Jump The Curve Archives: 09/2009

A Historic Anniversary for Nanotechnology—and the Future

Earlier this month we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the first computer-to-computer communication—or what was the harbinger of the Internet. Today, we celebrate the 20th anniversary of a nanotechnology first. It was on this day in 1989 that Don Eigler first manipulated an atom.

It might not seem like much but just as that first computer-to-computer communication lead to today’s Internet, Eigler’s accomplishment will lead to equally astounding scientific and technical achievements.

Related posts on nanotechnology by Jack Uldrich

IBM Thinks Small
15 Ways Nanotechnology is Already Making Your Life Better
Nanotechnology & The Future of the Cellphone
Nanotechnology and the Changing Face of the Electric Utility Industry

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Sur-Prize: The Future Can Be 10% Better

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said that the “test of a first-rate mind is the ability to hold two diametrically opposed ideas in your head at the same time.” With this quote in mind, I’d now like to ask you to hold on to my earlier advice of ”Thinking 10X, Not 10%” while also appreciating the beauty of gaining a 10% improvement.

More specifically, earlier this week, Netflix awarded a $1 million prize to a group of researchers who developed an algorithm that lead the company to improve their movie recommendations to their customers by 10%. The result—in the form of increased sales—will more than offset the cost of the prize.

I mention this example because there are so many other industries that could increase productivity by awarding a prize. The most famous example is Gold Corp which earned millions by allowing outsiders to access their mining data in research of new gold reserves. One industry, in particular, that should employ this device is the oil industry.

Just today I came across this article suggesting researchers are trying to employ nanotechnology to help the oil industry increase oil production from existing wells by 10%. Now I’m a big fan of nanotechnology helping the oil industry, but the industry should follow Netflix’s example and award a prize to any researcher (or group of researchers) who can increase the yield by 10% (while keeping the cost of discovering that oil within certain parameters—i.e. $60-a-barrel). What do they have to lose?

Related Posts

Want to Spur Innovation, Award a Prize
Oil Industry Jumps the Curve
Think 10X, Not 10%

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A Walk Into the Future

Last week I had the pleasure of giving a presentation on how emerging technologies will transform the aging services industry. Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, I was unable to show the audience a series of videos which demonstrated—in vivid fashion—some of the more promising technologies.

The pace of change is accelerating so quickly in the field of robotics, however, that the video posted below wasn’t even available. (The technology was just unveiled by Honda this week.) I invite you to watch the 50-second video and then imagine how this technology may soon help thousands of seniors maintain their independence for a few additional years by easing the strain on their legs and backs. Or, alternatively, imagine how some nurses and other professional care-providers may be freed up for other work because they won’t be needed to assist elderly patients as much.

As I said at the end of my presentation I sincerely believe that the aging services industry is going to be at the forefront of incorporating many of tomorrow’s emerging technologies into everyday life. Why? Because, in many cases, senior will be the first to walk into this new future because these new emerging technologies will give them a greater degree of control over their lives.

Related Posts

Long-Term Care’s Robotic Future
The Future of Aging
iPhone + RFID Technology: A Practical Tool for the Elderly
Healthcare is the “Verge” of Something Big

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The Future Will Bug You

In the category that science fiction is now science reality, I invite you to read this startling article about how researchers have now successfully created a remote-controlled flying cyborg beetle.

The below video may not look like much but I believe otherwise. On the positive side, there obvious applications for battling terrorism. On the negative side, I think we should all be concerned about potential violations to our privacy:

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Hey YouTwitFace, The Future Will Require Unlearning Social Media

Earlier today I had the opportunity to give a short presentation on unlearning to the Olson advertising agency in Minneapolis. During the course of my talk I mentioned how fast technology is changing and I reminded my audience that although Facebook is only 5 years old and Twitter barely 3 years of age, it is important to remember that new social media tools are being created everyday—some of which will undoubtedly require us to unlearn some of our current communications habits. Afterwards, someone mentioned that Conan O’Brien addressed this very theme during last evening’s 2009 Emmy Awards. Enjoy this short (and hilarious) look at the Year 3000.

Related Posts

The Future Requires Unlearning
The Future of Social Networking
Social Networking: The Future of Healthcare

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Future Headline: Worldwide Solar Farm Construction Forces Older Coal Plants to Shutter

Blockbuster recently announced that it intends to close 40% of its stores over the next two years. As professional futurist and someone who has been warning of this inevitability for the past few years, the news came as no great surprise. (I suspect it didn’t to a number of other forward-looking individuals as well.) All a person needed to do was track the trends in data storage, manufacturing, Internet Bandwidth and consumer behavior to understand Blockbuster’s future plight.

The first and second factors (data storage and manufacturing advances) helped drop the cost of DVD production and made it more feasible for companies such as Redbox to offer DVD’s for $1 at any number of retail outlets. The third trend (increasing bandwidth) is driving NetFlix’s ability to offer more movies over the Internet, and the fourth trend (consumer behavior) continues to show that younger people are more interested in gaming—and less so in videos.

My point here is not to gloat or engage in “hindcasting,” rather I want to use the Blockbuster story as a warning to another industry—the utility industry. For years, industry experts have held fast in their belief that coal will remain the leading source of electricity production for the next 20 to 30 years.

I disagree. Coal will undoubtedly remain the predominant source for electricity for some time (perhaps 10 years) but a number of trends are pointing to a much different future. For example, just today, Technology Review has an informative article on Nanosolar—the company claims it is now capable of producing electricity for 5-6 cents per kilowatt hour. This is already price competitive with coal!

Second and third, the efficiency of solar cells is increasing and manufacturing cost is decreasing. These trends suggest solar will eventually be cheaper than coal.

Finally, consumer and political behavior toward coal is changing quickly. Concerns over climate change are legitimate and these concerns will likely manifest themselves in some sort of carbon pricing scheme on coal. Moreover, consumers, if given the choice of choosing between solar or coal, will likely demand solar from their local utility providers.

All of these trends point to a fate similar to that of Blockbuster. In the year 2019, I predict a headline will read: “Worldwide Construction of New Solar Farms Outpaces Coal.” The subtitle will be: “Older Coal Plants are Shuttering at an Accelerating Rate.”

Related Posts

Nanotechnology & The Changing Face of the Utility Industry
The Future of the Utility Industry

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IBM Thinks 10X

A while back, I wrote an article suggesting that to prosper in the future executives should ”think 10X, not 10%.” In other words, people need to think exponentially, not incrementally, about emerging technologies. Today, the New York Times is reporting that executives at IBM are seeking to manufacture a new lithium-air battery which will be a 10X improvement over existing battery technology.

The technology is still years off but if the company—or some other company—is successful, it will represent a major paradigm-shift in everything from how we power our automobiles to how we might store the excess electricity generated by wind turbines during the evening hours.

Related Post

IBM Jumps the Curve

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Jump the Curve with an XBox

I have explained before how many small to medium-sized businesses could save big money using supercomputers, now Microsoft is making it possible for innovative researchers to save thousands of dollars by using an XBox for computer simulations instead of parallel computer processors. It’s a wonderful example of “walking the escalator” by using existing, off-the-shelf technology to gain a competitive advantage.

Speaking of off-the-shelf technology, I invite you to read this inspirational article explaining how two students at MIT have rigged existing technology to take a series of photos from outer space for less than $150.

This is further proof that the future will be cheap. Unless, of course, NASA continues to decide to “piss away” $154 million on ineffective urinal technology.

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Jump the Curve Strategy #15: Mandatory Recess

A mandatory recess might not sound like a sure-fire path to prosperity, but providing employees a period of unstructured free time to pursue activities of their choosing can be very beneficial. A handful of companies have already instituted such policies. Among some of the better known companies are Google, Genentech, and 3M.

All three companies have policies that allow some of their employees to spend anywhere between 15 percent and 20 percent of their time pursuing independent projects of their own choosing. In essence the companies are giving their employees permission to play.

3M has been a proponent of this practice for the longest period of time. According to company officials, the practice dates back to the 1920s when an employee reportedly disobeyed an order to abandon a project and ended up creating Scotch masking tape--one of the most successful products of all time.
One of 3M’s better known and more recent success stories is that of the Post--t Note, which was developed by an employee who, because of 3M’s policy, was free to pursue the project.

The benefits, though, go beyond these isolated successes. 3M has an incredible history of developing new products. For years the company has publicized the fact that 50 percent of its annual revenues can be traced back to products that were developed within the past five years.

One of the reasons it has been able to regularly achieve this goal is because employees have been encouraged to innovate and have then been given the freedom to pursue new ideas. The mandatory recess policy has not only reinforced the idea that continued innovation was critical to the company’s success, it has given management the confidence to stay focused on ideas that at first might have seemed either like dead ends or were too off the wall to pursue.

Another company that has embraced a discretionary time policy is Genentech. For the past few years the biotechnology company has consistently been ranked as one of the best places to work in America. There are many reasons for this, but one is because it allows its scientists discretionary time to pursue independent projects--in some cases up to 100 percent of their time. Genentech officials credit the creation of the anticancer drug Avastin--a product with over a $1 billion in annual sales--to its “discretionary time” policy.

As I explained before, the cost of the price of sequencing genes will continue to plummet due to the creation of ever faster computers and more sophisticated gene sequencing techniques and tools. As these things occur, not only will new drug treatments become available, but scientists and researchers are more likely to find innovative solutions to create drugs that are increasingly tailored to individual users.

Finally there is Google. In many ways, it has the boldest recess policy because it applies to all of the company’s employees (3M’s and Genentech’s programs are limited to its scientific and R&D staffs). Among the programs company officials attribute to its policy are the creation of Google News Service, Orkut (its social networking site), and Gmail.

In addition to generating new innovative products, mandatory recess offers one additional benefit that is hard to quantify, but is nonetheless extremely important: It is a powerful recruiting and retention tool. There is a fierce battle to attract and retain talented workers. One of the reasons Google, Genentech, and 3M are doing as well as they are is their policies send a clear message to prospective employees: The company trusts them to pursue interesting and important projects that they believe are in the company’s best long-term interests.

By giving workers this freedom, companies accrue one additional benefit. Employees now have a way of not simply meeting expectations--they have a way of surpassing them.

Exponential Insight

If you want employees to jump the curve, you have to give them the time and space to jump. As I will continue to demonstrate throughout this website, there will be no shortage of wild ideas and strange possibilities arising due to exponential advances in technology. Consider just a few of the possibilities that the emerging science of nanotechnology might enable materials scientists to play around with. For instance, plastic, glass, and steel are already being made stronger, lighter, more flexible and, in some cases, self-cleaning. Soon self-healing materials, flexible electronics, and solar fabrics will be on the market. Some of these advances will lead to innovative new products and applications. Thinking up new ideas will require people to follow their hunches and, sometimes, make counterintuitive jumps in logic. Running such off-the-wall ideas by management could, at best, be difficult. Better those employees just be given some mandatory recess time to pursue their ideas.

Related Posts

Jump the Curve Strategy #14: Stop Acting Your Age
Jump the Curve Strategy # 13: Catch a Wave
Jump the Curve Strategy #12: Think Small, Very Small
Jump the Curve Strategy #11: Park ‘n Save with Robots
Jump the Curve Strategy #10: Get in Touch with All of Your Sensors
Jump the Curve Strategy #9: Follow Your Hunch
Jump the Curve Strategy #8: Run the Numbers
Jump the Curve Strategy #7: Reorganize Your Data Storage Closet
Jump the Curve Strategy #6: Let the Computer Do It
Jump the Curve Strategy #5: Bet On It
Jump the Curve Strategy #4: Just “Wiki” It
Jump the Curve Strategy #3: Look to the Kindness of Strangers
Jump the Curve Strategy #2: Take a Bird’s Eye View of the World
Jump the Curve Strategy #1: Learn to Spell Zenzizenzizenzic
Introduction to Chapter Two: The Power of Zenzizenzizenzic
Welcome to the Exponential Economy: Prepare to Jump the Curve
Introduction to Jump the Curve

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The Future of Urban Planning?

Forbes has an interesting article discussing South Korea’s new $35 billion planned city, Songdo. The article attempts to portray the city as a vision of “future cities,” yet after reading the article I am less than convinced. I’m sure the main planners, Gale International, are doing a great many things which are not discussed in the article but it seems as though much of the technology discussed will soon be rendered obsolete by new technology. It was—and still is—unclear to me how the city planners are thinking about incorporating future technologies into the planning process.

Obviously, this is extremely tricky, since no one—and I mean no one—knows what such future technologies will be but, at a minimum, I would argue that “flexibility” must be an important principle. For example, how can buildings change function as the average age of the community grows older or new industries come into existence? Or how will hospitals change as the city’s emphasis on preventative medicine takes root or how will schools be transformed if virtual reality technologies become more prominent?

Furthermore, fuel cell buses and water canels are all fine and well but what happens if battery technologies grow exponentially better and electric vehicles become the norm? Alternatively how might the city’s energy infratsructure change if tidal power becomes more viable?

The bottomline, I guess, is this: future cities are likely to look much different than Songdo because, if for no other reason, cities and technologies are constantly changing. Beware of anyone who claims to know what the vision of “future” cities will look like.

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The Future is in Your Pocket

Later this month I will be speaking to the Texas Travel Industry Association about the future. As I have said before—and will say again—the future is already here; it just isn’t evenly distributed. To this end, I invite you to watch this short video from CNET explaining how augmented reality is coming to a phone near you very soon. Among other things, it will help tourists navigate new environments. Those businesses which depend on tourism dollars would be wise to figure out how they can exploit this new technology—now.

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Hospitals Offer a Glimpse of Future Computers

Often, when we think of technology, we like to imagine how it will transform different industries. It is less easy to imagine how certain industries will transform technology. Luckily, this fine articlefrom The New Scientist -- which is based on a new report from IT Analysts Gartner—takes a look at how voice recognition, eye tracking, virtual reality and brain-neural technology are being transformed by their early adoption in hospitals.

Related Posts

Social Networking: The Future of Health Care
The Future of Health Care is as Near as Your iPhone
Healthcare is the “Verge” of Something Big
Here Comes Intelligent Medicine
The Future of Healthcare is Accelerating
Personalized Medicine’s Accelerating Future
The Future of Health Care: Preventing Disease
Health Care Providers Need a Second Life
The Future of Health Care: Part 3 (Robotics)The Robot Will See You Now
Hospitals Robotic Future: Part 2
Hospitals Robotic Future: Part 1
Hospitals Get a Lift

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