Innoversity Blog

Innovating the Internet: REMIX

This morning I once again attended the Stanford Breakfast Briefing, this time featuring Lawrence Lessig, probably one of the best talks I’ve ever seen. He truly managed to capture his audience with a show packed with thought-provoking points and messages, stressed by images, graphics, amazing video-clips, all resulting in a very vivid  depiction of “How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity”.

What he described was the transition taking place in the internet, where we are moving away from the socalled: ‘Read-Only’ culture, heading towards the ‘Read-Write’ culture, which he also labelled the re-mixing culture, because it very much is about manipulating or altering existing content, and in that process generating new content.

The problem however, according to Lessig, is the way in which this transition is being fought by existing media. Lessig, a laywer himself, points to the problems arising from this war between the Read-Write and the Read-Only, what he labels the copyright war, led by lawyers and big media, and which may end up killing off the Read-Write culture entirely. According to Lessig, we need to recognize that copyright is old-fashioned, and we need to reform the law to prevent our children from being raised as criminals, being the loosers in the proclaimed war on ‘piracy’.

Lessig described the process as a process of ‘copy and change’, which is an important and inherent part of being human, that is how we learn. And we have always been used to using text in this way, as something we could use to make quotes, something that I - as a researcher - make extensive use of. that is part of how I build new theory (if I will eventually succeed in that ,-D). But how come we cannot quite music, images and graphic in the same way?

Lessing presented some fascinating examples of this up-and coming re-mixing culture, which is illegal according to existing copyright law, but which make some powerful statements. For instance the way in which children compose their own AMVs (Anime music videos), by re-mixing music with animation to create both funny and highly impressive new music videos. A trend that started in Japan, but which is now spreading to the rest of the world at an accelerating speed.

• Example of GREAT Anime Music Video: Eye of the Tiger
• Great satiric Political music videos, such as The Blair/Bush Love-affair, Sadam Hussein, Berlusconi etc
• Sim Sadler’s great Bush re-mix (an easy target ;-D)

Make sure you have a look, this is really interesting stuff and none the least good examples of how the Internet is a chaning, being democratized and moving away from just a means for buying and consumption, to instead being a palce for collaration, creation and sharing.

In his battle against the copyright conservatives, a few years back he established the non-profit organisation: Creative Commons, which provide artists with licenses allowing others to make use of the material. A GREAT initiative, and right then and there I therefore decided to see what I can to obtain a CC license for my dissertation, once it is done ;.D. Please visit their website, they have important stuff to convey.....

Open innovation - learning from the best!

Last week I had the pleasure of participating in an innovation session facilitated by IDEO, one of the most admired (especially by me) design and innovation companies in the world. I knew quite a lot about IDEO before this session, through books, journals and the media in general. Just as I had the pleasure of featuring Paul Bennett from IDEO at the INNOVATING WITH DIVERSITY conference last year.

But I had never seen IDEO in action, so of course this was an opportunity I had been looking forward to attend, with great anticipation. And I was not to be disappointed!

I was invited to the workshop by Ron Volpe, Director of Global Supply Chain Innovation at Kraft Food, so that I could observe in the workshop, and make use of these observations in my  ph.d. work. I met Ron last year at INNOVATING WITH DIVERSITY in Copenhagen, and even had the pleasure of organizing an event at Copenhagen Business School where Ron presented his Kraft Food approach to supply chain innovation, a truly great case in February.

The innovation session at IDEO was organized by Ron Volpe together with Target, in order to explore how Kraft and Target might find new ways to work together and improve their supply chain collaboration; through the identification and development of collaborative strategies and initiatives to engage in an open innovation process between Kraft Food and Target. The 35 people - most of them executives - from Kraft and Target had 2 days to do so. And boy, they truly did!

I can of course not share with you the results of the innovation session, but what I can share is some of the fascinating analogous observations we were sent out to do on the first day of the workshop. After having identified the primary opportunities for innovation at the intersection between Kraft and Target, we  were split up into smaller teams, who were each sent off to different places and sights around the Bay Area, to see what we could learn through analogous observations of people and organisations facing different, yet similar, supply chain challenges.

My group went off to a small private zoo in San Jose, where we met the woman in charge of all purchases of food and medicine supplies for the zoo animals, to learn first hand how she dealt with the logistics around that. We spent two hours at the zoo, learning everything from the use of dietary cards for each animal, to looking at storage facilities, to the preparation of food, to the shopping at the local Vietnamese market for vegetables and greens, and to the ordering or supplies and medication. It really was a fascinating peak into a totally different world, but the surprising thing was how much we could actually could benefit directly from the observations and insights in our own process, and how the learnings could be used and applied in the remainder of the workshop.

The other groups went to totally different places, one went to a Levis store in San Francisco, to learn from their approach to customization, where they were each to buy their own pair of jeans to experience the customization themselves. Another group visited Stanford Blood Bank, to learn from how they deal with freshness. Another group went to visit Sephora, for the ultimate shopping experience. Yet another group went to visit and interview a housewife about how she manages to store food worth 9 months of supply for her entire family. And many more interesting experiences. So as you can probably imagine, hearing about - and seeing - what each group brought home in terms of learnings and insights from their observation, was quite an interesting mental journey.

But so was the rest of the two days...... am still not through my 32 pages of observation notes from workshop yet ;-D

Did you ever hear about TED?

If not, you should definately have a peak into the world of TED, and it truely is a world of its own, which comes to life four days every year in Monterey, California. At the last even in February 2006, they had 800 attendees, and next year they are inviting 1000 people, and most of them have already been sold out. I truely hope to some day to get a chance to participate in TED sometimes, but in the meantime, I am just thrilled to be able to watch the many pocasts that they make available trough their website, and through the TEDblog.

They guy you see in the picture is Cameron Sinclair, who presented at TED 2006, and I just had the pleasure of watching his presentation on video podcast yesterday. And he truely had a great story to tell.  Sinclair co-founded the non-profit organization Architecture for Humanity in 1999, which started off in response to the housing-crisis for returning refugees in Kosovo - they basically wanted to use architecture to  make the world a better place to live in.

Cameron Sinclair and his partner started off by making a website (www.architectureforhumanity.org) where he and his partner basically just posted a call asking architects to come up with potential solutions which could be used to help out in Kosovo. And to his big surprise, within a couple of months they received more than 200 ideas, which led to a series of prototypes being built in Kosovo within a short period of time.

This is what  they do and have done ever since. At their website, you can see Architecture for Humanity also helped out after Hurricane Katrina, after the Tsunami, and in countries all over the world in response to humanitarian crisis. Wauw, a great initiative - is there anything better than a great innovation story? And especially when it is a humanitarian one as this most certainly is. This is a link to the TED video postcast with Cameron Sinclair

But there are many other great video podcasts on the TED website, I personally especially enjoyed the presentations of Sir Ken Robinson (about education and creativity), Al Gore (our global environmentalist), Larry Brilliant (epidemologist accounting for the eradication of smallpox), Nicholas Negroponte (about the $100 laptop), and non the least Jeff Han, who demonstrated the interface-free computer of the future. But there are many many more, and I look forward to seeing the ones that I have still not seen - there is so much more to learn .....

Find all of this and more at the TED website

Innovative Wines at Bonny Doons

In Santa Cruz Mountains about an  hour drive from Palo Alto reigns the vineyard Bonny Doon, established by the controversial Randahll Grahm, who is doing what he can to challenge the rules, norms and dogmas of winemaking, and who calls himself “the champion of the strange and heterodox”, whilst at the same time celebrating and cherishing the classical wine paradigms.

Bonny Doom in a strange way seems to be able to balance the thing sword of between classic and modern winemaking. Provoking and challenging the rules of the game, WHILST at the same time pushing the envelope in terms of what you can do with classical and natural production methods. An interesting case for innovation!

And let me admit right away, I am a wine enthusiast, with a strong preference for the classical wines of the Rhone Valley, and must therefore admit to being extremely sceptical when I first heard about Randall Grahm the proprietor and guiding spirit behind Bonny Doon. Famous for challenging most all the rules of winemaking, whilst at the same time being one of the most radical of the Rhone Rangers (Winemakers dedicated to advancing the Knowledge of Rhone Grapes grown in America and the enjoyment of the Wines Produced from those Grapes).

But in spite of my conservatism when it comes to the merits of a good wine, I also appreciate when rules are being broken and something new and innovative emerges. And this is exactly what Randall Grahm and the Bonny Doon Vineyard seems to offer. After tasting his Rhone inspired signature wine Cigare Volante, his Zinfandel-based Cardinal Zin, and especially now that his tablewines Big House Red and Big House White , I had to both respect and appreciate his work.

Randall Grahm and Bonny Doon really provide for a great case for innovation. He  has made his winery a major power in the California wine industry by exploring demented ideas, by breaking all the accepted rules of marketing and by making wines that are equally as interesting to talk about as they are to drink.There seems to be nothing that he is not ready to do. He freezes grapes to make ice wine, he uses wild labels with exotic names, he collaborates with winemakers in Europe, he is dedicated to riesling in California, Ranger on the cover of the Wine Spectator in his role as the leader of the Rhone Rangers.

The mantra of Bonny Doon goes as follows:

• Have as much fun with wine as the relevant governmental agencies will allow
• Produce wines and wine labels that will scintillate the sensibilities of the most jaded imbiber (to see labels click here)
• Retain as much of the natural qualities of the grapes (especially fragrance) through careful handling and minimal cellar treatment
• Pay close attention to the chestnut that wine is produced in the vineyard

I am – as a wine traditionalist – not much of a fan of Micro-oxygenation and the freezing of grapes, but I can bear with much when the wine is both good and non-expensive, while at the same time challenging and innovative in its approach.

Like the labels for instance, Bonny Doon lables are not the ususal gold-edged, black italics on a white background with a nicely drawn chauteau as most other wine labels. No. Bonny Doon labels feature tattooed ladies, flying saucers, and monkeys in fezes. Some of them are even provocative enough to be banned in Ohio and Washington. Every label want’s you to laugh, to feel, to think. They make use of artists like Ralph Stedman to design their labels.

Randall Grahm truely is a rebel with a cause. For over 20 years this California winemaker has resisted the “bigger is better” ethic practiced by most American wineries. Instead of making palate-numbing powerhouses, Grahm favors wines with finesse. Instead of choosing Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, he favors the likes of Mourvedre, Marsanne, and Malvasia Bianca—grapes that he believes are better suited to California’s climate. Grahm seeks, in short, diversity in the vineyard and deliciousness in the glass.