Creativity Central [Marty Baker]

  If you’re interested in developing renewable petroleum from microbes, Dr. David Berry is your man.  In fact, he may also be your man for therapeutic medicine, diagnostic devices and myriad alternative energy technologies.

After finishing a Bachelor's degree in neuroscience at MIT in 2000 and reaching this stage of his medical training at Harvard University, David Berry asked himself what most people would not ask themselves at this point: Why not throw on a Ph.D. thesis in biological engineering too?

Indeed, why not? Berry calls his combined degrees an "ad hoc M.D.-Ph.D." And despite the incredible focus and determination he needed to accomplish such a feat in six years, Berry is disarmingly relaxed and personable.   And at last week’s BIF Collaborative Innovation Summit, he said something that made the audience laugh.

It was the kind of spontaneous laugh that bespoke a truth that goes to the heart of what I call the innovation paradox.   He said that while he has positive relations with the oil companies, he wonders how urgently committed they are to alternative fuels.   “Companies trying to make renewable energy probably shouldn’t be big oil because they have a prevailing interest in their current offerings.”

Thomas Edison had a prevailing interest in direct current even faced with the superiority of Tesla’s alternating current over long distances.  

Dr. Terry Pierce, Special Advisor for Disruptive Innovations for Under Secretary Jay Cohen, Department of Homeland Security echoed the same thought when he talked about why RCA sat on the LCD technology (Developed in 1968) and allowed the Japan and Korea to become   market innovators.   RCA had a prevailing interest in solid state (CRT) technology. Dr. Pierce estimated the loss of this failure to innovate in the billions of dollars.

If there was a key lesson revealed at the Summit, it’s that when companies have a prevailing interest (i.e. shareholder profit via current offerings] they won’t seriously invest in their own demise – even if they can see the writing on the wall. It is the innovation equivalent of the lessons taught in Barbara Tuchman’s book, March of Folly.

David R. Yaun, Vice President, Corporate Communications, IBM Corporation   also talked at the Summit revealing his battle with the “naysayers” at IBM when he promoted his Global Innovation Outlook. He was fortunate to have a champion in IBM’s CEO.

How do you innovate when you have a paradoxical prevailing interest?    I think it should be the prevailing question at next year’s BIF-5.

MB

  Henry, the eighth of that name, King and Supreme Head of the Church in England, is a fascinating footnote to the birth Providence’s Business Innovation Factory.   When the last of his Tudor heirs died in 1603, the city of London was becoming the world’s leading financial center, superseding Amsterdam in its primacy.  

It was also the year that Roger Williams was born.   He eventually became a clergyman to a wealthy family becoming a controversial figure because of his progressive ideas on freedom of worship. So, in 1630, ten years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, Roger left England and arrive at Boston in the England. Massachusetts Bay Colony.

He preached first at Salem always at odds with the structured Puritans. Banned from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his beliefs, including his support for religious toleration and the rights of Indians and his opposition to civil authority, he founded the colony of Rhode Island and the town of Providence (1636) on land purchased from the Narragansett Indians.

The colony established a democratic government and instituted separation of church and state, and it became a haven for Quakers and others seeking religious liberty.

Fast forward to an organization with the acronym RIEDC – Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation.   Our smallest state had the biggest idea --   summed up in its aspirational tag line “Building the 21^st Century Innovation Economy.”

The Business Innovation Factory (BIF) was launched in 2004.   It is an independent, nonprofit organization founded to enable collaborative innovation.   The big idea? To create a platform where public and private sector partners can collaborate across boundaries to focus on big-win projects an deliver transformative innovation.

Saul Kaplan, BIF’s chief catalyst, says “I’ve had the privilege of doing some cool things in my career, but catalyzing BIF is the coolest.   Through BIF, organizations have access to a ‘safe haven’ for experimenting with new business models, particularly through networked models that cut across organizations, industries and the public and private sectors.”

Today, Kaplan is both chief catalyst of BIF and executive director of the RIEDC.   “The big ‘aha’ for me since taking on the a public leadership role is that community matters.   And Rhode Island’s compact geography and tight-knit social networks enable innovators to explore and test new ways of doing things.”

Part catalyst and part evangelist for innovation, Kaplan relies on his experience as a strategy consultant to keep BIF’s mission in focus.   “You have to have very thick skin to span silos and foster collaboration,” he explains.   “Everyone loves the idea of innovation until it impacts them.   I used to think that we could enable large-scale change and create more innovators by proselytizing.   But that doesn’t get you past the buzzwords.   I know believe in sorting the world to identify the innovators across every imaginable discipline, then finding ways to connect them in purposeful ways.   That’s what BIF is all about.”

This week’s BIF Summit was a reflection of that philosophy.   If there was a single takeaway from the Summit it was echoed by such luminaries as IBM’s   David Yaun and Deborah Brooks co-founder of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Disease, it’s that innovator’s need to bypass the silos and create a culture of collaboration.   Sharing and transparency were the buzzwords of BIF-4.

It was also what made the two-day event such a success.   Yes, I think Roger Williams would have approved.

MB

http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/

 The worst seats in the house at the Trinity Rep were suddenly the best.   Because lurking beneath row K was something more truly coveted in this gathering of techno-converts.   A power outlet strip.   There we were – a group of bloggers and presenters slaves to the few available outlets.

It was Mad Max without the apocalyptic scenery and well-guarded petrol tankers.   The man next to me was putting the finishing touches on his afternoon presentation.   I glanced at his BIF Summit badge and recognized the name – Dr. Richard Satava.

Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington Medical Center, and Senior Science Advisor at the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command in Fort Detrick, Maryland, Satava  co-developed the first surgical robot.

He's done many things in his life – from deciding which cutting-edge medical technologies the U.S. military will pursue, to saving lives as a surgeon in the heat of battle, to teaching surgery at Yale and the University of Washington, to serving on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy – yet there he was moving slides around on PowerPoint and battling with me for space on the power grid.

I reluctantly let him win.

Seated next to him was Andries van Dam (Andy) , Thomas J. Watson, Jr. University Professor of Technology and Education and Professor of Computer Science.   He was also mentor and teacher for the late Randy Pausch.   We talked a bit about Randy and my father’s work for the Worchester Foundation on the birth control pill.

On the other side of me was Laura Fitton (Pistachio) who has over 7,000 people following her on Twitter and the queen of micro-blogging.   She was user her Nokia phone to create a live video feed for her readers.   As soon as Dr. Satava left for his presentation, we dived for the last remaining outlet in the power strip.

All of which means, that’s while some power is ephemeral, true power is sitting next to a strip.

 MB

Richard Saul Wurman walked onto the stage at the Trinity Rep Theater wearing a pair of ultra-hip MBT sandals (The anti-shoe).  He wears comfortable shoes and he's equally comfortable being a provocateur and master story teller.  The author of 81 books and counting, Wurman has a singular passion for making information understandable.

Nearly 30  years ago, he  coined the term 'information architect' and has found the perfect metaphor for his personality, the Tango.  "The tango is a  seductive dance where the partners do not touch. Curiosity is one partner and the other is   ignorance. I'm driven by my curiosity to help me understand what I don't know."

At this year's BIF Collaborative Innovation Summit,  Wurman talked about his most ambitious project to date 19.20.21, which he created with his four partners:  Larry Keeley, Jon Kamen, Michael Hawley, and Robert Friedman. “19.20.21."—is an attempt to standardize the information available on 19 cities that are expected to reach 20 million inhabitants in the 21st century, giving readers an unprecedented tool to easily compare and contrast them.

"19.20.21 is a multi-media initiative to collect, organize and better understand a population's effect on urban and business planning and its impact on consumers around the world.  The 5-year initiative will deliver results through five key channels -- web, television, print, exhibits and seminars," says Wurman. 

In an interview with Dirk Knemeyer, Wurman talked about why he's so passionate about creating materials that are a catalyst for understanding.  "What is critical to understand is what it is like to not understand. My definition of learning is to remember what you are interested in, If you don't remember something, you haven't learned it and you are never going to remember something unless you are interested it.  These words dance together. 'Interest' is another holy word and drives 'memory.' Combine them and you have learning."

Wurman believes that a lot of information providers have the "disease of familiarity."  They assume that the reader or learner has similar reference points.  19.20.21 will be formally introduced at a March 2009 event with the mayor of New York City and hopefully, the leaders of the other cities studied.  "This project is not a polemic on overpopulation or bad slums.  Action will probably be taken as a result of what we do, but we're not taking action or suggesting it," Wurman says. "You can't take action until you understand something."

"I'm  just plodding along trying to make things understandable," he adds with a knowing smile. "That's the only God I serve and my only passion.  I take things I don't understand and try to make them understandable."

He left the stage to applause and pointed to his MBT sandals.  "I don't have a dime invested in this company, but these are the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn."   

Richard, thanks for helping us understand. 

www.wurman.com

Marc Ecko. It started with a Jersey.

Rutgers has some brand names on it’s list of alumni.  Paul Robson, Milton Friedman, James “Tony S”  Gandolfini, Marty Baker and now Marc Ecko. In the early 1990s, Ecko dropped out of Rutgers , where he was studying pharmacology, to launch a clothing line with six T-shirt designs, employing his twin sister and a hometown friend. Fast-forward 15 years and Marc Ecko Enterprises includes not just a dozen lines of clothing and accessories but a magazine, a production company and a videogame that centers on a graffiti artist's fight against authorities who want to suppress freedom of expression.

Last year, global sales came to more than $1.5 billion. That's not bad for a Jersey boy who started out airbrushing designs onto shirts and jackets for his school friends, and who almost folded his company when, after five years, it was $6.5 million in debt.

In all his endeavors, he says, "the common thing that has always been in my formula for success is finding the right balance between what makes me creatively content and selfishly happy and a practical business that others will be able to appreciate. It's finding that balance so that you're not just designing for an elite or selling out, but doing something a little more populist and accessible that still makes you and all the people around you happy."

"To reflect on it now from the vantage point of   today, you realize that so many things happened in the '80's – the democratization of media culture, the boom of cable television, the narrative of street culture becoming accessible, the cities going into the suburbs, the war on drugs, Reaganomics, the first MTV megastars, surf wear and skate brands, the emergence of video gaming as the pastime of young males," Ecko says. "Hip-hop was the new rock and roll. We put down the basketball and picked up the remote control. There was a hyper-awareness among white people of the narrative of people of color."

All of these elements would come together in Ecko's clothing designs and his other businesses. "There's no one definitive voice for what's cool or what's next. It's a convergence of elements for you to perceive what's next or what's coming in line and what might tip."

. To help those less fortunate, he founded the Tikva Children's Home, an orphanage in Ukraine, as well as Sweat Equity Enterprises, a design and innovation laboratory that aims to redefine vocational education.

"I don't measure success in my life or at the end of the year by my sales figures," he continues. "The struggles in the early years – getting in debt, making business mistakes – gave me a great sense of groundedness," he says. "I'm doing what I can to try to get a little bit of insurgency going among my peers, get them to think about the larger issues."

At today’s BIF Summit, he’ll probably be wearing his trademark t-shirt. On the other hand, he may not.   Everything Ecko does is a surprise.

MB

Jason Fried.  37 Signals and one message. Smart simplicity. 

I may be a biased about Jason Fried. I’ve been using two of his company’s products, Basecamp®, project management software and Backpack® an intranet and scheduling software.  They are so intuitive, the learning curve is about 15 minutes or less.

Jason is the founder and CEO of 37 signals and a passionate innovator in the field of simple, clear, and elegant web-based user interface design. Fried's unconventional thinking is gaining momentum. With a staff of under 10 employees, 37 signals has created a string of well-received applications.

Fried's guiding philosophy: stay small and keep it simple. "There are too many options out there, too many features, and too many products that try to do too many things," he says. "Software has become complex and bloated. It grows for the benefit of the upgrade sales cycle, not the customer."

He isn’t a poster boy of the " bigger" is better mentality, Fried purposefully constrains his company with limited resources and fewer people. In return, 37 signals "executes on the basics brilliantly." His company's software is barebones. Its features and functions consist only of those that meet 37signals' needs. "

Through a subscription-based model, thousands of paying users are providing the company with a steady stream of revenue. In the  years since his company's inception, Fried has declined more than 30 offers of venture capital. His minimalist philosophy extends through everything he touches. The firm's design methodology, dubbed 'Getting Real,' removes all traces of the usual design process (Fried call it the abstract stuff) and replaces it with "actual real stuff."

Fried says, “I advocate building a small team of gurus. It's more about having a few good generalists. They need to be passionate, motivated, curious and willing to learn. We're all good at what we do, and we work well together. That's a good team."

"The great thing about BIF," Fried wrote on his blog following the Summit, "is that they bring people from different industries together to share their stories. This is not a technology conference, it's a conference about ideas that can come from anywhere."

Fried is an idea man himself—one who does not lack for opinions. He's a merchant of simplicity who believes that businesses should do less than the competition—they should also spend less money, hire fewer people, work fewer hours and offer fewer features.

His independent spirit and willingness to share his advice have given the man and his company a cult-like status among his growing group of fans.   Fried will talk again at BIF conference tomorrow.

Provocative yes.   Boring, no.

John Abele.  Finding the Grunion and other innovative expeditions.