle East working with the Qatar Foundation and other projects such as the Qatar Science Technology Park, Internet City in Dubai and AppsArabia in Abu Dhabi. They can attract the world’s brightest minds and talent as they can afford the money to prise the talent out of countries like the UK, Australia, USA and other western economies. Innovation tends to follow the talent and the capital, be that financial or human.

Private and public sector partnerships are crucial as not everybody has 100 years of liquefied natural gas (LNG) or oil sitting under their shores. We need only to look at Ireland, Iceland, Portugal, Sudan, and Greece as examples of countries who do not have the manpower, innovation, cash or energy resources of the BRIC economies or a region like the Middle East.

On the upside are the new business models, which predominantly aren’t reliant on huge cost bases – you can set up a business today for ‘$17 online and in only 5 minutes’ – you don’t have to have an office, a factory, or lots of staff.

Does location matters?

Of course it matters. Being born into the right country at the right time is tantamount to winning the lottery.

That said, Innovation is universal. It’s being created, dreamt about and implemented in classrooms in China, the boardrooms of Brazil, universities in India and in R&D labs and Universities the world over. Innovation travels. It has a passport; it speaks many languages and knows no bounds.

Like all journeys in life, it’s not always plain sailing for Innovation. There are barriers, obstacles and challenges, yet with the right network, funding, energy and drive, Innovation does eventually prevail.

The internet has created a level playing field where SME’s and individuals can go toe to toe with large organisations. People have a direct line to brands, governments and people in authority. It’s power to the people, and the people holding the levers of power and control had better start listening.

The recent overthrow of governments in the Middle East and Asia demonstrated this. In this ever connected world, there is no hiding place.

A man not backwards in coming forward with his opinion, there is likely no hiding place from Barry Flaherty either.

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Posted in 'Capital I' Innovation, Creativity, Digital Media, Innovation, Marketing, Technology

Tagged Abhu Dhabi, AppsArabia, BRIC, Capital I innovation, Celtic FC, CQ Magazine, Digital Media, Dubai, IET Innovation Awards, innovation, internet City, Kerry Packer, Marketing, Mediaventura, Middle East, Qatar Science Technology Park, s-curve, Silicon Valley, startup, Stelios Haji-Ioannou, Technology, The Best Digital Marketing Campaign in the World, Understanding Digital Marketing, www.d-media.co.uk

‘Capital I’ Innovation (Part 1)

Posted on June 10, 2011 | 1 comment

Recently I read an article on Anthill.com, ‘Innovation: Australia is screwed without it. Really, really screwed. One of the premises the article and its accompanying video put forth was that, while 95% of Australian businesses claim they’re innovative, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics only 40% actually undertake any form of innovation activity. Hmmmmm. Somebody’s got some ‘splaining to do.

Unsurprisingly, I was a little confused, and I started to wonder, what’s up with Australia and innovation? Now I don’t mean ‘little i’ innovation… I mean ‘Capital I’, game changing, in your face Innovation. We’re not talking ‘lipstick on the bullfrog’ here people. We’re talking a whole new species. Or at least we should be. And we should be talking about it together.

My questioning led me to explore the GE Global Innovation Barometer for 2011 and, globally at least, the facts are quite heartening. For instance,

95% of respondents believe innovation is the main lever for a more competitive national economy.

As encouraging is that the vast majority of respondents believe innovation can improve the lives of their country’s citizens in the next ten years.

74% believe innovation can improve housing quality;
77% believe innovation can improve the quality of education;
82% believe innovation can improve energy security;
87% believe innovation can improve health (care) quality;
88% believe innovation is the best way to create jobs in their country; and
90% believe innovation can improve communications.

All of these illustrate excellent reasons for individuals to buy-in to the necessity for ‘Capital I’ Innovation.

GE Global Innovation Barometer: Positive Perceptions

But what about business? Well, 75% of the global respondents believe:

SMEs and individuals can be as innovative as large companies;
The greatest 21st Century innovations will bring value to society as a whole, not only to individual consumers or citizens; and
The majority of innovation in the next ten years will be driven by a combination of players partnering together.

So what’s the Aussie problem? In a nutshell, only 2% of respondents saw Australia as a leading innovation champion. This is in contrast to the US (67%), Germany (44%), China (35%), and India (12%). I’m reminded of the quintessential line from the classic film Cool Hand Luke, “What we got here is… failure to communicate.”

GE Global Innovation Barometer: Optimism Index Country Ranking Chart

The bottom line that we need to be talking about is that Impactful Innovation in the 21st Century will require incorporating Partnerships who Integrate Solutions which focus on Individuals. However, this takes vision and an ability to factor in risk. And risk or the unwillingness to take it is, as some would see it, Australia’s problem.

The thing is, Australia is a traditional country. Now first let me hasten to note that there are, of course, exceptions to this rule. But, generally speaking, Australia wants to protect what it has rather than taking a risk by betting on something new, something they don’t know. It can be scary to switch to a knowledge based economy.

GE Global Innovation Barometer: Most Negative Perceptions

Peter Riddles, CEO of ViciBio Pty, has recognized this problem for years. Riddles works with governments and economic regions on innovation and strategies for industry growth, and with new ventures and universities in innovation and commercialization. To his mind, “Australia is a commodity and services based economy and is therefore not necessarily geared to be a knowledge based economy.” Agreed.

However, if Australia – in both the private and public sector – doesn’t support its own entrepreneurs endeavoring to launch ‘Capital I’ Innovation, some other country will, and will profit from it. As noted in last week’s blog, there is a multitude of multinational companies drooling to drink at the well of profit that the NBN scheme is likely to provide them. Regrettably, it is likely that only droplets will be left for any local businesses – unless, of course, they come in under the guise of a foreign flag.

All is not lost though; there is still time, and certainly a degree of opportunity, for Australia to lead the way in some form(s) of ‘Capital I’ Innovation. This is particularly true in the realm of health care. I have long said that I believe it is part of the Australian psyche to provide sustainable health care to its citizens, regardless of how rural and/or remote their location.

True, up to this point there has been a reliance upon ‘little i’ innovation but, to date, this has stood them in good stead. Australians took the international ‘Capital I’ Innovations of radio and airplanes, and created the ‘little i’ innovation that became the world renowned Flying Doctors. Huzzah! However, these are laurels that can no longer be rested upon.

Australia must support and cultivate a culture of ‘Capital I’ Innovation and, balanced with its need for security in a traditional economy, it must become a nation which supports and encourages entrepreneurship and a knowledge based economy.

As Peter Riddles noted in our chat this week, “Innovation is what entrepreneurs do.” And with some of its most innovative and entrepreneurial minds finding it easier to do business off the ‘Big Island’ Australia is not only suffering from a ‘brain drain’, but also from a sizable loss of potential profits. When your entrepreneurs know that it makes more sense for them to sell their wares to an American company, and then have the Americans sell it back to Oz – there is a fundamental problem in the plan.

Australia has the brain power to create ‘Capital I’ Innovation. What it needs is the courage capitalize on this. Australian entrepreneurs must be empowered locally to think and act globally. It is then that they will begin to take the lead in ‘Capital I’ Innovation rather than creating yet another iPad application.

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Tagged Anthill, Australia, brain drain, brain power, business, Capital I innovation, China, commercialization, communication, consumers, economy, education, energy, Flying Doctors, GE Global Innovation Barometer 2011, Germany, growth, health care, houseing, Impact, India, innovation, integrate, jobs, NBN, Peter Riddles, PPP, private sector, profits, public sector, society, traditional knowledge based, univeristies, US, ventures

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