Smart Economy

Why brainstorming and numbercrunching doesn't work

Clients often ask me what are the best creativity techniques for producing incrimental or radical innovations. They are often surprised when I tell them that I'm not a big fan of brainstorming. I prefer the direct overt use and teaching of both critical and creative thinking skills to spot or even better to design "opportunity scenarios or windows."

Consultants who employ unfetterd brainstorming techniques or who tell their audience to "think out of the box" show a total ignorance or disregard for: 1) how the brain works in real life; 2) how it forms patterns or habits and 3) how to cut across these engrained patterns to design innovative, novel concepts.

Writing in the Dec 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review, we get a good example of this:

"Many managers fail to generate a stream of solid ideas because they employ two common techniques: They encourage their people to go wild and think outside the box or they assign them the task of slicing and dicing the old boxes (in the form of existing market and financial data or specially commissioned market research) in new ways.  The problem with the first method is that most people are not very good at unstructured, abstract brainstorming.  Imagine a random product you are trying to improve in a typical facilitated brainstorming session.  Outside-the-box possibilities could include making the product bigger or smaller, lighter or heavier, prettier or more rugged (or changing its appearance in any of a hundred ways).  Further ideas could involve making the product more expensive or less, or maybe breaking it into parts or bundling it with other products.  They could involve changing the product's functionality, durability, ease of use, or the way it fits with other products.  Or its availability, affordability, or repairability.  How do you know which dimensions are fruitful to explore?  More often than not, the facilitator will say, "There are no bad ideas," which only compounds the confusion.  Without some guidance, people cannot judge whether they should continue in the direction of their first notion or change course altogether.  They cannot handle the uncertainty, and they shut down.

The second method - slicing the data in new ways - almost always produces only small to middling insights, for different reasons.  The contents of every database are structured to correspond to insights that are already recognized, not ones that aren't.  (Why are sales data often organized by region?  Because someone already knows that the contrasts from region to region are meaningful.)  Moreover, any insights produced by recrunching publicly available numbers will probably be discovered quickly by competitors' armies of MBAs, who are most likely using the same techniques and the same data as your people."

Richard Florida on Prosperity, Innovation and Creativity

See Video from CBC The National  and The Colbert Report interviews Richard Florida

Smart Virtual power grids based on total renewable energy

Fly over the Alps and apart from the gorgeous countryside, you'll see wind farms dotting the country.

Germany, (like Sweden) is on its way to genuine energy independence (from outside suppliers like Russia) and headed toward 100% reliance on renewable energy sources by mid century (2050)

An experiment conducted by researchers at the University of Kassel in cooperation with three energy companies (who produce biogas, wind power and solar power ) challenges the conventional wisdom on renewable energy, suggesting that nuclear and fossil fuel energy can be phased out and replaced totally with renewables - without disrupting the supply of electricity to the national grid and meet fluctuating industry demands.

see Video here and web site

Scientists from the University of Kassel prove that Germany can power itself entirely by clean renewables in a secure way. In an ongoing experiment called the KombiKraftwerk ('Combined Power Plant'), they link 36 decentralised biogas plants, wind, solar and hydropower installations in a robust network to demonstrate that distributed power can replace both fossil fuels and nuclear power. The network is just as reliable and powerful as a conventional large-scale power station.

The companies Schmack Biogas AG, Enercon GmbH and SolarWorld AG teamed up with the Institute for Solar Energy Supply Systems (ISET) at the University of Kassel, to defuse arguments against renewables by showing that they can secure 100 per cent of energy supplies in accordance with fluctuating demand - both continuous baseload and peakloads

Changing jet streams may alter paths of storms and hurricanes

The Earth's jet streams, the high-altitude bands of fast winds that strongly influence the paths of storms and other weather systems, are shifting-possibly in response to global warming.  Scientists at the Carnegie Institution determined that over a 23-year span from 1979 to 2001 the jet streams in both hemispheres have risen in altitude and shifted toward the poles.  The jet stream in the northern hemisphere has also weakened.  These changes fit the predictions of global warming models and have implications for the frequency and intensity of future storms, including hurricanes.

Cristina Archer and Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology tracked changes in the average position and strength of jet streams using records compiled by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, the National Centers for Environmental Protection, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.  The data included outputs from weather prediction models, conventional observations from weather balloons and surface instruments, and remote observations from satellites.  The results are published in the April 18 Geophysical Research Letters.

Jet streams twist and turn in a wide swath that changes from day to day.  The poleward shift in their average location discovered by the researchers is small, about 19 kilometers (12 miles) per decade in the northern hemisphere, but if the trend continues the impact could be significant.  "The jet streams are the driving factor for weather in half of the globe," says Archer.  "So, as you can imagine, changes in the jets have the potential to affect large populations and major climate systems."

Storm paths in North America are likely to shift northward as a result of the jet stream changes.  Hurricanes, whose development tends to be inhibited by jet streams, may become more powerful and more frequent as the jet streams move away from the sub-tropical zones where hurricanes are born.

The observed changes are consistent with numerous other signals of global warming found in previous studies, such as the widening of the tropical belt, the cooling of the stratosphere, and the poleward shift of storm tracks.  This is the first study to use observation-based datasets to examine trends in all the jet stream parameters, however.

Men more likely to have problems with memory and thinking skills

When it comes to remembering things, new research shows men are more likely than women to have mild cognitive impairment, the transition stage before dementia.  The research will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology 60th Anniversary Annual Meeting in Chicago, April 12–19, 2008.

"This is one of the first studies to determine the prevalence of mild cognitive impairment among men and women who have been randomly selected from a community to participate in the study,” said study author Rosebud Roberts, MD, with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, and member of the American Academy of Neurology.  Mild cognitive impairment can also be described as impairment in memory or other thinking skills beyond what’s expected for a person’s age and education.

For the study, 2,050 people living in Olmsted County, Minnesota, who were between the ages of 70 and 89 were interviewed, examined, and given cognitive tests.  Overall, 15 percent of the group had mild cognitive impairment.

The study found men were one-and-a-half times more likely to have mild cognitive impairment than women.  The finding remained the same regardless of a man’s education or marital status.

“These findings are in contrast to studies which have found more women than men (or an equal proportion) have dementia, and suggest there’s a delayed progression to dementia in men,” said Roberts.  “Alternately, women may develop dementia at a faster rate than men.”

Unconscious decisions in the brain

Already several seconds before we consciously make a decision its outcome can be predicted from unconscious activity in the brain. This is shown in a study by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, in collaboration with the Charite University Hospital and the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin. The researchers from the group of Professor John-Dylan Haynes used a brain scanner to investigate what happens in the human brain just before a decision is made.

"Many processes in the brain occur automatically and without involvement of our consciousness. This prevents our mind from being overloaded by simple routine tasks. But when it comes to decisions we tend to assume they are made by our conscious mind. This is questioned by our current findings." (Nature Neuroscience, April 13th 2008)

"In the study, participants could freely decide if they wanted to press a button with their left or right hand. They were free to make this decision whenever they wanted, but had to remember at which time they felt they had made up their mind. The aim of the experiment was to find out what happens in the brain in the period just before the person felt the decision was made. The researchers found that it was possible to predict from brain signals which option participants would take already seven seconds before they consciously made their decision. Normally researchers look at what happens when the decision is made, but not atwhat happens several seconds before. The fact that decisions can be predicted so long before they are made is a astonishing finding."

This unprecedented prediction of a free decision was made possible by sophisticated computer programs that were trained to recognize typical brain activity patterns preceding each of the two choices. Micropatterns of activity in the frontopolar cortex were predictive of the choices even before participants knew which option they were going to choose. The decision could not be predicted perfectly, but prediction was clearly above chance. This suggests that the decision is unconsciously prepared ahead of time but the final decision might still be reversible.

"Most researchers investigate what happens when people have to decide immediately, typically as a rapid response to an event in our environment. Here we were focusing on the more interesting decisions that are made in a more natural, self-paced manner", Haynes explains.

More than 20 years ago the American brain scientist Benjamin Libet found a brain signal, the so-called "readiness-potential" that occurred a fraction of a second before a conscious decision. Libet's experiments were highly controversial and sparked a huge debate. Many scientists argued that if our decisions are prepared unconsciously by the brain, then our feeling of "free will" must be an illusion. In this view, it is the brain that makes the decision, not a person's conscious mind. Libet's experiments were particularly controversial because he found only a brief time delay between brain activity and the conscious decision.

In contrast, Haynes and colleagues now show that brain activity predicts even up to 7 seconds ahead of time how a person is going to decide. But they also warn that the study does not finally rule out free will:

"Our study shows that decisions are unconsciously prepared much longer ahead than previously thought. But we do not know yet where the final decision is made. We need to investigate whether a decision prepared by these brain areas can still be reversed."

Original work: Chun Siong Soon, Marcel Brass, Hans-Jochen Heinze & John-Dylan Haynes
Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain.  in Nature Neuroscience April 13th, 2008.

Traditional organizational teams are extinct. Biomimicry and Bioteams. Connect-and-collaborate replaces Command-and-Control

Traditional organizational teams just became extinct. 

With the emergence of global Internet collaboration, social networks and mobile communications, the very meaning of the word "team" has changed --changed utterly. 

Ken Thompson, former European IT Manager with Reuters and a pioneer of the burgeoning "biomimicry" design movement, has mapped out a fundamentally new model for teams.  He teaches organizations how they can look to the natural world to create high performance "bioteams" based on nature's best designs.

In his just-released book, Bioteams, Thompson offers a way to build exceptionally agile, high performing teams based on a thorough examination of the key communication principles that underpin nature's most successful groups --from signal bursts of migrating flocks of geese, to the waggle dance of honeybees, to the pheromone trails laid down by ants.  Based on nature's communication patterns, he provides a complete set of practical techniques that have been proven with real teams in the field, whose stories are described in a comprehensive set of case studies in the book.

Using the principles of bioteaming, command-and-control leadership gives way to connect-and-collaborate, where every member of an organizational team is a 'leader.' 

In nature and in bioteams, leaders don't give commands, they transmit information, trusting the team members' competencies and gaining accountability through transparency.  True team leadership is about cooperation, not control.  It's about acting on opportunities, and letting others lead the leader when they know best about getting stuff done."

Bioteams offers a vision of what successful teaming experiences look like.  More than a book about team dynamics, Bioteams offers stories, principles, and guidelines showing how any individual can successfully participate in almost any work or learning-related situation faced today.  Toby Coppel, Managing Director of Yahoo!  Europe, said of the book, "If you are looking for the book that describes the radical new model for teams in today's world --this is it!"  Jay Cross, CEO of the Internet Time Group, summarized Thompson's work, "Ironically, these are not really Thompson's rules; they are Mother Nature's."

Whether you are a CEO, manager, Chief Learning Officer, trainer, team leader or team member, we are confident you'll find Ken's practical techniques to be valuable in your organization, your work and your life.

In university courses on leadership, organizational behavior and management, his innovative concepts and proven methods will help prepare the next generation of leaders for the interconnected world of the 21st century.

Major L.A. California Earthquake predicted for this week

Yes, I'm going out on a limb to predict a major earthquake (smaller ones happen all the time..see map below).

Regular Smart Economy blog readers will know that we've been right about the USA housing bubble/crisis and the resulting financial system collapse in the USA.

Retired US geologist Jim (James) Berkland, who tracks weak signals of change ( strange animal behavior) this morning suggested on a local US radio station that a major quake will strike California  this week-in fact in the next two days.

Jim has an enviable track record-predicting a number of quakes including the famous 1989 World Series quake in LA --two days before it happened. ..

Jim's Bio and Book

Geologist Jim Berkland was suspended from a California Government Geology Job when he made a prediction that a major quake would occur during the 1989 World Series in the Oakland Bay Area.  It hit and the government told him to not make any more predictions.  Now that he is retired, he publicly states quake windows.  Mr. Berkland uses tidal flooding tables based upon Lunar Perigee (time when the moon is closest to earth to affect more gravitational pull on the earth).

One blogger reports on this morning's warning from Jim Earthquake in California in 2 days??

"Coast to Coast AM with George Noory just started a few minutes ago, & the first guest on, Jim Berkland, says California will have a magnitude 4 or higher earthquake in 2 days.  He said the quake will strike Los Angeles, radiating out about 140 miles from the epicenter.  On the show, he also mentioned odd frog and rat activity in the area has recently begun in the past few days, similarly to how frogs, rats and snakes were acting a few days prior to the earthquake in China last week.  Well see in a few days if he's correct with this one."

Others such as Cal Orey suspect a quake will hit offshore in Northern CA/Bay Area/Reno-Tahoe first

Berkand's predictions for  May 2008

The Seismic Window of May 4-11, 2008 is based upon the New Moon of May 5th, and the very close perigee just 15 hours later.  This Perigean Spring tide is one of only four this year and the Golden Gate maximum daily range in tides will be twice normal (8.6 ft.  On May 7).  I am 80% confident that one or more quakes will hit during this window with the following parameters:

(1) 3.5-6.5M within 140 miles (2 degrees) of Mt. Diablo (37.9N; 121.9W).

(2) 3.5-6.5M within 140 miles of Los Angeles (34.0N; 118.0W).

(3) 3.3-6.3M with an epicentral address of Washington or Oregon.

(4) 7.0+M major event globally, most likely within the Pacific Ring of Fire, where 80% of the world’s strongest quakes occur annually.  (Currently we have had 5 of the expected 16.)

Also see How did animals in Thailand know the tsunami was coming?

See  PBS special on Earthquakes and Infrasound

See discussion of spikes in lost dogs and cats and nervous zoo animals this week.

WARN YOUR CALIFORNIA FRIENDS !!!

Update (hope this is the extent of it)

2008 May 20 23:00:14 UTC

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/nc51203032.php

Earthquake Details Magnitude 3.2

Date-Time Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 23:00:14 UTC Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 04:00:14 PM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location 36.595°N, 121.203°W Depth 8.7 km (5.4 miles) Region CENTRAL CALIFORNIA Distances 9 km (6 miles) NW (323°) from Pinnacles, CA 21 km (13 miles) NNE (32°) from Soledad, CA 23 km (15 miles) ENE (66°) from Gonzales, CA 33 km (20 miles) SSE (148°) from Hollister, CA 103 km (64 miles) SE (143°) from San Jose City Hall, CA

Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 0.1 km (0.1 miles); depth +/- 0.3 km (0.2 miles) Parameters NST=165, Nph=165, Dmin=3 km, Rmss=0.09 sec, Gp= 36°, M-type=local magnitude (ML), Version=2 Source California Integrated Seismic Net: USGS Caltech CGS UCB UCSD UNR

Event ID nc51203032

This is a computer-generated message -- this event has not yet been reviewed by a seismologist

Smart new process could cause titanium price to tumble

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., May 20, 2008 — Whether for stopping cars or bullets, titanium is the material of choice, but it has always been too expensive for all but the most specialized applications.

That could change, however, with a non-melt consolidation process being developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and industry partners.  The new processing technique could reduce the amount of energy required and the cost to make titanium parts from powders by up to 50 percent, making it feasible to use titanium alloys for brake rotors, artificial joint replacements and, of significant interest now, armor for military vehicles.

full story here

Say Hello to the Smarter Avatar version of Yourself or Me 2.0; Digital avatars as teachers

Once shunned by academics, Wikipedia is now a teaching tool used at the University of British Columbia.

In a step further into the future, Jeremy Bailenson, an assistant professor of communication at Stanford University, presents an argument for using digital avatars ( a virtual representation of yourself) as teachers. 

The prevailing wisdom in teaching, as in just about every form of social interaction, is that face-to-face contact is the gold standard, trumping all forms of mediated interactions.  But as virtual reality moves from games into rigorous scientific applications, it is inevitable that society will rethink the importance of physical location

Writing in the April 4, 2008. issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Jeremy Bailenson concludes:

"My virtual representation of me, commonly known as an avatar, can outperform me as a teacher any day.  It can pay unwavering attention to every student in a class of 100 or more; show my most spectacular actions while concealing any lapse, like losing my cool; and detect the slightest movement, hint of confusion, and improvement in performance of each student simultaneously.

Most people may think of avatars as too primitive to show such details.  But at Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab my colleagues and I use cutting-edge technology.  We could build an avatar that looked just like you (the heads we produce look real enough that they are used in police lineups), gestured like you, even touched like you, thanks to haptic devices that relay the speed and force of hand movements.  And the technology can be transmitted over a network."

Research by Benjamin S. Bloom in the 1980s and subsequent studies have demonstrated that students who receive one-on-one instruction learn at least an order of magnitude better than do students in traditional classrooms.  Virtual reality makes it possible for one teacher to give one-on-one instruction to many students at the same time...[...]..A teacher's avatar has powers that just don't exist in physical space.

"Virtual reality functions in cycles -- the computer figures out what someone is doing, then redraws his or her avatar to show changes based on that behavior.

For example, as a student in Chicago moves his head, looks toward the teacher, and raises his hand, sensing technology measures those actions.  As the student moves, the computer of the teacher in New York, which already has an avatar with the student's facial features and body shape, receives that information over the Internet and modifies the avatar to make it move, too.  Tracking the actions of teacher and students, transmitting them online, and applying them to the respective avatars all occur seamlessly, and all the participants feel as if they are in the same virtual room, in a movie together."

See more here about Jeremy Bailenson research into how people interact psychologically with their virtual-reality representations. ie Vicarious reinforecement ....see how you and your avitar can loose weight together.