Community – Page 3 – Lorne Mitchell's Thursday Thoughts

26/04/201226/04/2012

How Do Good Ideas Spread?

At the recent evidence for the House of Lords Communications subcommittee, I drew attention to a great piece of thinking which was written-up in a book by Everett M Rogers in 1962 called “The Diffusion of Innovations”. It has since sold more than 30,000 copies, is now in its fifth edition and has become a classic on how ideas spread.

Often, when we think about innovation, we think of words like “new”, “creative”, “first-mover” etc. Diffusion is not really a word that instantly springs to mind. Yet Everett’s research has proved to be a robust model which has stood the test of time across many innovation cycles. Here is a great cartoon which outlines Everett’s five constituencies that need to be convinced about a new idea, product or service:

I particularly like the cartoon because it includes “THE CHASM” as the first gap across which all innovations much leap if they are to be successful and grow beyond the first 15-20% of any given market. How many ideas or innovations fail at this hurdle!

What is even more interesting to note are the different dynamics as you move from up the curve after the chasm has been crossed. To capture the “early majority”, then a “word of mouth” or “refer a friend” strategy is the main mechanism for growth. There are many examples on the internet where this has been institutionalised.

Once the early majority has been convinced, the late majority tends to be more convinced by the opinion of a number of individuals or other social groupings. Once again, the internet has helped to accelerate this in recent years with social media platforms and other types of discussion fora – further driven by well-designed applications that allow people to group themselves together in areas of common interest like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.

As the Internet has accelerated the diffusion of ideas around the world, distance has become less important than it was in the 1960s. The fifth edition was updated in 2003 to address the spread of the Internet, and how it has transformed the way human beings communicate and adopt new ideas. How much has changed, even since then!

I have found this a very useful model for all those struggling with marketing ideas, products and services in the age of the internet. It is always worth remembering that the tactics used for getting over the chasm are probably not going to be much use when you have to convince the Laggards. Perhaps the UK needs to understand the model better when looking at how we increase our usage for the internet as a whole – and particularly encourage the laggards to get online. Hence my use of the model when talking to the Peers last month.

29/03/201229/03/2012

Lorne at the Lords

I gave evidence at the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications on Tuesday – all about the future of UK Internet Access.

There is a video of it here:

01/12/201101/12/2011

Occupy Everywhere!

I had a meeting early yesterday morning at the Frontline Club in Paddington. As I was leaving, some NHS folk were outside the entrance to St Mary’s Hospital demonstrating and making a noise. I did not go up to them and chat – I just took a picture. The window in the top left corner is where Sir Alexander Fleming discovered Penicillin. As I walked away, I wondered what Fleming would have thought of all the noise?

I headed off to have lunch with an old friend at a restaurant in Paternoster Square – just by St Paul’s. It was a good lunch – and surprisingly crowded (when I had been told that all the traders in Paternoster Square had nearly gone out of business). After lunch, I had a bit of time before my next appointment, so I decided to walk from St Paul’s down to Victoria.

I could only leave Paternoster Square by one exit – which was the one I came in on. Normally crowded with tourists and city folk, the square has been blockaded in by a squad of policemen and other less official-looking people who seem to be from the tented camp of the Occupy Movement.

I was surprised to see the tented camp still pitched around St Pauls. I wondered how long they will hang on out there (particularly now the weather is turning)? Still, give the Occupy St Paul’s encampment some credit, they were pretty well organised and all seemed quite peaceful.

As I walked down towards The Aldwich, the whole of Fleet Street had been blocked by police cars, police vans and trucks with large sandbags. It was a very strange atmosphere which I later realised was the end of the TUC march down the embankment.

A bit further on some folk were clearing barriers and a strange tent-like contraption came around the corner that posed for some TV cameras. The banner said “Occupy Everywhere” obscuring the sign for the Royal Courts of Justice. And it got me thinking.

With the world’s population recently increasing to over 7,000,000,000 people (or 7bn for short), in a strange way, we DO occupy everywhere already! That’s the problem! And we aren’t doing too well at organising ourselves to reduce the population size. And there are now so many people getting heated up about all the problems that the planet itself is heating up more than we anticipated a few years ago.

So what’s to be done? The politicians can’t seem to fix it. The international banks and muti-national companies can’t seem to fix it. The Occupy Movement doesn’t seem to be fixing it. Yet we continue with the old patterns of marching, demonstrating (for pensions that will never appear) – and thinking that someone else will fix it.

So whilst we surely do Occupy Everywhere already, we need better ways to occupy ourselves so we all feel a sense of purpose and usefulness – without having to rely on the consumer-centric values that have held the Western world together for the past 50 years.

Interesting times. Not sure anyone has the answer. But I am sure we will work it out somehow! After all, Fleming discovered Penicillin by going on holiday. The story goes that some tropical medicine folk were researching on the floor below and penicillin floated up to his labs whilst he was away. Strange things happen when you bring diverse ideas together and go on holiday. Can’t wait for the Christmas break!

17/11/201120/04/2012

Eco Systems, Efficient Thinking and Complementary Currencies

Slightly more than three years ago I was part of a worldwide team of volunteers within IBM researching the implications of climate change across every major industry sector on the planet. I led the Telecoms stream and discovered that although the Telecoms sector accounts for about 2% of man’s carbon footprint, this negative aspect was balanced by the associated benefits of reducing the impact of other more carbon-gulping industries such as Travel and Transport.

Yet through the whole study, IBM framed the study not in terms of carbon reduction – but in terms of sustainability. The pursuit of sustainability has confused me somewhat since then for a number of reasons. Firstly, nothing is sustainable for ever. Everything changes. Secondly, the whole carbon reduction movement has been (and continues to be) over-ridden by the world’s financial crisis. And thirdly – and perhaps most importantly – I had never taken the time to look into the principles behind sustainability so that I could explain it to someone else with clarity and simplicity.

All that changed last week. From my research into the future of money, I came across an excellent TED Talk – and website by Bernard Lietaer – a German Professor who specialises in another of my interests – Community Currencies. Lietaer’s pursuit for different models for money in the TED talk took him to ecology and a rather splendid discipline of “Ecological Economics”. Made sense to me (and the bees) – so I researched further.

Lietaer’s ideas originated from some earlier research from Robert. E. Ulanowicz – a Professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. He defined sustainability as a state between efficiency and diversity – elegantly shown by a green ball in balance at the top of a convex curve:

Lietaer further shows in his joint paper with Ulanowicz and their co-author Sally Goerner that this model is as equally valid in organic, biospheres as it is in economics. Lietaer proposes that the reason for the financial crisis is that the system became more and more efficient at the expense of diversity. Makes sense.

So the challenge is to move from the (left-brained) obsession with efficiency and cost-cutting and move to the right by encouraging diversity and communication (right brained stuff). Also makes sense.

So to get out of the current economic crisis we need – complementary (or local) currencies that build diversity back into the system. And quickly.

You can read more on Bernar Lietaer’s ideas on his website. And below is an abstract of the paper:

I’m off to see another lecture on the future of money at the RSA next Thursday. So next week’s Thursday Thought might be a hat-trick on this subject. Even if the authorities have removed the tents from StPauls by then!

Keep thinking!

27/07/201127/07/2011

Reasons for the Crisis: Designing for Obsolescence

In a week where the Murdoch media empire appeared to lose its power, I came across this video “The Story of Stuff”- perhaps the most important “News of the World” that Murdoch’s empire was at the heart of ignoring.

Even if you have seen it, watch it again: it will make you think again about how the world works.

It is interesting how, with the launch of Apple’s Lion operating system we are still seeing “Design for Obsolescence” as one of the main design principles from what many say is the best design company in the world. It’s time for Apple (and the rest of us) to re-think design for the 21st century so that we can close the circle, not keep pushing the 99% waste down the pipe. Designing for Pull has to be a major factor in this redesign philosophy – and something I will come back to in future posts.

09/07/201109/07/2011

Emergence and Swarm Consciousness

As the honeybee swarming season is ending, I have been reflecting on the four swarms we have caught this season and the phenomenon that some call “swarm consciousness”. In researching more about the subject, I came across this short set of PBS videos describing a new way of thinking described as “emergence”. It not only describes the magic forces of nature that science somehow struggles with, it also gives a great explanation on how we learn. It is encouraging to hear that current computer design has a long way to go – and that the human brain still wins on its “connectedness”. Encouraging to think that swarm intelligence in humans is FAR greater than any political leader or dictator. Worth watching both clips and reflecting on them:

Part 1:

Part 2:

30/05/201101/06/2011

Innovation at the Edge of Elecricity

Although this is almost exactly a year old and quite US-centric, the video below “Innovation at the Edge of Electricity” was made. It has some great stories that may well make the minds of anyone living in the US or Europe boggle at how true innovation is happening in the developing world without any “help” from regulators or lawmakers.

As technology is forcing industry convergence, it is not just the Western-style Telecoms regulation that is getting in the way, but the rules and regulations from the Electricity and Banking Industries too. For instance, look to Africa, not Europe or the US if you want to see what true innovation is on mobile payments.

Many of the stories are particularly helpful when we think at how we should rollout faster broadband to the so-called “Final Third”. Innovation has always happened on the edge of the network. Surely it is time for us to include some of these new ideas from the “edge of electricity” and adapt them to our own requirements. Or will we let the regulators carry on regulating our service industries to die a slow, painful death?

Well worth watching to the end.

03/05/201105/05/2011

On AV, Bees, the Delphi Method and Other Voting Systems

For those who know me well, they will know I keep bees. Last week I caught the first swarm of the year in a tree in the local town – which was very satisfying. I also have another blog at http://beelore.com In one of my posts on that blog last year I noted the amazing way that bees vote for a new home. This research even has its own site

Funny thing is that in the UK we have to decide between the current so-called “First Past the Post” system and the “Alternative Voting System”. Pretty bi-polar. Pretty bonkers.

What would the bees do? The scouts would look at many and several voting systems and would (depending on the amount of energy exhibited for each system) come back to the 95% in the swarm and dance the story with a waggle.

It is such a strong idea that a guy called Thomas.D. Seeley actually wrote a book about it last year called “Honeybee Democracy”.

Here is extract from a review:

“In the late spring and early summer, as a bee colony becomes overcrowded, a third of the hive stays behind and rears a new queen, while a swarm of thousands departs with the old queen to produce a daughter colony. Seeley describes how these bees evaluate potential nest sites, advertise their discoveries to one another, engage in open deliberation, choose a final site, and navigate together–as a swirling cloud of bees–to their new home. Seeley investigates how evolution has honed the decision-making methods of honeybees over millions of years, and he considers similarities between the ways that bee swarms and primate brains process information. He concludes that what works well for bees can also work well for people: any decision-making group should consist of individuals with shared interests and mutual respect, a leader’s influence should be minimized, debate should be relied upon, diverse solutions should be sought, and the majority should be counted on for a dependable resolution.”

So I vote for a new kind of democracy based on 50 million years of wisdom! The trouble is, I don’t think such an option will be on the ballot paper in the UK elections this Thursday! I am still not sure whether AV is a step in the right direction – but it seems to be closer to the system that the bees have developed than the current First-Past-The-Post system.

If the internet age is going to really impact democracy in a useful way, then the Delphi Method is a much closer match with what the bees do than the currently proposed AV system. Here is an extract from Wikipedia:

The Delphi method (pronounced /ˈdɛlfaɪ/ DEL-fy) is a structured communication technique, originally developed as a systematic, interactive forecasting method which relies on a panel of experts.

In the standard version, the experts answer questionnaires in two or more rounds. After each round, a facilitator provides an anonymous summary of the experts’ forecasts from the previous round as well as the reasons they provided for their judgments. Thus, experts are encouraged to revise their earlier answers in light of the replies of other members of their panel. It is believed that during this process the range of the answers will decrease and the group will converge towards the “correct” answer. Finally, the process is stopped after a pre-defined stop criterion (e.g. number of rounds, achievement of consensus, stability of results) and the mean or median scores of the final rounds determine the results.

Other versions, such as the Policy Delphi, have been designed for normative and explorative use, particularly in the area of social policy and public health. In Europe, more recent web-based experiments have used the Delphi method as a communication technique for interactive decision-making and e-democracy.

The outstanding issue for me is how do we reform democracy quickly and effectively to keep pace with the challenges the planet faces? The bi-polar choice we have been given in the UK elections avoids the issue of how we reshape the Western democratic system to become much better at decision making. I would vote for the bees or the Delphi system over any First-Past-The-Post or AV system. But this Thursday we are not being given that choice! All of your thoughts gratefully received!

17/03/201122/05/2011

Where Should we Put the Fibre?

I was doodling the other day and came up with this ABC of Fibre-to-the-Alphabet:

Fibre to the Antenna
Fibre to the Business, Basement
Fibre to the Cabinet / Community / Church / Carpark / Community Hub
Fibre to the Device (what happened to LightPeak?)
Fibre to the Ethernet Port, Exchange
Fibre to the Farm, Fridge, Flat
Fibre to the Garage, Golfcourse
Fibre to the Home, Hospital
Fibre to the Island
Fibre to the Jacuzi
Fibre to the King's Head
Fibre to the Library, Laundrette
Fibre to the Mast
Fibre to the Notspot, Next Billion
Fibre to the Organ
Fibre to the Pub, Post Office
Fibre to the Queen's Head
Fibre to the Radio Mast, Radio Tower, Rock
Fibre to the School, Surgery, Steeple, Spire, Sheep
Fibre to the Third Place
Fibre to the University
Fibre to the Village Hall, Village Pump
Fibre to the Wellington Boot
Fibre to the X (as in FTTX) - X as in "Anything"
Fibre to the Yellow Brick Road
Fibre to the Zebra Crossing

Please add your thoughts on other destinations below!

09/02/201125/02/2011

Space: The Final Frontier

I live in the country. I live in the so-called Final Third. Ofcom call it a “Market 1” area – because BT is the only fixed-line service provider providing the physical lines that broadband and telephony run across.

This week, three different views hit me that have changed my whole view on how we roll out broadband to the final third. I expect many of my readers will have switched off by now – but bear with me – because I think it might interest you.

The first view was from Adrian Wooster’s blog – where he has produced a really interesting picture of what the spread of the UK’s broadband looks like by postcode – one image of which I have copied below:

Click on the image on Adrian’s blog site to see each scenario – it loops back at the end to highlight the gulf between where we’re starting from to where we need to get to. Each spot of light represents a postcode.

At the moment the image only covers England and Wales – Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own statistical output area systems which individually need resolving to postcode level.

The interesting thing is that most of the “final third” remains in the dark – even at 95% coverage!

That got me thinking. What will be available from WiFi/Mobile/Radio technologies by 2015? Regular readers will know that I am interested in LightPeak – but there have been two other announcements this week that are very interesting and makes you think differently about broadband for the final third in 2015.

The first was from Alcatel Lucent – who have just announced the launch of the lightRadio cube which can be installed wherever there is electricity.

So this little device will dramatically reduce the costs of deploying mobile phone base stations – whilst allowing extended coverage of 3g networks to areas that are currently far too expensive to cover.

The second was from an In-Stat Report – stating that a new Wi-Fi technology standard called 802.11ac has been developed to provide Gigabit speeds across WiFi networks. The report predicts 1bn devices shipped with this technology by 2015 – which will allow streaming of high quality video to the TV set – or downloads of BlueRay DVDs in 6 seconds.I expect that many, if not most, will be mobile devices of some sort.

Add these two developments together and you get a very interesting set of technologies that may be able to provide 1Gbps speeds (depending on availability of backhaul) to most households in the country that are not provided with a direct link – i.e those who are in the dark areas on the map. That is 500 times faster than our current unambitious target for 2Mbps….and will require the cooperation of mobile operators and fixed-line operators who can provide much faster backahual speeds.

Exciting stuff – but I wonder if today’s #digitalbritain thinking is really embracing such ideas as these to create a truly competitive infrastructure for those in the power of the Dark Lord? As these new technologies are enabled, the bottleneck may well move to the backhaul. Which is why the current ideas around Fibre to the Community or “Digital Village Pumps” will become even more important. Then again, I would prefer to redefine FTTH as Fibre to the Hamlet – like the one I live in – or Fibre to the Clachan – as they say in more Celtic countries!