Off Course-On Target

Snowflake Effect on Financial Industry set to Double in 2012

Many of you were intrigued by some of my former postings such as Snowflakes Effect Hits Financial Models: Snowflakes funding Snowflakes  about how the Snowflake Effect of mass personalisation is affecting the financial world and in particular with loans and investments.  Some wondered if this was just a few random examples but I think this recent overview on TechCrunch shows that this is already building into a full fledged snowstorm with what they refer to as “crowdfunding” having reached 1.5 Billion dollars already and set to double this year.

The funding of projects by individual snowflakes is another example of both the Snowflake Effect on financial matters such as the example of the “Pebble” watch I wrote about in Snowflake Wrists?.  When I wrote about this Pebble watch that is one of the projects on Kickstarter two weeks ago they had already blown past their $100k goal by raising $2.6 million, as of today (May 8) they are about to pass the 10 million dollar mark!  Kickstarter is “a funding platform for creative projects” and their blog recently had this “Blockbuster Effects” article which highlighted two other projects and answered the questions “Do more projects mean competition for the same dollars?” and “Are these projects stealing backers from other worthy projects?” by showing that in fact these have the opposite effect as both the overall funding and project numbers continue to grow dramatically.  The full and abridged versions of the “Crowdfunding Industry Report” are available at the bottom of the TechCrunch article.

These are but a few examples that confirm what Erik Duval and I have been evangelizing for many years now, that The Snowflake Effect is a profoundly pervasive revolution which is affecting almost all parts of our lives on a global scale.  There are over 7 billion of us snowflakes on the planet and as each one of us takes on the responsibility and control of our lives, love and learning, the results are going to be staggering.

Seeing Around the Corner of the Future of Photography

I continue to believe that we are hitting the tipping point of the exponential curve of the evolution of what we currently call photography.  I think photography and camera are becoming as ill fitting as terms like calling and phone.  Don't you find it interesting that one of the things you do the least with your "phone" these days is actually call someone?  Or at least your smartphone now does so much more than just act as a telephone that it seems quaint to call it a phone.

Capturing our world via sounds and images is being revolutionized as we see exponential increases in things like resolution, combining still and video capture with sounds, location and more and now being able to photograph things we can't even see such as with this recent development from MIT of cameras that can see around corners. 

With the note that all of these are all technologies which now several years old, as are my posts about them, consider some of the following examples of how rapidly and fundamentally things are changing in these areas:

Adobe and others have also developed cameras and what they call “computational photography” that can gather such complete information on a scene that focus becomes infinite and something we can adjust after the photo is taken. 

Or how about things like Photosynth which can align and stitch together thousands of photos and videos to create a “model” of the whole building or space which you can then walk through.

Add to this the ability to take photos with your “phone” and convert them into 3D models such as with apps like the Autodesk 123D series and how we are starting to see 2D printers replaced by 3D versions capable of "printing" full working 3D assemblies so you can “print” those models you’ve captured and snowflaked them to make them “just right” for you.

Add to the mix things like the Sixth Sense technology

and notions such as The Quantified Self 

and you will start to see how we need to completely rethink and reimagine what “photography” means and consider what we need to learn in order to make smart choices and use the power of these innovations for positive good and gain.

For now start to notice how the use of video is becoming more and more pervasive and consider that as the resolution of video cameras in our “phones” goes up and up, won’t still and video merge into one when you can grab just the perfect “frame” for a video anytime you want a “still photo”.  A little further out what if you don’t need to remember to take a photo or a video of an event before it happens because it you are capturing everything all the time. 

Scary?  You bet!  Exciting?  Absolutely!  Inevitable?  I think so.

Snowflake Effect: Mass Personalization of Manufacturing

Derek Singleton has written a good overview of some good examples of the mass personalization of manufacturing in a recent posting “Anyone can be a Manufacturer” and an earlier one “Three ways to bring Crowdsourcing into Mainstream Manufacturing”.  They are IMHO well worth the read and following some of the links. 

The only significant omission to me. which many seem to miss, is the area of 3D scanning that enables us to capture existing objects in the form of full 3D models which we can then modify and adjust to suit our individual needs and situation before “manufacturing” at a click of a button.  Perhaps Derek will write more on this topic as well.  For now you can see some good examples such as Autodesk’s 123D series of apps for more on this critical component of the Snowflake Effect on manufacturing for the rest of us.

As I’ve been saying in my articles and speaking engagements the last few years, one of the biggest and best examples of how the ubiquitous Snowflake Effect is fundamentally disrupting the present and shaping the future is what I think can rightly be called the Third Industrial Revolution wherein each of us as individuals become empowered to create or manufacture our own “stuff”. 

This revolution is very pervasive and diverse in that sometimes we will literally have a one click manufacturing plant on our desktop along the lines that can already be seen with some of the early 3D printers available.  At the other end of the spectrum it will simply yet powerfully mean that we will play a more and more key role in the design and production of products we create with the assistance of others and higher end services and the myriad of points along this entire DIY (Do It Yourself) spectrum.  I think this will likely proceed along lines similar to how photography and photo printing have evolved where they were initially the domain of experts only to where we used to just take photos and send our film off to be developed and turned into prints to where we now either just click and immediately see the photo results on extremely high resolution screens or hit the print button and soon have a near perfect photo in our hands.

As we begin to similarly capture and print real and complex objects with the simple click of a button we become more intimately involved in the whole process from the initial idea of “Gee, wouldn’t it be great to have one of those.” or “I wish ‘they’ would make something like this.” to the modification and improvement of the object to make it “just right”, just for me, just for now and almost instantaneously have that in our hands.

The instant gratification and production of more “stuff” does NOT excite me and is in fact one of the concerns to be dealt with as we move into this brave new world.  What I am VERY excited about is the degree to which this will in fact involve each of us more directly and intimately in the whole idea-design-test-create-improve cycle.  Think of all the learning this will inspire in us all!  Think about how much more we will understand the materials and energy that go into producing things and the power this new awareness will bring to many as to how to consume less, reuse more and get more out of life. 

How much “stuff” do you have in your life that you don’t use because it never worked well, never fit you properly, never did what it was supposed to do?  Imagine if every “thing” you have is just right, just for you.  Imagine the new skills and knowledge you will need to have and want to have to live life well in this new snowflaked world.  As with all powerful new innovations and discoveries the advent of personalized manufacturing will bring with it equal measures of risks and benefits and it is up to each and everyone ONE of us to choose how we will shape and use these new tools and enablers going forward.

We may curse snowflakes while shoveling billions of them from our driveway or when our car is skidding on compacted ones on roads, yet the almost spiritual beauty of fresh fallen snow and the intricate perfection of each and every unique snowflake evokes emotions deep in our souls and reminds us what a profound gift uniqueness is.  It may be difficult at fist to see such beauty in something as ‘ugly” and conforming as manufacturing has historically been, but these are the traits of the previous forms of manufacturing and why, for me at least, the rapidly evolving Third Industrial Revolution is so powerful, so exciting and yes, so beautiful. 

 

Think about it.  What will you do as these capabilities are put into your hands?  What new skills and knowledge will you need to have to use them wisely and for best benefit?  What new services and support will you need?  How will use these new capabilities for greater good both for the world overall, yourself and the rest of the world’s snowflakes?  As you ponder these kinds of questions, if it doesn’t make you equally excited and scared then I’ve done a very poor job of explaining this.  Hopefully better writers like Derek will help to do a much better job and set off that spontaneous cognitive combustion within you as you have that the Aha! moment of recognition and set of in pursuit of your relentless curiosity to learn and practice more.

Perspectives on Loss & Learning

One of the sadder points of 2010 was the loss of a great learning leader and colleague, Jonathan Kays.  For an all too brief time Jonathan was the Chief Learning Officer of the Masie Center’s Learning CONSORTIUM after following a long career with the Central Intelligence Agency, including a stint as their first CLO.  However our loss has also resulted in much gain as my long time friend and colleague Elliott Masie inspired and pulled together a fascinating collection called “Learning Perspectives 2010” in memory and commemoration of Jonathan.  This collection of “Over 40 learning leaders from global corporations and government agencies contributed perspectives on how learning is changing (and will continue to change) in the coming years” is as eclectic as it is excellent IMHO.

Nigel Pain, another dear friend and colleague, along with Elliott, Meghan and Brooke from the Masie Center somehow managed to tap all these contributors, get their submissions and expertly edit them all in mere days and the result is something Jonathan will have appreciated and smiled at.  A printed version was given to the 2000 people fortunate enough to attend the big Learning 2010 event at the end of October.  Better yet, and in part the purpose of this posting is to let you know that earning Perspectives 2010 is available for anyone as a free download at http://learning2010.com/ebook 

I’ve long since departed the USA and resumed my life of constant adventure aboard the good ship Learnativity* and have been reading and re-reading more of the articles in Learning Persepctives 2010 as I float out here in the tropical atolls of the Marshall Islands.  As I’ve been doing so I thought many of you might also enjoy starting off your new year being inspired by some of these articles and by Jonathan’s legacy and hence this post.

* Cut and paste these lat/long coordinates 07 06.274 N, 171 22.358 E  into Bing or Google Earth to see my current location

As another gift to yourself courtesy of the Masie Center I’d encourage you to go check out the enormous collection of even more great content including lots of video and audio from the Learning 2010 conference that is all available at www.learning2010.com  Even if you’ve been there previously it is worth return trips as there have been lots of additions in the last two months.

I was humbled and honored to be asked to submit some content for this tribute to Jonathan and I’ll be posting some out takes from that in the coming weeks here to stimulate some additional comments from you and inspire me to add more of my own so please stay tuned for those.

Wherever this note may find you today I hope that 2011 is floating your boat as well as it is mine and look forward to another fun year of learning, loving and living.

Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog

Back aboard the good ship Learnativity
moored off town of Uliga on Majuro atoll, Marshall Islands
07 06.274 N, 171 22.358 E

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Snowflake & SocialSize Your Burger?

I do love how serendipity continues to lead me to great and unexpected discoveries and here is but one of the latest examples which I think and hope has some value for you too.

 As you may know I’ve been out sailing in some remote spots (aren’t they all?) in the SW Pacific for the past year with mostly just my sat phone for connectivity so now that I’m stopped here in Majuro in the the Marshall Islands I’m enjoying my first decent WiFi connection to the web and a chance to do some serendipitous rich surfing.

It started when I was catching up to some of my Email backlog and my friend Marcia put me onto a new book called “I Live in the Future and Here’s How it Works” by Nick Bolton.  After downloading the Kindle version and giving it a quick read I think many of you will also enjoy Nick’s writing and insights and wanted to pass it along to you here.

 

In the book Nick writes about how he sees our shift as a "personal 'digital metamorphosis.'” which is fundamentally changing how we live, work, communicate, learn and think. He picks up on a key issue I’ve been focusing on more lately which is the fallicy, IMHO of what he calls being “"multiple multitasking multitaskers”.

I’ve also been talking and writing for many years about the transformation we’ve been making over the past fifty years or so to a society of “prosumers” as Alvin Toffler nicely put it, and Bolton talks here about a new type of consumer, the “consumnivore,” resulting from living in a world where immediacy trumps quality and quantity. 

I linked you (above) to the Amazon site for this book because their “Product Summary” provides a good summary of the key points to the book and you can also read some of the comments from others who have reviewed the book which I often find to be insightful.  I’ll wait while you jump over there to get the synopsis ……………………..

 

The next step in the cascading waterfalls of serendipity was when I happened to check out the author Nick Bilton. As many of you may already know but I obviously didn’t, Nick is the Lead Technology Writer for The New York Times Bits Blog and a reporter for the paper. With a background that spans design, user interface, journalism and hardware hacking and having previously worked as a researcher in The Times R&D Labs, looking at the media landscape 2-10 years, no wonder I was drawn to him.

Reading through Nick’s blog led me to this recent posting which was itself about his NYT article “Making A Social Media Burger”.  Both well worth reading as they are about his visit to a new “healthy fast food restaurant” that just opened in New York.  I’m not so sure about the healthy part nor am I a fan of putting fast and food together in any case but here’s the crux of Nick’s (and my) interest and why a techie is writing about food:

• with hamburgers shaped like doghnuts (read the article) Nick’s burger was as he put it “from the future:  my burger was created on the Internet and broadcast to Twitter, Foursquare and Facebook, part of a multiplayer online game, and my order was checked in by a receptionist with an iPad.”

 

• “Once you place your order, you can give it a name and off you go to pick it up. And this is where the game aspect comes in. 4Food has a leaderboard that shows the most-ordered burger. That turns it into a social networking food game.

 

• Here’s how it works: I create a burger, call it “The Bits Burger” and broadcast it to Twitter or Facebook. Each time someone orders my special creation, I get 25 cents credit in the restaurant and my burger rises up the leaderboard. The more customers order my burger, the higher it goes and the more credits I get, until I’m eating free.”

More rooted in the present, Nick also noted that:

“In addition to a connected burger, the space is as plugged-in as you will find: there are more power outlets in 4Food  than I’ve seen in the lighting and electronics aisle at Home Depot. And of course there will be free Wi-Fi too.”

I stumble over what I regard as Snowflake Effect examples like this every day, and I’m out here in the middle of the South Pacific!  I’ve got to believe it is happening even more dramatically for those of you who are living in much larger centers and so much more connected than I.  As with so many others, this Snowflaked burger example is both severely social and personalized and yet more proof IMHO of how the Snowflake Effect is becoming more and more pervasive.  Bon appétit mes amis!

 

Is Fit “It” When it comes to Great Learning!?

In what has become almost a mantra for me, one of the ways I often synthesize my focus on the Snowflake Effect of mass personalization is getting to “just right”; just the right things for just the right person at just the right time in just the right way on just the right medium, in just the right context…………… well, you get the idea. For the past few years what I’ve been finding is that this can all be taken down to a single word and concept; fit.

When you think about it, a good fit is essentially defined as getting it just right, just for you, just at that moment. This could be for something simple like a favorite shirt, or sweater or pair of shoes. You know the ones we tend to choose over all others whenever we can because when we wear them, and often wear them out, they fit us just right and make us feel just right. Often they are not in the best condition, the “fashionable” choice at the time or other factors more commonly used to make such choices. Yet, because our favorites fit so well and make us feel so good we choose them whenever possible. Great fit is also a lot like that comment about great art; I don’t know how to describe it but I know it when I see it. Great fit is extremely elusive and deeply personal It has been no surprise to me then to also observe that this context and concept of fit works very well for many other and perhaps more profound examples such as one’s life style, personal relationships and learning.

Fit for Me

As some of you may know for the past few years I’ve been conducting a personal experiment by setting off on a grand adventure to see the world from the perspective of the world’s oceans by living aboard my sailboat Learnativity.  So I’m typing this up sitting in the shade of my cockpit right now as I’m anchored off the small island of Malo near Neiafu in the Vava’u Group of islands in the Kingdom of Tonga and you can paste the lat/long of 18 39 56.2 S, 173 58 56.2 W into Google Earth or maps to see where that is and if you’re interested you can learn all about that on my Learnativity blog. 

However the reason I mention this is one of my examples of the use of fit.  What has been the biggest surprise to me of my adventures so far is how well this strange new life style and experiences fits me. I don’t come from any ancestral background of mariners, didn’t grow up around boats or the sea, and didn’t have any lifelong dream of sailing nor previous sailing experience. It is all very new and foreign to me. Yet it fits me to a T for some reason; the independence and freedom on one hand, the complete self reliance and dependence on myself I have for everything from navigation to power to water to food and everything in between.  I was guided to it by using serendipity as my guide, listening to my heart and my gut more than my head, and by paying attention to how well things fit as the way to know which way to go, what was working and what wasn’t, what to say yes to and when to say no.

Fit as a way to Better and Greater Learning?

In the case of learning, it seems clear to me that a great fit is necessary for great learning to take place. We learn the best and the most when it is just right for us, just at that time, just in that context. Great learning then seems to also condense down to getting the best fit. What fits you best at any one time won’t likely fit me best. What fits you best today won’t likely fit you best tomorrow because some of the conditions and context have changed. Perhaps this will help you understand why I am so focused, some would say obsessed, for the past many years with the critical need to transform most learning methods from those based on mass production and sameness to ones of mass personalization and uniqueness; the Snowflake Effect.

Think back to some of your most recent moments when you experienced truly great learning of some kind, often very serendipitously in that it wasn’t planned or expected. What made that learning so great for you? What was different about that moment and the many others when it didn’t work? In the literally thousands of times I’ve posed this question to individuals I’m speaking with they initially struggle to explain it yet almost always end up describing how it was just the right choice of words or pictures or experience at just the right time, when they were in just the right frame of mind, etc. In other words, when the learning was just the right fit.

Therefore I’d like to encourage all of us to consider using “fit” in this context and as a way to determine what characterizes great learning. What are the parameters we can use to determine fit when it comes to learning? Perhaps we are best to use things like outcomes and results to measure the learning itself, but these are all after the learning takes place. For me at least, the bigger question is how do we increase not only the frequency of truly great learning experiences for every person on the planet? And for that, the use of fit is extremely helpful.

Exponentially Increasing the Frequency of Great Learning Experiences

One of the more troubling trends I’ve long noticed is that when the conversation of great learning moments comes up, it is a very revealing and rewarding conversation until you ask when you last had a great learning moment or how many have you had in your life. The answers are troubling to me because they are usually many years ago and a number that leaves many fingers unused. Therefore, one of the questions (I have several) that figuratively keep me awake at night and gets me out of bed every morning is how do we change this? How do we increase the frequency of great learning experiences? And incremental increases, while welcome just won’t do it for me because I think it is possible, and I might argue necessary, to exponentially increase the frequency of great learning; from a few experiences in a lifetime to many of them every day, for every person!

How is this even imaginable you ask? The topic of many more conversations to come to be sure, but in short my awareness and attention to finding and determining the best fit has helped me increase the frequency of my great learning experiences. I wanted to share this with you so you can try this concept of “fit” on for size yourself, and see if paying attention to fit and what makes for a good fit, helps you experience more great learning moments? What does fit mean to you in this context? What are its key characteristics? And the list goes on.

Can’t wait to hear back from you in your comments, your writings and our future conversations.

Wayne & Ruby the Wonderdog
Aboard s/v Learnativity
18 39 56.2 S, 173 58 56.2 W
Neiafu, Vava'u, Kingdom of Tonga

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Getting to "just right" getting closer

A recent posting on TechCrunch "Check-Ins, Geo-Fences, And The Future Of Privacy" had a good summary of the balancing act between privacy and geo-location and worth a quick read.  The addition location related information is a key component to the critical addition of context required by the the Snowflake Effect principal of getting things "just right" as in just the right stuff to just the right person at just the right time on just the right device in just the right way.  However there is, and likely always will be, the need to keep this location based information in context itself so that your location information is being used when you want it, with whom you want it and where it will add value.  And it can't require too much explicit input or action on our part as we simply won't remember and won't take the time and trouble to do so all the time which severely reduced the value for us and others.  So we need all the help we can get to help us make smart decisions and do so as automatically as possible yet all the while maintaining the various levels of control each of us will want, which in itself is a context based "it depends" type decision that is constantly changing.

And we are getting more and more help with all these decisions from many sources and each of us have an growing army of support in the form of other people and all their input as well as devices that are finally beginning to gain some "smarts" and be able to do more than what we explicitly tell them to do.

It was therefore most interesting to me to read the comment:

As apps and mobile devices become more geo-aware, a balance will need to be struck between the over-sharing creepiness of constant location broadcasting in the background and the annoyance of the constant check-in chore. On Tuesday, at our Disrupt conference, Facebook’s VP of Product Chris Cox described a future where phones are “contextually aware” so that they can “check into flights, find deals at grocery stores,” and do other things for us at that right place, at the right time. “These things take a bunch of clicks now—it’s all wasting time,” he said. “The phone should know what we want.”

And in other location related news:

Latitude’s New Dashboard View Is Exactly What Passive Location Needs

Tweetdeck Adds Location Column, Integrates Foursquare

Friends Around Me IPhone/iPad App Lets You Interact With Friends Or Strangers, Just Like They Were Really There

Context and contextual awareness IS the next great frontier when it comes to technology advancements and the continued exponential rate the Snowflake Effect of mass personalization is increasing.

Wayne

via snowflakeeffect.wordpress.com

Minority Report-ing for Duty Soon?

Image by gunthert via Flickr

Seems like today is filled with examples of science fiction becoming reality and adding to my WITII? list of “What if the Impossible Isn’t?”  Below is the latest example of some significant advances in gesture based computing, Minority Report style.  Be sure to follow the link to the full article for some great videos to show you how this works.

For me gesture based computing is but one of the many exciting ways we are finally closing the gap between ourselves and the “machines” we interact with.  These kinds of far more natural based interfaces which also include things like touch based interfaces, voice controlled and direct mind/brain controlled interfaces. 

The iPad Is Step 1 In The Future Of Computing. This Is Step 2 (Or 3).

by MG Siegler on Feb 16, 2010

In 2008, I attended a meeting in Madrid, Spain that featured the coolest demonstration I had ever seen. The problem was that I wasn’t allowed to talk about what I had seen because the company was still in stealth-mode. More importantly, several governments, including the U.S. government were still exploring various parts of the technology for next-generation computing systems, so parts of this were very confidential. By the end of that year, Oblong Industries had revealed itself, but still little was said about its project. Finally, people are starting to talk about it.

While we may not have been at this year’s TED conference, apparently, Oblong was. And apparently, it wowed the crowd. And it should have. If you’ve seen the movie Minority Report, you’ve seen the system they’re building.

No, really. The co-founder of Oblong, John Underkoffler, is the man who came up with the gesture-based interface used in the Steven Spielberg movie. And now he’s building it in real life.

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The Snowflake Effect on motivation

The word and concept of motivation is a very popular one these days, largely fueled by Dan Pink's new book "Drive" (well worth the read) 

So this short article caught my attention and matches my sentiments that the preface to the question "What motivates people?" is "it depends".  Depends on the context and the situation I or anyone else is in at the time.  This is the Snowflake Effect on motivation.  As Paul puts it:

“But here's the point: What motivates you, may not motivate me. Also, what motivates you today, may not work tomorrow.”

The #1 Motivator

Published: Thursday, 4 Feb 2010 By: Paul Hellman

Paul Hellman
Founder
Express Potential

What's the best way to motivate people, based on recent research? We'll get to that in a moment. But first—is this even a smart question?

Not really. The question assumes a one-size-fits-all, best solution. That's a common trap when problem-solving.

See What if the Impossible Isn’t? in action

I believe it is now clear that the rate of most change is exponential and this certainly includes how technology is almost always on dual exponential curves of decreasing price and increasing performance.  We can therefore often see the future quite literally by looking towards the high end of the market where new products and technology are typically introduced.  Think for example of how much sooner we could have seen, admittedly when illuminated by the brilliance of hindsight, the coming of telephones, personal computers, mobile phones and most other innovations by looking at the first versions when they were introduced as very high priced products, with limited functionality and for limited markets. 

As the rate of change continues to increase exponentially we need to become better and better at not just seeing these as innovative technologies or products but to begin to imagine the impact, both positive and negative, on our lives, our behaviors, our learning and our society by getting better at imagining the impossible.  This is why I continue to wonder and ponder about WITII? “What if the impossible isn’t?”

It is in this light that I recommend you read the Singularity Hub blog for stories such as “Z Corp – The Lamborghini of 3D Color Printing and Scanning (Videos)”  Here is the lead in to the article:

While Z Corporation products are out of the price range for most individual users, they represent amazing technology that is commercially available to anyone. I doubt the average person even knows that 3D printing technology can produce color models in just hours. Likewise, 3D scanning an object is probably outside of the everyday citizen’s concerns. These products are still in the early generation paradigm: expensive and used almost exclusively in industry. But they won’t stay there. Technology gets cheaper and more democratic as it is improved, so we should look forward to a time when the kind of 3D printing and scanning we see in these videos would fit in anyone’s budget.

As this technology becomes more widespread and powerful, the ways we purchase and exchange goods are going to be different. When you shop online for a coffee mug, the vendor could just send you the CAD file, allowing you to print the mug rather than have it shipped. Free information (like open source design specs) will translate to free objects.

Even more than reading the article I would strongly encourage you to watch all the the videos embedded within (see but one example below) as they will truly open your eyes as to what is already possible and available to commercial business in the form of 3D printers and 3D scanners for use in the office and the field.  It will only be a matter of months before these levels of accuracy, color and materials are available at prices for the rest of us.  The question is will YOU be ready?  How will these types of capabilities affect you?  How will you take advantage of them?  How will these enablers help us all to find and release the promise within ourselves? 

Just keep asking and imagining “What if the impossible isn’t?”

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