Danes In Space?
September 1st, 2010 by Martin Jacobsen
The Danish “Tycho Brahe” Spacecraft
You’ve probably already heard or read about the Danish space project as several offline and online media worldwide has given the project massive coverage (e.g. Wired, Gizmodo, Discovery and Space.com).
But we think the project deserves a bit of our attention as well. Why? In short: it’s a fantastic project. Kristian Von Bengtson and Peter Madsen have created something truly spectacular by executing an idea that would normally include NASA and billions of dollars. Instead, they have built their very own Spacecraft and floating platform, and they are now about to launch their HEAT 1X it for the very first time. If the test launch, including a dummy, is successful, they will improve the rocket before sending Peter Madsen into space – making Denmark just the fourth country in the world to complete a manned journey into space… And in sharp contrast to the United States, the Soviet Union and China, the Danes will do it without government funding.
A few other interesting facts:
- The rocket’s heat shield is made of cork.
- The valves are being heated by a 15€ hairdryer.
- Every bit of technology in the project is open source – thus free for any company or person to use.
- Around 20 different sponsors are helping out with e.g. radar technology.
- Peter Madsen has helped design and construct three submarines, including Nautilus – the largest homemade submarine in the world.
- The floating launch platform will be towed into the Baltic Sea by the Nautilus submarine.
- Von Bengtson and Madsen have been updating their progress on The Something Awful Forum
- Cost of the project? Around 50.000 euros. Or the same price as a well-equipped mid-size car here in Denmark.
- The Copenhagen Suborbital HQ is situated on Refshaleøen in Copenhagen, only a few hundred meters in beeline from our office.
At this very moment, the Nautilus submarine, the launch platform and the HEAT 1X rocket are well on their way to the launch spot near the island of Bornholm. Follow this (Danish) blog for updates.
At Fourmation, we celebrate proactive people doing unexpected things and executing impossible projects. That’s why we pay our outmost respect to The Copenhagen Suborbital and the two Danish daredevils.
Sources: Wikipedia, Wired and Copenhagen Suborbitals
Tags: Copenhagen Suborbitals, Denmark, NASA, Space
Posted in Innovation, Technology | No Comments »
Data, Information, Content and Complexity
August 6th, 2010 by Martin Jacobsen
Two days ago, at the Techonomy conference in California, Google CEO Eric Schmidt revealed something we find truly astonishing: for every two days we create as much information as we did up to 2003.
Take a few seconds to embrace that fact.
Through all of mankind’s history, we have told stories, shared knowledge, sought information and written down elements of everyday life, history and science. Today, it takes mankind only two days to produce just as much information as we did through all of history up to 2003. That is truly fascinating.
And how do we manage to produce all this information and content? Well, according to Eric Schmidt, it all comes down to user-generated content. And with more than 500 million Facebook profiles, millions of blogs, Twitter-accounts, YouTube profiles and the like, there’s a solid foundation for the creation of an abundance of information and content. On a side note, Google’s book cataloguing project, Google Books, have calculated that there’s around 129,864,880 books in the world.
The result of these incomprehensible amounts of data? Complexity. Just imagine the time spent on creating all this content, the massive quantity of servers making it possible – let alone the possibilities we have created for doing… well, everything whilst being online. And, not to forget, the challenges created for people, professionals and companies. That’s complexity.
Tags: Complexity, Data, Information
Posted in Complexity, Technology | No Comments »
Weed, Sap, Actinic Keratoses, Intersections and Expeditions
July 1st, 2010 by Martin Jacobsen
An Australian weed field.
When hunting for new ideas or wanting to innovate existing services, there may be valuable input from unexpected places. Combining different fields and looking at all new areas can lead to the world of intersections – and thus generate very interesting insights. For example: could a state of the art pharmaceutical company learn from alleged wonder tales?
Throughout history, we have used nature’s flora to alleviate and cure various kinds of deceases. Passing on knowledge through generations, we have shared tips and tricks on how weed, herbs, roots and flowers can be used to an abundance of things.
These techniques are still very much in use. In the Western world, however, there is a tendency to consider these old-fashioned techniques as somewhat hippie-like and indeed very diverged from that of modern medicine studies and research. Fieldwork and product development within the medicine and pharmaceutical industry are mostly done in laboratories and involve highly skilled scientists, budgets and business plans. And though this is not necessarily a bad thing, there could perhaps be some valuable insights and possibilities out there in the nature?
Australian pharmaceutical company Peplin (bought by Denmark-based Leo Pharma in December 2009) are currently working on the development of a new gel to treat Actinic Keratoses (AK), which is the most common pre-cancerous skin condition and caused by excessive sunbathing and use of solariums. And even if most pharmaceutical and medicine companies are constantly working on product development to ensure proper medicine for patients and steady revenue for the company, the story of Peplin’s work with the gel is extraordinary.
The Euphorbia Peplus
For years, Australian locals have used the white sap from a certain weed to cure warts, fight skin cancer and other face lesions. This plant, the Euphorbia Peplus or just Petty Spurge, is actually a common known weed, ruining gardens all over the world – including Denmark and Australia. It came to Peplin’s attention that the plant was worth a study. And the result: it turns out that the sap from the Petty Spurge is indeed very, very powerful and not just the result of a local wonder tale. Besides the gel to treat Actinic Keratoses, Peplin are now conducting heavy research into other products based on the Euphorbia Peplus.
PEP005 is the working title of the gel, which Peplin will launch in 2012 – to a market with a high level of potential: The direct costs for AK in the United States was $1.2 billion in 2004. 58 million people in the United States are living with AK, 11% to 25% of adults in the Northern hemisphere populations and 40% to 60% of adults in Australia have at least one AK lesion.
And the essence of this story? Besides the fact that Peplin’s gel will safe lives, it points towards the potential benefits of moving away from the office or the laboratory. When working with product development, design, manufacturing – in whatever business you are in – we need to realise that we cannot invent everything in the controlled, sterilized environment of our offices or laboratories. We need to get out into the nature, researching wonder tales, talk to people, listen to stories, local traditions and knowledge – in the very same way historic explorers embarked on adventurous scientific and exploratory expeditions.
(Sources: Peplin, Leo Pharma, Wikipedia and Medical News Today)
Tags: expedition, Innovation, Intersections, invention
Posted in Business design, Innovation, Integrated Thinking, Intersections, Transformation | No Comments »
Airplanes & Skunk Works
June 10th, 2010 by Martin Jacobsen
(Three of the most well-known Skunk Works-developed jet fighters: The F-35 Lightning II, the SR-71 Blackbird and the F-104 Starfighter).
In business, it is common use to leave the normal premises or offices when working with idea generation, complex projects or conducting meetings. New surroundings can benefit your thoughts and work processes and can result in improved solutions. You may know this by the termSs “process innovation”, “organisational innovation”, “organisational development” or similar, where key is to let go of the creative constraint. But the predecessor to these modern buzzwords was born in an allegedly foul-smelling factory floor in Burbank, California – hence the name, Skunk Works.
Skunk Works©: “A term used in engineering and technical fields to describe a group within an organisation given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, tasked with working on advanced or secret projects.”
Today, the term is widely used in various businesses when describing agile development, production and innovation processes in offline and online environments. The Skunk Works term and story, however, is 67 years old:
In 1943, during the World War II, the allies were facing a rapidly growing German Jet threat. If the Germans would succeed in building a functioning fighter jet, they would gain a massive advantage over the Allies.
Well aware of this, the Air Tactical Service Command of the US Army Air Force, met with Lockheed Aircraft Corporation and expressed their need for a jet fighter. The Allied Forces had access to the British developed Goblin jet engine, but the contemporary development and production time of new fighters meant that it could take years before a functional jet fighter would be ready.
A new approach was required.
Chief Research Engineer Clarence “Kelly” Johnson was the man for the job. In 1938, he had gathered a team of Lockheed-engineers who in secrecy, and in an isolated, walled-off building at the Lockheed-factory, had developed the world’s first 400 mph fighter – the P-38 Lightning.
Kelly assembled a similar team in June 1943 to begin the development of a jet fighter. Again, he separated the team from the rest of factory, and based on “Kelly’s 14 rules” the Skunk Works rules of operation was born.
Skunk Works was a team of highly skilled engineers, working closely together in a group based on massive autonomy and free of the normal production bureaucracy at the Lockheed Factory – ensuring an unprecedented short production time.
(The XP-80 prototype, aka. “Lulu Belle”, and the P-80 Shooting Star)
And the Skunk Works team proved their efficiency by designing and building the XP-80 prototype in only 143 days. Dubbed “Lulu Belle”, the XP-80 would later surface as the first-ever American jet fighter under the name of P-80 Shooting Star. The American jet fighter was born – and so was an all-new approach to rapid innovation and development.
And the meaning of all this? Today, much of the organisational- and process innovation seen in businesses, are centred around elements of the Skunk Works idea. The problem, however, is that bureaucracy and top-down management are often preventing the real Skunk Works-like development in taking place. This is where “Kelly’s 14 rules” can be applied. Though they originated in 1943, many of the rules are still considered valid today – even if they were invented around the creation of top-secret projects (three of the most interesting and still very much valid rules are listed below):
- 1. “The Skunk Works® manager must be delegated practically complete control of his program in all aspects. He should report to a division president or higher.”
- 5. “There must be a minimum number of reports required, but important work must be recorded thoroughly.”
- 9. “The contractor must be delegated the authority to test his final product in flight. He can and must test it in the initial stages. If he doesn’t, he rapidly loses his competency to design other vehicles.”
Looking at these rules, it seems rather evident that they can be applied directly to many aspects of business life today. And why? Because the issues of dealing with complexity hasn’t changed. Working with complex projects, it is essential to establish a solid foundation or framework around the team. Within this framework, then, the team will have the time, resources and autonomy to succeed with their task(s). That is why “Kelly’s 14 rules” are still highly applicable to today’s business life.
At Fourmation, we are true believers in the “Skunk Works” approach when working with projects. But what do you think – and what techniques do you use in your company?
(Sources: Lockheedmartin.com and Wikipedia)
Tags: Business design, Integrated Thinking, Skunk Works, Transformation
Posted in Business design, Innovation, Integrated Thinking, Technology, Transformation | No Comments »
Amateur enthusiast beats NASA with a helium balloon
June 4th, 2010 by Martin Jacobsen
What is true, radical innovation? It is hard to provide a single, unified answer to such question, but this blog post will present an example of what we believe is an excellent example of integrated thinking and innovation.
For years, NASA has been the primary force in exploring what’s above the sky. They have led countless spaceships into, well yes, space, been a leading force in the ISS Space Station, landed on the moon in 1969 and given us unseen footage and knowledge via the Hubble Telescope and satellites.
So, you would think that their near limitless budget would ensure their leading role in everything they do? Well, think again. British amateur enthusiast Robert Harrison wanted to take his own photos of space. Browsing through the Internet, Harrison found the recipe for what ended as an enormous success. With a $747 setup consisting of a helium balloon, a GPS tracking device, a small parachute and a camera programmed to sleep and reactivate every five minutes to take eight photos and record video. Dubbed “Icarus”, he launched the balloon and the camera rig – and the result is absolutely spectacular.
After posting the results on the Internet, the footage buzzed around the web, and caught the attention of mighty NASA. They phoned him up, curious to know how he had done it. Certain that he must have used an expensive (home made) rocket, they were amazed and bedazzled when they realised that it was a home made $747-camera rig that had outperformed their million dollar setups.
And the learning? NASA is a huge organisation with 17,900 highly skilled employees and a $17.7 billion budget. Still, one single amateur came up with a solution far superior to those of NASA. And why? Harrison didn’t have any managers to refer to, bureaucracy to fight or meetings to attend. He just had an idea and the curiosity to pursue it. So he did. That is a truly fascinating story about a single persons “Skunk Worked” project. And perhaps NASA should give that same “Skunk Works” model a go?
(Source: Gnews.com, Wikipedia, Robertharrison.org and Flickr)
Tags: Innovation, Integrated Thinking, NASA
Posted in Innovation, Integrated Thinking, Transformation | 1 Comment »
The ‘old’ brands and the ‘new’ brands
May 10th, 2010 by Martin Jacobsen
McDonald’s, Coca Cola, Hewlett Packard and Disney have a number of things in common: they are American companies, they are market leaders within their industry – and they are among the best-known and most valuable brands in the world, according to the most recent version of the annual “Interbrand Best Global Brands List”: (http://www.interbrand.com/best_global_brands.aspx).
What they also share is a long line of history and tradition. McDonald’s was founded in 1940, Hewlett Packard was founded in 1939, Disney was founded in 1923 and Coca Cola was founded in 1886. They’ve all been a part of the traditional business environment and used traditional and new elements of marketing to strenghthen their market position and sell their products. And they have succeded big time. Mildly put.
But it seems that the top of the Interbrand list, and similar lists, will soon be featuring a bunch of newcomers:
Yahoo!, founded in 1995, is currently ranked 64.
eBay, founded in 1995, is currently ranked 46.
Amazon, founded in 1994, is currently ranked 43.
Google, founded in 1998, is currently ranked 7.
And what do these companies have in common? Their businesses are created to serve the needs of (Internet) users and they provide easy-to-use services/products that everyone can quickly learn to use – and love. Additionally, they are, despite their very short existence, already among the 70 best-known and most valuable brands in the world. That’s impressive. And, based on their popularity it seems reasonable to argue that they will climb up the list in the future.
But what does this tell us? Has it become easier to not only create a business, but actually create a business that’ll mingle with the big brands within 12-15 years? The easy answer will be ‘yes’, it has become easier. The popularisation of the Internet means that no business are no longer restricted to a single country or economy – they can have a global appeal and reach from day one.
Looking at the Interbrand list from 2009 and the rankings of Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon and Google, I can’t help thinking how the very same list will look in a few years. Especially when you consider that Facebook is not even on the list. For now. The same applies to massively popular services, ‘Foursquare’, ‘Skype’ and ‘Twitter’. Oh. And then there’s 
‘Gowalla’, ‘Spotify, ‘Orkut’ and a bunch of other increasingly popular services. We’re pretty certain that at least a couple of these brands will be featured on the list within five years. And even if they don’t find their way to the lists of ‘traditional’ brands, they’ll definitely find the way to the minds of the people – and alternative lists like the PFSK Best Brands list (http://www.psfk.com/psfk-good-brands-report-2010) – which we’ll discuss in a forthcoming blog post.
What do you think? And has the rules and settings for brands been changed forever due to the Internet? Any other comments?
Source: Wikipedia
Tags: Brands, Google, Internet
Posted in Business design, Technology, Transformation | No Comments »
The Opposable Mind
April 27th, 2010 by Hans Henrik H. Heming
What distinguishes a brilliant leader from a conventional one? In this insightful book, Roger Martin shows that brilliant leaders are skilled at integrative thinking – the ability to hold two opposing ideas in their minds at once, and then reach a synthesis that contains elements of both but improves each.
Most managerial decisions are made by examining the pros and cons of the presumed alternatives, then eliminating all but one. Conventional thinkers focus only on obviously relevant features, break problems into pieces and work on them separately, and settle for what they perceive to be the best available options.
But truly successful leaders try not to make “either-or” decisions. By seeking factors that are not immediately obvious, considering nonlinear relationships among variables, and seeing the problem as a whole, they are able to resolve tensions among opposing ideas and generate innovative outcomes.
Drawing on stories of leaders as diverse as A. G. Lafley of Procter & Gamble and Bob Young of Red Hat Software, Martin shows how, by refusing to accept unpleasant trade-offs and conventional options, integrative thinkers are able to find creative solutions to seemingly intractable problems.
But is integrative thinking a talent reserved for a fortunate few? Martin believes it is a “habit of thought” that all of us can consciously develop to arrive at solutions that would otherwise not be evident.
This is a GREAT book we strongly recommend you’ll read.
Tags: Integrated Thinking, Roger Martin
Posted in Integrated Thinking, Recommended reading | No Comments »
Recommended Reading
April 22nd, 2010 by Martin Jacobsen
(Source http://bit.ly/a4IU13)
There’s no such thing as inspiration and new knowledge. That’s why we read a lot at Fourmation. We enjoy a number of blogs and websites on a daily basis (go to our lab to find some of the links that inspires us), but for the real in-depth and thorough knowledge, data and analysis, we turn to the good, old books.
We have made a list of 15 excellent books that we think everyone with an interest in business, networks, integrated thinking, management and business design owe it to themselves to read.
- “The Tipping Point – How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference” by Malcolm Gladwell.
Excerpt: “The premise of this facile piece of pop sociology has built-in appeal: little changes can have big effects; when small numbers of people start behaving differently, that behavior can ripple outward until a critical mass or “tipping point” is reached, changing the world.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/42WbUh
- “Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means” by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi.
Excerpt: “There is a path between any two neurons in our brain, between any two companies in the world, between any two chemicals in our body. Nothing is excluded from this highly interconnected web of life.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/5wodM
- “The Strength of Weak Ties” by Mark Granovetter.
Excerpt: “In marketing or politics, weak ties enable reaching populations and audiences that are not accessible via strong ties.”
Link to Wikipedia: http://bit.ly/BJ1o link to PDF: http://bit.ly/cg0lqx
- “Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems” by Jeffrey Conklin.
Excerpt: “In contrast to the use of agendas and restrictive structures, dialogue mapping is a facilitation technique that allows the intelligence and learning of the group to emerge naturally.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/GIaSz
- “The Wisdom of Crowds” by James Surowiecki.
Excerpt: “While our culture generally trusts experts and distrusts the wisdom of the masses, New Yorker business columnist Surowiecki argues that “under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often smarter than the smartest people in them.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/b7JljE
- “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell.
Excerpt: “Building his case with scenes from a marriage, heart attack triage, speed dating, choking on the golf course, selling cars, and military maneuvers, he persuades readers to think small and focus on the meaning of “thin slices” of behavior.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/9GXkuk
- “The Opposable Mind” by Roger Martin.
Excerpt: “In this primer on the problem-solving power of “integrative thinking,” Martin draws on more than 50 management success stories, including the masterminds behind The Four Seasons, Proctor & Gamble and eBay, to demonstrate how, like the opposable thumb…(…).”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/c9psva
- “The Future of Management” by Gary Hamel.
Excerpt: “Though this authoritative examination of today’s static corporate management systems reads like a business school treatise, it isn’t the same-old thing.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/bNHhlg
- “Wikinomics” by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams.
Excerpt: “The word “wiki” means “quick” in Hawaiian, and here author and think tank CEO Tapscott (The Naked Corporation), along with research director Williams, paint in vibrant colors the quickly changing world of Internet togetherness, also known as mass or global collaboration, and what those changes mean for business and technology.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/9nLl8O
- “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More” by Chris Anderson.
Excerpt: ”Wired editor Anderson declares the death of “common culture”—and insists that it’s for the best. Why don’t we all watch the same TV shows, like we used to?”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/b7j1oi
- “Groundswell” by Charlene Li & Josh Bernhoff
Excerpt: “Corporate executives are struggling with a new trend: people using online social technologies (blogs, social networking sites, YouTube, podcasts) to discuss products and companies, write their own news, and find their own deals. This groundswell is global, it s unstoppable, it affects every industry and it s utterly foreign to the powerful companies running things now.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/9D0hYs
- “Good To Great” by Jim Collins.
Excerpt: ”Five years ago, Jim Collins asked the question, “Can a good company become a great company and if so, how?
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/8X1jhc
- “Teori U” by C. Otto Scharmer.
Excerpt: “In a world burdened with too much information, we are occasionally blessed with a genuinely new idea about how to perceive, think about, and act on our overly complex world.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/9BrNxn
- “Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics: The Challenge of Complexity to Ways of Thinking About Organisations” by Ralph D. Stacey.
Excerpt: ”Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics by Ralph D Stacey is renowned for its unconventional thinking and it continues to be a refreshing alternative for those teaching and studying strategic management who are looking for ’something different.”
Link to Amazon: http://amzn.to/a4gyMU
- “Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity” by Etienne Wenger.
Excerpt: “This book presents a theory of learning that starts with the assumption that engagement in social practice is the fundamental process by which we get to know what we know and by which we become who we are.”
Link to Amazon: http://bit.ly/azRogJ
So, this is our list of recommended reading – and it’ll be followed by a series of blog posts where each book will be more thoroughly reviewed. We hope our recommendations can inspire you.
Do you think we miss any essential works? If so, please let us know!
Tags: Chris Anderson, Crowds, Freemium, Groundswell, Malcolm Gladwell, Roger Martin, The Long Tail, Tipping Point, Wicked Problems, Wikinomics
Posted in Business design, Integrated Thinking, Networks, Social capital, Technology, Transformation | 2 Comments »
Airstream Trailers and Social Media
April 19th, 2010 by Martin Jacobsen
(One of the first Airstream Trailers. Source: http://bit.ly/cKlaay)
On January 17, 1936, Wally Byam, founder of the Airstream Trailer Co., introduced the Airstream ’Clipper’ trailer. The ‘Clipper’ was the first Airstream Trailer – and it marked the beginning of a well-known American brand and icon.
At that time, more than 300 trailer builders operated in USA and the competition was fierce. Out of these +300 trailer builders, Airstream Trailer Co. is the only company that’s still alive. And why is that? Because Wally Byam and his team were focused on extremely high quality and innovative solutions and kept on enhancing the quality of the trailers. Today, more than 60% of all Airstreams ever built are still used to grant their owners luxurious accommodations when travelling.
(Airstream owners on a joint adventure. Source: http://bit.ly/dbCqYB)
But what has Airstream Trailers got to do with social media?
Social media has revolutionised the Internet, and there are no limits to the omnipresent homage of how social media has reinvented contact, interaction, communities, communication, user-driven content, innovation and collaboration. Just to name a few. And, don’t get me wrong, we fully recognise that social media are absolutely brilliant tools in strengthening these concepts. No doubt about that. But social media didn’t invent these. Social media is but a mere tool for these notions.
The Airstream Trailers, known as the ‘aluminium skinned, gleaming silver bullets’, became a massive success despite their relatively high price. Why? Because what Wally Byam and the Airstream team did, was to offer more than just selling a product:
- They established a community around the trailers – the The Wally Byam Caravan Club (www.wbcci.org). What we today would call a brand community.
- They created long-lasting relations with their customers. What we today would call relationship marketing.
- This club would meet up several times a year in several different areas in the US, traversing the highways together. What we today would call a tribe.
- Furthermore, the WBCCI generated more rallies, annual trips and loads of feedback on improvements to the trailers. Result? Byam’s idea of “Let’s not make any changes – let’s make only improvements” allowed his team to use the ideas of their customers to enhance the trailers – based on the experience from the customers. What we today would call user-driven innovation and idea generation.
These things, combined with Byam’s and his teams’ width, resulted in a massive number of improvements to the trailers. Due to this, Byam managed to secure a vast number of patents. All because he and the Airstream team engaged with their customers and responded to their feedback. And this all happened in the 1940es and 1950es. Our point? Social media are excellent tools, but what they do is nothing new. The technology is but a mere enabler. The idea and the people empowering it are the real drivers.
The Airstream case is interesting, as it is an example of how ‘new’ thinking (or Integrated Thinking) already took place before the terms were even coined. Do you know of any other examples where ‘new’ thinking took place many years ago? If so, feel free to comment.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airstream, http://www.wbcci.org/ and http://www.diefahrbar.de/history/index.html
Tags: Airstream, Design Thinking, Innovation, Socialmedia, Transformation, Tribe, User-driven, Wally Byam
Posted in Business design, Integrated Thinking | 3 Comments »
