IdeaFestival

Amy Chua, IdeaFestival Conversation: Diversity as Strategic Imperative

Author of the book "Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance - and Why They Fall," Yale Law School professor Amy Chua talks about diversity as a strategic national asset in the latest IdeaFestival Conversation.

Wayne

"US Now"

Featuring commentary from digitalist Clay Shirky, "US Now" documents a new form of organization that values transparency and self-direction, and is taking market capitalism in an entirely new direction. With low barriers to entry and almost zero cost for the exchange of information, networked communities challenge 20th century models of organization and value creation, which tended to hierarchically hoard power and information. In other words, the value produced came at a substantial cost in personal autonomy. And transparency? Not so much.

Left unanswered economically: Will this still-developing model of participation make it more likely that by doing good one might also do well? Left unanswered governmentally: how many services now provided by government will move into the public realm as people are able to take and implement common decisions?

If after watching the video all this sounds a bit suspicious, fear not. Wire-archies don't subvert authority, they just expose it.

Us Now from Banyak Films on Vimeo.

Hat tip: Putting People First

Wayne

Clay Shirky

Video: Bjarke Ingels - "Pleasing as a Radical Agenda"

Bjarke Ingels has developed a reputation for grand thinking at BIG, his architecture and design firm in Denmark.

In the latest IdeaFestival Conversation, he talks about "pleasing as a radical agenda", a lesson in human capital and exporting Copenhagen harbor water to China for the 2010 Shanghai Expo.

For film shot live during Bjarke's presentation in September, check out Keith Robbins' great video work. Thanks Keith!

Wayne

Jane McGonigal - Games for a Better life

Why use games to escape reality when they can be used to improve it? Game designer Jane McGonigal takes her turn in the latest IF Conversations.

Wayne

game design, games

Adaptive strategy, kindness

Forget survival of the fittest. Kindness counts.

Wayne

POW! Right Between the Eyes!

Steve Hardy at Creative Generalist writes about a new book entitled "POW! Profiting from the Power of Surprise," which sounds mighty interesting. Steve:

Pow! is about how business 'is in desperate need of new ways to inspire bored and cynical consumers who have grown weary of the same old song and dance. In today’s information economy, it doesn’t matter how many people you reach, but how much attention they pay. And the best way to get attention is with the powerful, but largely misunderstood, element of surprise.'

Agreed. And when it comes to strategy, I think folding surprise - or unexpected delight - into the enterprise can often be the more direct route to discovery. Besides, any book with a written foreword by John Cleese and Craig Ferguson should pass the laugh test.

Joy really is a business strategy.

Wayne

Lincoln the technologist

Among the U.S. presidents Abraham Lincoln has undoubtedly been the most chronicled, and the 200th anniversary of his birth - in Kentucky, I might add - has occasioned many more works dedicated to his life. The most recent sunday book review in the New York Times runs down a few of the best. But Lincoln the technologist and inventor?

Wayne

Lincoln

Psychology of going long?

What is the psychology of transcending the here and now, of long term thinking? The Long Now references one study, conducted over decades, that takes a crack at that question.

Wayne

psychology

Next industrial revolution: Organization

Referencing a post by "edge economist" Umair Haque, Steve Levin says that the next industrial revolution could come, not from technology or capital, but from better organization. In developed economies it's not capital or information that's in short supply, but rather an efficient way of organizing it. Google, after all, transformed the advertising industry by putting relevant information at everyone's fingertips.

Good. But I like how Haque puts it on his blog.

The revolution needs revolutionaries. Today's investors, boardrooms and entrepreneurs are looking for value in all the wrong places. Facebook's game of musical chairs won't solve big economic problems - and neither will making token investments in greentech.

Where is the next industrial revolution crying out for revolutionaries? Simple: in industries dominated by clear, durable, structural barriers to efficiency and productivity.

The next industrial revolution begins here. What happens when we think of using new DNA to reorganize structurally inefficient industries? A blueprint for the next industrial revolution emerges. Here's what it looks like.

• Organize the world's hunger.
• Organize the world's energy.
• Organize the world's thirst.
• Organize the world's health.
• Organize the world's freedom.
• Organize the world's finance.
• Organize the world's education

Wayne

Malcolm Gladwell: Just How Dishonest is Harvard?

In Louisville, last night's conversation between Dan Pink and Malcolm Gladwell about Outliers was enjoyable, and if you followed IF's tweets you got a flavor. I wanted to amplify a couple of their points this morning.

I was struck by Gladwell's populist language. Maybe it's his Canadian roots, but he genuinely recoils at the notion that meritorious behavior alone can account for success and took some delight in poking holes in our national mythology of individual achievement. His aim was true.

For instance, reeling off stats for a recent year of applicants to Harvard, many of of whom had perfect SAT and ACT scores, he went on to dismiss any attempt to distinguish one straight-A, community-volunteering university applicant from another. "It would be," he said "far more intellectually honest to put the names in a hat" and select the incoming class in that matter. Long story short: if a Harvard degree confers status and increases the likelihood of future success - and it does - let's not kid ourselves, after a certain level of work and due diligence, it's a crap shoot.

But still, one must be prepared. And because they are more likely to lead to persistence, which can account for the prepared, "enthusiasm and love" are the foundation of success. Saying that he had come back around to the idea that family really matters, Gladwell also made much of the internal drive that might lead one parent to make enormous sacrifices to get her daughter into an elite school. It was, in fact, a long line of achievement and similar twists in his family history that had led him to where he is today. No, he doesn't know the origin of that drive. And don't talk to him about genetic determinism.

Related, SEED published a skeptical take on the subject just recently, and the coauthor of The Superorganism, Bert Hölldobler, will surely have something to say about the subject at the next IdeaFestival. From biology to physics to cosmology, determinism is taking a beating these days.

In response to a questioner, Gladwell said his definition of success was "complex, autonomous and meaningful work that leads to recognition".

Dan Pink, whose appealing vision of a right-brain future might be summed up as the "meaning makers win," was a quick-witted accomplice and managed to gently needle Gladwell about his antagonism toward status.

On a personal note, I met some people at the Kentucky Center who had won free tickets to attend. Hey, I was just glad someone is paying attention to this space.

So be warned, the IdeaFestival will be giving more things away via the blog and twitter. Don't go anywhere.

Wayne