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Jump The Curve Archives: 12/2007
Find Some “Zero-Gravity” and Cross-Disciplinary Thinkers
In today’s New York Times there is an interesting commentary entitled ”Innovative Minds Don’t Think Alike.” This is hardly a revolutionary idea, but the author makes a good case that any number of businesses can benefit from an outsider’s perspective.
I would take this argument a step further and argue that businesses should also actively seek out cross-disciplinary thinkers—generalists who are well-versed in a variety of different fields. I say this because history has proven that innovation only rarely comes from those experts who know “more and more about less and less.”
More often, the really big breakthroughs come from those thinkers who are able to make connections between different discoveries. As James Burke reminds us in his excellent book, Connections, Alexander Graham Bell was not an expert in either electricity or magnetism, but he knew enough to combine the work of Leon Scott, Michael Faraday and H.C. Oersted to invent the telephone.
In this same way, I don’t believe that the next great breakthroughs will result from straight scientific discoveries in nanotechnology, material science, computers, robotics or brain-scanning technology. Instead, they will come from the convergence of these different forces by individuals who are able to make unique connections. Therefore, in order to “jump the curve” and stay ahead of these breakthroughs (or, better yet, have your company make the breakthroughs) it will help to bring in not just “zero-gravity” thinkers but some cross-disciplinary thinkers as well.
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Embracing Change
Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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The Accelerating Pace of Disruption
The past few days have witnessed a couple of extraordinary developments. On Friday, AOL announced that after just 13 years it would be pulling the plug on Netscape Navigator. What is interesting about this development is that in his bestselling book, The World is Flat, Tom Friedman cited August 9, 1995—the date Netscape went public—as his second flattener or “world changing” event. Also on Friday, Fujitsu—the company which developed the first plasma television—announced that it would be ending the production of plasma TVs.
The two events are merely symptoms of today’s Exponential Economy. As I state in my forthcoming book, Jump the Curve, the business environment is also becoming exponentially riskier. As proof, I merely draw your attention to Standard & Poor’s rating of equity risks. In 1985, 41% of all companies were deemed stable (or not risky). By 2006 this figure had plummeted to 13%.
Unfortunately, as a result of exponential advances in computers, bandwidth, data storage, rapid prototype manufacturing, algorithms, nanotechnology, and biotechnology the world of commerce is only going to become more risky in the near future. It is all the more reason why companies and executives must learn to “jump the curve’ and constantly innovate and reinvent their businesses. If they don’t, they could soon find themselves out of business—just like Netscape and Fujitsu.
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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Set Discontinuous Goals
The week between Christmas and New year’s is often a slow one, and I always enjoy it because it gives me a chance to clean out my “read” file. Yesterday, I finally had an opportunity to read a very informative article article about innovation. It was part of the Knowledge@Wharton series and the article was entitled ”Finding That Sweet Spot: A New Way to Drive Innovation.” It was really an interview with Larry Huston—formerly the vice president of knowledge and innovation at Proctor & Gamble and now the managing partner of 4INNO.
One aspect of the article, in particular, captured my attention. Huston was talking about creativity and he said “current mental models are a big barrier” to innovation. To help break out of these models, Huston suggested that people have to learn to ask new questions. (I would add that they also have to ”unlearn” old ways of doing business.) One strategy he offered was the idea of “setting discontinuous goals.”
As an example, Huston offered the analogy of a higher jumper. If you told a high jumper whose previous record was 7 feet to set a new goal of, say, 7 feet, 2 inches; the jumper would probably just work on improving his kick or leg strength. If, however, you set a discontinuous goal and told the jumper he had to jump 10 feet, the person would likely begin thinking completely differently. For instance, the jumper might ask if he could use a ladder, a pole vault or perhap even a trampoline.
The key point is that once a discontinuous goal is set, people get out of their old and incremental ways of thinking and instead begin to consider totally different datasets. In other words, they would move outside of their existing mental frameworks.
I really like this way of thinking because if there is one thing that is clear to me it is that in today’s economy—as a result of the exponential advances in computers, bandwidth, data storage, robotics, nanotechnology, biotechnology, brain scanning and an assortment of other fields—so many new “datasets” will soon be available to executives and businesses that it will be relatively easy to find new and innovative ways reach the discontinuous goals you set.
Who knows, setting discontinuous goals, might even help you do the impossible.
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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Jump the Curve with Social Networks
To many of us who are 40 years of age or older, sites such as Facebook, MySpace and maybe even LinkedIn might seem to be the provence of teenagers and twenty-somethings; but Technology Review is running an interesting article entitled ”Mapping Professional Networks.” In short, it discusses how a new tool which IBM has developed is allowing users to better analyze their business and professional relationships.
In other words instead of using social networking to simply stay abreast of your friends latest activity or to find out what everyone is doing on Friday night, this new social networking tool collects and analyzes information about professional relationships.
Among the things it might be useful for is determining how well two companies are integrating after a merger by discerned how often people from the merging companies are contacting one another. It could also be used to assess how often salespeople are staying in touch with all of their customers, or whether the salespeople have solid relationships with the technical experts within their own company. (This latter information could help determine if the salesperson is staying on top of all the technical aspects of a given product.) The technology could even be used by medical professionals to ensure they are staying abreast of the latest developments in their field.
One aspect of the technology that might not be readily apparent is that it could also be used to scour distant relationships for new ideas or different opinions. As wonderful as this social networking technology is, one of my concerns is that it could simply strengthen those relationships that are already quite strong. To jump the curve, however, it is imperative that the Exponential Executive keep his or her mind open to new ideas—and often the truly innovative, breakthrough ideas come from people outside of the mainstream. One way to make sure you are keeping your eyes on the horizon is to check how often you are spending time listening to those voices on the fringe—and this technology can help you exactly that.
Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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A Case Study: Don’t Incrementalize Yourself Into the Future
Knowledge, it has been said, is the key to success. It is a statement that is hard to disagree with unless you buy into that old adage that ignorance is bliss. Proceeding on the assumption that if you believed the latter you probably wouldn"t be reading this blog, I will go farther out on a limb and state that for years one of the world’s better recognized fonts of knowledge has been the Encyclopedia Britannica--a reservoir of 30,000-plus pages of information replete with titillating tidbits of data about everything from atoms to zettabytes.
In the late 1990s the revered encyclopedia came under assault from a new form of media distribution--the CD-ROM. Able to store vast amounts of information in a more convenient, colorful, and vivid fashion, Encyclopedia Britannica was forced to deal with this new competitive threat and proceeded in good haste to provide its information in a similarly fresh, snappy, and visually pleasing format.
By 2001 the company was back on its feet and headed down the sweet path of profitability. No sooner, though, had that storm passed when another began forming on the horizon. But just as a hurricane begins with a single molecule and is not immediately discernible, so was this one.
The storm was called Wikipedia, and it started in 2001 with nothing more than 100 encyclopedia-like entries drafted by a few amateurs and posted to a Web site. It seemed innocent enough. After all, how likely was it that a bunch of strangers, working for free, could someday produce an encyclopedia that would rival the esteemed Encyclopedia Britannica in terms of depth, breadth, and accuracy. It sounded about as plausible as a few molecules in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean turning into a Category 5 hurricane.
Yet in late 2005 Wikipedia smashed into the Encyclopedia Britannica. That year the prestigious scientific journal Nature announced after a comprehensive study that the average entry in Wikipedia was nearly as accurate as the typical Encyclopedia Britannica entry.
The advantage is still in Encyclopedia Britannica’s favor, but how much longer will it be able to withstand the gale force winds? The answer: not much. That is because we are now living in a world of exponential advances, and the scales are tipped in Wikipedia’s favor.
To begin, the very subject matter of the encyclopedia, which is to say knowledge itself, is growing exponentially. It has been said that human knowledge is doubling roughly every seven years. If true--and given how the other forces that will be outlined later in this chapter are adding to the sum total of knowledge--it leads to the almost ridiculously sounding (but mathematically verifiable) conclusion that by 2050 everything we know today will represent less than 1 percent of the sum total of the world’s knowledge.
Even if one disagrees with this statement, it is difficult not to acknowledge that radical advances in medicine, physics, chemistry, and biotechnology are changing both the content and value of the material in encyclopedias and that the old print-and-publish method of storing and displaying such information is, if not obsolete, at least impractical.
Neither a printed encyclopedia nor even a CD-ROM can react to this volume of change. Only Wikipedia, by posting information directly to the Internet, can respond in a timely fashion.
Wikipedia also has the advantage in terms of human horsepower. Advances are happening so fast, in so many different fields, that it is virtually impossible for the staff at Encyclopedia Britannica to keep pace. The challenge is not nearly so great for Wikipedia because it doesn’t have a staff. Instead it relies on a self-selected universe of experts and enthusiasts to keep track of all of these developments. (To this end, Wikipedia now has over 7 million entries in 200 different languages.)
Third, Wikipedia has a distinct economic advantage. Not only does it not need to print its material in either book or even CD-ROM format, it doesn"t need to pay an army of researchers and writers or underwrite the cost of housing any physical resources or employees.
The final kicker is this: Even if the Encyclopedia Britannica decides to put all of its content online for free, most people will still go to Wikipedia because its content consistently shows up near the top of most search engines.
What Encyclopedia Britannica is facing is a severe reaction to the exponential economy, but it is not alone. In fact, if history is any guide, a number of other companies, institutions, and organizations will soon be facing a comparable amount of change in the not-too-distant future.
What this means is that in order to survive in the Expoential Economy, we should all heed the words of Kurt Yeager, who once offered this sage advice: ”In periods of profound change, the most dangerous thing is to incrementalize yourself into the future.”
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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Get a Life—A “Second Life” That Is
There is no one magical way to spur creativity and innovate your organization into the future. There are multiple methods and that is why I tend to get excited whenever I see a company trying something new and different. To this end, NetworkWorld has an interesting article on the innovative approach IBM is taking with regard to holding meetings in virtual reality.
What is truly innovative about the approach is that Big Blue’s meetings are not constrained by the laws of physics. This means that they have held meetings under water and up in the air. Why the company has even created a giant boulder that employees on different continents can kick up to 800 miles.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t exactly know what the benefit of holding a meeting under water or kicking a giant boulder 800 miles might be, but I do know that if company’s are serious about “thinking outside the box,” it can’t hurt to have a meeting in an environment which isn’t constrained by walls and ceilings—or even the laws of physics—that govern your normal “down-to-earth” meeting.
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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Future Technology: Diving Cars?
If my recent posts on self-driving and ”intelligent” cars weren’t enough, Physorg.org is today reporting that a company called Rinspeed is attempting to develop a new car, dubbed sQuba, that can both drive on the road and dive underwater.
Even though I live in Minnesota—the land of 10,000 lakes—I don’t really see the practical application of this car. (Although if Al Gore is correct and global climate change does put Manhattan underwater I guess there could be a big market for it in the future.) Nevertheless, two things struck be about the announcement and they might help others “jump the curve” and innovate into the future.
For starters, one of the emerging technologies that might make this car a reality is nanotechnology. Specifically, the manufacturer—who is also working with Siemens Automotive Group—intends to construct lightweight body panels made of carbon nanotubes. (If you’re interested in seeing a more practical application of nanotechnology in the automotive industry, check out this recent post about General Motor’s innovative work in the area of shape-shifting materials.)
Secondly, I like the fact that Frank Rinderknecht, the CEO of Rinspeed, cites the 1977 movie, “The Spy Who Loved Me” as inspiration for his idea. As I state in my new book, Jump the Curve, one effective way to jump the curve is to add some science fiction to your reading diet—it can be a great source of inspiration and creativity.
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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Self-Driving Cars: Unlikely, But Not Impossible
Earlier today I wrote about the innovative work Toyota is doing in applying brain-monitoring technology to the development of intelligent cars. Well, I recently came across two other articles that suggest the era of self-driving cars could soon be upon us. (In the interest of full disclosure, however, I admit that the pace of adoption will probably be slow because humans will only reluctantly relinguish control of the steering wheel, and lawyers will likely sue the pants off the manufacturer of the robotic car unlucky enough to kill the first pedestrian.)
The first article explains how traffic jams are caused not simply by the addition of extra cars onto freeways. Rather, traffic jams are caused in equal part by the braking reaction of individual drivers. According to models, once a driver slows down every car behind that automobile slows down a little bit more. This creates a “backward travelling wave” and leads to those maddening situations when you are stuck in a traffic jam and when it eventually eases up you come to find out that there is no cause—traffic just appears to mysteriously start moving again.
The second article reveals GPS technology has now reached the point where vehicles in different lanes can talk to each other and, thus, know where other automobiles are at all times.
I would now encourage you to watch this video about BMW’s self-driving automobile:
If you put all the pieces together, one can make a strong argument that in the future self-driving cars might be better than human-operated cars. The end result—if people are willing to “unlearn” their need to control the car at all times—could very well be fewer traffic jams.
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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The Power of Unstructured Play
According to a new study, unsupervised children are more active and more social. I mention this because in my forthcoming book, Jump the Curve, one of the strategies I encourage executives interested in “innovating into the future” to employ is what I call the power of play. In other words, I encourage leaders to allow their employees to engage in “mandatory recess”—or unstructured play. A number of companies, including Google, Genentech and 3M already do this; but I think even more should.
The benefits are multiple. As the study suggests, kids who aren’t supervised play with more children. In this same way employees who have more unstructured time might also interact with other employees. In turn, this could lead to new insights, ideas and discoveries.
The study also found that unsupervised kids “meandered” more. Employees need to do the same thing. They must be free to make serendipitious discoveries—and they can’t easily do this if they are always toting the company line.
For other related articles, I’d encourage you to read the following posts:
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.
Elderly-Friendly Cars? Sweet!
On its face, the emerging field of neurotechnology might not seem to have much applicibility to the staid, old automobile industry, but as this article suggests it soon could. Toyota is reportedly working with the inventor of Nintendo’s “Brain Age” to develop “intelligent cars” which might help seniors drive more safely. In addition to employing networks of sensors that can control temperature to keep the driver alert or, perhaps, sense if Grandpa is hitting the gas pedal for no reason; Toyota ultimately envisions monitoring brain activity to help sharpen seniors senses and reaction time. It is a great example of “thinking counter-intuitively”—using brain-monitoring technology not only to help the drivers drive better but to use the activity as a form of brain training.
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.
Jump the Curve to the Next Sexual Revolution: Old Mom’s
In today’s Wall Street Journal there is a fascinating article opinion piece entitled by ”The Next Sexual Revolution.” It was written by Dr. Robert Dworkin, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
I would strongly encourage viewers to give it a read because it is an excellent example of “jumping the curve.” In short, what Dworkin does in his thought piece is explain how the technology of “vitrification”—which allows a woman to safely store her unfertilized human eggs—will change society once it is fully developed.
And, as Dworkin states, the question is not if this will happen but when. More importantly, though, Dworkin goes on to think through how woman and society will change as a result of this future technology. For example, if women can safely have children when they are 50 years or older, they will no longer be forced to choose between the “mommy” or “career track.” And once this happens, the implications will be huge. Woman will re-think how, where and with whom they will spend the first 50 years of their lives; advertisers may no longer be able to play off a mother’s guilt of trying to balance their home and work responsibilities and they will therefore need to readjust their advertising campaigns; and the competition for a variety of jobs—such as lawyers, doctors, educators and CEO’s—will get that much stiffer because many woman may no longer have to take themselves “out of the game” when they are 35 to raise children.
All-in-all the article does a great job of helping its readers “jump the curve” and see how the accelerating pace of technology will change the world in some pretty fundamental ways in the near future.
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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To Survive … Change Diets
The University of San Diego is scheduled to publish a paper on the Argentine Ant later this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. What makes the study so fascinating is that the researchers have discovered that it is the Argentine Ant’s ability to change diets which has allowed it to not only survive but thrive in a variety of different environments. More specifically, the Argentine Ant is able to switch from a carnivorous, protein-rich diet (in which it eats other insects) to a carbohydrate, sugar-water diet as conditions change (or once it has devoured all of its competitors).
I mention this study because I think it is a wonderful methaphor to keep in mind as you seek to remain competitive in today’s Exponential Economy: To survive, you will need to possess the necessary flexibility to change diets on occasion. For example, in the health care sector companies might think they are in the disease “treatment” business, but as advances continue to accelerate in the fields of genomics, nanotechnology and information technology, these companies could find that they will need to become distributors of “preventive” health care information. Similarly, a number of traditional manufacturing companies might need to adopt a new business model as the field of rapid prototype manufacturing continues to progress.
The bottom-line is this: The real lesson of Darwinian evolution is not that the “Fittest” or the “strongest” survive. Rather, survival is more closely aligned with the ability to change and evolve quickly. The Argentine Ant is a case in point.
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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The Week in Innovation
On a weekly basis I write a regular article for The Motley Fool -- an online investment newsletter—discussing how scientific and technological breakthroughs from just the past week might impact a variety of different industries and companies. Although it is written primarily with the individual investor in mind, the column is also a useful read for executives and managers who are interested in jumping the curve. This week’s article reviews how innovations in skin, cancer and heart disease treatment could transform the cosmetic, pharmaceutical and health care industries.
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The Week in Innovation (December 2)
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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Dangerous Curves Ahead
On a daily basis, I’m impressed by the accelerating pace of technological change, but I have to admit that some days the dizzying pace leaves even my head spinning. Today is one of those days. I began this morning by reading an informative article in the Washington Post describing how faster supercomputers are accelerating the pace of scientific discovery. These supercomputers are poised to transform everything from drug discovery to the computational design of next-generation materials, automobiles and airplanes.
Next, I read this article about the creation of a new shape-shifting rubber. Among the products it might create are new biomedical implants and “smart” labels that can inform customers if their milk—or any other product—is about to expire or has otherwise encountered a change in temperature or humidity that might have an adverse affect on it.
The third article I persued was this interesting piece on Techcrunch highlighting a new company called iMedix. In its simpliest form, the company is a combination of WebMD + Facebook + Wikipedia. More importantly, however, iMedix could transform how people obtain medical information as well as which medical procedures they choose to utilize.
Finally, Technology Review had a fascinating article about a new technology that could turn carbon dioxide into fuel. Imagine being able to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to create fuel! Not only could we ween outselves from foreign fossil fuels, we could potentially curb climate change. (Note: The technology is still a long way from commercial viability, but if you “jump the curve” and extrapolate where the technology is headed, you can understand how we may soon be able to “do the impossible” and reverse global climate change.)
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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Google Gets It: Future Technology Waits for No One
Yesterday, the New York Times ran a good article entitled ”Clash of the Titans: Google Gets Ready to Rumble with Microsoft.” After reading it, I’m convinced that in the long-run Google will prevail over Mr. Softy.
Here’s why. First, Microsoft is still producing products within a two to three year product cycle (sometimes even longer as was the case with Vista), while Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, claims that its “product road map maps look ahead only four to five months at most.” In today’s “Exponential Economy,” the latter approach is the only sustainable one because in a world where change is constant and the advancement of computer processing power, data storage, Bandwidth, and software development is advancing exponentially—two to three years is an eternity!
Secondly, the article highlighted Google’s culture of peer review. You might recall that last month I wrote about Google’s innovative approach to developing new platforms for its forthcoming GooglePhone; but after reading the article I was really impressed with how Google has positioned itself to seize any opportunities that might come out of this open-source initiative.
Specifically, the article profiles how the company was able to release a new cellphone software, codenamed Grand Prix, in just six weeks. In short, from the time an engineer at Google created the prototype, it took only 42 days to get the software into the hands of consumers. There were no lengthy formal product reviews, nor did it have to be vetted by layers of middle managers. All of this was allowed to happen at a breakneck pace because the company has embraced peer review.
In so doing, Google has institutionalized a process for not only ensuring good ideas raise to the top, it also enables those ideas to get even better as they move toward the commercial marketplace. And this is precisely the type of culture that will help the company continue to jump the curve and, ultimately, give Google a competitive advantage over company’s such as Microsoft.
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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Exponential Evolution
Within the business community there is fequently a good deal of discussion around the idea of whether firms should pursue evolutionary—or incremental—advances or revolutionary breakthroughs. While I personally tend to favor the latter, I would like to submit the idea that evolution itself will soon be revolutionary. I’m not saying this in the sense that proponents of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution (of which I count myself a member) say “evolution is revolutionary.” Rather, I am of the opinion that due to exponential advances in evolutionary design—a process that allows computers to run through tens of millions of variations on an invention until it arrives at the most efficient solution to a problem—the business landscape will be transformed in almost unimaginable ways in the years ahead. (This is because soon computers will be able to run through hundreds of millions of calculation and then billions and, ultimately, trillions of different permutations.)
For example, I have written before about the emerging field of synthetic biology. The promise of the technology is that biologists will soon be able to create “designer bacteria” to efficiently create new biofuels, including ethanol, biodiesel and hydrogen. As computers and algorithms continue to improve exponentially, this field could blossom sooner than most people realize and, in the process, it could revolutionize the energy industry by rendering fossil fuels obsolete.
Evolutionary design is also being used to create longer lasting memory sticks, new automobile and airplanes designs, new medical devices, more effective fiber optic cables, and even better pharmaceutical agents and drugs. This, of course, is just the beginning. Advances in robotics, nanotechnology, material sciences, and semiconductor and RFID design will also benefit from evolutionary design. And as evolutionary design undergoes exponential growth, the pace of technological acceleration across almost every sector will explode. Welcome to the Exponential Economy—where even evolution will be exponential!
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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Retailers are Beginning to Jump the Curve
For my money, one of the best publications for staying abreast of new and future technologies is The Economist. I especially enjoy its quarterly “Technology Report.” The latest edition had a fascinating article entitled ”Watching as you shop,” which I highly recommend.
What struck me was how agressively some retailers are employing today’s latest technologies in their effort to better serve customers, increase sales and, of course, gain a competitive advantage.
For starters, the article discussed how Tesco is employing ”Smartlane Technology” which is developed by Irisys. In its simpliest form, the technology uses sensors to count the number of people entering a store in order to help retailers determine how many employees it then needs to staff the checkout registers. The goal is to make sure that no customer is standing in line.
And if you’re wondering how the system is able to discern whether three people represent three unique customers as opposed, say, to a mother with two children, the system uses infrared cameras to calculate the approximity to which people are standing next to one another and it then uses this information to assess the odds that they are a separate shopper or a group. (Presumably children hover closer to their mom than do strangers).
Another good example of retailers “jumping the curve” is those who are employing complex algorithms to better discern the unique shopping habits of people. For instance, did you know that people who stroll down the salty-snack aisle are more likely to make a purchase than are those who stroll down the diary aisle? Another interesting finding is that parents who are accompanied by their kids don’t buy more candy, but they do buy more seasonal items.
One implication is that stores might increase profits by placing seasonal items closer to the checkout register. Not only might this bolster sales, but because the retailer has removed candy from the child’s tempting eye, they might also win the favor of parents who resent the practice because it requires them to tell little Susie that she can’t have a Snicker Bar. (Or, in my case, I have to tell my kids “no” three or four times before they get the message.)Of course, such findings might require retailers to “unlearn” some of their behaviors—such as placing candy near the checkout counter—but that is the price of living in today’s “exponential economy.”
Other useful examples in the article described how retailers are using Brickstream’s BehaviorIQ cameras and Recordant’s digital-audio recorders to learn more about their customers. In the case of the latter technology, one retailer was able to document a 300% increase in the sale of a particular object just by having employees recommend the product.
And that, in a nutshell, is the benefit of “jumping the curve.”
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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Keep an Eye on 3-D Printing
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran an interesting article entitled, ”How 3-D Printing Figures to Turn Web Worlds Real.” I have written about 3-D printing -- or rapid prototype manufacturing (RPM)—before, but a couple of things struck me about the article.
First, I was surprised by the number of new 3-D printing companies that have emerged in just the last few months, including FigurePrints, 3D Outlook, Genometri and Fabjectory. Now, I’m not foolish enough to believe that all of these companies will survive, but it does tell me that 3-D printing isn’t just some fad—it is a real and growing business. This, in turn, means that others businesses need to “jump the curve” and begin contemplating how RPM will impact their business. This is espectailly true for the toy and jewelry industries which are likely to see the impact first.
Second, I was impressed with how the equipment continues to drop in price. According to the article, some printers could begin showing up in homes as early as 2013. If true, this carries a host of implications as well. For example, what items will people “print” in the comfort of their home instead of buying at the store—cups, plates, glasses, picture frames?
Finally, the growth figures were a real eye-opener. In the past year, over 8,000 3-D printers have been sold and one company, Desktop Factory, already has 350 pre-order for a $5,000 3-D printer it is building.
Again, all of these facts, lead me to believe that 3-D printing is one of those “ripples” (which I speak about in my forthcoming book) that will soon turn into a massive wave. The job of the exponential executive is to figure out to position your business today so that it can ride the wave tomorrow.
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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Jump the Curve by Following Japan’s Battling Bots
As a young boy, one of my favorite toys was Rock’ em, Sock’ em robots. I have been thinking a lot about robots lately and not just because I am growing nostalgic this holiday season as I desperately roam the packed shopping malls in search of this generation’s equivalent cool toy for my own kids. Rather, robots have been on my mind because I just returned from a trip to Tokyo and, of all my impressions of the country, I was most struck by the extraordinary progress Japanese companies are making in the field of robotics.
Last week, Sony unveiled a violin-playing robot and just yesterday Honda showed off two child-sized robots capable of serving tea.
In the two demonstrations I witnessed, the robots’ performance was far from perfect. Nevertheless, my opinion is that the wide-spread implementation of robots in Japan is only a few years away. The country’s rapidly aging population in combination with its relatively inflexible immigration policy suggests that a severe labor shortage is looming on the horizon. And since neither situation is likely to resolve itself soon, the impetuous to employ robots in a variety of fields—including helping the elderly perform daily functions or perhaps serving as an educational toy capable of assisting Japanese kids learn how to play a musical instrument—is certainly there.
I would encourage executives interested in the field of robotics to keep an eye on Japan’s progress. If they see companies such as iRobot make an aggressive push into the country or witness Microsoft, which has publicly stated that it is interested in supplying software to robot manufacturers, form alliances with Japanese leaders such as Sony, Honda, Hitachi, or Toyota in this regard, they will want to take notice.
For just as yesterday’s Rock’em, Sock’em robots look relatively simplistic in terms of today’s more sophisticated toys; tomorrow’s robots will make today’s versions look similarly outdated. But the exponential executive who understands this potential could position his or her company and organization in some unique and innovative ways. Who knows you might even be able to “knock the block off” of your competitor.
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Jack Uldrich still prefers the more innocent violence of his generation’s Rock’ em, Sock’ em robots to, say, this generation’s Grand Theft Auto. He is also a writer, futurist, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. Jack 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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Hospitals Need to Get Plastered
Toumaz Technology, a London-based start-up, has developed an ultra low-power wireless body monitoring system known as ”digital plaster.” The bandaid-like device, which sticks to a patient’s chest, can monitor ECG, body temperature, respiration and physical activity.
The real significance of the device is that it can help hospitals “jump the curve” by allowing them to safely and effectively monitor the recovery of some patients as those patients mend in the comfort of their own home. This, in turn, could help hospitals save a great deal of money as well as improve quality by freeing up staff to serve those patients most in need of asistance.
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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Synthetic Biology: Creating a New Form of Life
This summer I came across an article with the following headline: ”Artificial life likely in 3 to 10 years.” It is the type of headline that, as a future-oriented guy, gets my heart pumping. I wasn’t disappointed. In the opening paragraph, an expert explained that synthetic biology, “could change our world in pretty fundamental ways.” And no less an authority than Craig Venter—the man who sequenced the first human genome and was the co-founder of Celera—has said that the artificial life which synthetic biology will create will be “a very important philosophical step in the history of our species.” He then added, “We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it. This gives us the hypothetical ability to do things never contemplated before.”
In short, synthetic is precisely the type of new emerging technology that exponential executives need to be aware of because it could have a profound impact on everything from energy to pharmaceuticals.
In its simplest form, synthetic biology is all about redesigning living machines from “off-the-shelf” chemical ingredients. But unlike genetic engineering which involves the transfer of individual genes from one species to another, synthetic biology envisions the assembly of novel microbial genomes from a set of standardized parts.
The goal is to “redesign” the genomes of existing microbes to either make them more efficient or to program them to carry out new functions. Both possibilities are better explained using real-world examples.
For instance, today, the process for making ethanol, biodiesel and hydrogen are well-understood. This understanding, however, has not yet translated into an overly efficient manufacturing process. In the case of ethanol, fermenting the sugar from which the ethanol comes is the easy part. Unfortunately, most microbes still die when the alcohol contents gets too high. Synthetic biology promises the ability to isolate genomes in other living creatures and then transfer them into existing microbes in order to make them stronger. These new and unique genomes, in turn, will allow the microbes to last longer or, possibly, even breakdown new substances—including corn stover, switchgrass, and wood residue—to make ethanol in a more cost-effective manner.
This skill transcends ethanol. Theoretically, new microbes could be designed to turn different feedstocks into any number of biofuels including biodiesel, butanol and hydrogen. The potential is so vast that the U.S. Government is now investing $125 million in the Joint BioEnergy Institute to develop synthetic biology and BP has invested $500 million in the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois to research the field. BP has even invested an undisclosed amount in Craig Venter new synthetic biology start-up Synthetic Genomics.
Another huge opportunity awaits in the field of pharmaceuticals. Amyris Biotechnologies, a promising synthetic biology start-up located in Emeryville, California, is working on applying synthetic biology techniques to program yeast cells to manufacture artemisinic acid—a natural product that is very effective in treating malaria. (Worldwide, malaria is still estimated to kill more than 1 million people annually.) At the current time, the compound, which is extremely difficult to extract and very expensive, is taken from the sweet wormwood, a plant indigenous to only Vietnam and China. If, however, Amyris can successful engineer a metabolic pathway to make artemisinic it can reduce the cost of the drug artemisinin significantly.
Of course, this is just one of hundreds of potential applications for synthetic biology. A variety of other drugs, including the anti-cancer drug taxol and the anti-HIV compound prostratin, also rely heavily on natural sources that are limited in nature and could benefit from the field’s ability to quickly and cheaply manufacture effective drugs.
Beyond this capability lies the ability to engineer enzymes that could lead to the creation of designer protein-based drugs that resist rapid degradation in the human body by reacting only at higher temperatures or in higher levels of acidity—characteristics that allow less of a drug to be used in the body as well as suggest that the drug might also be delivered to its intended target with greater accuracy.
Synthetic biology is not yet ready for the prime time, but advances are occurring rapidly. This summer a researcher from the J. Craig Venter Institute demonstrated a proof-of-principle of synthetic biology by transforming one species of bacteria into another species by transplanting its complete set of DNA.
Experts in the field also note that synthetic biology is undergoing exponential growth. For starters, sequencing technology such continues to provide a wealth of information. Second, sophisticated computational modeling such as IBM has developed is allowing synthetic biologists to verify that their new life forms will perform as intended. And third, the tools for both measuring and fabricating engineered biological systems are continually getting cheaper.
It probably goes without saying that if synthetic biologists can manufacture new life forms which are capable of self-replication and even of evolving that there also exists the potential for both unintended consequences and willful malfeasance. This is true and this reality will elicit a great deal of concern, and government regulatory bodies are sure to keep a close eye on the field.
From a business perspective, it is difficult to assess how exactly the development of the will play out due regulatory and oversight issues. The backlash against genetically-modified organisms, especially in Europe, serves as reminder of the dangers; but, at the same time, it is useful to recall that in the mid-1970’s the field of recombinant DNA also elicited a great deal of concern—most of which never materialized.
Like most technologies, synthetic biology is a doubled-edged sword. It has the potential to transform energy and pharmaceuticals in beneficial ways, but it is also introducing new life forms that raise legitimate ethical and societal issues. What is undeniable is that the field of synthetic biology is undergoing rapid growth. The question, therefore, from my perspective is not so much if synthetic biology will impact the fields of energy, agriculture and medicine as when it will do these things.
At this stage, the best thing to do is monitor the activity of the field’s most promising start-ups—companies such as Amyris Biotechnologies and Synthetic Genomics—and watch if either announce new breakthroughs or establish new relationships with leading corporations in the energy or pharmaceutical sectors. Before that time comes, however, it would behoove the exponential executive to bone up on the field and understand the many ways in which synthetic biology will “change our world in pretty fundamental ways.”
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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General Motors Jumps the Curve with Smart Materials
General Motors has rightly been critized for being behind its foreign competitors on a variety of automotive advances and trends over the past few decades; but if you watch this video which discusses how GM is employing “smart materials,” I think you’ll agree that the company has jumped the curve.
The benefits of these shape memory alloys are vast and the potential for GM to use them to gain a competitive advantage is extraordinary. For starters, smart materials can be used to produce fenders and side panels that bend back into shape after accidents. The materials can also replace a number of actuators throughout the car of the future.
Because these materials will also replace some electric motors, they might help reduce the overall weight of the car and lead to increase in fuel efficiency. Moreover, the new materials will have the benefit of making more space available inside the car (because they won’t take up as much room as an electric motor). Creative engineers should be able to make use of this additional space to deploy new features.
The significance of this advance, of course, goes well beyond the automotive industry. These advances will impact any industry that relies on plastic, steel, fiberglass or aluminum. For example, just imagine the new toys can be created if little Johnny no longer has to worry about crashing his toy tank or airplane; or imagine how architects and home and kitchen designers can rethink room layout with such materials? (In my own case, I know I’d have a lot more room in my kitchen if some of the motors in my refrigerator could be replaced and the frig could be made thinner.)
The take-a-way is this: New, smart, shape-shifting materials are no longer the stuff of science fiction—they are here today. If you want to be in business tomorrow it would behoove you o set your engineers and creative designers to work on figuring out ways to use these matierals to lower costs; increase fuinctionality; and, most importantly, create innovative new applications.
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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Jump the Curve with a Violin-Playing Robot
I am just about to jump on a plane for Tokyo, but I wanted to share this interesting article about a violin-playing robot that Toyota has manufactured. Now, a musical-playing robot isn’t particularly interesting, but remember that robots are getting exponentially better as a result of advances in material sciences, computer processing power, algorithms, object identification and voice-recognition technology. I’d encourage you to “jump the curve” and just imagine what other tasks robots will be capable of performing in the very near future.
P.S. I’ll be traveling until Monday, December 10 ... look for Jump the Curve to return at that time.
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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Convergence: Google + Terabyte Storage + Personal Genomics = Opportunity
I recently came across this article entitled ”IBM Will Increase Your Storage Capacity 1,000 Fold.” It is an insightful article and it discusses how advances in nanotechnology will eventually lead to data storage devices capable of storing about 150 terabits per square inch. Like so many other articles, however, it only discusses what this type of data storage capacity might mean in terms of today’s technology. For example, it reckons that you’ll soon be able to quickly download and store thousands of YouTube videos on your iPod.
That’s all fine and well, and undoubtedly some people will thrill at the opportunity to watch the latest clever YouTube video—maybe they’ll even want to watch hundreds of the most clever videos. But for most of us, such a capability seems like overkill.
As I always try to do, though, I would encourage you to ”jump the curve” and think of what this technology means not in terms of today’s technology, but rather what it might imply for tomorrow’s. For instance, this month’s Wired has an excellent article on the possibility of sequencing the personal genome for $1,000. Storing such information will require a great deal of storage capacity, but this latest IBM advance will make storing your genome seem like child’s play. My point is that rather than simply storing YouTube videos on your Google Phone of the future, you will probably also be storing your personal genome. And once this is possible, you will be able to use your phone for far more important things than watching the latest and greatest video, you’ll be able to monitor your health with an almost unimagineable level of specificity.
My broader point is that when thinking about the future, it is not sufficient to think solely in terms of how new future technologies will facilitate existing technologies, you need to contemplate how the convergence of a variety of new emerging technologies will lead to entirely new opportunities. To this end, I’d encourage you to consider how terabyte storage will facilitate advances in rapid prototype manufacturing.
Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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The Future of Advertising & Gaming: E-Ink + Media Wall + Reactrix
Sometimes a picture or, in this case, a video, really is worth a thousand words. So rather than try to explain how I believe the world of advertising and gaming will change in the very near future, I would simply encourage you to watch the two videos below. The first is from E-Ink -- a company which is making flexible, electronic paper. The second is Jeff Han’s Media Wall. And since I can’t find a good video to post of Reactrix’s kick-ass interactive media technology, I would advise you to go to the company’s website and watch the video on the home page (Just click the “Reactrix in action) button. If you put these three videos together in your mind’s eye, I think you’ll have a great idea for where the future of advertising and gaming is headed.
Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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Are You Hampering Your Child’s Future Problem-solving Skills? Probably.
One of my preferred strategies for thinking about the future as well as for trying to spur creativity and innovation is what I call in my forthcoming book, Jump the Curve, “the power of play.” To really hone this skill, it helps to think like a child. Unfortunately, this isn’t an easy thing to do—especially after years of having our creativity systematically crushed out us by well-intentioned but, often, clueless adults.
Well, it now appears that we adults are inflicting even more damage on our unsuspecting and overly trustful kids than was previously imagined. According to this recent study, children learn to imitate us even when we take incorrect or unnecessary steps to perform a specific function. (For a more detailed explanation of the Yale study, you can read the full study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).
In other words, because of our unwillingness to unlearn our old ways of behavior, we are hurting our kids ability to better solve problems because they are imitating our poor or ineffective methods.
What I take away from this study is this: If you are unwilling to cultivate a beginner’s mind or if you are unwilling to see the world through the eyes of child, that’s fine; but know this—you aren’t just hurting yourself, you are also putting your own child at a disadvantage because they are very likely to imitate you and thus adopt your preconceived ideas, your biases, and your old, ineffective methods for seeing and dealing with today’s rapidly accelerating world.
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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The Week in Innovation: December 2, 2007
On a weekly basis I write a regular article for The Motley Fool -- an online investment newsletter—discussing how scientific and technological breakthroughs from just the past week might impact a variety of different industries and companies. Although it is written primarily with the individual investor in mind, the column is also a useful read for executives and managers who are interested in jumping the curve. This week’s article reviews how innovations in voice recognition technology, self-healing plastics and drought-resistant crops could lead to a host of new opportunities.
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The Queen of Paradox: Robyn Waters
Earlier today I had the pleasure of participating in a “jamming session” at one of this country’s premier strategic planning groups, The Prouty Project. The event’s keynote speaker was Robyn Waters, the president of RW Trend and author of ”The Hummer and the Mini”—which was recently named one of the best business retailing books of 2007.
It was one of the most enjoyable presentations I have had the pleasure of attending in sometime and Waters’ talk epitomized the importance of being able to think counterintuitively. She has been called “The Queen of Paradox” and after listening to her speak, it is a fitting title. Waters spoke eloquently about “enhancing paradox” and she provided a wealth of examples, including her ideas about how various companies and individuals have enhanced such paradoxes as “mass customization,” “luxurious commodities,” as well as the trend toward “extreme relaxation.”
In my forthcoming book, Jump the Curve, I have a chapter called “Heads and Tails: It’s Counterintuitive” which focuses on the idea of how business leaders can exploit technological progress not only by harnessing the power of the technology itself but also by employing these breakthroughs in counter-intuitive ways.
For example, advances in nanotechnology can and will lead to ceramic materials—such as those used in bathroom tiles and toilets—which will get cleaner the more they are used. Or, due to advances in biotechnology, it will soon be possible to create foods that have the counter-intuitive effect of causing weight loss. (Coca-Cola and others are already exloiting this trend by devising calorie burning sodas.)
The real benefit of these advances is that they allow people to both have their cake and eat it too. For instance, people want cleaner homes but they have less time for cleaning. However, with the advances in nanotechnology, they will no longer have to choose. Or, in the biotechnology example, how people will soon be able to eat more without guilt because the dilemma of having to choose between taste, quantity and health might be minimized. (Unfortunately, such foods won’t be available in time for this year’s rash of Holiday parties.)
Of course, there are a host of other practical examples that more closely align with Waters’ categories. For example, advances in rapid prototype manufacturing could take mass customization to a new level; advances in synthetic diamonds could give real luster to some luxurious commodities; and perhaps new advances in virtual reality technology or neurotechnology will provide stressed-out American’s new ways to engage in extreme relaxation.
Still another area ripe for hunting paradoxes is the field of algorithms. I have written about this idea before, and I would encourage you to read this review I wrote of Ian Ayres excellent new book, Super Crunchers, which is chalk full of wonderful examples of paradoxes. (Mark Penn’s new book, Microtrends, which I have also reviewed, also provides a bevy of fodder for those of you interested in “enhancing paradoxes.")
However, in keeping with the theme of paradoxes, I’d like to conclude with this paradox from J. M. Roberts, who came to only two conclusions at the end of his modestly titled 1000-page book, The History of the World: “History changes faster than one might expect ... and history changes slower than one might expect.”
I agree and the beauty of many of today’s exponential advances in technology is that the Exponential Executive can “enhance the paradox”—and find a world full of new opportunities—by recognizing the truth in both statements.
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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Future Technology Isn’t Loony
Last week, I discussed why Google’s push into the renewable enery field is no joke. Today, I’d like share with you the possibility that yet another so-called expert might be dismissing a new energy technology simply because he doesn’t understand it. The following article discusses portable nuclear reactors. Essentially, these bathtub-sized devices could power a town of 25,000 homes for up to five years. Now, I’m not qualified enough to discuss the deep technical merits of the technology, but I certainly wouldn’t dismiss it as a crackpot idea as has an offical at the Los Alamos Study Group who is quoted as saying “This whole idea is loony and not worth too much attention.”
The quote is particularly troubling because the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer honored the technology as the “Outstanding Technology Development” of 2003. From a more historical perspective, the quote sounds a lot like that long and growing list of experts who prematurely dismissed a new technology. For a better idea of what I’m talking about, I’d encourage you to read any of the following:
Cultivate a Beginner’s Mind
Don’t Laugh: Future Technology Can Make Even Smart People Look Dumb
Examples of Unexponential Thinking
Develop a Future Bias
Learning to Unlearn: Case Study #1
Futurists Can Say the Dumbest Things
Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
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Interpret Future Technology: The Growing Power of Voice Translation Technology
Last week, I wrote a book review of John Naisbitt’s new book, Mind Set! It is Naisbitt’s contention that the “future is embedded in the present.” That is, if you look closely enough at the events occuring on the periphery of society, you can often catch a glimpse of the future. I agree and that’s why I want to share this article from Engadget.com which discusses NEC new’s voice translation technology. The device can reportedly translate over 50,000 Japanese words into English text. (IBM and others are also developing some amazing voice translation technology.)
The important thing to remember is that this technology is only going to get better. In fact, it is going to get exponentially better! This makes voice translation technology a perfect candidate for “jumping the curve.” In other words, to benefit from the technology it is more important to understand not where the technology is today, but rather where it will be tomorrow.
If you jump the curve of voice translation technology’s progress, I think you will agree that it will have huge implications for language training. How many students will want to spend years studying Spanish, Chinese, Japanese or any other language if, within the next three to five years, their cellphone can act as a live interpreter? The implications for the travel and hospitality industries will also be huge. Just imagine how many more people might be willing to travel if they know they will no longer be hampered or constrained by language barriers?
Of course, the implications go well beyond these opportunities. As voice translation technology gets better, people will also be able to converse directly with the computers in their cars, cellphones, homes and robots; and those devices will be able to understand what we are asking and respond back to us. Other amazing opportunities also await us—but it requires we intrepret the future of voice translation technology.
Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, 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 frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.