Jump The Curve Archives: 09/2007

Welcome to Jump the Curve …or How to Turn 2 Cents into $5.36 Million

For reasons I can’t entirely recall now, my freshman year of high school began on Friday, September 1, 1978--the day before the Labor Day weekend, which is traditionally regarded as the last official weekend of summer. I will never forget the very first lesson of my first class--Social Studies I. It began promptly at 8:05 AM and was taught by Louie Senta. He was a gruff old man with a shock of silver hair and a gravelly voice. If I didn’t know better I would have thought he was delivered straight from central casting to play the role of an intimidating disciplinarian--a role, I might add, that he played with a persuasive amount of gusto.

After the bell rang signaling the start of class, Senta rested his steely blue eyes upon his new wide-eyed charges for what seemed like an eternity. He then posed this peculiar question: “If you had a choice between taking $100,000 a day for this entire month or accepting a single penny today and having the penny double every day for the remainder of the month, which would you select?”

The class was silent, but I remember thinking, “What a stupid question.” Unbowed by the sea of incredulous, pimple-spotted faces staring back at him, Senta asked, “How many of you would choose $100,000 a day?” His face showed no emotion as he paused a moment to let us to ponder our answer.

At the time my only concern was whether the month of September had thirty or thirty-one days and, therefore, whether I would be entitled to the princely sum of $3 million or $3.1 million.

Senta called for a showing of hands. Without bothering to look around the room to seek the assurance of my peers, I shot my hand up. Only afterward did I glance around the room and note with mild satisfaction that my new classmates were just as bright as me.

To confirm what was already obvious, Senta then asked if anyone would choose the second option. No one raised their hand. Then, in a refrain that was to become all too familiar for the next four years of our lives, he ordered us, “Do the math. See how much richer you are because of your wisdom.”

Being good with numbers, I quickly doubled the penny ten times and calculated the sum to be $5.12. I continued on for another ten doublings. The figure after the twentieth iteration, I noted with a serene sense of satisfaction, was a scanty $5,242.88. Again, I pressed on in confidence. It was only after the twenty-eighth step--when the figure reached $1,342,177.28--that a sinking feeling came over me and I realized the error of my ways. After the thirtieth and final doubling I calculated I would have been entitled to $5,368,709.12--or almost $2.4 million more than if I had taken the “obvious” choice.

In retrospect I suspect that the purpose of Mr. Senta’s little exercise was twofold. For starters, the quiz was doubtlessly his way of humbling a bunch of cocky fourteen-year-old know-it-alls and demonstrating to us, in no uncertain terms, that we still had much to learn. In a larger sense, though, I believe he was trying to teach us a more profound philosophical lesson: Things that might at first appear to be obvious are not always so. While he didn’t say it at the time, the implicit message was that it was important to understand the underlying forces that are at work in any given situation. Or, as I say in my forthcoming book, he encouraged us to “jump the curve.”

I tell this little story because just as my classmates and I didn’t appreciate the power of exponential growth with regard to the penny, so many people these days also underestimate the power of exponential growth in other fields. Today there are no fewer than nine technological forces that have been and are continuing to grow at near exponential rates, and unless people begin to come to terms with the momentous changes that are afoot and learn to “jump the curve,” they are going to make some costly mistakes--mistakes that will make my hypothetical loss of $2.4 million look like child’s play. The nine technological trends undergoing exponential advancement are computers/semiconductors, data storage, Internet bandwidth, the sequencing of the human genome, brain scanning, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, robotics, and the advancement of knowledge itself.

Jump the Curve is not, however, a website or blog about technology--although it will document and explore how many of these technological trends will impact the world of commerce. Rather it is about change and it will seek to continually lay out the case for why leaders must welcome change. More importantly, it will provide a number of tangible steps that will help people and organizations embrace radical change in order to tap into the amazing possibilities that these new and profound transformations will create.

I welcome your feedback and would appreciate your assistance in bring exponential advances in technology—as well as examples of innovative leadership—to my attention. Moreover, I look forward to not only “jumping the curve” with you, but of actually staying ahead of it.

Sincerely,

Jack Uldrich
Author of Jump the Curve

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Robots Jump the Curve and Leap Straight into the Gutter

Last month, I got wind of news that iRobot was planning to unveil a new gutter-cleaning robot. My initial reaction was not favorable. After all, I figured who in their right mind would spend a lot of money on an expensive robot to do something that: 1) Most people don’t even do once a year; 2) an existing, simple technology already exists—namely “gutter helmets; or 3) you could just pay a handyman $50-$75 to do.

What I did not expect is that iRobot’s new gutter cleaning robot, dubbed the Looj, would cost $99. More importantly, what I failed to take into consideration was that all of the robots enabling technology (e.g. computer chips, sensors, materials, etc.) would continue to drop in price.

At a price point of $99, the technology actually makes some sense to me. It is affordable for most do-it-yourselfers; more economical than gutter helmets; and only slightly more expensive than a one-time visit from the local handyman.

Now, I still don’t think that the Looj is a game-breaker. For starters, the device can’t yet handle corners and this means that it is not quite the convenience or time saver that one might have imagined. A user must still climb up a ladder at least four times to position the robot to clear each side of your house’s gutter, but it is only going to get better with time.

Nevertheless, I can still see a number of professional gutter cleaners and handymen buying the Looj because it will allow them to clean gutters faster, and thus make them that much more productive.

In other words, it can help any number of handymen “jump the curve” by allowing them to clean more gutters in less time and with less risk (they won’t need to be up on the ladder as much).

The Looj is also a disruptive technology for manufacturers of gutter helmets. After all, in the future why would someone spend a few thousand dollars to install gutter helmet (which don’t always work that well anyway) when they can instead invest $99 and just a little of their time to keep their gutters free of leaves and other debris.

Jack Uldrich is a writer, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business, and speaks frequently on future trends, innovation, change management, nanotechnology, robotics and executive leadership.

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Jump the Bridge

This past August, about 5 miles from where I live, the I-35 Bridge collapsed. It claimed 13 lives. Such tragedies, of course, should not happen, but they will likely continue to occur unless state and federal transportation learn to “jump the curve” and begin experimenting with—and ultimately adopting—wireless sensors to detect the earliest signs fo stress failure in bridges.

In today’s Minneapolis StarTribune -- my hometown newspaper—there is an interesting article showing the different approaches that Minnesota and Wisconsin are now taking to bridge inspection. Wisconsin has ordered that 14 of its bridges be fitted with special sensors, known as bridge gauges, that can detect unusual movements. Minnesota, on the other hand, will continue to rely on human inspections.

The governor of Minnesota’s position is that sensors are not yet a proven technology. This is true, but he fails to recognize that as a result of exponential advances in sensor and wireless technology the technology will only continue to get better. From my perspective, these extraordinary advances warrant, at a minimum some pilot tests. And longer term, I am even more optimistic that sensor technology is the superior approach.

In my forthcoming book, I encourage leaders to “bet on the machine.” It is the idea that, over time, various technologies will be able to do some things that people currently do (like inspect bridges) only better, faster and cheaper. As an analogy, I remind my readers that just a decade ago most chess experts were saying that a machine could never beat a human. Well, it is now a fact that computers can regularly and consistently beat even the best chess grand master.

The same will soon be true for bridge inspecting. As proof, I sumbit this article from today’s Technology Review. It is discusses how advances in carbon nanotubes are now being contemplated for use as sensors in hip and knee joint implants. The general idea is that carbon nanotubes will be embedded directly integrated into the surface of the implant material and will be able to pick up early warning signs of inflammatory scarring, bone stress, and the presense of dangerous bacteria.

My general point is that future sensor technology will be greatly enabled by advances in carbon nanotube technology, and today’s leaders can “jump the curve” or, in this case, jump the bridge by embracing sensor sooner rather than later. It is going to save time, money and ultimately human lives in both the fields of bridge inspection and biomedical implants.

Jack Uldrich is a writer, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business, and speaks frequently on future trends, innovation, change management, nanotechnology, robotics, RFID technology and executive leadership to the transportation and health care industries.

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Child-like Wonder: The Lessons of Randy Pausch

Much has already been written about Randy Pausch’s moving “last lecture” earlier this month at Carnegie Mellon University and I won’t repeat the many accolades that his talk has already received, I merely want to encourage those who haven’t watched his speech to take an hour and view it. It is a moving testament to what I call in my book “the power of play.”

Pausch discusses how his parents encouraged and cultivated his creativity by allowing him to paint and draw on his bedroom walls. As a favor after he dies (Pausch has pancreatic cancer), he asks only this: “If your kid wants to paint his or her bedroom, let’em do it.” Throughout the remainder of his talk, Pausch then discusses the importance of holding on to our childhood dreams and he pleads with the audience to “never lose the child-like wonder” that once resided in all of us.

The best evidence of the importance of this message, however, is Pausch’s own life. As a result of his efforts to make virtual reality technology available to the masses, he has helped over 1 million children learn how to write computer code and create new virtual reality environments—many of which he freely admits are beyond even his skill. In essense, Pausch has successfully unleashed the creative juices of millions of kids.

Pausch is not done and his legacy will continue to grow long after he has died. That is because Carnegie Mellon is now replicating his unique “edutainment” methodology at university campuses around the world. As Pausch said he wanted to create something that is “infinitely scaleable.” He has now done that and for his extraordinary legacy he deserves to be honored as the first-ever recipient of my “exponential educator” award.

Jack Uldrich is a writer, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business, and speaks frequently on future trends, innovation, change management, nanotechnology, robotics, RFID technology and executive leadership to the education industry.

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Questioning Intuition

Earlier today, I gave two presentations on the topic of my forthcoming book, Jump the Curve, at the 12th Annual State Managers Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I discussed a great many topics, but I would like to highlight just one: “Embracing counter-intuitive findings.”

Today, a great many people, including education, public health and law enforcement officials are certain as a result of years on the job that they know what works and what doesn’t work. For instance, an education official might be convinced that vouchers and charter school don’t work; a public health worker might lay claim to knowing which programs are most effective; and many law enforcement officials are positive that stronger criminal penalties lead to lower recidivism rates.

Over time, many of these personal opinions have morphed into “conventional wisdom” and, worse, because many of these state officials have risen to prominent places in the state bureaucracy this “conventional wisdom” has been adopted as de facto state policy.

As a result of exponential advances in the amount of information that is now being collected as well as the vast improvement in algorithms, however, savvy computer scientists and social scientists are now discovering some surprising things. I am currently reading Ian Ayres excellent new book, Super Crunchers, and throughout it he systematically demonstrates how new insights gleened from algorithms is forcing educators, public health and law enforcement officials (and many, many others) to revisited some of their most basic assumptions.

For instance, educators are learning how different policies effect different populations in different ways. The same is true for numerous other public policies. For too long it has been too easy to simply adopt a black-and-white, one-size-fits-all view of the world. There is now so much information available and it is being “crunched” in so many different ways that it is no longer sufficient to rely on intuition or “gut feeling.” Unless you can back up your adherence to “conventional wisdom” with hard facts, my recommendation is that you should “crunch” your assumptions against the data because there is a solid chance you might be wrong!

Jack Uldrich is a writer, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business, and speaks frequently on future trends, innovation, change management, nanotechnology, robotics, RFID technology and executive leadership to the state government officials.

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Exponential Executive Extraordinare: George C. Marshall

I am in Leesburg, Virginia today to give a keynote presentation at the annual Marshall Legact Trust Luncheon at the George C. Marshall International Center. The topic, perhaps not surprisingly, is on the leadership lessons of General George C. Marshall—the subject of my 2005 book ”Soldier, Statesman, Peacemaker: Leadership Lessons from George C. Marshall.”

There are any number of leadership skills that I could highlight from Marshall’s extraordinary career as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army during World War II or his time as Secretary of State (during which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on implementing “The Marshall Plan"), but I instead want to focus on his unique ability to identify and cultivate future leaders.

It is not widely known today but both Dwight D. Eisenhower and Omar Bradley owe their careers—and their subsequent fame—to George Marshall. For it was he who saw their talent early on and then had the courage to promote both officers ahead of 350 more senior military officers at the beginning of the Second World War.

What George Marshall understood is that his legacy would largely be formed by how those under him performed. As a result, he took great pains to select only the best officers. And once he had done so, he entrusted them with extraordinary responsibilities (as in Eisenhower’s case selecting him to lead the D-Day invasion) and backed them up with his undying support.

In total, George Marshall is estimated to have personally trained and promoted over 200 general officers who performed admirably during the Second World War. As a result of this legacy of selecting stellar subordinates, Marshall was able to exponentially expand his influence and, of course, help America win the war. It is a lesson worth keeping in mind for any leader looking to lead his or her organization into the Expoential Economy.

Jack Uldrich is a writer, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve, The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business, and Soldier, Statesman, Peacemaker: leadership lessons fo George C. Marshall. He speaks frequently on future trends, innovation, change management, nanotechnology, robotics, RFID technology and executive leadership to a wide variety of businesses and associations.

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Develop a Future Bias

In my forthcoming book, Jump the Curve, I make the case that one strategy for “jumping the curve” and helping your organization innovate into the future is to “develop a future bias.”

A future bias is the opposite of “hindsight bias” and hindsight bias is, quite simply, the idea that after an event occurs most people take credit for believing that the idea was pre-ordained and that they knew it would happen. For instance, by 1920, most citizens claimed they knew that man would “always” fly.

Unfortunately, this isn’t true. Most people were completely blind-sided by human flight. Lord Kelvin, the world’s most renowned scientist claimed in 1899 that “Heavier than air machines are impossible,” and no less an authority than the New York Times wrote in an editorial in December 1903—just two weeks before the Wright Brother’s historic first flight—that human flight would not be achievable for “1 to 10 million years.” My guess is that if a poll had been commissioned at the beginning of the turn of the 20th century the overwhelming consensus among the American public would have subscribed to similar opinions or, alternatively, something along the lines of “If God had intended man to fly, He would have given him wings.”

In the future, as a result of exponential advances in technology, many things that sound impossible today are, in fact, not only going to be possible they are going to be commonplace. Therefore, in order to embrace this future, it will be necessary to think exponentially—and not linearly—about the future. As Ray Kurzweil says in his book, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, in the 21st century humanity will experience the equivalent of 20,000 years of change (using the 20th century’s rate of change). What he is trying to do in an indirect way is to get people to develop a future bias.

I recently came across this photo on Digg.com that shows the world as it is expected to look in 250 million years.

I think it offers a wonderful metaphor for thinking about tomorrow’s world because tomorrow will be radically different from today. Therefore, one of the first steps a leader must take in preparing him or herself to lead an organization into the future, is to develop a future bias. To do so, it first helps if that leader can envision a world that will look radically different. Therfore, when thinking about the future, I would encourage the “Exponential Executive” to keep the above picture always in mind.

Jack Uldrich is a writer, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business, and speaks frequently on future trends, innovation, change management, nanotechnology, robotics, RFID technology and executive leadership to the businesses and associations.

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Can You Train Your Brain to Become an Exponential Executive?

This past week the Wall Street Journal ran an interesting article entitled “This is Your Brain on the Job” that highlighted some innovative work being done by Pierre Balthazard at the Arizona State University. Balthazrad is using brain imaging technology to study brain activity in “visionary” leaders in the hopes of some day being able to train ordinary brains to act like those of leaders. To date what Balthazard has found is that visionary leaders use much higher levels of brain activity than non-visionaries in those areas of the brain associated with visual processing and organization of information.

It is a fascinating concept and it is important to understand that Balthazard is quick to dispel the notion that the idea is “a magic bullet” and that great leaders can simply be manufactured. Instead, he stresses that brain training will be a leadership-development tool.

As I mention in my book, Jump the Curve, brain scanning technology is just one of many fields experiencing exponential growth. What this means, of course, is that everything we know about the brain today—and what it might tell us about leadership—will likely pale in comparison to what scientiests will know in just a few short years. Check out this chart from Ray Kurzweil which shows the rapidly declining cost of brain scanning technology:

Brain imaging technology is already being used in the fields of economics, finance and marketing to uncover new insights; is it any less realistic to think that the technology might not also be used to improve individual’s leadership skills?

Years ago a study conducted by the American Management Association found that the best leaders had a very high tolerance for dealing with ambiguity. I am a firm believer that as a result of the accelerating rate of change in today’s exponential economy, leaders will need to embrace an even higher level of ambiguity tomorrow. If this true then it might very well make sense for executives interested in keeping abreast of these changes to openingly consider this idea of trying to better train the brain—in fact “brain training” could end up being a very useful tool in converting executives into “Exponential Executives.”

Jack Uldrich is a writer, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business, and speaks frequently on future trends, innovation, change management, nanotechnology, robotics, RFID technology and executive leadership to the businesses and associations.

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An Average Day in the Exponential Economy

Imagine a world in which a battery yields a 400X improvement over existing power devices or iPod can download a movie in 5 seconds and is capable of storing a total of 30,000 feature length movies.

Well, you probably won’t have to imagine this future much past 2010 or 2011 because of the accelerating pace of technological advancement. Below are links to three articles that have hit the wires in just the past two days.

The first article is entitled “Texas Startup Says It Has Batteries Beat” and it explains how a company called EEStor is working to develop new battery technology that can potentially recharge an automobile in 5 minutes and then allow it to drive for 500 miles.

This press release from IBM explains how two new breakthroughs in the field of nanotechnology stand poised to revolutionize both the data storage and semiconductor manufacturing industries.

And finally, this article from today’s Technology Review discusses some new wireless technology that will allow information to be transferred at a rate of 15 gigabits per second (up from today’s existing technology which can only transfer at a rate of 480 megabits per second).

In each case, these separate technological advances will render existing industries obsolete, while at the same time opening up a number of exciting new business possibilities. In order to “Jump the Curve” and prosper tomorrow, the Exponential Executive needs to begin thinking differently about these exciting breakthroughs - today!

Jack Uldrich is a writer, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. He is also a frequenter speaker on future trends, innovation, change management and executive leadership.

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Biomimicry at its Best

In my forthcoming book, Jump the Curve, I devote an entire chapter to the field of Biomimicry—or the idea that people in business can gain useful insights by studying Mother Nature. A recent edition of The Economist had a useful article along these lines entitled ”Borrowing from Nature”.

One sentence in particular caught my attention. It was about how today’s builders and architects don’t create closed-loop systems. It read: “Instead, man-made systems tend to be linear, consuming raw materials at one end and producing waste at the other. The result is a gradual depletion of natural resources.”

I would like to focus on the word “linear.” As I say in my book, if builders and architects (and other businesses as well) want to survive in the 21st century they need to start thinking different. In short, they can’t afford to think linearly, they need to think exponentially.

The article goes to highlight an architectural firm by the name of Grimshaw that offers a wonderful example of “jumping the curve” and thinking exponentially. The company is now designing a new building that will not only be carbon neutral, it will actually generate income by using waste to heat during the winter months. (When waste breaks down in large composting units it reaches temperatures of 75 Celsius or 167 Fahrenheit). Not only does this smart step cut down on the building’s energy bill, the owner will actually be able to make money because it can take waste that would normally cost $40 a ton to dispose at a landfill and instead pocket that money for itself—while at the same time is uses that waste to heat the building.

Jack Uldrich is a writer, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business, and speaks frequently on future trends, innovation, change management, nanotechnology, robotics, RFID technology and executive leadership to the architecture and building industries.

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Genetic Testing is on the Rise

Earlier this summer, Nanosphere, a promising private nanotech start-up, announced its intention to file an IPO. At the time of the announcement there was some speculation within nanotech circles that the move was just prelude to a merger with one of its larger rivals in the field of molecular diagnostic testing.

The possibility of a merger just became a lot more likely. Why? This is because on Monday the Food and Drug Administration approved a new genetic test made by Nanosphere that will help patients better understand how they might metabolize the anti-blood clot medicine warfarin—which is sold under the brand name Coumadin and is manufactured by Bristol-Myers Squibb.

The importance of this event can’t be underestimated. According to a 2006 study, FDA economists have estimated that genetic testing could prevent 85,000 “serious bleeding events” and 17,000 strokes a year. In the total, the savings for the health care system could reach $1.1 billion.

Now, I would encourage ihealth care executives to take the above number with a dose of salt, but the FDA approval does marks a major milestone for Nanosphere in that it serves as a major validation of its technology.

It also makes Nanosphere a much more attractive acquisition target for a company such as Roche, Abbott or Becton Dickinson because, in addition to this genetic test, the company is also developing genetic tests for cancer, cystic fibrosis, herpes and heart disease.

As wonderful as modern medicine is today, the truth is that many people react in substantially different ways to different drugs. Genetic testing holds out the possibility of better serving people by allowing doctors to more accurately tailor dosage or, alternatively, informing them when certain drugs won’t work on them.

Either way, it is a win-win situation. If genetic test shows the patient will respond to the drug, both patient and provider can work on finding the optimum level of dosage. If the test is negative at least the patient is spared the time and energy of using an ineffective drug, and the health care provider can then set about looking for alternative methods of treating the patient.

The possibilities of genetic testing are so great that I simply don’t see Nanosphere reaching the IPO stage. I believe the company will be snapped up in short order and I would encourage health care professionals to follow the event because whoever lands Nanosphere is going to add some very good DNA to its genes.

Interested in related articles I have written on nanotechnology? I&#