How do we get from “here†to “there�
August 24th, 2006 by Gordon Cook
When will we see that the Future we want lies outside the box?
Are not we so well trapped inside our respective boxes that we don’t have a view of the ongoing metamorphosis of our world?
Trapped inside the box we see only the greedy telcos and the corrupted regulatorium. We are trapped on the other guy’s turf where he is in control and making us look foolish in front of the broader public we’d like to reach. We think Internet changes everything, but eight years after the clue train left the station we still are far too disorganized a fringe.
Where is the Vortex or magnet around which new ideas can gather?
How do you take the thinking of an Intel, a Cisco, or a Hewlett Packard and show them that there is a future outside that of their current captive customers? And current products?
One way is to understand the innovation of the boundary crossers who are practiced advocates of open source. Another way is to see the innovators at American universities like Andrew MacAfee at Harvard Business School and Neil Gershenfeld at MIT and Marin Geddes at Telepocalypse. Is telepocalypse a precursor of the university turned inside out and decentralized? What about the plans for Connected Communities? Is this to evolve as a virtual university dedicated to solving the problems of the transition from telephone, and TV to the so-called converged environment?
Gershenzon’s intelligent Internet connected bathroom shelf – seven years later it is still not out. Why? What limits the transferability of our vision to reality? Found at the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs from the end of the long essay. But what an essay! Enjoy it here!
JP Rangaswami quotes Michael Schrage as saying: “innovation isn’t what innovators do…. It’s what customers and clients adopt.†This calls to mind the old saying that if a tree in a forest falls and no one hears it fall can we say that it really has fallen? Hadn’t we better understand the dynamics that abet and interfere with “adoption�
What is necessary to progress and breakdown barriers? Is the primary ingredient a really good explanation of our current situation? JP’s kernel has the best I have seen. But when you internalize those understandings, then what?
[…] At that point I had to answer the question. My answer was the entry he liked today. How do we get from “here” to “there” That’s the spider web. […]