Entrepreneurship Summit 2010, Nov 6 - Berlin - Go to site entrepreneurship-summit.de

Entrepreneurial design – and the design thinking context

The focus of the entrepreneurship summit 2010 has been entrepreneurial design and I think the concept is convincing. Concept? Maybe there are more than one concept around under this name. Just found it linked to design thinking in a certain manner, as you can see on this page and nice video from Stanford Graduate School of Business Extreme Affordability Journal. Affordability is a central term here – since the process seems to target the “bottom of the pyramid“.

Design Thinking at Stanford: Extreme Affordability Expo 2010

Since I was in touch with design thinking (DT) I am totally fascinated with the method. In this year I met the practitioners and “activists” at different places e.g. Potsdam HPI or the IA-Konferenz 2010, Köln (see post: “Are we Innovation Architects? Service.Design.Thinking, #IAK10“). Hey, I just realized my (subjective) “trend feeling” about DT and found evidence at Google trends:

Statistical evidence of the up-trend in design thinking (Google trends 2010-11-08)

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Prof. Faltin’s stance

I found the interpretation of the term “entrepreneurial design” in the context of market dynamics quite plausible. In his keynote Prof. Faltin talked about the difference of a (complete functional) automobile and the Otto engine (as an essential technical component of a car). In this perspective the automobile is the entrepreneurial design, which enables the Otto engine to be sold. One could say it this way: Only with the automobile structure build around the Otto engine the engine is “networked” with the needs of the people. Making the explosion engine beneficial for the need of mobility. This at the same time transforms people to (automobile) customers, i.e. a new market emerges.

Maybe, that there is a whole concept cloud around “entrepreneurial design”, or that this all is just one design thinking cloud – I for my part find the Otto engine example of Prof. Faltin graphic, maybe paradigmatic.

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Insight: The “Apple success” is based simply on … entrepreneurial design

Now think about the Apple success story. The competitors are shocked again and again to see that Apple wins the market with devices, that are build on components some not being state of the art. The success is based on entrepreneurial design, i.e. networking the companies ressources with the users needs, making the device a “node in the behavioral network” of the customer.

I am not a techprogressive.

But I bet on Augmented Reality to be a decisive component of the fine-granular information ubiquity environment, which is emerging in this decade 2010-2020.

The reality is becoming a web

The web has become a reality in the last 20 years – and now we witness that the reality is becoming a web. It is transforming into a weblike matrix of “activated space”. The space of today may be called “mute space” and “blind space” in the future – if it is not

enriched with information, not “talking”, not “hearing”, not reacting to the people around. The analyst predicts this. (My personal opinion is that we still should strive for silence and contemplation in the future.) See the merging of AR principle and powerful recognition technology in the video – to allow/limit this kind of (intrusive?) social transparency is a political issue in this decade.

AR to counterbalance the technological intelligence around us (Subjectoid)

Remind the lesson of evolution biology: A population is shaped by the environment, but at the same time it is shaping the environment. With Augmented Reality on the one end and Sensor Web on the other we envision the Mixed Reality and Ambient Spaces reacting

to us in a higher extent than all the time before, when we only did react to present surroundings but it just did not react to us (exception: human beings and animals around us).

Other way round: The environment is becoming more subject-like, it is becoming an “subjectoid” (google this word, surprise: “subjectoid” seems to be  not being used by some poststructuralist philosopher). Since AR by defintion is augmenting the reality perception this move to AR looks like a defensive strategy to compensate mens relative loss of power, when his technological creations (embedded and mobile and ambient computers) are acquiring more and more “cognitive powers”. So far the cultural-historical perspective.

Elementary operation in Augmented Reality: The &

The elementary operation of Augmented Reality tech is plus. Some synthetic data element is dynamically overlayed to the stream of perception. E.g. you have a stream of photons received in your smartphone’s cam and transformed to a display. Then some other data is fed in as an overlay (text, graphics, 3d rendered object). See all the demos on youtube … A future proof definition of AR should not exclude any kind of sensory  channel. Most of todays AR is focussed on the visual system, but the combination with the auditive channel will allow for more information density and “information intelligence” in the future.

Simple proposal for a practical AR symbolism

You have been acquainted with the hashtag in the twitterverse to aggregate thematic tweets. And maybe you like the idea that the @twittername is such an easy way to identify someone, it is the twitter id, unequivocal. I do not know whether anyone ever did propose this (read above: I am not a techie, developer), but the idea is quite easy: AR layers can be “released” in the same convenient and simple way as one claims a twitter id, just using the &-symbol as a prefix – and a central registration.

Examples

&gov.us: delivering a certified layer for administrative activities, e.g. in case of catastrophe (take your smartphone and to leave a dangerous area follow the red arrows blended in)

&nike.com: brand layer with temporary offerings, hints, AR games etc.

&diabetes: group layer locating not only drugstores and medical practices, but ar-registered physicians in the physical surroundings, which could help in an emergency

&tennis: interest layer locating not only tennis courts or shops for equipment, but ar-registered tennis players (not quite sure how useful this is)

&wschroll: my personal layer for personal memories, loved places, biography, clipboards/shoplists  at places, audio layers for certain places, where I have “anchored” specific soundscapes

To be honest: The above examples are not so specific for AR, one can have this convention for maps too. But I really like the idea to create “augmented worlds”, not only maps, and isn’t it nice to have a systematic namespace for this?

Augmented Business

Since the elementary operation of Augmented Reality tech is plus, any business model or service creation has to start with understanding this core. You will read something about it in the future. Maybe we will discuss the issue at the

ARBcon.europe – 1st European AR Business Conference – Berlin

The times are changing – and the semantics of our expressions too.

When I brought the concept of the “Augmented Citizen” into being it was rather narrow, thanks to the context of Government 2.0 Camp in August 2009 (see slideshare.net). Then in December I realized the full potential and future usage patterns of (Social) Mobile Augmented Reality at the AR meeting in Rotterdam (NL). In the keynote I even encouraged the folks to think beyond the interaction concepts and sensory channels of today, when thinking about augmentation. E.g. we can have augmentation and overlays of other perceptive fields than the visual – and with al kinds of immersion in a social-networked surroundings (for Rotterdam AR meeting see blogpost: Augmented Citizen – next: augmented reality ecosystem).

Later mobile business visionary and social technology architect Dan Romescu and I had some fruitful dialogues concerning the evolution scnarios of mobile AR. Actually he seriously caught fire and went to Mobile World Congress as an “Augmented Citizen Advocate”, blogging at http://www.augmentedcitizen.org So I am proud to present our slides from the Mobile AR Summit at MWC.

Are you a skeptic and have read up to here? Then remind that Juniper talks about a market size  of  USD 732 million for 2014. Or just think about slide 8:

Q: Isn‘t AR just a new mode how to display information?

A: Yes, but this in fact means to change the
mode of interaction with the world,
your physical and social reality.

Just as an addon to the previous post talking about mysterious “augmented participation” as a possible growth field here is the colorful Gary Hayes list:

16 Top Augmented Reality Business Models | PERSONALIZE MEDIA

With some well known examples as seen on youtube (2009!). The collection and systematic has not been evaluated by me, just want to kick it in here as a starter for the AR skeptics.

Auguverse?

Google “auguverse” and you will find virtually nothing – however we will call it, the “mixed / augmented reality universe” might be a 1.000 times bigger in 2020 as a information space, than the web of today (measured in counted information objects, not the exabyte volume). Hey, I am a futurist and it is Friday, I can talk like this – with IPv6, sensor web, social ubiquity and internet of things in mind.

Straigt to flickr image in a readable form.

Kontext: next banking -conference- 2009 Berlin http://next-banking.de

Ort: The Hub Berlin http://berlin.the-hub.net

Datum: 2009-06-16

Related: Preview Text: http://www.next-banking.de/2009/06/wozu-banken-geld-und-vertrauen-im-21-jahrhundert/

So my pro-active imperative was: Time to transform your company into an academy

Today some other fruit of analyzing the wave and emerging power of Digital Natives / Millenials dropped. Manager Magazin online published the article  about the emerging issue:

“Digital Natives”: Die Revolution der Web-Eingeborenen – manager-magazin.de
(Andreas Neef, Willi Schroll, Björn Theis)

Prof. Knight is angry – but does this help to recover and transform? (source: thisislondon.co.uk)

G20 summit under immense pressure

Radical measures must be decided at the G20 summit or it could become the “fateful moment” when the global recession lurches into an outright slump, Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, said today. (guardian.co.uk, 2009-03-30)

The crisis and the consequences for business and politics are still in the focus of mass media and the blogosphere. When I check the stats of future facts blog I find a lot of phrases containing “financial crisis” still on the top of the most used search terms. Surprisingly most of the visitors checked in here on the post of Oct. 2008 Global financial crisis may end 2009 – which is not really a typical post in a blog concerned with long-term trends. The news seemed significant at that time because

1. it had been expressed by an insider, Michel Camdessus, the former chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and
2. it was extraordinarily optmistic.

Let us contrast this sunny quote of last year with doomsday news like this of March 25th 2009: “Russia Expects New Financial System Crisis Outburst”. Russia’s Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin said:

“We were standing on the brink of the financial collapse, but we prevented it, and I must here thank the Central Bank and the State Duma for giving us an opportunity to take decisions quickly,” (my emphasis, www.marketoracle.co.uk)

The coincidence of some news urges me to come back to the issue of the spreading crisis. In these days we read news like this:

• 3M manager taken hostage in France (he is free again)
• Nationwide strike in France over economic crisis
• Professor of anthropology going mad in Britain, threatening bankers (see picture above)

Empirically there is a tendency towards violence in words and now deeds – and this seems to culminate before the event of G20 in London. This was to be expected – but maybe this time this is more than the normal “role game” of summit protesting.

2009 vs. 1789 – Will the crisis end in a revolution?

There are a bunch of  dissimilarities concerning 1789/2009, but to make the point I just want to remind you about the characterics of the situation:

• Blindness: Economical and political elite are not adequately changing their mindset
• Double Standards: A majority of people conceive an asymmetry in burdens (while many have lost their fortune, in the public opinion, the responsible “risk takers” in the poltical and financial system are not adequatelly sanctioned)
• Conceptual Passivity: Standard measurements like stimulus plans are necessary, but they prevail the scene; legal system is not transforming – in many countries there are no new regulation laws on the way to protect against the next bubble
• Legitimation Crisis: Diminishing confidence in the solution competence of economical and political elite

Question: Will all this escalate in a sudden and deep change of some power structures, i.e. result in a revolution?

We are talking about a time horizon <5ys. Then my answer is: No, I definitely don’t think so, but of course it depends on the definition of “deep change”. Some institutions like IMF or Securtiy Council may transform, some other neo-socialistic experiments will start (and will be falsified sooner or later!) – but I think this is not the decisive question at all!

Catalyst for transformation

The crisis will be a catalyst for transformation on a global scale, Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” will take place, the real “post-industrial” age with new mindsets and structures of work and collaboration will take place, and IT, the web, cloud computing, “wikinomics” will play a decisive role in this deconstruction. And if you want to call this kind of change a revolution, then yes, we will have one – and it will be unbloody.

21st Century – The Great Adaptation

Since most futurists did not predict the events and disruptive change of the world 1989 and 2001 we should be careful. I for my part think and hope that the rather successful market paradigm will be adjusted to the new prerequisites of the 21st century:

• More flat power structures
• Individual freedom
• Civil participation
• Values of sustainability built in control structures of law and economy
• and some other (I want to spend less time with (macro) blogging, sorry)

Putting the subjective inclination to wishful thinking aside – and the objective limits of predictability … I’d tag this post optimistic.

Maybe we discuss this issues at “Shift happens” / re:publica 09 in the next days!

At the worlds biggest IT fair, CeBIT in Hanover, ending on Sunday they tried something new. With “Webciety” there has been a new format to close the gap between hardware selling companies on the one hand and increasingly important web companies on the other. We hear this for so long and it is from year to year it is more true: We are on the way to web society / “webciety”. At the panel there have been issues like Enterprise 2.0, Social Computing and Identity Management – but the most interesting subject for me has been the upcoming and invasion of the “digital natives”. The consequences for enterprises, media industry and marketing are still in the debate. At webciety there has been a book presentation concerning the topic. You can access and download the book at scribd as a PDF (German):
DNAdigital – Wenn Kapuzenpullis auf Anzugtraeger treffen

Digital Natives – different mindset,  communication habits and consumption patterns

Marc Prensky coined the term “digital natives” in the context of education some years ago (“Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” 2001). Since Gartner and other analyst firms took it seriously since 2007 today companies start to analyze more thoroughly the rather heterogeneous group of digital natives. The core definition is trivial:

A digital native is a person who has grown up with digital technology such as computers, the Internet, mobile phones and MP3.  (Wikipedia)

Prensky realized the disparity in the realm of  learning and teaching – teachers are just ill-equipped to educate digital natives, whose sophisticated use of digital technologies is incompatible with practice in schools and universities. No question the disparity today is virulent in the enterprise context (actually I am preparing some stuff concerning the issue and the consequences for business. I want to deliver a presentation soon, promised).

Time to transform your company into an academy!

Today my message is rather short and vocal: It is time to transform!

I have been thinking about the Webciety discussions and suddenly realized that the “business pattern” had to be changed in the core to be successful tommorrow. The digital natives are just one pressure factor, others are innovation speed, real time pressure in processes, shorter loops to react to changes in the market environment. Well, the big companies all have their corporate academy or university … and of course there has been the rhetorics of knowledge society and the learning organisation for some decades.

But today, in 2009, the ingedients are quite different. Technology and human ressources are different, markets and information streams are different. It is just not enough to put the label “Enterprise 2.0″ onto theses changes and implemement an enterprise wiki. What we need is a new paradigmatic guiding principle, a “leitbild”.

Crisis + digital natives -> chance to change the game

The crisis is a good environment to make real changes. And the group of the digital natives will make you feel the pain soon if you do not change some structures – because they know more than the “experienced staff” (in some domains)! If you do not change the settings your talents not only will be unhappy – but you do not take the chance to make them “teachers”, use their knowledge and their “fast track methods” to communicate, connect and conquer.

New management paradigm: The company as a school

• Deconstruct and rebuild your enterprise really as a learning structure – at every level and detail!
• Discover the hidden teacher–student dyades in the relations and strenghten them!
• Find ways to sustainably encourage the flow of knowledge – not as an event, but as a 24/7 practice!

Claudia Langer, Utopia conference (source: konsumguerilla.net)

To be green or not to be

First part of my coverage of the Utopia conference was about necessity and possibility of the coming transformation. This global transformation is politically, economically and technologically. How we shape things, connect material flows, structure systems, control communication, this is all about technology and design. Prof. Braungart reminded us about the “next industrial revolution”, he and William McDonough really did this for quite a while (The Atlantic 1998) and successfully.

Efficiency potentials and radical new mobility concepts

As I said before there is no consensus about goals and means. One good example is the seemingly polarity of Braungart’s paradigmatic radicality on he one hand and the optimization strategy of Dr. Lovins (Rocky Mountain Institute) on the other. Both approaches will coexist even when a holistic approach and some disruptive innovation is always more impressive  than the “optimization of the old” (see also my post “Dont’ worry …“). But sometimes the sum of many tiny steps could mean revolutionary consequences, too. Take mobility based on fossil fuels. The cars of today are completely stupid in their basic design, Dr. Lovins calculated that only 0.3% of the total energy invested in driving actually moves the physical mass of the driver. Obviously there is huge potential to eco-optimize mobility systems. So maybe car driving will not be illegal in 2018, because cars have very different features then, e.g. are made of very light materials.

An other way to “save the car” was demonstrated by Rolf Schumann of Better Place, a company which could mean a new way to realize personal mobility. Think about sustainable mobility and using a smart infrastructure to cope with the problem of batteries. Better place is acting like an operator selling kilometers not cars, like a mobile carrier is selling minutes to you (Better Place how-it-works).

These are the times for visionary leadership

I want to end with another lesson. As a researcher and speaker I am frequently stressing the potential of the social web, participation, collaboration and “collective intelligence”. This “social thing” always has to be balanced with the respect of individual genius and leadership. I suppose Claudia Langer as the initiating founder of Utopia shows the decisive role of personality.

"We have no killer app, but a killer motivation"

500 changemakers meeting

Yesterday Utopia, the biggest online community for strategic consumption in Germany, celebrated the first birthday, holding a conference in Berlin. At first sight the issues were quite clear:

• sustainability, eco efficiency, green investment, new products, processes, innovative materials …
• the role/responsibility of the political system
• the role/responsibility of big economical players, last but not least 
• the role/responsibility of “we, the people”, you and me, for the necessary transformation.

But transformation from here to where? What are the goals and by which means should we try to reach them? Are there different goals and means for different world regions, even countries? The speakers would not be in consent about answers to that questions. But debate and inspiration, yes irritation, is it, why we meet at conferences like this one. Take the example of Prof. Michael Braungart (Cradle to Cradle, you should know). His points sometimes sounded really polemical in a good sense, e.g. attacking (for some years) the core concepts of “efficiency” or “sustainability”, so whitespread in the green discourse. There was rapid global action to save the financial system. So could we please save the planet now?

In the perspective of a futurist the number of variables and unpredictable behaviors of even simple subsystems is a really uncomfortable thing. Ok, desperation about complexity and self-referentiality is a normal state of mind in some professions. But in the case of rendering possible scenarios about global climate change and the foreseeable impact it is quite painful. Assume that the intelligence and good will of decision makers in politics and economy are on the same level “as usual”. Remind what Braungart said about the legislation process concerning toxic softeners in toys for instance – the speed and scope of  the political system is definitely scandalous. 

But stop! There was an efficient and rapid global action some weeks ago, when politicians around the world made the “rescue plans” for the financial system. Take this as an evidence that there is some ressource of rationality, cooperativeness and agility in the political-economical elite layer.

Radical change – hope and fear

Greg Craven, famous for his youtube video (1,625,000+ visits to date) made again clear that there is a necessity and still a possibility for political intervention, setting aside the issue of scientific uncertainties (BTW: did you know that nearly all climate models do not take into account the natural variability of solar radiation?).

Don’t blame Greg, the following are my thoughts: The dynamics of the climate system is quite complex, and actually not really well understood. However, it looks like we have to brake sharply, to run not into the “abyss”. Kyoto goals are by far not enough. Problems: How to brake, waht are the best means? Setting limits, subsidiaries, implementing emission markets? How can a democratic politician sell the inconvenient truth to the voter, that he has to take away some loved toys from him? How to share the burden, the transformation costs on a global scale? Do we have to declare the “War on Climate” and what to do with the rogue states then?

Picture source of presentation slide above: konsumguerilla.net