So You Think You Can?

My absolute favourite competition is “So You Think You Can Dance”. With millions of American teenagers calling in to vote each time and with spin-offs in more than 15 countries, I’m sure it’s a huge commercial success although it has fierce competition from shows like America’s Got Talent. It has a number of nifty features such as the young ambitious dancers from all over the US and with a background in all kinds of dance, the talented choreographers and the competent jury and a very tall and brainy hostess. And it is often breathtaking beautiful. But it has many other qualities:

• Selecting the contestants based on both talent and coachability, and making them dance solo, in pairs and in ensambles.
• A passionate jury focusing on constructive feedback and not afraid to show their emotions.
• Clever combination of jury and audience voting.
• Good mix of music, where new talents are introduced (for example SYTYCD 4 featured Lady Gaga’s first televised U.S. performance.
• Good use of social media with a website as its hub but with a presence all over the place.
• Interesting combination of competition and foundation, demonstrating a higher purpose (developing dance throughout the US/world) for example through announcing a national dance day.
• Excellent scenography with lovely costumes, make-up, lights, camera, editing… and an enthusiastic audience.
• A very good start for the contestants’ careers not only through the TV show but with the following tour together with former stars.

It would be so cool if I could find a way to implement just a tiny tiny bit of all this in “competitions” I’m involved in! What if for example research funding could be distributed not only according to an expert panel’s opinon but in combination with votes from the research community?

Feeding Black Ducks Bullshit

A mallard-loving friend of mine told me about the Black Duck Test. At first, I thought he was talking about Black Swans, but apparently he was referring to a much more common kind of event. Rumor has it that the Black Duck company is well on its way to do a Google. That is, to be so successful in branding that the product name becomes the general one for a phenomenon.

A Black Duck Test is used when, for example, an investor wants to get a grip of to what extent Open Source code has been used in a piece of software and what licences apply. The use of Open Souce can help developers find a way around the "software iron triangle", by reducing cost and time but not features. However, if badly managed in terms of origin the code can be nightmare if you want to sell the company and the investors want to do a technical due dilligence.

From London Spring 2008

In Sweden right now, it's not possible to open a newspaper or watch TV without being bombarded with political messages. General Election Day is September 19 and it's going to be a close fight between the two blocks, with red-green and centre-right coalition. However, since this is Sweden, there's little difference between the blocks where everybody agrees upon the ambition to keep the welfare state and that more companies and entrepreneurship are needed. The major disagreements concerns what taxes to raise and lower. The established parties are also united in their strong detest of the anti-immigrant party, and I sincerely hope we can keep them out of the Parliament.

It's interesting to see new kinds of services in relation to the election. All parties have been inspired by Obama's use of the Internet, and are now freely experimenting with various kinds of social media. But there are other examples such as the media companies who have started blogs where citizens can ask for verification of political claims such as Faktakollen. You can also get the major party leaders as cut-out dolls, although I'm afraid I don't think they'll make it to Stardolls.

However there's one important service missing. In politics memory is short. For example, the Socialist Party which usually is very pro Keynes, is now complaining about the way the current government has been running the finances where lots of public spending has been used to keep unemployment down. So what I would like is a kind of Black Duck Test for party manifestos, where it can be checked to what extent parts have been taken from older ones or even other parties', but also to what extent the negation of current politics can be found among former critique of others. Now, that would be a service I could engage in!

In Bed With Jeremy Northam

All frequent flyers have their own tricks to fight jetlag. Mine is to use audiobooks. It might result in having to listen to the book many more hours that planned but it works well with me. It fills your mind and in contrast to a book, you don´t need to have the lights on.

I have just finished listening to ”Brideshead Revisited” excellently read by Jeremy Northam, one of my favourite British actors. According to a review of this and its predecessor read by Jeremy Irons, both have their merits. Could it be attributed to the fact that both actors attended the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School?

However, the very best audiobooks according to my taste are the dramatisations such as the Paul Temple mystery series, for example The Madison Mystery, Dorothy L. Sayers’ Unpleasantness At The Bellona Club and Elisabeth Kostova’s The Historian. Then you bring a full cast to bed and not only a Trollope!

Feast or Famine?

As a vegetarian, I thought it would be a good idea to attend the Land introductory session at the Tällberg Rework the World conference. Here several projects were presented, addressing better use of land such as the Jagritikullu initiative empowering women through providing better energy sources for cooking and Idesam focusing on deforestation in the Amazon. But what really caught my attention was this video from the  Multimedia Institute on the Environment University of Minnesota because it had such a powerform format and message. I'm happy for our decision to serve vegetarian food at the FOKUS Innovation conference June 16-17 in Göteborg!

From Good to STaR

After visiting Boston, I picked up a Harvard Business Press book while waiting at Dulles for the plane to Frankfurt. It turned out to be a very lucky choice indeed: "Strategy for Sustainability - A Business Manifesto" by Adam Werbach. In this book several of my favourite theories are joined in a neat way. So if you like Jim Collins, Martin Seligman and Marcus Buckingham, this is an excellent summer vacation companion.

"There is only one bottom line - the profitability of a corporation. If what a company is doing for sustainability doesn't lead to sustained cash returns, then the company's strategy probably needs to be rethought."

Here you can learn more about Goldman Sachs "GS Sustain" that shows relationships between cash return and sustainability, how to set your own Personal Sustainability Project, how to work with models such as STaR and TEN in order to set your North Star goal, how to avoid green blindness, structure your networks, and use MacGyver as a role-model in product design.

The book is filled with examples from companies like Nike, Walmart, Seventh Generation, McDonald's, Boeing, Clorox, Dell,  and Proctor & Gamble. Most of them large established companies focusing on consumer products. I hope his next book will focus on how to help small startup B2B companies, but I'd be surprised to find them on Saatchi & Saatchi S's client wish list.

Economic Gardening

At the NBIA 2010 conference, one topic was “economic gardening” . This concept was developed in 1989 by the city of Littleton, Colorado an alternative strategy for economical growth. It initially was based on research by MIT’s David Birch, who suggested that most new jobs in any local economy were produced by the community’s small, local businesses. With concepts like “seed financing” working with startup companies and incubators fits quite well into this metaphor. So does the notion of an innovation ecosystem.

With its emphasis on helping small companies to grow, “economic gardening” is in stark contast to the previously more dominant strategy “economic hunting”. This concept focuses on trying to capture successful entrepreneurs from outside and bring them to the community.

To quote Mike Chitty, which tribe do you belong to – The Hunters or The Gardeners?

From Boston

The picture is taken in Boston, a wonderful city where both flowers and businesses seem to thrive.

What's In a Name?

Friends of mine have recently launched ventures with very appropriate and exciting names. One of them is Sharea, which can be described as a combination of file sharing and a potluck supper. People are invited to come to a certain place (area) and provide something (share): a story, instructions or advice. No entry fee, as long as you provide knowledge or creativity. The first Sharea event will take place in Göteborg 21 May and already more than 100 people have signed up. True to its inherent characteristics, the concept is placed under a Creative Commons licence, why it can be replicated throughout the world. Awesome!

Another is TrampolinStory, focusing on digital storytelling. One very special kind of story, often used in organisations is the springboard story, and in combination with digital storytelling it becomes even more powerful. According to Steve Denning

“A springboard story is a story that enables a leap in understanding by the audience so as to grasp how an organization or community or complex system may change.
A springboard story has an impact not so much through transferring large amounts of information, but through catalyzing understanding. It enables listeners to visualize from a story in one context what is involved in a large-scale transformation in an analogous context."

The third is Recorded Future, introducing the first temporal analytics engine. It makes it easier to relate temporal concepts like “tomorrow” and “next week” to specific dates in order to see trends in data regarding historical and future events. Since predicting the future has always been high on the agenda for humans, the idea of even having it recorded must be thrilling.

All these three ventures make use of video to explain their business. Still, the name says a lot too.