On Innovation

I was speaking at an event yesterday hosted by the Dublin City Council focused on creating the right environment to stimulate the development of Small to Medium and Micro Enterprises in the Green sector.

The format was interesting, called a World Cafe, with a series of 4 short presentations that each posed a question to the audience, who then broke up into small discussion groups each with a facilitator and a note taker. Notes were captured on a large sheet of paper that was then attached to various walls around the venue to be shared. After each presentation the participants then moved to a different discussion group, though the facilitator remained in place. The level of debate and discussion was very high, with the added benefit of an enforced networking effect. Had there been more time the facilitator would have reported back to the wider group on the main themes and strands that emerged from their discussion, but as it is a summary will be sent out via email to all participants. The level of attendance was also high, between fifty and sixty participants from local government, social entrepreneurs, business owners, activists and others interested in doing more than simply talking about change. The numbers were particularly impressive given the fact that there were numerous other events in the city to mark International Women's Day, which many attendees were also actively engaged in.

As part of my ongoing work to create a Space that stimulates the development of Ireland's Public Sphere I was speaking on the conditions necessary for innovation to occur within a Green Economy-orientated space. While the focus of much of the day was on the concept of a Green Hub, almost an incubator for small Green businesses, I was arguing that bricks and mortar alone would not provide the spark for innovation to occur.

You can find my notes and slides below. Regular readers of this blog will find many familiar themes, and while it is more pro-business sounding than most of my polemics its heart is in the right place. Its not often one gets to draw from Krugman, Žižek, Vandana Shiva and Fintan O'Toole in a presentation on business.

On Innovation


In 2007 a colleague met David Edwards, Professor of Biomechanical Engineering in Harvard. Edwards had just released a book called ArtScience, where he argued that innovation cannot be simply made to happen, that what is necessary is to bring together people from different backgrounds and experience in a conducive mental and physical environment and innovation will then occur organically. My colleague shared Edwards' book with a few of us on the leadership team who were concerned that the creative spark was disappearing from many of the activities in our Dublin operation.

At the time one of my roles was to recruit recent MBA graduates from top-flight European universities into our management program. Our company had grown rapidly, in Dublin alone we had gone from twelve of us to 1200 in less than four years and as an organization we felt that we needed to supplement our company knowledge with external business knowledge to meet the needs of our now more mature operation.

After spending some time discussing ArtScience it became clear that by relying on senior talent recruited almost exclusively from similar MBA backgrounds, an overwhelming element of groupthink, what Vandana Shiva calls "Monocultures of the Mind", had entered into our organization, thus when faced with a problem or challenge the vast majority of our new management team would all approach the problem in the exact same way (The INSEAD way, the LBS way, The Bocconi way), and when that solution failed they were out of options.

They had been taught what to think, not how to think. No amount of funky office decor and free food is going to stimulate innovation, it happens organically when the right people are brought together, and a diversity of thought emerges.


Ireland is strong on Enterprise. One of our greatest successes has been our ability to attract so many Multinational Corporations at the cutting edge of their sectors to Ireland, but in many cases the majority of their innovation and research has remained in their home countries.

We have come under increased criticism recently from those within the MNC community for not being able to supply the caliber of workforce that they require, and this is increasingly being used as a justification for reductions in the level of investment in Ireland, or a withdrawal of operations altogether.

While I am not sure if I agree with this viewpoint, there is an element of truth in Fintan O'Toole's assertion that the Irish mindset is trapped in the 19th century, in that our workforce gravitates towards the security of a stable job, rather than adopting an entrepreneurial attitude towards risk and opportunity.

The problem with this is that international evidence suggests that the majority of Green Economy jobs will not come from large Multinationals, rather they will emerge from native Small to Medium or Micro Enterprises.

Thus for the Green Economy to materialize we need to foster a culture of native entrepreneurs, indeed a national entrepreneurial mindset, that will generate the next cycle of mass employment in Ireland, less affected by the volatility of the international market but still attractive to external investors, generating ideas and innovations that themselves can be exported.

In effect what we need is a culture of Innovation Independence.


Innovation Independence will occur when we are able to overcome our own national trait of risk aversion.

(I'm not talking about the kind of risk that we have seen all too frequently within our financial sector where individuals and institutions gambled with other people's money and with little or no personal exposure, what Paul Krugman calls "heads they win, tails someone else loses" in his op-ed piece on Ireland in today's NY Times. I am talking about the type of risk where someone takes a chance and tries to affect positive change whether by starting a new business, a new social enterprise, a community group or other action that contributes to the betterment of society around them) - added on the day, not in original notes.

Samuel Beckett wrote the best piece of business advice I have ever heard, saying: Try again, Fail again, Fail better.

Innovation Independence will occur when we escape our collective 19th century factory mindset.

Innovation Independence will occur when we overcome the fear of sharing and collaborating and emerge from our mental silos.

Innovation Independence will occur when our business culture is fundamentally transformed to encourage and enable a diversity of thought.

And with Innovation Independence the Green Economy will flourish.

Now for the science

The 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Chile on February 27th moved the Earth's axis by up to 8cm (or 2.7 milliarcseconds), leading to a subsequent shortening of the length of a day by 1.26 microseconds, a microsecond being one millionth of a second.

A day after news of this cosmic shift emerged in the science journals came reports from the University Of California, Davis of a campaign to assign the prefix "hella" to 10²⁷, which is a very large number indeed. Currently the largest prefix in the International System of Units (SI) is yotta (10²⁴), followed by zeta (10²¹), exa (10¹⁸) and peta (10¹⁵).

All of which serves merely as a foil to distract you with pretty pictures taken last year and argue that not only has it now been scientifically proven that there was less time than normal last week, I have also been hellabusy, and that is why there have been no posts of any substance in the last seven days.

Thank you for your patience.

Howth seals

Out in Howth today and stopped by the pier to see the seals, up to six at a time all showing off and looking for scraps to be thrown to them.

Seals are much, much bigger than you think they are.

More photos here

Encounters redux

TASC have now uploaded the video of last week's Encounters conversation between Mark Mortell and Fintan O'Toole, well worth checking out.

Shadows on a cave wall

Around 35,000 years ago a series of 26 symbols began to emerge on cave walls and rock formations around which our neolithic ancestors gathered and sheltered. Overlooked until recently a pattern has begun to emerge of a global written language, or at the very least a globally recognized system of synecdoches that signify an intelligence in our neolithic ancestors far more complex than previously credited. While some of these symbols can be clearly seen in Irish sites such as Newgrange, itself around 5,000 years old, examples have been found on all six inhabited continents up to 30,000 years earlier, indicating a continuous pattern of symbol usage over the course of at least 30,000 years.

Our current Latin alphabet evolved from the earlier Etruscan, itself based on Cumaen Greek which first appeared around the 8th century BCE, placing our own letters in existence for less than 3,000 years, or 10% of the lifetime of the neolithic synecdoches.

The need and desire to communicate complex thoughts with the Other is something that has been a driving force in the human psyche since the first clearly identifiable humans evolved. Indeed recent research suggest something much older, with a proto-language being postulated in the hoots and bellows of Campbell's monkey's in the Ivory Coast, yet to date recorded communication seems to be the exclusive provenance of humanity.

And yet despite 35,000 years of literary evolution I have found myself frustrated with my inability to communicate with those around me. It seems that the more time I spend trying to understand a concept, the poorer I am at relating my understanding to others. I grasp for the words, looking for the ability to synthesize what I think and believe into something explainable to those around me, and I find that I can't. There is a bottleneck between the concepts in my head and my interactions with the Other and in the immediacy of conversation communication fails me.

Misunderstandings by the Other, the sense of failure in the Self birthed by the constant stream of questioning and clarifications my statements induce, the internal anger at my own inability to effectively share my thoughts with those around me.

Why am I not better at this?

Is that what writing is? Is that why synecdoches and symbols evolved, to condense a series of thoughts and concepts into a single sigil easily grasped and understood by all who view it, imparting knowledge through familiarity, an agreed first principle of gnosis?

Or is it the opposite, are symbols a trigger to self-understanding rather than the object of understanding itself? In conversation you have the ability to question statements and demand further clarification from the Other, but in writing the Other is removed and you have only your own knowledge and experience to question, thus the work necessary to understand is greater. Is knowledge gained through debate less ingrained because the work to gain it has been shared?

Or is this thought just a salve to sooth my own frustrations at not being able to communicate effectively with the Other through conversation? A bad workman blames his tools, thus by necessity it is language itself at fault, not my own ability to use it.

Why am I not better at this?

Links
The Origins of Writing at New Scientist
"Alpha Beta" - John Man traces the evolution of the Latin alphabet
NY Times on simian linguistics

The root of all evil

Blurgh.

That, my friends, is the technical term for how I am feeling this morning. Normally at this stage in the day I am up, bouncy and refreshed and ready to take on the world, at least in blog form. My day begins, post ablutions, with a trip to the it's-criminal-just-how-close-it-actually-is local coffee shop and the purchase of a tasty frothy beverage of the hot and non-alcoholic kind. The wind in my hair, the rain on my cheek, the caffeine in my bloodstream are all part of my daily ritual of awaking, but the stars are aligning (and not in a good way) and something about this ritual has to change.

I went in to Brown Thomas this week to look for Gaggia coffee machine. Now BT would not normally be the type of shop I would share my custom with, being almost the exclusive domain of Ladies Who Lunch and their Celtic Tiger Cubs. Were I outfitting myself for a best dressed partner (there being no easy acronym for "wives, girlfriends, and that mysterious category of 'other' that allows the still-married Taoiseach to bring his mistress along to State events and not be condemned by the Catholic Church) competition in the Fianna Fail tent at the Galway Races no doubt BT would be the place to go for a lovely smock, but normally I would not darken its doors. However a quick online search told me that BT had a Gaggia shop, so off I went.

BT is obviously run by Ireland's most clever and well funded psychologists, for its ground floor is an intricate rat's maze through which one must dart and scurry avoiding the shambling automatons that look scarily like actual humans save for their hideous painted clown visages and glowing nuclear orange skin that stand hyena-like guarding a fresh kill over their counters of placenta-enriched lotions and potions that absolutely guarantee your husband won't leave you for a younger model like he left his first wife for you.

(I bought two, just in case)

But why brave all this? Is a Gaggia not the ultimate symbol of the Celtic Tiger years, the product of an Ireland that abandoned generations of milky-tea history and surrendered to the rich-roast frothy embrace of neo-liberalism? Possibly.

My Grandparents are tea drinkers and have been all their lives, with their day divided into inter-tea periods as they count down the hours to lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, and finally 9pm supper with a biscuit and the news. My parents, however, are all coffee drinkers as are my uncles and aunts, a generation of jittery twitches and nervous bursts of energy poured into fruitless endeavors abandoned in their prime when the short focus of attention moved on to the next shiny thing. My own generation fell in love with the foamer and the three Euro mochabochachocachino as a sign of our disposable wealth, and the kids behind us in the office have already moved on to Red Bull and Frosties for their morning pick-me up, each generation outdoing the next in its need for a pharmacological start to the day. No doubt the future drones of Gen Z will arise from bed into the milky embrace of a crackaccino (it's got cocaine in it) before hopping into their flying car and off to the office, with Molokos all round at lunch. Yum.

However today and now there still remains that annoying €3 a pop aspect for my vice of choice, and this has begun to weigh heavily on my mind. A morning beverage six days a week leaves little change from a twenty euro note, with fifty one weeks (the beverage dealer being closed between Christmas and New Years) bringing us to just over €900 a year. Yikes. At that sort of money the €250 a small Gaggia will cost starts to look like a more reasonable investment. And so off I went to brave the degradations of that sticky-sweet smelling oompaloompa-land.

Only to find that Gaggia is no longer cool enough for Ireland's bright-orange young things, banished from the shelves now all the hip cats quaff Nespressos.

I have many problems with this. Nespresso is a capsule-system from Nestle (kills babies), which a) is a proprietary system that instead of being able to use whatever coffee you like requires you to continually buy Nespresso capsules from Nestle (kills babies) at the proprietary Nespresso store in BT that occupies the space where shiny-chrome Gaggias once stood. I like my hot frothy beverage open source and DRM-free thank you very much, b) it is incredibly unenvironmentally friendly with each capsule being a single cup's worth of coffee encased in an unrecyclable plastic and aluminium mix destined to end up in the gut of a migrating Tern, c) none of the coffee that ends up in Nestle (kills babies) Nespresso capsules is Fair Trade, and coffee bean pickers and growers are among the most exploited workers in the world, and finally d), and this is the biggy, its Nestle (kills babies), and Nestle kills babies! All the George Clooneys in the world can't mask the smell of blood richly infused in each and every perfect cup of Nespresso.

So off I left feeling simultaneously saddened and disgusted with myself for compromising my principles enough to venture in and cheated that I left empty handed. With the donning of the ritual sackcloth and ashes that marks the start of each golden shame-spiral, I thought now would be a good time to question my relationship with my morning beverage and coffee in general.

I am a poor sleeper, I have high cholesterol, I am prone to stress, and am, at times, a frustrated ball of nervous energy, all before I have a single cup of coffee. Perhaps an excessive amount of coffee drinking, in fact any level of coffee drinking, is not necessarily a good thing for me.

I am, however, unable to drink proper tea for I find it too acidic, am not a fan of hot chocolate, find hippy herbal teas too anemic, am too young for Horlicks and too old for Ovaltine and so basically have been driven back to coffee time and time again despite all its obvious flaws.

Until this week when someone suggested Chicory. What? Chicory. Actually Chicory Root, specifically Prewett's Organic Chicory drink, no caffeine and now completely gluten free. Yay.

To be honest its not too bad, the French have been diluting or substituting coffee with chicory for hundreds of years and it comes across as a slightly weak, odd tasting coffee. It has filled the need this week to have a cup in my hand as I think and type, but like a smoker with a lollipop the body memory may be fooled but I still know its not the same.

Blurgh.

(oh, and if you think the whole Nestle killing babies thing is a tad exaggerated, check out this article from the Guardian in 2007 that gives a pretty good overview of what Nestle have done and are still doing, and why the boycott of their products is as important today as it was when it started over thirty years ago)

Encounters at the end of the world

Just back from the first TASC Encounters public lecture, featuring Mark Mortell in conversation with Fintan O'Toole. Much of the conversation was drawn from O'Toole's recent book, "Ship of Fools", the source of much of my wrath and ire in January, and although Mortell, coming from the opposite end of the political spectrum to O'Toole, had a tendency to cut O'Toole off from longer polemics just as they started to get really juicy (purely in the interest of fairness and balance, you see), overall the format worked and the night was in equal parts inspiring and infuriating, and completely engaging.

Much of the content revisited classic O'Toole themes; Ireland is stuck in a 19th century mind-set, our recent problems are caused by the aura of impunity that surrounds the actions of our Celtic Tiger gentry, we've never as a nation had to fight for our democratic institutions so they never have really taken hold in the hearts and minds of our citizens in the way they did in Europe post WWII, our political and civic development is hampered by the lack of a true left/right dichotomy in our political culture which in a very real sense suggests that we do not have a functioning democracy, and so forth.

As we worked our way through the Q&A session I found myself increasingly despondent by the lack of possibility for true change, as questioner after questioner asked where our anger was, and why the streets were not filled with citizens appalled by the injustices inflicted upon them. I wondered, not for the first time, if I wouldn't be better off to just pack my bags and leave the country for good and turn my back on the whole mess, just in time to hear O'Toole explain that traditionally emigration and not revolution had been our greatest form of social protest - if you don't like what's being done to you, historically you leave - much to the detriment of the nation as whole.

Oops.

This is an interesting notion, and one that sadly did not occur to me in this way before, and on the walk home I realised that Ireland is a Darwinian model of hereditary subservience. The most rebellious of each generation faced with the frustrations of battling against the authoritarian institutions of church and state chose the easy option and upped roots and left, leaving behind the less adventurous and more complacent. Generation after generation of those left behind bred for complacency until we are left today with a nation that can barely muster the energy to sigh a collective "Meh" when the corruptions of our leaders are exposed and our futures publicly bankrupted by the cabals of our political dynasties and their financiers. It is survival of the apathetic, sure what can we do about it so why bother even trying?

At last TASC is trying. The formation of this progressive think-tank has been one of the most positive developments in what passes for Ireland's Public Sphere in recent years, and events like tonight will hopefully form the foundations of a new energy and will to make things better in the hearts and minds of all who participate.

Or give us all something to reminisce about in twenty years time in Paris, New York, London, Sydney, Boston, Berlin, Chicago...

Links
TASC
TASC Progressive Economy blog
"Ship of Fools" by Fintan O'Toole