Open up your mind and say, ahh...

One Day Soon, Could Our Phones Anticipate Our Desires, Like A Psychic Butler?

If you live in a city, you pass by thousands of strangers every day. Many of these strangers have problems. Maybe you have problems that one of these strangers could resolve, if only you knew to talk to them. The problem is knowing who to talk to. You can’t bother them all. At the same time, many people are leaving information trails, posting their hopes, dreams, and problems to Facebook, Twitter, and similar services.

Created by designer Itai Miller as part of a speculative class project, Opportune is a concept app that addresses this situation. The idea is that it scans your Internet activity for clues as to your current desires. At the same time, it is scanning everyone else’s activity. By coordinating location, needs, and offerings, Opportune can act as a matchmaker. Ultimately, it would guide you to a face-to-face meeting with a stranger who can help you out.

“For example–I’m looking for an apartment. I’m looking in the relevant websites and posting on Facebook (or even Twitter).” says Miller, “The app knows that I’m looking for an apartment, and it will find me people who can help me–landlords, roommates, real estate agents–and they will be notified that I’m also in their area.” Whether you find this intriguing or horrifying probably depends a lot on your attitudes towards privacy online and information overload.

Of course, if you are going to have a butler that anticipates your every need, it must know everything about you. Discretion is key in human servants. When it comes to your life stored in data centers, this is a privacy nightmare. “I know that the concept raises questions about privacy, but people already share their entire life on Facebook and such,” Miller points out. We share a lot online. Perhaps more than we realize. Think about apps like Please Rob Me (for a more benign version, there’s We Feel Fine). These work by surfacing and aggregating information that people are giving out publicly.

Still more can be learned when the Internet focuses its terrible gaze on an individual. Consider Anonymous’s habit of finding and posting the information of people it doesn’t like. Network analysis uncovered a slumlord conspiracy. Google automatically creates a profile where it guesses your interests, age, and gender. To say nothing of the government’s sometimes clumsy attempts to anticipate threats.

The cleverness of Opportune is that it recognizes these realities and harnesses this information for individuals. It accepts that a great deal can be deduced by gathering together public threads and turns that into a feature. “I think that the biggest experience is actually the ‘no experience,’” says Miller. “The app guesses what you want and gives it to you. It is like another way to search ‘on the way’ without the actual act of searching. The app is based on the idea that face-to-face meeting is still the most powerful interaction, and it ‘pushes’ you in that direction.” The challenge with these kinds of things is that, so far, software tends to be exceedingly socially dumb. For example, Facebook used to keep suggesting that I might like to be friends with the guy that my girlfriend left me for because we had so many connections in common. Socially stupid, but logical given the social graph.

Similarly, here, the idea is that you give yourself over to extreme surveillance by the network in the hopes that it’ll do a good job of networking for you. But how do you let it know that you don’t want to be bothered? Most people are busy all the time and interruption isn’t welcome. What happens if the poor real estate agent just wants a coffee and five minutes to themselves? “I thought about it,” says Miller, “What if people don’t want to be approached. But as this is only a proposal for an app and not a whole app, I chose not to deal with the minor details such as availability.” And yet a key part of social life in the city is that we spend a lot of time discretely not noticing each other. The danger of social agents that go out and start trying to introduce you is that they miss that point, like an overly gregarious friend at a party dragging you from conversation to conversation when all you want is to get a drink.

Via Fast Co Design: http://www.fastcodesign.com

Researchers Argue Peak Oil Is Here, Bringing Permanent Volatility

The notion of peak oil is fairly simple: Oil is a finite resource and at some point we simply won’t be able to extract as much as we once did. There is no getting around that limit for any finite resource. The issue that has made peak oil contentious, however, is the debate over when we might actually hit it. Murray and King are not the first to conclude that we’ve already passed the peak. Even as prices have climbed by about 15 percent per year since 2005, production has remained largely flat.

The strongest argument against this being a real peak is the increasing volume of petroleum reserves many countries are reporting. Even assuming those estimates were reliable (which Murray and King aren’t certain of), those reserves clearly have not brought increased production. In the United States, for example, production as a percentage of total reserves has dropped from 9 percent to 6 percent during the last three decades.

“We are not running out of oil,” the authors argue, “but we are running out of oil that can be produced easily and cheaply.”

This creates significant delays before new reserves can be tapped, and limits the amount of oil that can be economically extracted from them. Non-conventional sources like oil sands have the potential to contribute to the global supply but so far haven’t done so and current production estimates indicate they won’t anytime soon.

The struggle to mobilize supplies has taken place against a backdrop of falling production and rising demand. Most established sources of oil are seeing declines in the area of 5 percent annually. Given that decline, it will be extremely difficult to meet demands projected for 2030 — in fact, we’d have to add the equivalent of our total current production. In a fit of understatement, the authors deem this “very unlikely to happen.”

What are the consequences of being stuck at or near peak oil? The authors have produced a graph showing that, while supply is elastic enough to meet demand, prices stay stable. Once demand consistently exceeds supply, prices swing wildly. Murray and King term this a “phase transition” and suggest we’ll be in the volatile phase from here on out.

That has some significant consequences. Of the 11 recessions the United States has experienced since World War II, 10 have been preceded by a sudden change in oil prices. The United States isn’t alone, either. Italy’s entire trade deficit, which has contributed to its financial troubles, can be accounted for by the rise in imported oil. The world, it seems, has allowed its economies to become entirely dependent upon fossil fuels.

“If oil production can’t grow, the implication is that the economy can’t grow either,” the authors write. “This is such a frightening prospect that many have simply avoided considering it.”

And it’s not just oil that poses problems. U.S. coal production peaked in 2002, and the global peak has been predicted to hit as soon as 2025. The last time global coal reserves were evaluated, in 2005, the total was cut by more than half compared to previous estimates. Fracking has boosted the production of natural gas dramatically, but even here the authors find reasons for concern. Recent reports suggest shale gas reserves have been overestimated, and many fields that have been in production awhile have experienced large declines in production.

The commentary concludes that we simply can’t rely on any fossil fuel to provide a stable and economic source of energy for more than a couple of decades. And, given the economic shocks that result from rapid changes in energy prices, that’s a serious problem.

“Economists and politicians continually debate policies that will lead to a return to economic growth,” the authors note. “But because they have failed to recognize that the high price of energy is a central problem, they haven’t identified the necessary solution: weaning society off fossil fuel.”

This weaning will require a large deployment of efficiency measures, nuclear power and renewable energy sources. This will take time, which is why efforts need to be started now, the authors argue. (Not mentioned, but equally true, is the probability that taking these measures will smooth out the impact of reaching peak fossil fuel production.) Unfortunately, since most governments are unwilling to admit the prospect of indefinite economic stagnation due to our reliance on fossil fuels, they’ve been unable to generate the political will to even begin these efforts. Murray and King clearly hope their commentary will help get the ball rolling.

Photo: State of California

Via Wired Autopia: http://www.wired.com/autopia/

The waffle paradox

By Seth Godin: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Looking Beyond 2012: Trends for Leading Transformation

Part 16 in an ongoing series that serves as the prequel to my new book, The End of Business as Usual…

It’s a new year and a new set of predictions to set goals and expectations for 2012.  I won’t bother you with the top 10 emerging social networks or apps to focus time and resources. Nor will I gaze in the crystal ball to reveal the five secrets to viral marketing and user/customer acquisition. Instead of adding my forecasts to the endless sea of debatable prophesies, I chose a more aspirational path.

2012 is the year of transformation as digital Darwinism threatens rigid and traditional practices everywhere. Regardless of industry, digital Darwinism is a phenomenon when technology and society evolve faster than the ability to adapt.

Indeed, this is a time when organizations will invest in change to better adapt to emerging market opportunities, to more successfully engage with customers, employees and stakeholders, rethink systems and processes, and ultimately, revive the company’s vision, mission and purpose. The result is an adaptive culture that signals an end to business as usual. Without doing so only expedites the inevitable journey towards irrelevance.  For 2012 and beyond, the following trends serve as beacons for not only survival, but leadership.

Trends for Transformation

Leadership: As technology continues to evolve & permeate work and life, behavior, expectations and communication evolve. Someone must look ahead, see where we need to go and lead the way to relevance. Leadership is something that must be earned. Without a top-down charter toward a direction everyone can march behind, leadership is relegated to operational management. In the age of empowerment, those who march blindly will follow a path not unlike what Steve Jobs envisioned in the infamous Apple Lemmings commercial.

Vision: The stated outlook of organizational direction needs review. When’s the last time you read your company’s vision or mission statement? If you did read it recently, would you Tweet it proudly? In a time when brands are not created, but instead co-created, if vision is unclear or underwhelming, alignment, community and camaraderie will prove elusive.

Strategy: With new media and emerging technology creating a groundswell of customer empowerment, new strategies must focus on the alignment of objectives with meaningful experiences and outcomes. All too often, emerging technology is confused with either disruptive technology, where is impacts how companies work or how customers behave, or that of yet another channel or platform for traditional marketing or selling. Far too much emphasis, budget, and time is placed in new media channels without an understanding of why or what it is that customers expect or appreciate.

Culture: This is a time of change, which requires coalescence and solidarity. We can’t change if the culture is rigid or risk averse. We can’t innovate if those who experiment are not supported. Organizations need to focus on cultivating a culture of adaptation rooted in customer- and employee-centricity and more importantly, empowerment. Culture is everything. It is and should be intentional. It should be designed. Those companies that invest in the development of an adaptive culture will realize improved relationships that contribute to competitive advantages.

People: The 5th P of the marketing mix, “People,” will take center stage. Organizations that embrace the spirit of intrepreneurialism will empower employees to experiment through failure and success to improve engagement and morale. And, by embracing customers, insights will inspire relevant products, services and processes.

Innovation: The ability to recognize new opportunities is perhaps the greatest challenge rivaled only by the ability to execute. Emerging and disruptive technology is now part of the business landscape and customer lifestyle. Innovation, trends, and hype is not going to stop. In fact, it will only amplify. The capacity to identify and consider new solutions and responses is critical. It must be supported by innovative collaboration and decision-making processes and systems to assess and react. Innovation must be perpetual.

Influence: Digital influence is becoming prominent in social networks, turning everyday consumers into new influentials. As a result, a new customer hierarchy is developing forcing businesses to identify and engage to those who rank higher than others. There is no future in any business model that is cemented in reactive engagement. Organizations should identify and engage all connected customers to extend reach outside of problems. Businesses must engage when touchpoints emerge, during decision-making cycles, when positive experiences are shared, or to proactively feed the results who search for insight and direction.  Contributing value to people and investing time and energy into networks of relevance will also earn any organization a position of equal or greater influence.

Localization: For global organizations hoping to connect with customers around the world, localization & contextualization are king in any engagement strategy. This is also true for any engagement strategy regardless of local. Many companies are jumping on every bandwagon imaginable, syndicating content, thinning resources, and investing no more in each network than what’s necessary to maintain a pulse. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Youtube, Foursquare, Instagram, Pinterest, Quora become broadcast channels for one-to-many strategies and programs that do very little for cultivating dedicated and engaged communities.

Intelligence: One of the biggest trends in 2011 was the development of social media command centers. At the heart of these sophisticated data gathering silos were conversations and tools that allowed community managers to listen, respond, and promote engagement within the company. While social media is introducing the art & science of monitoring to marketing and service teams it is the organizations that invest in technology, teams and processes that will translate activity into actionable insights.

Philanthropic Capitalism: Customers expect values to match their own core values. What used to be a necessary checklist of community focus, such as corporate social responsibility or CSR is now rebooted. Philanthropic capitalism is a business model where companies contribute to worthwhile causes on behalf of customers as part of the transaction. Additionally, customers are expressing that they will also invest in companies where employees are “treated well,” pledging trust and loyalty as a result. The empathetic business model on the horizon requires charitable and sustainable decisions as part of everyday business where customers naturally become stakeholders.

These pillars will serve as the foundation for an adaptable business model where opportunities are readily assessed and innovation is regularly practiced. The reward is relevance, affinity and advocacy. As Leon C. Megginson once said in paraphrasing Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

#AdaptorDie

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Via Brian Solis: http://www.briansolis.com