Sometimes I want to physically shake people and ask them to wake up to reality. Not often, but for the sake of humanity and opportunity cost of energy spent. Last month, I read a great investigative journalism piece on the absurdity that some folks will go to with sharing status updates and social networks. Not within society, as there’s obsessive compulsive and neurotic people of every kind anyway But rather within the tech idea and startup development scene. I recommend you check it out:

The Viral Me: Devin Friedman Investigates the New World of Social Networking

Particularly poignant was how these folks’ brilliance was being spent for a subculture that is very well alive and kicking. Continuing because ample funding is available, technological progress and experimentation are valued for the R&D insights in and of themselves, and because a shared dreamy hope is maintained by competitive inertia.

I prefer reading and sharing stories of progress above ourselves.

Leading neuropsychiatrist Peter Whybrow is the author of “American Mania: When More Is Not Enough,” a neurobiological look at the instinctual and social behaviors that balance a market economy. He explains how America’s reward-driven culture is pushing the physiological limits of our evolutionary inheritance.

What I liked about this presentation is the amount of scientific details he provides into our brain and how we think. Enjoy!

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Funny and personal insights on adaptation from Dan Ariely. Here’s the official description:

“Adaptation is the basic idea that we get used to stuff and interpret signals. Behavioral economist Dan Ariely explores how these types of signals relate to pain and social adaptation. How does our previous exposure to pain alter how we experience it now? How is it that we all appreciate the pinnacle of beauty in the same way, but we’re drawn to partners with a level of attractiveness similar to our own?”

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A couple EcoCradle samples roaming around the audience

Recently at an event hosted by Columbia University’s Sustainability Management program, I heard from Sam Harrington, Environmental Director and Design Engineer at Ecovative, who spoke about some of the neat things they’re doing. See these 2 quick videos (I promise they’re short and cool!) if you’re not familar with the company.

extreme closeup shot!

I got a sample to take home!

So one of the neat updates that Sam shared was Steelcase’s interest in developing a sturdy material that could be used in place of particle board. If a client as big as them was interested in the technology, maybe it was possible. The Ecovative team sure has the R&D capability to potentially develop a strong composite material from natural sources. A breakthrough could be massive, considering the amount of bad chemicals that go into particle board and gradually offgas.

We’ll just have to see what happens

A couple weeks ago, I attended an event on sustainable business and management hosted by Vault.com. Many great topics were discussed, among them the importance of executive leadership to inspire employees on the firm’s values to society and how everyone can contribute to the underlying purpose. With Jeffrey Hollender there, I was thinking of asking if it would be okay if we just cloned him, or if GMO Jeffries would be unethical

Since the subject of systems thinking and change was brought up a couple times, I pondered how change is even possible to begin with. There has to be a stimulus, an identified deficiency, problem, threat, opportunity, and so forth. A system must be consistently aware of its environmental & self conditional state. Only then, according to the existential purpose within a system’s DNA and conditional logic, can it adequately respond by growing/contracting, advancing/retreating, and shifting resources to adequately respond to these changing conditions.

For enterprise management, this completely makes sense as various monitoring & assessment software and analytical methodologies are used to properly respond to changing circumstances. Secondly, a healthy organization is one where employees are encouraged and empowered to recognize problems, and actively fix them or quickly report them for further analysis and action. Yet for the holistic practice of sustainable management, few areas are measured and acted upon. Or perhaps there’s multiple ways to look at the same picture (ex: comparing scenarios based on price, quality, and time). While I know it’s quite a diverse field that spans many enterprise functions, total resource efficiency and employee happiness are just two areas that can be examined for weaknesses and improvements.

In order for leaders to rally the troops around a specific objective related to its values and mission, or for empowered employees to act on their own, there needs to be people that can investigate the nooks and crannies to identify what’s going on, and report progress on multiple fronts. Someone who isn’t entrenched in any particular function, department, or silo. Someone who can continually investigate and communicate. Someone that is a full-time employee, as opposed to a consultant. That person is the embedded journalist.

This role has been around to a certain degree, as it pertains to internal communications and public relations. And that’s great! It’s just that we need individuals inside organizations, hired to investigate and report. The Environmental Defense Fund has a program called Climate Corps that sends fellows to Fortune 1000 companies to help save thousands or millions of dollars by finding ways to reduce energy consumption in buildings. This is just one example. I’ve heard stories of individuals as part of “green teams” to do the same thing, though these were primarily volunteer company programs.

Do you have any similar examples or stories to share? What are your thoughts on the embedded journalist?

Ready for some more cognitive psychology? While you’ve probably heard from me or others how too many choices confuse or slow us down, Barry Schwartz who wrote “The Paradox of Choice”, has some more insights to share in an amusing way.

What makes us happy? Societies flourish and people are most content when they are faced with fewer choices and more constraints. We are tortured by the idea of having it all.

In my opinion, people deserve guidance. Constraints also force rational real-world thinking upon us, while also inspiring creativity to think inside the box.

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I must say, the research and trend folks over at PSFK have done an excellent job in this report for the United Nations. Considering the client, it should be good, and not some futuristic techno/retro idealism based on fads and long term predictions. You may sense my disdain for futurism, although many of my blog posts may point otherwise, I aim to live in the present while objectively understanding the possibilities for a positive future.

To see the embedded presentation in Fullscreen, press “Menu” in the bottom left, then select it from there

Download the report (may require login though free) and jump to page 7 to begin. Table of contents highlights the various subjects which include: sensors, census data, social sentiment, media sharing, mobile, mapping, timelines, nature, smart grids, and data democracy.

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When it comes to promoting behavior change, knowing whether or not your initiative is ‘on track’ is essential. The folks at IDEO discovered three reliable strategies to assess progress: (1) collecting individual stories of the human experience—they can serve as powerful points of inspiration and checkpoints for shaping ideas; (2) iterative feedback—it can build confidence and guide subsequent decision-making; and (3) recognizing relevant indicators—it can illustrate potential outcomes.

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Great insights on creativity from author Jonah Lehrer. I really dug his story on how one’s separation from mainstream society and culturally similar people, can be a significant enhancer of innovative spirit, primarily due to the outsider effect of seeing things from a different perspective.

Secondly is the notion that when we place great time and physical distance between us and an idea, the more imaginative and creative effort we’ll exert when interacting with it. Perhaps there is something more exotic about the distant and historic that makes it more sticky than the near and recent? It’s more than that.

It’s the difference between various environments and contexts we’re currently in. Thinking about “nature” while you’re in New York City will differ from that while in Phoenix. Retreats (and vacations too!) for example are a great time for personal reflection and problem solving precisely because we’re placed outside of our zone.

Jonah’s point on multicultural exposure’s effect on our creativity really made me happy since I’ve lived in Sweden, Germany, and have traveled much in Europe. There’s a positive outsider effect there too. Lastly, intellectual and practical dissimilarity can be a big positive too in creative problem solving, since one doesn’t have the curse of pre-existing knowledge and susceptibility to groupthink. A few organizations I know that fully embrace diversity include Cirque de Soleil and Jump Associates.

Outside -> In perspective is the whole basis of ethnographic and design research.

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I totally love Project Noah! Imagine Wikipedia for science, wildlife, and nature combined with geolocation, and user-curated discovering and mapping. Watch and be inspired