Technology giving birth to 4th tech revolution - enlightenment period

Lucien Tarnowski - spoke at the entrepreneurial summit in Poland and came up with some pearlers....

watch the video - having a place to share ideas - matters

Having a place/hub of Innovation matters!!!

Based on History and previous enlightenments - place mattered.

It's the enlightenment periods that defined our world 

- Aristotle - Athens

- Medici - Milan

- Shakespeare - uk 

- Davinci and Michelangelo in Italy

-  Freud - Paris in 20s

- Berlin - Mozart , Bach 

- Silicon Valley - the founders of Paypal went on to create Tesla, Facebook, Linkedin , google etc 

These people 

- new each other 

- collaborated with each other

- fed off each other, 

- pushing each other to break new boundaries 

The people were /are like you and me - and went on to change the world 

Place matters - and the creation of an epicentre of innovation is a very strategic move for any city wanting to be a thought leader! 

SYDNEY - take note - eur 4b being invested in Poland to build a startup hub!

Countries cities and companies are all living and dying by their ability to attract retain and maintain their talent.

Recognising and Unleashing Human Capital

Human capital is the worlds most wasted resource - we have not even begun to utilise the power of our minds and collective potential

• Humans have limitless potential - how do we unleash it?
• What is the process and systems to make this happen? 
• Is it creation of tribes / groups/ masterminds?
• Is it about creating collaboration mechanisms? 
• Is it about Sharing stories and Ideas ?

The gap of what we do to what we could do - has and can continue to be enhanced dramatically by innovation and technology. 

Human capital

•  invest in it
•  nurture it 
•  encourage it

There are many rough diamonds - due to circumstance or mindset - they may never be able to achieve what hey could!

How do we develop the ecosystem to nurture this untapped talent of human potential? How can we do this using infrastructure that has already been built, and just needs to be deployed?

Can Councils in regional towns play a vital role in igniting innovation in their area?

• enabling collaboration between big business and start-ups 
• connecting unemployes to startups and educational institutions
• providing cheap rent for incubators 
• providing a Crowdsourcing facility so residents can invest in their towns startups (maybe with government backed security based on specific criteria

The formal education system is broken -

It was created to feed the processes of the Industrial Age - it was designed as a conveyer belt to create and prepare humans to do stuff on an assembly line - to act like a machine - to learn processes that can be done by machines.

• Maths - we learned slide rule - Soh Cah toa, logic.
• We don't need to learn how an engine works to drive a car! 

The current education system needs to change - 

There needs to be more focus on communication, soft skills, using machines, collaborating and community

- Educating is what people do to you

- Learning is what you do to yourself

People need to become lifelong learners

The information explosion

We are seeing a Bite Bang - an information explosion 

Knowledge is a commodity accessible by everyone.... dont spend time on privacy - it doesnt exist... become anonymous by being a part of the grid! 

We are in Information overload - the world is doubling in info every 3 years vs every 100 years and by 2020 - doubling info every 3 months 

What we learn at school and university becomes redundant - quickly!! 

- we need to learn to be lifelong learners 

- we need to learn to collaborate.

Collaboration is the number 1 currency 

Our ability to tap into our collective wisdom will take us to that next level!

Over the past centuries, we have been great a creating silos - manifesting in different countries and borders - this needs to change - it's about unconditional collaboration.

We need to create an Ecosystem where sharing knowledge is power .

Changing from 

Knowledge is power - We were driven by individualism

to 

sharing knowledge is power - We need to be driven by community

It matters where you are located 

How can we create that talent hub!!! 

- That place that draws talent

- That creates innovation

- That feeds off each other

- That collaborates

Together we can build this collective potential opportunity - to change lives for the better  

This video and thought process reminds me of The Goal - by Eli Goldratt - the theory of constraints - which shows that we are only as strong as our weakest link

As a community - let's build up our weakest link - so we all can surge from strength to strength

I am really excited about bulding www.bbg.business - building these communities feels right!!

Innovation isn't just for inner city hipsters

 Great article in smh today - below article has been inspired by Tony Featherstone 

"Innovation is a lot more than inner-city hipsters who try to build the next great app while drinking soy lattes at trendy warehouses" writes Tony Featherstone 

 Many Regional Australian towns are in distress - and there is an urgent need to develop new industries or invigorate old ones as the new economy unfolds.

Their needs to be an innovation focus on regional entrepreneurship, local government collaboration and small business, and Turnbulls appointment of the new Federal Minister for Small Business, Michael McCormack is genius ! 

A Small Business Minister with country connections! My view is that he should also take on the portfolio of innovation, AusTrade and AusIndustry  - they all go hand in hand! 

 The Innovation agenda should be used as a tool to address today's problems: 

- job losses in manufacturing and mining,

 - high youth unemployment 

and 

- stagnating regional economies, for example.

Innovation is a process to bring groups together, encourage collaboration and creativity, and link emerging enterprises with established industries.

Let's balance the capital-city version of innovation with policy that: 

• Helps develop vibrant regional entrepreneurship ecosystems that create thriving clusters of new and established business activity in country areas
   
• Presents innovation as a process to help regional economies transition from the decline in manufacturing and other traditional industries, to higher-growth sectors
   
• Creates the option of self-employment for young people in regional areas who cannot find full-time work
   
• Reverses the brain drain as bright young 20-somethings are forced to move to capital cities to start ventures or work for others
   
• Makes regional areas great places to live AND work, creating social inclusion for young people and more harmonious communities
   
• Has real benefits for capital cities. Creating vibrant regional innovation hubs could encourage urban entrepreneurs to move to areas that are close to capital cities. That would help de-centralise population growth away from capital cities, as regional businesses grow and create jobs
   
• Helps develop a stronger national entrepreneurship ecosystem by giving start-ups that are struggling with scarce resources greater options to work in lower-cost regional areas.

How can we do this using existing infrastructure?

We should take a leaf out of the massively successful Uber - ( listened to a great talk at an Amcham lunch yesterday) (thanks Niels) .

How can we utilise existing assets and existing infrastructure to ignite innovation in regional Australia? 

Australia has already built a massive infrastructure built around Councils.

How can Councils spark the drive for communities to build on their strengths (which is invariably there people) and actively support innovation and entrepreneurship 

Councils in Ipswich, the Sunshine Coast, the northern suburbs of Adelaide and north Queensland, to name a few, understand innovation's potential to invigorate their economies and have done some cool things , such as 

- implementing smart-city technologies, planning and processes; 

- launching co-working spaces for start-ups; and 

- creating entrepreneurship ecosystems.

Other councils should follow their lead and federal and state governments can help by framing a co-ordinated agenda – and funding – for regional innovation and entrepreneurship.

Imagine 

 Imagine having a goal for your local  town to be an  innovation hotspot  that is linked to your capital-city entrepreneurship ecosystem and university, rage or learning institution!

- Imagine if your local town had a simple, low-cost co-working spaces for start-up ventures - supported by mentors, existing businesses and greys, aligning them with educational institutions and VET providers - 

(How many government owned buildings/ spaces  are unlet or underutilised? The infrastructure is there !!)

- Imagine if your local Council had a  Crowdfunding Council platform where residents fund local ventures with funding to start-ups in their area and perhaps take equity in some. 

- Imagine if those loans would be Government Gauranteed  if it  was supported by an accreditted mentor. (they do this in USA.)

The real opportunity is linking bright young regional start-ups with established businesses

How can councils create collisions of innovation between the new and old that drive entrepreneurship?

There's never been a better time. 

A focus on a co-ordinated regional innovation is good policy AND politics.

Car sharing with city parking

How car-sharing is already helping cities with their transit issues

July 19

 

WASHINGTON

There's a promising fix for any city with transportation issues -- and car ownership has nothing to do with it.

A new study found that cities that turn to a flexible type of car-sharing stand to benefit from less pollution, less traffic and more parking.

Researchers at the University of California-Berkeley's Transportation Sustainability Research Center focused on the impact of car2go, which is different from car services like Zipcar and GM's (GM) Maven. With car2go, drivers paying a one-time $35 membership fee and can rent a vehicle parked on a nearby public street and leave it elsewhere in the city. There's no need to reserve a vehicle ahead of time, or return it to a designated parking lot. Car2go strikes deals with local governments so that its cars can be parked in public spots.

A call for retraining

new technology and robotics is not a death knell for workers but it is a clarion call for re-training and continuing education. Innovation creates efficiency and new products/services and concomitant new work. There will always be a cohort that has trouble making the transition and we need safety nets for that.

 

Vint Cerf

Doing vs Being

This conversation of Automation - and the worry that innovation and automation is detrimental to the human race does not sit well with me! Something needs to change!!!

is it bad to automate processes that could potentially replace millions of jobs as we know it? Is it bad to reward people in a different way? 

Doing vs being

We are not human doings , we are human beings!

If robots AI and technology are taking jobs, because they can do things faster - this can only be a good thing - it gives the humans more time to be.

Being shouldn't be about randomly doing for wage. It should be about doing to add value to your fellow human being and your environment.

Human beings ( and indeed many other species) have thrived over the centuries and millennia by being in tribes ( or communities) , and creating structure, usually being governed by a strong leader. 

The tribe has developed by working as a team - with the leader allocating functions for survival and growth. 

The way this has been done in the last Millenia is through Economics. 

A system of exchange, giving the human a reward for doing (providing a service or a product ) , so they can be, using "fun vouchers" (money) as a common currency.

As humans have evolved and innovated, they have developed tools, that can do the doing, so they can get more fun vouchers, so they can do more being.

So, if a tribes doing has been automated, enabling their tribe to do more being, giving them  more fun vouchers, enabling them to be rather than do - how can this be a bad thing? 

Humans need a sense of usefulness that has in the last few hundred years been supplied by jobs - but why does adding value and feeling useful have to be related to earning fun vouchers ? 

It's all about lifelong learning

From the legendary Heather Macgowan

The end state of being “educated” is no longer enough. The future of work is learning agility, learning must be part of work

The future is arriving

From 14j contributor Herman Gyr:-

I just returned from Switzerland where I got to be part of history --- very much related to this thread's topics. The Swiss Postal Service's PostAuto inaugurated the world's first autonomous public transportation service in the city of Sion, Switzerland. It was a great honor and treat for me to be invited to this special event, and to get to ride this remarkable vehicle. This project represents the culmination of great vision, committed leadership and extraordinary collaboration among a wide range of interests and capabilities (the Post, the City of Sion, EPFL, politicians, regulators, start-ups). Truly inspiring! Check out the video: https://www.bluewin.ch/de/news/wirtschaft---boerse/2016/6/23/in-sitten-rollen-ab-sofort-autonome-busse-durch-di.html Yep, that's me sitting on the thing at 0:10 to 0:16. 

As part of a strategic blueprinting session in 2013 with PostAuto (the largest bus service in Switzerland) I had offered the following provocative mock-up to stimulate considerations about potential participation in the autonomous mobility space. They decided to go for it, and came up with what's shown on bottom. It's coming fast now --- in fact, it's already here!