Archive for the 'Science and technology' Category

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Cracking iPods

Published on 10 November, 2006 in Business, Creativity and genius, High performance and Science and technology. 0 Comments

This kid is a genius. When he was 15, he cracked the copy protection on DVDs, allowing millions of people to make backups and share DVDs around the world. Now, at 22, he’s cracked the Fairplay code that Apple have been using to try to preserve their monopolistic position in the music player market… it’s even better than an anti-trust suit against them!

You have to wonder what drives this kid… but you can be sure that it’s not the money!
Great work, DVD Jon!!! For the full story, have a look here…

Globalising health care

Published on 25 October, 2006 in Business, Lifestyle, Science and technology and Social development. 2 Comments

A while back, I was thinking about the future of health care. While I appreciate the great health care that we receive in Australia, globalisation is starting to have an impact… and I wonder where it’s going.

While outsourcing pregnancy (aka surrogate pregnancy) is a fascinating concept, more relevant for many of us is having the more general concept of medical tourism. To me, it’s another example of how development occurs when developed economies offshore their lower value activities – the best sort of foreign aid that we can offer!

While I salute the efforts of guys like Dion at www.NobleDentist.com.au to lower the cost of health care within Australia, some of the bigger picture solutions are going to involve enterprises like Planet Hospital. These guys assert that they can give you great care from top doctors in some of the most technologically advanced hospitals in the world… for a fraction of the price.

Personal genius from third founder of YouTube

Published on 20 October, 2006 in Business, Creativity and genius, High performance and Science and technology. 1 Comment

Jawed Karim is the third founder of YouTube, the not-yet-profitable company that Google just bought for $1.65b. After making a few million from being involved with PayPal before it was bought by eBay (also for a billion and a half dollars), Jawed just went back to school. Indeed, this New York Times story reports that he’s gone back to finish a masters degree at Stanford.

The kid (he’s a year younger than me!) seems to be pretty amazingly brilliant, and I started to wonder why. Maybe his father being a researcher for 3M could help, as could his mother being a research A/Prof Biochemist. When explaining Jawed’s interest in science and technology, I really got some insight into the mindset of this family: “To develop new things and be aware of new things, this is our life.”

He even chose his first college because it was the college that Netscape’s founder attended!

Creative genius is an amazing thing…

Finding photos

Published on 19 October, 2006 in Business, Creativity and genius and Science and technology. 1 Comment

Thanks to West for finding a few photos of me… almost the same shots here and here with John Kapeleris at the presentation from the Chief Scientist, Peter Andrews, a few weeks ago, here barely visible during Adrian di Marco’s presentation last May, and here over drinks with that same West afterwards. It’s great to have seen YNOT continue to kick goals – great work, guys!

Sustainability with Suzuki

Published on 18 October, 2006 in Business, Science and technology and Social development. 2 Comments

David Suzuki is an amazing powerhouse. He spoke today at the National Press Club, and combined passion for his topic and scientific understanding of underlying issues with energy, wit and charisma. Outstanding

I was really impressed with his grasp of the need for us to look beyond our noses and realise that we are stewards of the world in which we live, stewards for our children’s children and beyond. We have the power to influence the globe; we need to accept the responsibility for applying that power appropriately.
Energy sustainability is a huge issue throughout the world. As I noted a few days ago, computers impose massive demands on our energy generation and supply systems, and it is for this reason that I’m again called to tip my hat to Google. They’re turning the roof of the 1-million-square-foot Googleplex into an enormous solar panel set! It’s so big that they’re expecting the 9,200 panels to produce 1.6MW of electricity – about 30% of the demands of the complex, and enough to repay their capital investment within 5-10 years. Now that’s smart investing…

If their numbers are right, I wonder how many other rooftops could be converted to solar panels. If we’re only looking at a 5-10 year horizon for savings to be realised, it doesn’t take a genius to realise that some profit is waiting to be made… by the big electricity generators if noone else!

The power of technology

Published on 12 October, 2006 in Business and Science and technology. 1 Comment

In 1999, Peter Huber and Mark Mills projected that half the world’s supply of electricity is going to be consumed by our computers.

If you consider that the major search engines have about 2 million servers, each shedding about 300 watts each year, linked to hard drives shedding about 50% more than that again, and about half of the total is taken by the cost of cooling these great heat sources, which added to the system inefficiencies might add up to about 5 gigawatts. That’s about as much as Las Vegas on the hottest day of the year.

So whilst we are so concerned about sustainability, perhaps we might like to think about how we can design our computer networks to be more efficient… Bechtolsheim has a few ideas that could turn out to be interesting – and he’s done it before.
In case you missed out on Bechtolsheim, you might want to think about Cisco, Google, Microsoft and Sun. He provided the first outside money for Brin and Page, founded Sun, was a major early investor with Microsoft and invented some Ethernet switches that were bought  by Cisco… That a heck of a record for the German.

When asked whether the huge infrastructure overheads of the current IT regime gives an unassailable advantage to the big players, he responded, “Only if no one changes the game.”

Here’s the full story…

Who wants to be a Bootstrapped Billionaire?

Published on 11 October, 2006 in Business, Creativity and genius, High performance and Science and technology. 0 Comments

YouTube cofounders Chad Hurley (29, right) and Steven Chen (27, left) in March 2006Sorry Eddie: being a millionaire just doesn’t cut it anymore… not when you can create a company that doesn’t make any money and become an overnight billionaire!

In case you missed it, the guys who founded YouTube.com just sold out their company – but not their concept for US$1.65b… sure, it’s not enough to live on, but consider for a moment that they each made a billion dollars for the 20 months that they put in to the company since it was started in Chad’s garage. That’s like AU$50m per month… in case you’ve missed the story, here ’tis. Entrepreneurs talk about focusing on adding value at a point of the value chain and getting others to do the rest – in a strange twist, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen just outsourced the ‘profit’ component of their business plan! I love it!!!

I do wonder how long it will be before Google runs foul of antitrust legislation though… I’m guessing a lot sooner than it took Microsoft.
A while back, I mentioned The Bootstrappers Bible – well it’s back online again here. I like it… and hope that it’s interesting or useful for you too… I’ve always loved the ChangeThis manifestos – here’s another cool one about group architecture, contrasting ‘spiders’ and ‘starfish’ – simple concept, but very useful.

Making it matter in a beautiful changing world by letting go

Published on 6 October, 2006 in Business, Creativity and genius, High performance and Science and technology. 3 Comments

The other day, a friend was asking me whether I was going to expand and get myself an office. Really, I quite like keeping lean and using coffee shops and park benches as my office space… to me, I don’t really want an office at all! (Though my phone wants a tattoo…) And though there are teleconference challenges still to be overcome, security risks and self-management issues, but there are some perks to be able to go to work without having a shower, much less getting dressed…especially as the high-impact talent of today demands a better work-life balance.

I love how the economic circle turns… while we still have Indian students coming to study at our Universities, now our students are being tutored online by Indians in India! And the value for money that you can get is mind blowing… and is all the more important considering that India and China produce five times the number of science and engineering graduates as the United States. We need all the help we can get to keep up… And if the Australian government is serious about upping the birthrate, perhaps the baby bonus needs to be increased – for just a little extra, you can hire a uterus!

Having been involved with community groups for some time, one of the challenges that you face sooner or later is handing over control. This is especially a challenge when you’ve actually made a difference – where you’ve sought to lead the organisation in a particular direction. Studies of business development – like this case study from HBS – show how the ‘founder’ or early leader of a change is often replaced over time as the organisation moves to a different phase in development. The conclusion: Often, you can be the king of a small domain or the prince of a great empire.

My dad is getting close to retirement. He’s worked in the public circus forever and I struggle to see what he’s going to do with himself once he retires… maybe he’ll start his own company and become part of the wave of retirees flocking to create new wealth when they don’t really need to do it! My grandfather did it… so did the guy who created Dreamworld… Hopefully he’ll be a bit more sensible than the current array of media-tart-web 2.0 entrepreneurs.
I’m increasingly obsessed with design. To me, it’s where the value is being created today – it’s where it’s at. We have enough stuff, now we want it to deliver values… here are some of the Masters of Design… Jochen Zeitz (CEO, Puma AG), Steve McCallion (creative director
Ziba Design), Paula Scher (partner, Pentagram) and Clive Wilkinson (principal, Clive Wilkinson Architects).

It would seem that we could see more Fields Medalists (like a Nobel prize in maths) coming from outside the peer review system with the creation of internet-based journals that are peer-reviewed after publication like PLoS ONE and Philica. To me, this is very interesting, posing challenges to the existing publishers, though creating great opportunities for dynamic new findings and ideas – should be great to watch it grow. This direction has stimulated the venerable Nature already – they’ve started exploring how to maintain relevance with its own experiment in online peer-review. I wonder when we’re going to start creating concept maps of the concepts and supporting references though…

Ideas that change the world

Published on 30 September, 2006 in Business, Creativity and genius, Science and technology and Stories. 2 Comments

Einstein’s famous E = mc2 was expressed in a mere three pages, yet the concept that mass is merely concentrated energy has changed the world. Illnesses being caused by bacteria and viruses is a very recent concept, yet again it is now taken as a given. University, in my experience, is more about learning a relatively small number of key concepts that are able to apply across contexts than it is about learning piles of useless and quickly forgotten formulae and rules.

What are the ideas that have changed your mind?

The Financial Times has identified a number of significant books in their shortlist:

  • The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson
    Mass market economics gives advantage to those products and services that are in high demand, but as borders come down and the global village shrinks, we are seeing parts of the market able to be serviced that were previously too small. Exemplar: Amazon can stock millions of books that an ordinary bookstore – even one the size of Borders – cannot stock because the proportion of the market is too small in a geographically limited market.
  • Small Giants, by Bo Burlingham
    Profitability for a company will be maximised when that firm focuses upon being excellent at what it does best, rather than trying to grow until the diseconomies of scale are unavoidable.
  • The Wal-Mart Effect, by Charles Fishman
    Some companies create market forces as much as being subject to them and other insights available by speaking directly with former executives.
  • China Shakes the World, by James Kynge
    The growth of China is directly impacting the lives of much of the world. As it grows, we are seeing strengths and weaknesses evolve. One thing is certain: There is even more to come!
  • The Box, by Marc Levinson
    Container ships criss-cross the world with the products of globalisation. Entrepreneur Malcom McLean (1914-2001) created the container concept, and made possible the global goods trade system as we know it today. This guy bought a truck for $120 in 1934 but the company ended up with 1770 trucks; he sold his interest for $25,000,000 in 1955. But it was his next venture where he really revolutionised things: Containerisation allowed him to cut the stevedoring charges from $5.83/ton down to just 16c/ton!!! The increasing move towards mechanisation made his innovation even more successful. His containers won patent protection, but then he kept a step ahead of Apple’s mistakes by granting the International Standards Organisation a royalty free lease because he realised that industry grown was more powerful than patent protection. By 1969 – just 14 years after he had exited the trucking business – he sold his interest for $160,000,000. The company is now part of Mærsk.

There are many amazing concepts available today. One of the most important in my mind is that structuring access to information is as important or more important today than the information itself; that the immense quantity of information available to us simultaneously democratises information and increases the value of brands as a way of streamlining our information filtering system. But that’s why I usually read the TP Wire Service…

Some time with the Chief… Scientist

Published on 21 September, 2006 in Creativity and genius, High performance, Science and technology and Social development. 0 Comments

Professor Peter Andrews is Queensland’s Chief Scientist. Over a few hours on Tuesday evening, he reminded a few of us that biotechnology will be the key enabling technology for the coming generation… it will impact our food, our health and our energy supply. It was great to see John Kapaleris, Damian Hines and Ross Barnard there too – people that have had a big impact on my thinking in technology and innovation management. For example, check out the subject that I did with Damian (that John is now running), Biotech Venture Management…

Prof Andrews pointed out that we’re likely to run into a severe skills shortage for scientists in the years ahead. Even now we’re trying to import talent from China and India, but as those economies develop there will be ever fewer of their best and brightest wanting to leave home. And to cultivate more scientists, we need not only to have more primary school teachers actually feel confident teaching maths and science, more students taking maths and science to senior, and more science graduates, we need more people feeling passionate about the scientific mindset. A brief profile appears on the Brisbane Institute page and in State Development.

Interestingly enough (at least for me) being a scientist has far more in common with being an artist than being in business. It is largely a mindset with enabling mental operations… here are a few differences that a study of Polymathy and Creativity found.

  • Artists and Scientists have diverse intellectual interests, while Business-types are intellectually narrow
  • Artists and Scientists have elaborate fantasies, while Business-types are more grounded and reality focused
  • Artists and Scientists are sensorily responsive and motivated to express their experiences, while Business-types tend to be disinterested in sensuality

Compared with Artists, Scientists were more willing to work in structured environments and less introspective about sex (why the ‘artist’ persona can be so seductive?). However, when compared across 50 personality dimensions, it was found that there were only two where Artists and Scientists differed, and 15 where Artists and Scientists differed (statistically significantly) from Business-types.

Another interesting implication from the study was that arts education is necessary for scientific innovation…

(It is ironic that just yesterday, Queensland Schools’ Scientific Assistants were on strike because the Education Department regards them as interchangable with administration officers. These are the very people who setup the experiments to teach our young people the value and excitement of science! I also found out that there is no role for Technology assistants within schools – at my old high school, the guys in charge of the computers are paid for by the P&C rather than by the Department. I would have thought that being serious about having a ‘Smart State’ would demand that serious attention be given to the lead indicators and contributing factors, rather than just lamenting that things aren’t better. But maybe it’s just me…)

Finally, while I greatly enjoyed the debate on privatising public education at Customs House (hosted by The Brisbane Institute) last Tuesday, the arguments against could have offered something more than laughing at the suggestion and saying “we just couldn’t”. Perhaps the more advanced arguments raised in other parts of the world could be instructive, such as those presented at FastCompany here. To me, the challenge lies in defining the educational outcomes that would be the key performance indicators used for assessing performance of the providers – though this is a problem today as much as it would be then…

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