"Revolutions happen fast, but dawn slowly"

Bell Labs created the things that ushered in the 20th century - the transistor, the first communications satellites, digital communications, the first cellular telephone systems and the basis for digital photography, the charge-coupled device.

It gave Silicon Valley its name.

But what made Bell Labs? Writing in the New York Times, Jon Gertner, author of the forthcoming book "The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation," lists the physical proximity of its investigators, a range of talent from diverse fields of expertise, and an emphasis on making things. It understood that unmoored from the physical world, abstractions can take us anywhere - or nowhere.

For IdeaFestival fans, it will sound quite familiar. If you read the blog you'll know that diversity in ideas, backgrounds and beliefs are regularly praised. Why? Because difference makes a difference. And given my own rather intense interiority - it's a polite way of saying I can go straight days at a time without talking - I appreciate time spent living in the question. So I was glad to see this concluding paragraph from Gertner, who suggests that worthwhile innovation, innovation that matters, doesn't simply target the next great consumer technology. It takes the long view.    

But to consider the legacy of Bell Labs is to see that we should not mistake small technological steps for huge technological leaps. It also shows us that to always 'move fast and break things,' as Facebook is apparently doing, or to constantly pursue 'a gospel of speed' (as Google has described its philosophy) is not the only way to get where we are going. Perhaps it is not even the best way. Revolutions happen fast but dawn slowly. To a large extent, we’re still benefiting from risks that were taken, and research that was financed, more than a half century ago.

Read the whole piece.

Wayne

The art of the question

I'm loving this quote from a blog entry at The Creativity Post:

Dumb questions are not accusatory or argumentative statements in disguise. Nor are they formulated with preconceived answers in mind. Rather, they are probing yet open. Used effectively, dumb questions lead to a deeper sense of reality, truth or purpose. They expand our capacity to see more clearly and inspire us to explore possibilities we would otherwise ignore. Above all they are interesting enough to encourage finding an answer.....

Creative questioning is not an easy discipline to master.

Wayne

Getting better all the time?

The list of problems can be summoned quite easily - hunger, uncertainty in the Middle East, European debt, lack of clean water, lack of educational opportunities in many parts of the developing world - particularly for little girls - and fanaticism in the name of God.

But with some additional perspective some have argued that the world is a better place than at any time in history. Steven Pinker, for example, believes that violence has become less common in his book, "The Better Angels of Our Nature."

See Ross Douthat's considered reply here.

Could the human condition actually be getting better? Peter H. Diamandis, CEO of the X Prize Foundation and co-founder and chairman of Singularity University, and author and journalist Steven Kotler argue that the answer is yes, and the two credit four trends: Exponential technologies, DIY innovators, "Technophilanthropists" and the "Rising billion."

Big Think, which reviews the book:

[The authors] offer a handful of reasons why the future is better than you think. One key reason is the Rising Billion – the world’s newest one billion, empowered by mobile technology, are about to come online for the first time ever. An average smart phone user in Sub-Saharan Africa now has more computing power than the U.S. President did 25 years ago. Another key reason is the appearance of the DIY Innovator, capable of transforming off-the-shelf technologies into an instrument for radical social change in areas that once were the exclusive domain of NGOs and governments.

Diamandis and Kotler are co-authors of the new book, Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think.

While generally skeptical of techno-utopianism - no one knows where the next exponential leap will take us, much less the next 30 leaps - it is good to take a step back and have a look at the big picture, if only to remind ourselves how infinitely creative we can be, and how so very few problems cannot be solved with desire and purpose.

Wayne

Printing the Sun

It's no understatement to say that an ability to turn bits into atoms is a civilization-changing skill. This big-picture article from 2006 highlights the work being done at MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, which Neil Gershenfeld, its director, believes is pioneering a "third digital revolution."

Following similar revolutions in communications and computing, "fabrication" will turn information into real-world objects. Indeed, affordable personal fabrication machines, or 3-D printers, are available now.

Here's one inspiring example that may one day use fabricated objects to produce energy.

Photosystem-I (PS-I) are the tiny structures within plant cells that carry out photosynthesis, and had, thanks to a prior technology, been successfully used outside the plant structure to produce an electric current when exposed to light. By thinking about how trees absorb light, MIT researcher Andreas Mershin was able to take the earlier breakthrough one step further. PhysOrg:

The key to achieving this huge improvement in efficiency, Mershin explains, was finding a way to expose much more of the PS-I complex per surface area of the device to the sun.... [His] inspiration for the new advance was pine trees in a forest.

Mershin, a research scientist in the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, noticed that while most of the pines had bare trunks and a canopy of branches only at the very top, a few had small branches all the way down the length of the trunk, capturing any sunlight that trickled down from above. He decided to create a microscopic forest on a chip, with PS-I coating his “trees” from top to bottom.

Turning that insight into a practical device took years of work, but in the end Mershin was able to create a tiny forest of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires as well as a sponge-like titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanostructure coated with the light-collecting material derived from bacteria. The nanowires not only served as a supporting structure for the material, but also as wires to carry the flow of electrons generated by the molecules down to the supporting layer of material, from which it could be connected to a circuit. 'It’s like an electric nanoforest,' he says.

In the video above, Mershin describes his vision for giving people in remote villages in the developing world a way to make their own low cost solar panels using otherwise worthless agricultural waste as their raw material.

Wayne

IdeaFestival perfect "Idea Generator App"

Can "Thinking Differently" be learned? Harvard Business Review:

Reams of relevant research (including our own) proves.... [that] [i]nnovators excel at connecting the unconnected. They engage in associational thinking.

But neither Steve Jobs nor Apple nor any other high-profile innovator or company has a corner on the think-different market. In fact, our study of over 5,000 entrepreneurs and executives shows the opposite: almost anyone who consistently makes the effort to think different can think different.

How? Here's one suggestion:

When associations don't come naturally, try forcing them to surface unnaturally — by shaking things up randomly. For example, try the Idea Generator app, which randomly combines three words together when you shake your smart phone. Shake it again and three more random words show up.

Sure it's a pretty simple idea, but one with merit elsewhere. Shaking things up may require seeking out differences in opinion, in the choice of television shows and books, and with our time. Approach that new person, even with it seems daunting (take heart, I'm the worst about that).

Not only does diversity in the wild future-proof the whole by making it healthier and increasing its odds of survival, but diversity in thought and practice confers real and tangible benefits on individuals too, according to "Learn How to Think Different(ly)."

Researchers at Harvard Medical School found that if adults practice associational thinking long enough, the task no longer exhausts but energizes them. Like most skill-based activities, if we slog away at it and practice over and over again, the task becomes not life taking but life giving. And that's when the most creative ideas pop out.

Stay curious.

Wayne