Category Archives: Other

Is innovation increasing or receding?

Posted on by One comment

We have 3d printers, cars that park themselves, iPhones and apps, and advances in robotics. At 7 billion there are more of us to create and innovate than ever before. And yet this week the Economist’s main article is highlighting the number of scientists who think that we’re not only in an economic recession but also a recession of innovation, invention and creativity.

Given that one of the premises of a book that I’m currently writing is in fact the opposite (that we’re living in a creative revolution) I immediately sought to challenge their article. But what do you think?

Why do we persist in wishing away our own lives?

Posted on by Leave a comment

Most of us want to live. In fact most of us would do almost anything to stay alive. But at the same time we have a tendency to wish our lives away.

‘After I’ve finished school things will be better.’
‘I can’t wait until I’m out of education.’
‘I just need to get these few years out of the way, and then I can do a job I actually enjoy.’
‘I can’t even remember what rest feels like. We’ll get more when the kids go to university.’
‘Just 3 more years until retirement. I wish they’d go faster.’
…
‘I wish I was young again.’

Why do we do this? Might there ever come a time when we don’t?

How do you decide what’s possible, or how far you can be pushed?

Posted on by 2 comments

Quantum science teaches us that at the Planck level i.e. the smallest level, there is only potential – pure abstractness. Whether this ‘universal field’ is consciousness or information or something else, this knowledge suggests that all things imaginable are possible, and some think actual. But is that helpful when we’re thinking about our own actions?

I’ve often talked about balance on this blog. And perhaps no one can determine their own optimal balance, in terms of how far they can be pushed, and what they’re capable of, other than themselves. I’m training to do a marathon at the moment, and that requires me to make many decisions about when to rest and when to push myself. But how should I make such decisions? Stop if I’m ever in pain? If we all did that nobody would do anything. But of course there does come a point when I must stop.

Have we got the potential to do anything, as information seems to in quantum physics? Are we in fact in thousands of different places at once, in some places giving up, and in others pushing ourselves on? Or is the quantum world so divorced from our ‘big’ reality, that we can only use our finite amount of knowledge, the opportunities we’re presented with and our finite ability to persevere through pain until we just have to give in? How do you make such decisions?

Great expectations – are they a good idea?

Posted on by One comment

In Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations Pip, a boy of humble origins, steadily grows into a man of great ambition. But is he the happier man? Or is it the unsophisticated and uneducated Joe who’s happiest? -the partner of his sister, who raised him. It’s often said that Dickens dedicated his works to railing against social injustices and inequalities.

But he was also playing with philosophical concepts, and obviously societal ones. We instinctively want the ambitious, lowly born person to do well. But should we not also question the ambition, as does Dickens? We teach people that having great expectations is a good thing. Sometimes we even go so far as to praise avariciousness, though we rarely call it by that name. But should we? Are great expectations always good? Or would it be a better thing to teach our young to be content with what they already have?

How important is innovation?

Posted on by 2 comments

I recently took part in an innovation rally. It was said there that a) few financial firms manage to get intro Forbes list of innovative firms, and b) that it was an achievement that 50% of this firm’s (statestreet) employees think innovation is essential. However this means 50% don’t think this, and is this not in fact the reason financial firms struggle to be innovative?
What’s the single most valuable resource on the planet? Human capital. The firms that find ways to tap into the cognitive and creative surplus of their employees over the coming decades will be the most successful ones. Because these firms will be making the most efficient use of that valuable resource, empowering people throughout the organization and presenting as many people as possible with genuine opportunities to innovate.
Do you agree with this analysis? And if so how can today’s firms more effectively and efficiently innovate?

Philanthropy Ltd.

Posted on by 2 comments

Another business idea:

Since the publishing of the Whitehall papers, and especially more recently since biologists have found chemical proof for why exactly this happens, we have known that as your social status worsens you take on more stress, your immunity worsens, and your lifespan lessens. But what we have not done is sufficiently clarify what defines your social status, or help people change it by redistributing wealth based not on financial but rather social status.

Philanthropy would do exactly this. It would be a website, onto which participants paid a set fee of about £10 a month. Minus a 5% fee to cover costs, this site would redistribute the money based on social status, rather than financial status. And what’s more social status would be defined by participants.

Thus when you signed up you would answer a series of questions like:
. On a scale of one to ten how much do you enjoy your work?
. Do you own a pet?
. Do you have a long term partner?
. How many times a month do you meet up with friends outside of a work environment?
etc.

From the answers to each question the participant would be given points, which rank them in a social status league table. Those at the bottom of that table would receive more money back than they put in, whereas those at the top of the table would not get anything back.

Obviously there is a problem of honesty. If you want money back you could purposefully answer in a way that makes you rank lowly. Now existing research leads me to say that this is not usually the case when people are asked about their social status. But of course there would have to be research done to see whether people really would be honest enough when financial incentives are involved.

However if every participant was allowed to help decide how certain factors affect social status there could emerge a much more complicated picture. You could for instance be asked how often you listen to music and not know what the optimal answer should be for how it affects your social wellbeing.

And this would also provide people with clear incentives as to how they can improve their social status in non-financial ways. It’s very frustrating for some people that big wig businessmen are seen to have the highest social status, when in actual fact they may be single, have no pets, no friends, no hobbies etc. Such a business could potentially, not only redistribute wealth, but also challenge our existing perceptions about what social status should really relate to.

And there may even be potential for governance implications and for business profits, though the latter would only be a side-effect as the main aim would be charitable. A lot of future business potential lies with data mining, and this initiative would create a data mine like no other. If enough people signed on it would allow governments to rank themselves internationally by Gross Social Wellbeing. And some of the data (there would be an opt-in clause for people willing to have their data shared, rather than the rather more dubious opt-out clause) could be sold to businesses looking to capitalise on desires to move up the social status ladder.

Thoughts?

A New Clash of Civilisations – against businesses

Posted on by 2 comments

You may have heard of the Clash of Civilisations between the West and the East. But what might have slipped you by is that there is far more evidence for a clash between people and business – a global clash, but one that will happen within rather than between countries. In recent years global growth has far outstripped GDP growth. Multinational corporations are gaining more and more power by the year. In fact it’s one of my many ideas for a novel; to implicitly parallel the growth of businesses and power of CEOs with the growth of Roman Legions and power of Generals like Caesar. You can probably guess where the novel would go if I ever get round to writing it. But where will reality go?

We don’t talk about a clash not because it’s not there, but because people are taking this lying down. In the latest budget the UK Coalition announced that it was slashing taxes for businesses, and saving money by taking away benefits for the poor. This is in the people’s interests it is claimed, as businesses bring jobs. But hold on, since the 1970s businesses have shifted from a ‘Retain and Reinvest’ model of corporate governance towards a ‘Downsize and Distribute’ one, which has meant much higher unemployment, declining real incomes, and a growing rich-poor divide. Only Germany that I can think of, insists on its businesses valuing employee wellbeing as well as profits

People are frustrated and feel under-valued all the way around the world. We can see this simply in the fact that the protestor was named 2011’s Times person of the year. And Occupy, the biggest protest movement worldwide, is not really protesting against governments so much as it is against businesses. Governments say they can’t do anything about it. But I say we must. It is not people we need to fight against. It is systems. And today we have made some pretty big systems, which actually fight against the wellbeing of the people!

What are your thoughts?

Life University

Posted on by 2 comments

Another business idea. Do you know fiver.com? It’s a website where anyone can sell and buy anything for $5. It’s a completely decentralised business model done on the cheap, which encourages innovation and also efficiency. How does this business model contrast with that used by universities? Universities use expert teachers, trained over many years, and recruited by a standard appointment process. For your standard degrees it is right that this is so. But doesn’t this leave a gap in the market? What about all the local knowledge that’s being lost, particularly in rapidly developing countries. And what about all the people with a passion for teaching their subject area who might have some time free, but not want to pursue a life long career in academia?

A Life University would merge the standard educational model, with the decentralised model used by fiver.com. Anyone who wanted to create their own profile as a teacher or consultant could do so on this site, specifying what they have to teach, how much time they have and what money they would be prepared to accept. And then whenever someone comes on looking for knowledge in a certain area, they would know longer simply have to search the internet for the relevant information. They could instead go to the Life University’s website and key in:

I want to learn……………

I’m prepared to pay……………….

I have this much time…………………

Further details e.g. preference for face to face, one on one, internet etc………..

After having keyed in these basic details the website would pull up a list of teachers and consultants who fit the search criteria, and the searcher could then pay one of these people to teach them. The administrators of the site would ensure that a good service is given. The Life University would hold the money until the course/class was delivered, and if the teacher/consultant doesn’t respond more than twice in a row they will be taken off the site.

What do you think? Have you heard of anything like this having already been set up?

« Older Entries Recent Entries »