by Bill Ives
August 3, 2010 at 3:46 am · Filed under
Innovation
Here is the second part of my notes from the TEDxBoston that occurred yesterday. I have heard a lot about TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) but have not attended before so I was pleased to see how it worked. Here are my notes from the second group of sessions. These are live notes, only slightly edited, so please excuse typos, etc.
Cesar Hidalgo from MIT began this segment by covering global economic development. He said that one of the issues is that diversity is not spread evenly. He introduced several principles to address global economic development. First how many capabilities does a country possess, rather than resources. He used legos to represent capabilities in his visuals.
Here is more on Cesar’s lego theory of development thanks to Eric Andersen. Typically, GDP is seen as a function of just a few inputs (i.e. different types of putty using Cesar’s imagery). These are capital, labor, and some kind of technology input. The types of labor and the types of capital are more or less interchangeable (just as putty is). Of course, economists know this is a massive simplification of the world, but it is useful in helping describe an extremely complex reality.
Cesar proposes a new approach that will help take into account a bit more of the complexity that’s out there in the world. He calls it the “lego” theory of development. If we look at those countries that are wealthy, we see that they produce products that require many different types of inputs or legos. Further, wealthy countries don’t specialize in one or two products (in contradiction to a simplistic interpretation of comparative advantage) they export many different types of goods. If a product is very complex, it can be best produced by the few countries that have all the requirements. You need to match capabilities with product requirements for growth. How do you accumulate capabilities?
Another principle is having the capabilities centralized. The industrialized countries have a great concentration of capabilities in a centralized manner. He showed how this increased concentration of capabilities occurred in Malaysia as the economy grew. Cesar feels that diversity of capabilities predicts growth more than traditional inputs. This would argue for increasing the diversity of capabilities through effective education.
Felice Frankel, a photographer, provided a session titled more than pretty pictures. Felice covered three main ideas. She said the process of making a visual representation clarifies an idea. This process requires decisions that encourage reflection. Second, the process of making a representation should be collaborative. Third, the process of making a representation teaches. This third principle is her real passion. I certainly agree with her points and there has been a lot of research on this concept. Muhan Zhang next very movingly performed a Mongolian instrument.
John Werner and MacCalvin Romain covered learning out of the box. MacCalvin told us how his creativity was criticized in elementary school. However, he was shown that his interests could turn into a career through Citizen’s Schools. John discussed how US education is following behind the rest of the world. He discovered that schools tried to keep the community outside of the schools. Fifteen years ago he and others started Citizen Schools to help expand the resources that students are exposed to. John gave examples of bringing business teams into the schools to create more learning opportunities. He said there is a lot of potential for people to help. Eight million people do jury duty each year, What if there was education duty? If we just two percent of the scientists helped we would double the amount of science teachers available to our kids. Good ideas.
Bill Walczak shared more good ideas on education. His group started a charter school in a community health center in Dorchester. They involve students in the health care professions there. He said that Boston ninth grade students who do not go to one of the three prestige Boston public high schools have a 7% chance to graduate from high school. At the school in the health center they have achieved an over 70% success rate through the involvement in the community health center operations. This is a great model for integrating high school with the community and a growing professional field. Now it was time for lunch. More to follow in the next post.
This TEDxBoston session provided access to a diverse set of themes, some are not directly related to the major themes of this blog but I wanted to share with you how a TEDx session flows. The common theme is thinking outside the normal and creating innovation. I felt that the message across most of the sessions was that innovation becomes effective when it involves innovative way people are engaged with new ideas and technology. I think this is very related to this blog. I was pleased to attend and will be looking at the TED site for more.
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by Bill Ives
August 2, 2010 at 3:47 am · Filed under
Innovation
I was pleased to be invited to the TEDxBoston that occurred a few days ago. I have heard a lot about TED (Technology, Entertainment, design) but not attended before. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. This one honored “local innovators who have the passion, curiosity, and tenacity to change the world with their revolutionary ideas.” They wanted us to unplug from our technology but I want to take notes so I can remember what happen and share it with you. I did, however, unplug any competing technology. I only recognized one person in their highlighted presenters, Larry Lessing, so looked forward to seeing a lot of new faces and hearing new ideas. These are live notes, only slightly edited, so please excuse typos, etc.
The intro group talked about how this is a local event just using the TED branding and format. Economic Growth through Crowd Sourcing Dave McLaughlin was listed as the first session, a topic of interest for me lately, but it started with some drummers, the Marcos Santos Group, to get us stoked up and the drummers are good. Next there was a quote from John Adams, one of our local revolutionaries, and revolutionary ideas is the theme of the day. They discussed the diversity of the audience including eight dozen CEOs and high school students. I am humbled to be here.
Dave McLaughlin began with audience interaction. He discussed horizontal relationships between vertical grouping for cross-fertilization. Boston has invested to seed these cross-fertilizations for local economic growth through Boston World Partnerships. For example, what is essential infrastructure is being rethought. Horizontal relationships have become the new connectors.
Susan Avery from Woods Hole next discussed our global ocean and its role in how the world functions. The ocean has only been systematically studied for 150 years. Now since WW2, technology has evolved rapidly to further this exploration. The hydro-thermal vents are one new discovery. They are places where life forms emerge and were life likely started on this planet. This study is very important as human impact on the ocean has greatly expanded.
We have entered a new geological era with humans as the dominant impact on the globe. For one thing the ocean is becoming more acidic because of our carbon emissions. This can greatly impact sea life such as shell fish. We view the ocean as a limitless resource but it is not. The fish at the top of the food chain have decreased by 90 percent a since WW2. The ocean is also used as a garbage dump but there are limits here also. There is a lot of plastic in the Pacific that ends up in fish. If we eat these fish we eat our own garbage. She also addressed the oil spill in the Gulf. Each spill is unique so the result is not predictable.
Seth Priebatsch covered the efforts toward Building the Game Layer on Top of the World. It is already happening but is cluttered. Game dynamics are already in play but many are poorly designed such as credit card promotions. Seth said we can build better applications of games using game dynamics. He said this is important as we have been building the social layer but that is done. He said Facebook has won this one. How it is time for building the game layer. It said the game layer will be more important than the social layer so it is time to think about it in a open way.
He showed four game dynamics. First, there is the appointment dynamic. People have to do things at a set time and place. Happy hour is one example. Farmville has more participants than Twitter and you have to return to water your virtual plants at a certain time. Second is influence and status. People want to be cool and status is a great motivator. School is a poorly designed status game. We could better use game dynamics to improve participation in school. Third is the progression dynamic. You have to go through certain granular steps. His firm is working with businesses on applications of these dynamics to create loyalty, engagement, and revenue. Fourth, there is communal discovery. Everyone works together to solve problems. Digg had a leader board but it was too successful and had to be taken down. He closed with the concept that game dynamics is the next frontier.
Mary Gunn discussed two problems and one solution. Her organization, Generations, Inc. pairs older adults with kids in prompting literacy. It helps both sides and she offers results. I can believe this. A group next covered the digital fabrication of homes so you could design homes in an automated way. Then the specs are sent to a factory to produce the materials in a more cost effective manner using compressed wood chips. This also produces less waste, uses smaller trees, and get homes up quicker. You can more easily do curves.
Before the first break John Harthorne discussed starting a startup renaissance. John said that our economic crisis can drive innovation. He started Mass Challenge to run a one million dollar global competition on innovation. The finalists get funds, advice, and free office space nearby at Fan Pier. He said why Boston for this? Boston is number one on many innovation measures: more investment per capita, more VC firms per capita, more universities per capita, etc. than anywhere, even California. This ends the first group of sessions. More to come.
