What is Abundance? It starts with information.
Originally a blog post 2007 Jan 22
Since publication of “Free” and Zeitgeist Addendum a lot of people are finally talking about abundance and how it turns economics on its head. So I thought I would update my original post with a video.
Few people understand how to create abundance so I will be spending more time explaining it with blog posts and videos.
Bacterial Computer Article gets Peer-to-Peer Review on Slashdot
The Guardian, a mainstream media outlet, does an article about a scientific paper. A forum thread is started about the article on Slashdot, the extremely popular forum of serious computer geeks. The participants of Slashdot post scathing reviews. Read the comment, they tear the article apart. But more interesting, the actual co-author of the paper posts a comment.
His paper is about computer technology and it gets mentioned on a forum about computer technology and the co-author happens to be a member of that forum. But this is not some formal university affiliated journal, this is an informal online forum. Anyone can join and post.
As the co-author of the paper, Andrew Martens says in a comment on Slashdot, “The Guardian article is rather misleading and inaccurate”. In the old world top down system the truth would not get very far. If pressured the professional gatekeepers might decide to print a redaction on some back page but in the new highly distributed peer-to-peer world that truth and many others are almost instantly spread to everyone who is interested.
The participants on Slashdot criticized the significance of the research. In his comment, Andrew Marten defends his works saying, “I’m more excited about the proof-of-concept: we can encode a mathematical problem by using a molecule, hand it to a living organism, and get a correct output.”
Oddly enough that is basically what happened with Slashdot. The problem of analyzing a complex issue in encoded and its handed to living organisms that get the correct output. The benefits of bacterial computers is hyper parallel processing. The communications technology of the Internet has allowed humans to freely merge their thinking capabilities to very quickly find the solutions to problems.
This is serious peer review and more, its collaboration.
Where to Start? Always Start With Customers!
I recently taught a short introduction to Predictive Innovation class for a group of design students at Eastern Michigan University (EMU). One of the students listed his biggest problem as, “not knowing where to start.” He had a product idea and hundreds of ways to approach it but he didn’t know how to begin to get it to market.
I must apologize to that student because I did not clearly answer his question. The correct answer of where to start is always, “Start With Customers!”
Outcome diagram the customers’ desires. Find the most pressing must be satisfied outcome then base your product and marketing around that desire. Make sure there are enough customers you can reach and who will pay for the product or service you plan to offer. If you can, pre-sell your product to them. Use their up front commitment to get financing to develop the product. That might mean actually having them pay or it might mean showing the width and depth of demand to investors.
Figure out what products the customers already own or use and try to use those as resources to develop your product. If they already own items that perform 80% of the tasks then its much easier for you to be an add-on rather than reinventing the wheel. For instance if they have a laptop with a USB connector then you can get power for your device from their laptop battery. Or you can use the keyboard and screen of their laptop to see and change settings in your small USB device.
Figure out all the desires that your product or future or generations of your product could satisfy. Look at the lifetime value of the customer relationship.
If you’re planning to partner with another company to get your product to market they are your customers as much as the end consumer. Draw the outcome diagram for all the desires related to buying and selling your product. Make sure you satisfy those outcomes.
The particulars of manufacturing or a design alternative over another are just details. The most important thing to remember, “Start With Customers.”
Predictive Innovation Training
Predictive Innovation: Core Skills Book
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