From Encapsulated to Experiential - IDEO On the Future of the Book

Global design consultancy group IDEO has been thinking about the future of books unleashed in the digital ecosphere.

Duane Bray and Robert Lenne from IDEO have produced "The Future of the Book", which imagines new reading experiences that transform linear narratives into interactive and contextually relevant experiences in the context of a few questions:

What new experiences might be created by linking diverse discussions?

What additional value could be created by connecting readers to one another?

What innovative ways might we use to tell our favorite stories and build community around books?

IDEO cleverly named the three "faces of tomorrow's books" Nelson, Coupland and Alice - in deference to Nelson Mandela, Douglas Coupland, and Alice from Alice in Wonderland. You will have to watch the video to understand why.

The Future of the Book. from IDEO on Vimeo.

While IDEO focuses on books their ideas can be applied equally well to media and storytelling overall, in all forms, to move consumption beyond the encapsulated to the experiential.

The Human Graph

One of the most intriguing elements of the IDEO concept to me is that is demonstrates a move beyond just the overused Social Graph to the Human Graph. The Human Graph embraces our identity as a construct rather than just a username tied to "friends" and friends of friends. It appreciates the nuances of relationship - contextually and dynamically - and not just as a static label.

My human graph is less about friends and followers and more about connecting to the world. It's a dynamic, ever changing construct of lenses by which I view myself and my world. It's a non-linear journey of discovery, sharing and discussion. It's a prism of interests, intentions, needs, beliefs, and ideas.

It's a road to experience, not encapsulation.

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Why Harrison Dillon and His Algae to Oil Machine Need to Make Us Smile

When Harrison Dillon took the stage at TEDx Atlanta this week to talk about renewable oil and bioproducts, I was admittedly in continuous partial attention mode but soon the President and CTO of Solazyme had me fully engaged as he told his story about algae derived crude oil.

The Solazyme solution is technical elegance. Get the right kind of algae, feed it biomass in a fermentation plant, and extract the residual crude oil at an 80% yield. This renewable crude algae oil can be transformed into everything from fuel to facial cream.

Skeptical? Maybe you've seen far too much biotech and biofuel vaporware, but Solazyme recently delivered 1,500 gallons of jet fuel to the US Navy.

Crude Oil From Algae

Harrison is scary smart, well spoken and passionate. He has an impressive eye watering CV but presents authentically and humbly. His company was recently named to the Red Herring Global 100 list, has attracted rounds of investment from people such as Richard Branson, and is producing a tangible and transformational technology at a time when we are facing wicked energy and environmental problems. But Solazyme is facing one vexing problem: scale.

The Paradox of Scale

In order to break into existing markets, Solazyme has to meet the current market expectations of production scale - it's not cost efficient to buy from the "little guys" even if they are doing the right thing. Expectations of scale present a paradox - you can't scale if you don't sell, and you can't sell if you can't produce at scale.

One way to break out of the paradox of scale is to increase demand for your particular product or service. Two ways to do that are by increasing consumer demand, or by legislating demand via policy.

Harrison argues that the policy change needed is a comprehensive national energy policy but that is difficult because the cycle of change for energy is about ten years, yet our political cycle is just two years. This is yet another problem of scale, the scale of enacting an energy policy exceeds the scale of our political attention span.

Increasing the consumer demand is also another problem of scale, in fact it's a tragedy of scale.

The Tragedy of the Commons

In an impassioned plea, Harrison reminded the TEDx audience that "We are all in this together. We need to care. We need to innovate."

Harrison is right. We are all in this crisis of environmental resources together, but we have been trained to think and behave as if we are all in this alone. We are facing the problem of scale that Garrett Hardin described in 1968.

The tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently, and solely and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen. [ref: Wikipedia]

This is no more obvious than in the United States. We consume more oil than any other country. We produce roughly a third of what we consume. Twenty-two percent of our oil imports come from "unstable" or at risk countries - and yet Mills Snowden of Team HyPower reminded us that the number one selling automobile in America is the Ford F-150 (fuel economy: 19 mpg highway, 15 mpg city), followed by the Chevy Silverado (fuel economy: 20 mpg highway, 15 mpg city). If you walked through the parking lot for the TEDx event, SUVs reigned supreme. We are creating and perpetuating our own tragedy.

I'm not throwing stones, I'm as trapped in the tragedy as anyone else. The question is how do we get out?

Irrationality Has an Upside?

The problem facing innovators and problem solvers like Harrison in the midst of the energy and global warming crisis is our inability as humans to escape our own decision-making processes. As Dan Ariely says:

If you wanted to design a problem that people would not care about, it would basically look like global warming.

Ariely believes we need to attack the tragedy of scale in ways that scale, like the human ego.

What Harrison Dillon, Farmer D, Team HyPower and everyone else trying to make a dent in the sustainability tragedy of the commons is not more untimely and unmanageable legislation - they need help finding ways to make us smile, just like Prius owners.

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A Phase Shift

cc image courtesy flickr.com/photos/orangeacid/420493902

I am going to be shifting the lens of this blog ever so slightly to capture ideas and observations that are broader and of more interest to me about our virtual and digital existence - which means more of a menagerie of ideas and stories about creativity, design and technology to identity and human behavior.

I am not abandoning Second Life® or virtual worlds as a matter of interest, I still believe in the Virtua Spiritus Mundi. I'm just going on an extended journey of discovery beyond the confines of a single path.

I think it will be fun but you might want to pack a lunch - I'm not so good with a field compass.

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A Tale of Two Apathies

Once upon a time, tucked far away on a tiny planet in the far reaches of the Googleverse, a handful of Engineers worked day upon night to build the next big thing. They huddled in a small like-minded group, far away from the distractions of the Googledroids as well as the outposts and villages teeming with recent Googleverts.

By the light of their small sun that never sets, they tinkered with their thoughts of the future, driven by the HTML-5 beat of a Chromium plated drum.

After what seemed like an eternity, the day finally came to unveil the fruit of their long labor. A hush fell over the faithful crowd of gathered Gooogledroids as the Engineers stumbled through a demonstration of their contraption that would define the future.

The normally restless Googlian crowd stayed oddly still as the new apparatus whirred before them. The Engineer ring leader waved his hands artfully to and fro and soon the crowd frenzied into a laptop waving whirl. It was a long awaited and glorious day. The Court Jester made them laugh and the Cardinal anointed them the Chosen Few.

Each of the Chosen Few were given a handful of fairy dusted invitations and were asked to help spread the Wave to the masses. And so they set off to do just that - with stars in their eyes and double rainbow joy in their hearts.

As the Chosen Few returned to their home planets and gleefully planted their seeds of the future, the self-amassing Early Adopter Army spread out across the Googleverse in a giant Wave of anticipation. Early Adopters recruited other Early Adopters and soon a few random villagers cracked the army ranks. But as they reached critical mass, the enthusiastic Buzz from the Army started to dull.

Lights flickered on laptops in the local cafes (the ones that still offer free wifi), as the Early Adopter charge spent hours trying to sort out their blips from their wavelets. Caffeine crazed Early Adopters fashioned gadgets, robots and posted embeds of their trials.

But it was clear that something was wrong.

"This isn't how this, or this, or this used to work." muttered the befuddled Googledroids.
"Of course not - it's filled with unimaginable marvelous goodness!" replied the Engineers.

"All of these new words and odd interfaces are really confusing." stammered the shocked masses of Googleverts.
"You aren't giving it a chance! Watch the videos! Read the manual!" demanded the Engineers.

"None of this really meshes well with how we currently get things done." whimpered the beleaguered Early Adopters.
"It's time to change the way you work!" cheered the Engineers.

"I've invested hours upon hours on this to no obvious end. Where is this all going?" queried the die-hard Googlians.
"We told you already .... it's the future." replied the wearying Engineers.

Bit by bit, the self-amassing Army growth slowed and the Early Adopter questions and concerns crawled to a halt.

A giant Wave of Apathy swept through the Googleverse, strangling the Early Adopters and leaving behind a deafening silence. All that could be heard were the sounds of the Engineers, still marching to the HTML-5 beat of a Chromium plated drum.

The Masters of the Goolgeverse decided swift action was required before the Wave of Apathy found new vectors to infect the Googleverts. Defying the absolute laws of nature, they disabled gravity and sent out a message to the far reaches of the Googalaxy announcing the end of the Wave of the Future because "despite these wins, and numerous loyal fans, (the) Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked."
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Meanwhile, tucked far away on a tiny planet in the outer reaches of the Metaverse, a small like-minded group of Engineers sit around a virtual campfire, sharing songs of woe and misunderstanding while devising the next big thing - completely oblivious to the Plague of Apathy that is about to descend upon their Nation.

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You Realize I'm a Customer, Right?

I'd like to send my thoughts about the future of fun and about how new approaches and discussions hold the promise of being useful but may need some creative approach to really be meaningful.

Does anyone remember if the paper goes in print up or print down?

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