Smart Economy

Smart Disruptive Technologies

I finally got around to reading The Economist magazine that's been sitting in my inbox for the last month.

The one with the cover story of eBay buying Skype, the VOIP company, who's founders started and sold KaZaa, the scourge of the music industry.  Using the same business model of peer to peer networking as before - "Skype's founders developed software that allows people to make free calls to other Skype users over the internet, and very cheap calls to traditional telephones--all of which spells trouble for incumbent telecoms operators" laments the Economist.  It is rumored that in the running for Skype along with eBay were: Microsoft, Yahoo!, News Corporation and Google.  Who is missing from this list?

Where were Bell Canada's, British Telecom's?  Nokia's, Vodafone's or Swisscom's of the world?

I've always wondered by the traditional incumbents themselves don't buy out these potentially disruptive upstarts.  Are they paralyzed with fear?  Or is it just so hard to cannibalize your own traditional business lines if you now own a competing disruptive technology?  Or do the incumbents just see it too late in the process?

The Economist defines disruptive innovation or technology as follows:

The term "disruptive technology" is popular, but is widely misused.  It refers not simply to a clever [I assume they mean smart] new technology, but to one that undermines an existing technology--and which therefore makes life very difficult for the many businesses which depend on the existing way of doing things."

A term originally coined in book The Innovator's Dilemma, disruptive technology (or what Clayton Christensen later renamed "disruptive innovation" and "creative destruction ") is becoming increasingly common.

Déjà vu?

In a story in Canada's National Post newspaper recently, Clark Gilbert, assistant professor at the Harvard Business School, ponders.

"Why do great companies that once dominated, and led an industry, miss out on innovation or even disappear and fail?"  "When the telephone overtook the telegraph, Western Union didn't invest in telephone companies.  And when the cellphone overtook traditional phones, AT and T did not invest in the cellular phone business at first,"

I have no doubt, in fact, I predict that a number of smart disruptive technologies will overtake their dumber cousins, as they grow and mature.

It will be interesting to see if they mature on their own or if they get bought out and by whom.

Over  time, I wonder if the term smart technology and disruptive technology will become synonymous?

So...What new disruptive smart technologies are lurking on your business horizon?

Our regular blog readers will recognize a few recent posts- vaccines are being challenged by siRNA nanotechnology that silences the SN1 gene; antibiotics by Quorum Sensing Blockers and probiotics; Cows are even being challenged by cultured meat,  as we saw in Saturday's post.

......and this just in, as I'm typing:

In the current Nov 1st issue of PloS Medicine, Valeriya Lyssenko and colleagues from Lund University, found that variants in the PPARG and CAPN10 genes can help predict whether a person will develop Type 2 diabetes, particularly in individuals with other risk factors.

No doubt in time, when researchers develop a test for variants in these two gene markers and parents start to routinely test their children for Type 2 diabetes risk, watch sales of any sugar-loaded products -(soda pop, candy, ice cream, cookies and breakfast cereals etc)- begin to tumble.

Let us know your candidates for smart disruptive innovations in your business backyard.

© 2005

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Guest Speaker on emerging Smart Technologies, Strategic Planning, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"

- old Japanese proverb

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page.

Chicken fingers minus the chicken-Cultured Meat Makers on your Kitchen Counter

Agribusiness is long overdue for some disruptive innovations.

Things on the "farm' have been fairly stable for decades.  i.e a farmer who lived one hundred years ago could probably recognize the modern farm today. Sure,  there have been incremental improvements along the way- new machinery, increased production efficiency, growing yields per capita, the rise of GPS and precision farming and the idea of urban farming , but "the farm is still the farm" and none have obsolesced or displaced the two key actors --the farmer nor his farm animals.

Well until now.

Livestock to Cellstock

Most smart technologies progress from the lab into the field. This disruptive smart technology is trying the reverse, literally heading back from the "field", into the lab and eventually into your home and kitchen countertop.

In a recent paper -Commentary: In Vitro-Cultured Meat Production-in the May issue of the journal Tissue Engineering, an interdisciplinary team of scientists have proposed two new techniques of tissue engineering that could one day lead to the affordable mass production of in vitro - or lab grown - meat for human consumption, all from a cell culture.

Problem:

Despite its popularity, meat — both in production and consumption — has a number of adverse effects on human health, environmental quality, and animal welfare. 

These include:

• Nutrition-related diseases associated with the over-consumption of animal fats, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, These diseases are now responsible for a third of global mortality. Over-consumption of meat may be responsible for a quarter of all ischemic heart disease, or 1.8 million deaths, annually. In the United States, alone, the annual medical costs related to over-consumption of meat are believed to be between $30 and 60 billion
• Meat-borne pathogens and contaminants, such as Salmonella, Campylobacter, pathogenic E. coli, Avian influenza, and Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).  In the United States, foodborne diseases — the most common causes of which are contaminated meats — are responsible for over 76 million episodes of illness, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths each year.
• Antibiotic-resistant bacteria due to the routine use of antibiotics in livestock;
• Inefficient use of resources in cycling grains and water through animals to produce protein; Obtaining nutrients from meat, rather than directly from plants, uses considerably more cropland, water, fertilizer, pesticides, and energy.  Given the inputs required to house, transport, and slaughter animals; transport and process feed grains; and transport and process meat, intensive meat production is only 25 percent as energy efficient as soybean production. Obtaining our food exclusively from plants would make it possible to feed substantially more people using available resources.
• Soil, air, and water pollution from farm animal wastes; Annually, 1.4 billion tons of farm animal wastes are produced in the United States. Together with animal feed production, meat production is responsible for the emissions of nitrogen and phosphorus, pesticide contamination of water, heavy metal contamination of soil, and acid rain from ammonia emissions. In addition, in the United States, a quarter of all the human-induced production of the greenhouse gas, methane, comes from farm animals and their waste products.
• Inhumane treatment of farm animals; 9 billion farm animals are killed each year in the United States to produce meat. The conditions in which these animals are raised and killed raise serious concerns about their welfare.
• Depletion of fishing stocks.  75 percent of existing fishing stocks are either fully- or over-exploited 

While per capita meat consumption in the United States and other developed countries has plateaued in recent years, meat consumption in developing countries continues to increase, consequently, these problems are now a global concern

• "China 's meat demand is doubling every ten years." 
• "Poultry consumption in India has doubled in the last five years."

Smart Solution:

"One technique is to grow cells in large flat sheets on special thin membranes.  The sheets of meat would be grown and stretched, then removed from the membranes and stacked on top of one another to increase thickness."

"The other method would be to grow the muscle cells on small three-dimensional beads that stretch with small changes in temperature.  The mature cells could then be harvested and turned into a processed meat, like fish sticks, nuggets or hamburgers."

State of the Art:

Meat substitutes can be made from plants such as soybeans, peas, or wheat; mycoproteins; or now from animal tissues grown in culture.  There are several plant- and mycoprotein-based meat substitutes already on the market.

The above story in Tissue Engineering provides a "proof-of-concept" for cultured meat - tissues grown fron culture. Scientists at Utrecht University, have received a grant from the Dutch government to produce cultured meat, as part of a national initiative to reduce the environmental impact / footprint of food production.

Benefits:

"The benefits could be enormous," researchers say. Because meat substitutes are produced under controlled conditions --impossible to maintain on traditional animal farms, they can be

• safer; You wouldn't need the antibiotics that are used on animals raised for meat.
• more nutritious; Most meats are high in the fatty acid Omega 6, which can cause high cholesterol and other health problems.  With in vitro meat, you could replace that with Omega 3, which is a healthy fat.
• less polluting, and
• more humane than conventional meat

Cultured meat could appeal to people concerned about food safety, nutrition, the environment, and animal welfare, and people who want to tailor food to their individual tastes."

The farm and the farmer won't be disappearing any time soon, but  now it might have some new competition.

A possible positive secondary spinoff could be increased animal genetic diversity. Now that we won't be breading animals exclusively for farming purposes, the animal kindom gene pool and its diversity could return back to natural levels.

Cons:

• Public perceptions of safety;
• Public perceptions of artificial meat,
• taste ? (send on the blind taste tests),
• The "new ethics" of substitutes- artificially grown foods, organs, tissues

Challenges:

• Palatable Texture

To grow meat on a large scale, cells from several different kinds of tissue, including muscle and fat, would be needed to give the meat the texture to appeal to the human palate.

"The challenge is getting the texture right," say scientists.  "We have to figure out how to 'exercise' the muscle cells.  For the right texture, you have to stretch the tissue, like a live animal would."

• Public Acceptance

"It might take some work to convince consumers to eat cultured muscle meat, a product not yet associated with being produced artificially " admit scientists.

"On the other hand, cultured meat could appeal to people concerned about food safety, the environment, and animal welfare, and people who want to tailor food to their individual tastes."

• The Technology and scaling to industrial production levels and to your kitchen.
• Bringing the cost equation down so it's competitve wth farm meat prices.

ETA: 2010-2015?

The Long Term Future?

Meat makers may one day sit next to your bread makers on the kitchen counter.

Sources: New Scientist, Tissue Engineering, Gizmag and New Harvest

© 2005

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Guest Speaker on emerging Smart Technologies, Strategic Planning, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"

- old Japanese proverb

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page.

How the right "dirt" exposure could educate the immune system and help treat asthma, colds --the 'hygiene' hypothesis

Scientists believe that knowing exactly which type of dirt provides the best 'education' for the immune system, could be key to providing new treatments for diseases such as asthma and colds.

Professor Peter Openshaw, at Imperial College, London, explains that a lack of exposure to dirt and common viral infections among children could be behind the shocking rise in the levels of asthma. 

He says:

"Although we have seen a dramatic decline in many previously common childhood infections over the past 100 years, we have also seen a considerable rise in the prevalence of diseases such as asthma.  The increase in asthma cannot be blamed purely on changes in genetic risk, so must be down to environmental factors."

Scientists have called this the 'hygiene' hypothesis, - a lack of exposure to viruses and other environmental factors meaning children are not able to build up resistance, and can become more susceptible to disease later in life.  They also believe having many older siblings, attending day care at an early age, or growing up on a farm can help in promoting resistance to disease.

Studies have shown that most common colds can help protect against wheezing in later childhood, and other childhood infections such as chickenpox also provide a level of protection.

Professor Openshaw, who is a respiratory medicine researcher, looking at immunological responses to diseases such as asthma, the common cold and other lung diseases. adds:

"The challenge now is to find ways of reproducing the protective effects of early childhood infections, while reducing the burden of actually getting these infectious diseases.  Knowing exactly which 'dirt' provides the best education for the immune system, and how to mimic its affects in a cleaner environment, could be the key to reducing the rise in the prevalence of asthma and related diseases."

Impact:

Disconnect between the body and the environment.

Well, it looks like the bugs on the farm are genetically better  for us then the bugs in the home, at least from a genetic perspective.

Our bodies have been fine tuned to the local environment through  past millennia and multiple generations and that has been imprinted into our genes. Travel and diet change disrupts this. That's likely why many aboriginals in Canada are so susceptible to type 2 diabetes, when they abandon their traditional fish-based diets for a modern McDonald's happy meal. (Doctors tell me that the proof is when many go back to their traditional fish protein diets, their diabetes disappears)

If the hygiene hypothesis proves to be true, then even small, future subtle changes in our lifestyle may have unknown secondary side effects down the road.

© 2005

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Guest Speaker on emerging Smart Technologies, Strategic Planning, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"

- old Japanese proverb

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page.

South Koreans to disrupt Robot markets worldwide

There are over 100 serious initiatives around the world to commercialize domestic robots, led by the car manufacturers such as Honda and Toyota. Several research companies are forecasting the home robotics market may one day be equal in size to the automotive market.

But so far, the dozen or so commercially available robots, mainly on the Japanese market are targeted at early adopters with very deep pockets. Price has been the major barrier to growth.

But a mass market for domestic robots may be closer then most forecasters and futurists are predicting.

Two days ago the South Korean news agency Yonhap announced that the South Korean government is launching a task force with 10 private companies to develop a mass market for intelligent "national robots" that will be mainly used at home and in the office.

The task force will unveil three affordably priced household robots in the second half of next year, the Ministry of Information and Communication said in a statement.

The project is part of Information and Communication Minister Chin Dae-je's ambitious plans to create new growth engines for the nation's information technology industry. 

Ten companies, including Samsung Electronics Co, KT Corp, SK Telecom Co, Hanarotelecom Inc, Yujin Robotics Co and Hanwool Robotics Corp, have joined the task force, the ministry said.  The ministry didn't announce how much it will spend for the project. 

The low-cost robots, connected to fixed-line or wireless high- speed Internet networks, will be used to provide cleaning, security and entertainment services at home, the ministry said. 

By 2011, demand for the national robots is expected to increase to three million units, it said.  South Korea is one of the world's most wired nations.  More than 11 million homes have a broadband Internet connection.  Still, South Korea's robot industry lags far behind world leaders such as Japan and the United States, many experts here say.

ETA:  Second half of 2006

Cost:

The three household robots will cost between one million won (950 US dollars) and two million won, the Ministry of Information and Communication said in a statement.

Impacts:

The projected $950 USD price tag is considerably less then the $10,000 to $25,000 that one has to shell out for advanced domestic robots currently coming out of Japan. The drop in price is unprecedented and will have a major disruptive effect on robot markets and manufacturers worldwide. Just like the US car market went through a shakeout in the 1920 and 30's, leaving three major players, will we will see a similar phenomenon in the next 5 years in the robot space?

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Guest Speaker on emerging Smart Technologies, Strategic Planning, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"

- old Japanese proverb

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page.

Blackberry Thumb, Slacking off work and Smart keyboards

This week, wired Magazine reported on the "Agony of Blackberry Thumb" the new ailment that overzelous executives and managers may get when they peck away much too much on their PDA and cell keypads.

Designers forgot about the lessons learned from Human Factor Engineering and Ergonomics with poor computer keyboard and office chairs designs in the 1980's. Smaller cell phone or PDA keyboards aren't exempt from these laws either.

While the cell manufacturers are jumping to their own defence, using the standard retort story line: "we design products with ergonomic and human factor considerations", it's not always a sole problem of design but also a problem of excessive use. Or as McLuhan used to ask in his 4th law of his Tetrad model...what happens at the extreme when everyone is using a new technology? Usually we see a reversal or flip from benefits to misuses.

The Qwerty keyboard is part of the problem- a relic from mechanical typewritter days. QWERTY was the solution to prevent mechanical keys from sticking when you typed too fast on an old mechanical typewriter-a solution that is no longer needed in the PC era. But now this inefficient layout only adds to excessive finger movement when key pecking. More efficient keyboards have been invented and propsoed over the years, but the've never caught on. (see Smart Keyboard solution below)

Now we get a scientific take on the Blackberry Thumb problem.

Coincidently, earlier this week, researchers at Temple University reported that:

"Early nerve damage caused by repetitive strain injuries can trigger "sick worker" syndrome -- characterized by malaise, fatigue and depression, and often mistaken for poor performance."

The study, "Increase in inflammatory cytokines in median nerves in a rat model of repetitive motion injury," is published this month in the Journal of Neuroimmunology." 

Scientists cite that repetitive strain injuries are the nation's most common and costly occupational health problem, affecting hundreds of thousands of American workers and costing more than $20 billion a year in worker's compensation.

The purpose of the study was to observe early changes in nerves caused by repetitive strain that lead to chronic pain and eventual degenerative problems such as carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, tennis elbow or other serious neural and musculoskeletal injuries. 

They discovered that nerve injuries caused by low-force, highly repetitive work can be blamed on an onslaught of cytokines -- proteins that help start inflammation.  These cytokines, known also to spark symptoms of malaise, appear in injured nerves as early as three weeks after the first signs of cell stress -- much earlier than previously believed.

Unexpectedly, the researchers also found that:

"the cytokines affected the rats' psychosocial responses. With so many cytokines entering the blood stream so early, some apparently traveled to the brain, sparking the rat version of "sick-worker" syndrome. "At three weeks, even before the rats experienced pain from their wrist injuries, we watched them self-regulate their work behavior," said scientists  "With inflammatory proteins in the bloodstream, they began to slack off from completing their tasks."

The Temple researchers hope the findings could one day lead to early intervention techniques that would prevent permanent damage.

Could a smarter keyboard be part of the answer?

A Russian firm has invented a smarter keyboard, with a tiny screen mounted within each key, that can change on demand. This intelligent keyboard can quickly adapt to various applications such as different languages or custom keys for gaming.

Benefits:

This could reduce the amount of overall typing by reducing the travel distance between strokes while typing.

ETA: 2006

Impacts:

Could this product take off ? Maybe

There is an obvious niche market for gamers starting in Asia, as well as for other professionals. In general however, Russian products and manufacturers don't have a good image in the rest of the world, so that for this product to be successful,  it will likely have to be licenced to a western partner.

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Guest Speaker on emerging Smart Technologies, Strategic Planning, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new  smart technology in your industry - Contact Me

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"

- old Japanese proverb

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page.

Smart personal mobility vehicles-Toyota's i-swing

Back at the end of September, I looked at the future of Smart Cars

Now we can add one more item to the list

This week, Wired magazine’s blog  profiled Toyota’s new i-swing prototype vehicle that was unveiled at the Toyota Motor Show

What looks like a cross between a Segway, an exoskeleton and a motorized wheel chair, this smart personal mobility vehicle learns your habits as to drive.

But the Wired blog is not too impressed, calling it a three-wheeled death trap

"If you thought the Segway was a ridiculous vehicle, you'd better brace your eyeballs; they're about to do some serious rolling. Yesterday at the Tokyo Motor Show, Toyota showed off its conceptual i-Swing personal mobility thingamajig. Like the Segway, the i-Swing works by leaning into it, but it also learns the driving habits of its user, which has some benefit or other. More importantly, people are sure to get out of your way when they see you come careening down the bike lane in one of these three-wheeled death traps. It's entirely too telling that the i-Swing has no extra seating for the user to pick up a date."

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Guest Speaker on emerging Smart Technologies, Strategic Planning, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

To explore the opportunities of any new  smart technology in your industry - Contact Me

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"

- old Japanese proverb

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page.

Researcher says flu responders can learn from 1918 epidemic

The need for urgent advanced community planning, that I mentioned in Sunday's post on influenza, is now strongly reinforced by a new study released today.

Jim Higgins, a doctoral candidate at Lehigh University has been researching the 1918 flu pandemic for the last several years combing through old coroner's reports, newspaper accounts, historical archives, hospital record and military files to piece together an accurate historical portrayal of the outbreak and spread of the 1918 flu. Interestingly, Higgins also cold-called nursing homes in the state to locate individuals with recollections on the 1918 flu outbreak.

What he's found should be of concern to everyone.

Preparedness

"Most communities were woefully unprepared for the health crisis they faced," said Higgins, who is focusing his research efforts on the ability of Pennsylvania cities to respond. "Those cities that passed muster, relatively speaking, had been building a strong medical infrastructure for decades, and had sound public health policies based more upon science than politics. I'm not sure that's the case today."

Sevices Disconnects and Civil Unrest ?

Higgins has found himself growing increasingly concerned with what he describes as a "bifurcated health care system where the best, state-of-the-art care is available to some, but not to others at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum."

"What happens," he asks, "when people in South Side Chicago or the Bronx see people dying of this, while others get the care they need? What happens if the hospitals which traditionally serve the needs of the inner city begin to run out of beds? Do we think that people will sit pat in the projects and poor neighborhoods of our country and watch as their family and friends, their very communities, die? I don't see why there wouldn't be civil unrest."

Vulnerability ?

"What is certainly likely to repeat itself is the swiftness with which the flu raced through communities. In many cases, he said, those who are most vulnerable are the very young, the very old, and the immuno-suppressed, such as those fighting cancer, AIDS, or other devastating illnesses, to say nothing of people suffering from drug addictions and malnourishment. All of those high-risk factors are found in combination in the nation's inner cities, he said."

"With the 1918 flu, though, the exact opposite happened," he said. "Those who tended to be very vulnerable were those between the ages of 20 and 40, which really points up the folly of assuming the military might be able to help in such a crisis. What's to say members of the military wouldn't be impacted?"

The Blame Game

At the time, limited scientific and medical knowledge led some – including prominent governmental health officials -- to identify the cause of the disease to arcane notions such as the wrath of an angry God, swamp gas or electricity in the air.

"This notion of swamp gas, or miasma, is like something out of the Middle Ages," said Higgins. "To have that put out in 1918, by public officials, no less, is really spooky. And remember, prominent, influential members of America's religious community have recently invoked the theory of an angry God to explain both 9-11 and Katrina's assault on a sinful city."

Anticipatory Community Planning

Medical knowledge, research findings and pharmaceutical developments provide some hope that 21st century citizens might not suffer the fate of their forebears, but Higgins said that survival might depend on the simple concept of community planning.

In studying the metropolitan areas around the state, Higgins found that the areas that suffered the lowest mortality rates included Bethlehem, which benefited from the resources provided by the then-prosperous Bethlehem Steel.

"At the time, Bethlehem Steel produced more munitions than Great Britain and France combined, and the plant could not afford to shut down for illness," Higgins said. "At the height of the epidemic, the federal, state, and local governments came together with the company to invest in a makeshift emergency hospital right on the premises to care for their workers as well as a strict quarantine. As a result, there were only about 100 deaths from the flu, which struck thousands in Bethlehem."

By contrast, Philadelphia found itself much less prepared for an epidemic, and the strapped with a corrupt head the Board of Health, saw roughly 13,000 residents die as the flu swept through the inner city neighborhoods. It represented, Higgins said, the worst case scenario, with dead bodies piling up outside of police stations and others dumped into trench graves.

"Obviously, not every city had the same experience," Higgins said. "There were really no successes. You could only talk about degrees of failure and success."

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Guest Speaker on emerging Smart Technologies, Strategic Planning, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

To explore smart contingencies in any future emergency or any other smart technologies in your industry - Contact Me

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"

- old Japanese proverb

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page.

Smart Nanotechnology is blazing forward

How can you tell if a technology has hit mainstream?

Well, one way is to check the store bookshelves. Last month, "Nanotechnology for Dummies," the newest in the "Dummies" paperback series, designed to simplify the complexities of technology for average person, was published by Wiley.

Nanotechnology is the discipline that uses a combination of chemistry, physics and industrial engineering to discover and use the special characteristics of materials at the nanometer or atomic scale. As we’ve seen, many of these novel capabilities allow previously benign technologies to become smarter by orders of magnitude.

Historians looking back at this time period  will marvel at the torrid pace of discovery and innovation around nanotechnology, which is one of the fundamental core technologies enabling the creation of novel intelligent objects.

Daily, we are seeing not only one but several breakthrough announcements in this field, to the point where even the experts are having a tough time keeping up with all the new developments and capabilities.

Here’s a small snapshot (pun intended) of what’s happened in just the past week

Traditional Manufacturing

Oct 24, 2005

Catalyst Breakthrough

The selective oxidation processes that are used to make compounds in agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and other chemical products can be accomplished more cleanly and more efficiently with gold nanoparticle catalysts, researchers have reported in Nature magazine. The gold nanocatalysts can also carry out partial oxidations under solvent-free conditions making them more environmentally friendly than oxidation processes that use chlorine, and less costly than those employing organic peroxides.

Energy

Oct 20, 2005

Breakthrough in Inorganic nano-crystal solar cell

Researchers have developed the first ultra-thin solar cells comprised entirely of colloidal inorganic nanocrystals and spin-cast from solution. These dual (cadmium-selenide (CdSe) and cadmium-telluride (CdTe),) nanocrystal solar cells are as cheap and easy to make as solar cells made from organic polymers and offer the added advantage of being stable in air because they contain no organic materials. The resulting films, which are about 1,000 times thinner than a human hair, display efficiencies of about 3 percent. This is comparable to the best organic solar cells, but still substantially lower than conventional silicon solar cell thin films….but scientists have hopes for greater efficiencies as research continues.

Molecular Fabrication

Oct 20, 2005

Breakthrough in Nano-Fabrication.

Just as we need to use conveyor belts to move materials and products around at the macroscale during manufacturing, we’ll need similar capabilities at the micro or nanoscale. Scientists have now constructed the world's smallest car -- a single molecule "nanocar" that contains a chassis, axles and four buckyball wheels.

Other notable breakthroughs

Oct 24, 2005

Live, gold-covered bacteria used to create humidity-sensing bio-electronic device.

Oct. 21, 2005

Carbon nanoparticles – both those unleashed in the air by engine exhaust and the engineered structures are thought to have great potential in medical applications – promote blood-clotting.

Oct. 20, 2005

Researcher develop numerous uses for extraordinary 'buckypaper'-- 10 times lighter than steel -- but 250 times stronger

Oct 20, 2005

Quantum dots that produce white light could be the light bulb's successor

Oct 19, 2005

Researchers to develop water purification system using nanoparticles for hurricane relief to aid disaster victims

Oct 18, 2005

Mimicking nature, researchers have developed a procedure that can find and correct defects in self-assembled nanomaterials. The new proofreading and error-removal process is based on catalytic DNA and represents a paradigm shift in nanoscale science and engineering.

Oct 17, 2005

Research team have for the first time demonstrated how qubit rings, pieces of quantum information, can be linked together. The breakthrough, opens up the possibility of being able to create quantum gates - a more advanced version of processors found in today’s computers and paves the way for the first quantum computers

Oct 14, 2005

In the first-ever study of metal nanoparticles' interaction with HIV-1, researchers have demonstrated that silver nanoparticles in the sizes of 1-10nm attach to HIV-1 and prevent the virus from bonding to host cells. 

Oct 13, 2005

Outsmarting light -A team of scientists have developed and utilized novel nanoptical techniques for imaging structures that are many times smaller than the wavelength of light.

Impacts

So, are you keeping up with this blistering pace of change?

No?

Well, stay tuned for the launch of our new Smart Technology web portal, coming soon !! Watch for announcements on this blog

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Guest Speaker on emerging Smart Technologies, Strategic Planning, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

To explore the impacts and opportunities of smart technologies in your industry - Contact Me

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"

- old Japanese proverb

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page.

Smart Glanceable Data

Back in the late 1990's, at one of McMaster Universities Knowledge Management conferences, I remember listening to a graduate student from Finland, who was summarizing the state-of-the-art on environmental scanning ( the process of identifying and following trends in the marketplace) in the forest industry in Nordic countries.

That was when I first heard the term or metaphorExecutive Dashboard applied to the results of environmental scanning -linking emerging trends in a visual manner to aid executive decision-making.

That idea has always stuck in the back of my mind.

About three years ago, I recall a flurry of media attention around a new US starup company called  Ambient Devices. They made these toy globes or orbs that would glow depending on how incoming wireless data would change. They claimed to be in the toy business, but many people including myself saw the real benefits - the secondary spin-offs of their innovations - an early version of an Exective Dashboard that was discusses 7 years ago at McMaster University.

Now Ambient Devices offers three products, A Stock Orb that glows differently depending on how your stocks move, a Weather Beacon that  changes color with the weather and the Executive Dashboard that offers 30 different features to choose from ( my favourites are the Mobile Minutes Used feature and the frequent flyer tracker)

What's really cool is that the company is calling on developers to join them in developing new custom applications. ( Too bad it's only available in the USA so far).

Recently Business Week Magazine in a story titled "An Orb With a Galaxy of Uses", highlighted some new creative glanceable data applications-which just goes to prove that the principle of co-development works. Early adopters picked up the device because it is just plain cool- the Lava Lamp of the Knowledge Management era.  But surprisingly, people found other novel uses in unanticipated areas. 

• A hospital administrator uses it to track the number of people in his facility.  If the color changes, he knows he needs to pay closer attention. 
• Blockbuster is interested in potentially using the device to remind customers when they need to return their movies.
• A Microsoft Software Development Manager  “set up an orb to track the status of the software they were developing: When the code was running well, the ball glowed green. If a programmer submitted buggy code, the orb flashed red.” Orbs were given to both new clients and development teams. The result-flawless coding and projects completed on time. ( now if only Microsoft would apply this to Window, IE and Outlook)
• Southern California Edison launched a pilot program to test dynamic pricing. Half of the customers in the project were given an orb, programmed to track electricity costs. It glowed turquoise during off-peak hours and lime green when the price of electricity was at its peak.  The customers with the orbs conserved twice as much electricity as the customers in the control group,"
• Nextbus, “a San Francisco company that  aims to increase the use of public transit by giving riders precise information on when the next bus will arrive at any given stop, is interested in an Ambient channel that would broadcast its data to your kitchen.”

So what creative novel smart applications can you think of for glanceable data?

In today's world, we're overwhelmed by information.  Smart solutions like the above example that make it easier to understand when something important is happening can help separate the weak and strong signals from the noise.

Pros

One or two I can live with

Cons

A desk full of blinking globes would drive me crazy

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Guest Speaker on emerging Smart Technologies, Strategic Planning, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

To explore any smart technology applications in your industry - Contact Me

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"

- old Japanese proverb

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page.

Smart creative solutions in a flu pandemic - Borders may close, but the economy need not cease

Most national governments are busy planning health contingencies in the event that the current avian flu pandemic migrates into the human population. An international conference of health ministers is convening in Ottawa Canada as I write this post.

Governments warn that cities, entire regions, or even country borders may be shut down in the event of a human flu pandemic

Individuals may be quarantined but the economy doesn't have to grind to a halt the way it did in the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic.

Watching a recent rerun episode of the hit TV series "Friends", the one where Monica and Chandler keep intercepting a "to-die-for" (excuse the pun) cheese cake from a Chicago bakery, that keeps turning up on their neighbor's doorstep, got me thinking.

Assuming that a pandemic will advance in two or more waves (like in 1918) and last at least 3-4 months or 12-16 weeks, there are technologies and capabilities today that didn't exist in last 1918 pandemic- the cell phone, the internet and extensive home delivery.  Almost anything that we buy in the real world can be bought online.

The workplace may shut but business doesn't need to stop

In the event of a pandemic, a large portion of the population doesn't have to be house-bound and confined, but can now work from home, with army of gadgets and tools -- cell and home phones, sms, computers, chat lines, blogs, videoconferencing and broadband connections.  As we saw during the SARS outbreak in Toronto, many savvy organizations had the foresight and agility to plan for home workers.  Private firms and governments should now make contingencies to create an efficient home-based mobile workforce, even to the point of installing broadband connections at home for key personnel.  Your corporate Web and phone-in facilities may be tested during a pandemic, so these capabilities need to be on alert and ramped up when needed.

In Asia, it's believed that one in every two people who catch the bird flu don't survive.

We just don't know what the death rate will be in a human pandemic.  Some experts are conservatively predicting 5-20 % -that's still hundreds of millions of deaths around the world. We should be asking ourselves some strategic questions.

• Can our company operate at ¼ to ½ human capacity levels? 
• Do we have contingent workforces -retirees or volunteers, or returning migrants that we can call back to work, or get to work from home if our staff starts getting sick? 
• Can your business survive if the tacit and explicit levels of knowledge and expertise starts to disappear as people succumb to flu or die? 
• Can key expertise and knowledge be cataloged and harvested now , to ensure business continuity in a future post-pandemic world?
• What new emerging smart technologies and business models can we adopt today, that will maintain or increase business efficiencies, with a reduced workforce during the height of the pandemic?

National borders or city limits may shut, but the economy need not cease.

Industry will need to temporarily shift its mindset from global, back to local.

We are likely to witness a phenomenon known as flu refugees- a new class of wealthier migrants escaping flu pandemics in their own "resident" countries, returning back to their ethnic homelands, creating immediate worker shortages in any country were human2human transmission first breaks out, but a fresh pool of talent in their home countries.

Businesses should now start sourcing alternate local suppliers for raw materials or create plans for rapid inventory stockpiles that would be triggered at the first signs of human to human flu transmission anywhere on the globe.  This still leaves a short-lived opportunity window before borders close to 1) stock up on inventory or to 2) fast-track exports to clients south of the border.  i.e. Many Canadian bakeries use just-in-time deliveries, often relying on imported bulk shipment of flour and yeast from across the border This may be disrupted during a flu pandemic.

Malls may close their doors, but the shopping doesn't need to stop.

The popularity of online grocery delivery services that offer home delivery of products will jump exponentially during a pandemic.  In fact, we can predict that they may be so swamped that companies won't take on new customers. Traditional bricks and mortar grocery stores should partner with local delivery services to continue to offer groceries via home delivery in lieu of in-store shopping.  With closed borders Canadians may not get their fresh fruits and vegetables from the US or South America during the course of the flu pandemic, but there's always frozen veggies that we can stock up on.

Healthcare may close but we can still heal ourselves

Family physicians like home grocery delivery services won't take on new patients. Pharmacies hospitals and walkin clinics will be overwhelmed. Some may be so understaffed to the point of closure.

Even though the Canadian government assures us that they will stockpile enough Tamiflu for all Canadians, distribution may be disrupted.  Take vitamin supplements, buy masks now, and don't forget the garlic.  (also see my Oct 11, 2005 post- siRNA technology likely prevents Bird Flu-Our leaders missing the boat )

Likewise, schools may shut, but the education can continue uninterrupted.

Teachers can post lessons or instructions on classroom blogs or to cell phones, a ubiquitous technology for most students.  It's feasible to plan to work with local cable TV stations to produce grade-specific curriculum for a local community. Each grade in the entire viewing community would have their own TV channel and even the possibility to interact on-air with teachers during special phone-in times where students can ask questions from home.  Lessons also can be burned to DVDs and mailed to students

Other institutions can create similar plans.

(N.B. some of the above ideas were summarized from other blogs)

Foresight and Coordination

The above contingencies require that we change our health priorities, as to who gets vaccinated first.  Along with health care staff, and emergency personnel, we need to add home delivery people, post office staff and all food handlers and other essential personnel in this new disaster economy value chain since they'll be essential in keeping the pandemic economy running as smoothly as possible until the flu threat passes.

Regional emergency TV and radio broadcast capabilities should be set up to keep the public abreast of news concerning the spread of the pandemic.

All of the above will require the kind of local, regional and federal champions and coordination that we haven't seen since World War 2

Since business can't anticipate all the "wild card" surprises, risks and uncertainties and when they'll happen, instead of planning disaster by disaster, an even smarter tactic would be to develop a series of generic disaster response modules based on perceived levels of risk and threat. This could be based on a number of factors such as severity, frequency, impact, vulnerability, timing, primary and secondary consequences and others

Something like a pandemic or a bioterrorist attack, that has longer-lasting consequences could trigger a higher level response module then a lower level risk -like a local severe rain storm or flood.  We can catalog various disasters into color coded modules of response and train staff to trigger and initiate the appropriate actions.  As conditions change, module response levels can be adjusted appropriately.

With the exception a a few locations, most Canadian communities are flexible enough to become self sufficient during a flu pandemic if enough foresight and planning is done now, while we still have breathing time....(pun intended)

Prevention

The ultimate solution is of course -prevention

Writing in the Houston Chronicle,  Rochelle Regodon reminds us:

"We've known for decades where the influenzas that sweep our globe every year come from: They nearly always originate in chickens, ducks and pigs living in great numbers close to people in southern China."

"Typically, flu spreads from ducks and chickens to humans, or from ducks to pigs to people.  The virus often mutates, becoming more virulent as it jumps from one species to another.  It is most dangerous when it can be passed from person to person."

"The key to prevention lies in improved animal husbandry and farm hygiene." (see my Oct 3, 2005 post Smart Germ Proof Surfaces )

"Animals on southern China farms usually live in crowded, inhumane conditions, crammed together with barely enough space to turn around.  These farms are the perfect reservoirs for the disease.  Shigeru Omi, Western Pacific regional director of WHO, points out that the only way to reduce the threat of bird flu to humans is to change farming practices.  "This means a thorough overhaul of animal husbandry practices and the way animals are raised for food in the region.  I believe that anything less than that will only result in further threats to public health."

In China, where the deaths of farmed animals from various diseases cause a loss of $2.8 billion a year, the Ministry of Agriculture is finally taking action.  The ministry has established disease-free zones in five of China's provinces by teaching farmers how to improve sanitation and living conditions for animals.

But this is a little like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped. 

When health and agriculture officials around the world have known for so long how influenza spreads, why has it taken this much time for the issue to be tabled ?

It shows that sometimes only a pending crisis at your doorstep initiates any type of action.

...for more good flu information see David Pollard's blog today Oct 23, 2005 : Preparing for the Flu Pandemic

For some good news see  New Influenza Vaccine Takes only Weeks vs Months to Mass Produce

Walter Derzko

Expert, Consultant and Guest Speaker on emerging Smart Technologies, Strategic Planning, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

To explore smart contingencies in any future emergency or any other smart technologies in your industry - Contact Me

.....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"

- old Japanese proverb

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page.