Harvest From The Future

About this time last year (give or take a few months – I started this article in August but had to shelve it for a bit due to some extraordinary circumstances), I was writing about a crop of tomato hornworms that had replaced my crop of plum tomatoes. This year’s harvest has proven far more bountiful. Not only are the tomatoes coming in, but the basil, dill, cucumbers and zucchini have made for several batches of amazing pesto, pickles and primavera, respectively.

The harvest marks a special passing where investments in time, energy, and works are rewarded. With respect to annual crops, the fruits of labor are self-evident, and are often in such abundance that many can benefit from the rewards of a few. When looking across friendships that span a generation or more, there are similar, yet unique abundances that can emerge after many years of careful stewardship and development.

Among my closest friends is a couple who have loaned us several of their children over the years to watch them grow up, and participate in their lives. We’ve taken their children on trips, visited with them multiple times each year, and have shared many educational experiences. Two of the children are now in their late teens. The eldest, my goddaughter (more accurately, I’m her adopted godfather), is now a young woman starting her second year at University.

It’s really been a blessing over the years to have earned a place in my goddaughter’s life, as well as the lives of her siblings. Recently, it’s been extremely interesting to share parts of the world as seen through each others’ eyes in conversations and contemporary social media. (Yes, we’re friends on Facebook and we follow each other on Twitter. Fortunately I haven’t freaked-out all of my goddaughter’s meat-space friends who are half my age.) Recently, she visited with me and my wife at our home in Maine.

My goddaughter has reached a point where her life is about to get very interesting. She’s a young woman, contemplating studying abroad, and thinking very seriously about her future. She will soon be examining initial career paths in what is certainly a much more difficult world than the one I was facing when I had similar decisions to make over twenty years ago while at the same University.

Watching my goddaughter assess the world around her and make decisions that will impact not only her life in years to come, but the lives of others is fascinating. As I write this (at least when I started writing this article back in August), the decisions she’s contemplating are most likely tactical in nature: What books to read, what (if any) adjustments to make to her fall-term course schedule, etc. I’m fortunate to have a front-row seat to that process, if even for just a few moments. Some would say there’s a lot that can be shared across a generation at such an influential time in a young person’s life. I don’t disagree with that, but I’m too busy being the student.

Someday, if I’m lucky, in twenty years I may be sitting once again across from my goddaughter at a table in a bookstore, reflecting back on the choices she made today.

I can only imagine what harvests they will have produced.

Teleporting is a Good Walk (Failed)

I just got back from a long week in Southern California. I was presenting a paper at TRIZCon 2009 and working with several clients. While giving my paper, I made a comment on the nature of innovation practice that I make frequently during seminars or working with clients:

"Failure is not just an option. It's essential."

I noticed over at Innovating To Win that Jim Todhunter's latest article focused on this aspect of innovation. We've had a pleasant difference of opinion on this topic for a number of years. As with many of Jim's articles, I found myself re-reading some of the many books on innovation theory and practice I've compiled, and offered the following response to his latest musing.

Great article, Jim. As you and I have exchanged over the years (as recently last week as I watched you shake your head and chuckle quietly as I lectured a room on the essential need for failure in an innovation practice), we perhaps share different views on what failure means.

Or do we?

My own view (which I've written about before) is that failure is not only an option, it's essential. The journey of 10,000 miles begins with a single step. For many, it requires the other several million steps. For a very select few, their first step is onto the teleporter. Most management that I speak with are expecting their teams to journey 10,000 miles in one step, which is a very unrealistic expectation.

Your invocation of the brightest bulb in the innovation bunch made me go back and re-read "Innovate Like Edison", by Michael J. Gelb and Sarah Miller Caldicott. Specifically, I wanted to review how Edison treated failure.

According to Gelb & Caldicott, Edison developed five skills for successful invention:

1) Have a solution-centered mindset.
2) Use kaleidoscopic thinking.
3) Use full-spectrum engagement.
4) Become a master at collaboration.
5) Create "Super Value".

Despite mastery of these skills, Edison and his teams at Menlo Park recorded far more failures than successes in pursuing their technical and product goals. Were their failures actually failures? Edison had this to say on the nature of failure:

"I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward."

"Many of life's failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

and one of my favorites...

"Show me a thoroughly satisfied man, and I will show you a failure."


I think what is so inspiring about Edison and others like him that we get a chance to work with every day, is that the ultimate success in any inventive effort, is the learning which results. Regardless of whether the outcome is right or wrong, the highest success-metric for innovators is that something was learned which can be applied in practice to the next attempt.

If the on the last step of a 10,000 mile journey, the inventor discovers the teleporter, that makes the discovery no less important than if it was discovered on the first step. The essential "failures" of all the in-between steps, were still essential.

The real winner, of course, will be the innovation practitioner of methodologies that minimizes the mean distance of the success path.

So perhaps, semantics is a small part of the problem, but more so, it is the owner of the success metric. As innovation practitioners, we ultimately own our metrics for success and failure, regardless of what may be imposed on us by management or markets. In my own case, a failure to achieve a specific goal of an innovation task is a step to ultimate success. Failing frequently and learning (and with a methodology for improving how I apply what I learn) means succeeding more frequently and with higher impact.

Obviously I haven't succeeded in convincing you on the critical need to embrace failure for winning innovation.

I must be doing something right. ;-)

Since posting this comment to Jim, he has suggested to me that I am merely confusing empirical method with innovation. I don't agree with him, but his feedback is very constructive. Often it is the journey that is more important than its beginning and end points. That in itself is more valuable than teleporting to the destination I'm sure we'll eventually reach.

In the mean time, I'm sure we'll share many winning failures along the way.

Lessons from the Roof: A Case (Study) of the Shingles

We’re just coming out of another long winter here in the Maine foothills. The storms of December (not to mention October and November), January and February have left their typical 100+ inches upon the landscape. The storms of March are adding just a dozen or so inches more, just to break any remaining appreciation for snow. With the cycles of melting, rain, and cold, one might expect the semi-permanent snowpack to run about 24 inches in most places.

If you thrive in the wild on tree bark and dead insects while stored fat keeps your buck-naked form in harmony with the elements for four months, then this level of snow causes you little difficulty.

Speaking from the gatherer part of the food chain in which I exist, I have my usual 11 feet of snow sitting outside my parlor window. This is not exactly a Norman Rockwell vision. Living in Maine means that my rooftop is frequently assaulted with 20+ inches or more of snow per storm, sometimes the heavy and wet variety. If it isn’t cleared quickly, snowfall from a typical storm rapidly turns into 12-18 inches of solid ice, and poses a very real risk of damaging or collapsing the roof. In my neck of the woods, this is not an uncommon occurrence. So several times each winter, I work with a team of shovelers to clear my roof of snow before real damage sets in.

We had a particularly bad storm in February that dumped close to 20 inches of very heavy, wet snow and was driven by heavy winds, resulting in even higher drifts. It knocked out power to about 80,000 homes and was rapidly to be followed by sub-zero temperatures before an even more rapid warm-up and rain later in the week. The combination of these meteorological events, aside from giving a political-science intern a complete set of expert talking points on global warming, was potentially very dangerous. I didn’t hesitate to call my general contractor, who, in anticipation of my call, had a team all set to help me clear the latest harassment from Mother Nature.

One of the reasons I use shovelers is for pure practicality. I’ve got roof rakes, extender poles, snow-shoes and other equipment that helps me clear a fair amount of roof-bound snow on my own from the ground. In order for me to get the really challenging stuff, I’m not the guy you want to see dancing around on an icy roof overlooking (in some places) a 30 foot drop. The shovelers are practiced in their trade and know no fear of icy inclines or college-bound children.

So as the crew ascended my rooftop, I continued to work from below. I received a quick glance and sociable wave from the senior of the shovelers who then returned to his digging. I chanced a quick verbal exchange to express my appreciations. I shouted up some idle chat about the weather, (in retrospect, it’s probably not the brightest idea to use a raging snow storm as an icebreaker topic) and was met with a blank stare, and then an apology. “I’m sorry”, the worker said, “I wasn’t paying attention to you. I didn’t mean to be rude. When I work a job I have one rule: 'Singular Focus.'”

I found this to be utterly fascinating. The task management credo espoused by the person risking his life shoveling his third of four rooftops that day is the same advice given by numerous innovation and business management gurus. Have a clearly defined job and break it down into manageable tasks. Focus tenaciously on one task at a time, each with its own goal, not allowing interruptions to get in the way.

David Allen makes outcome focusing a central theme of his seminal time-management classic, “Getting Things Done”. It would seem to be common sense, yet the number of companies I see that are paralyzed by the distractions and empty promises of complex task management (or just the lack of effective task management) are too many for me to tally. Too often, we are seduced by the sirens of multi-tasking, who would have us believe that we can focus on multiple tasks simultaneously with little or no reduction in efficiency or productivity. Unfortunately, for those who do not resist this song, their footing is no steadier than that of the shoveler’s whom I nearly distracted. The resulting metaphorical fall for companies can have far more dire consequences.

The lesson from the roof is a very simple one. When presented with a job, the best way to get it accomplished is to break it down into as many independent and smaller tasks as possible, each with clearly defined and visualized goals. Then by focusing on executing each task with a singular focus – ignoring all interruptions until each task is completed, the goals will be met predictably and efficiently.

After that last storm, I seriously doubt that my roof protector would need to go to business school to effectively lead a multi-million dollar business.

However, I know a fair number of business executives who could learn a lot from a shovel.

Reading List - I

On the topic of reading, Abraham Lincoln once said,

"Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all."

I've been asked over the last few months by friends, colleagues and innovation clients variations on the same question - "What books do you read?".

In looking at the various bookcases scattered throughout my house, I rapidly must come to the conclusion that I am thoroughly unoriginal in everything that I do. Here then, to level the playing field, is the first in a series of articles in 2009 about books I'm reading, have read (or may be reading again), and recommend for a variety of business, innovation and creative interests.

I'm going to break the list up into categories where the similarity of some of the books are concerned, just to add a little structure.

Patents

Ok, Patents? You've got to be kidding, right? The world of temporary monopolies and their legalese? Books written by people who didn't have enough personality to become defense attorneys? Patents play an ever-increasing important role in innovation, product development, and monetization of ideas. Yet, the ins and outs of patent research and strategy can be elusive, if not downright frustrating. I've got several well-worn books that never leave my side on these topics, especially recently.

"Rembrandts In The Attic", by Kevin Rivette. Most ideas are never monetized. In this book, Kevin Rivette's strategies for making an organization more savvy about their intellectual property are valuable on their own (though are slightly dated, having been written at the height of the dot-com boom). In today's economic climate, the text serves a purpose that I don't think was intended - an allegory for optimizing the small-scale R&D organization.

"Patents For Business", by M. Henry Heines. An invaluable tool for the engineering manager, product executive, or group leader who needs to navigate the essentials of patent strategy and due diligence. Check out Jim Todhunter's review over at Innovating To Win.


Business Strategy

I tend to read HBR the same way most people never admit - at their local bookstore, with a notebook and over several lattes, before putting it back on the shelf until the next issue. If you're going to be in a position where you work with people that directly shape or impact managing a business, from a sole-proprietorship to a megacorporation spanning hundreds of thousands of employees, you simply cannot afford ignorance of classic, modern, and changing business tactics. Here's a small sample of what I'm chewing through right now.

"The Self-Destructive Habits Of Good Companies", by Jagdish N. Sheth. Can companies become arrogant? Is incumbency of talent a curse? Does success breed failure? If you think you're doing fine in '09, think again. Warning signs of business and product missteps, caught early enough, are opportunities for product, process, and organizational innovation.

"The Art Of Strategy", by Avinish K. Dixit and Barry J. Nalebuff. How should people behave in business? No matter how calculating and logical your thought processes are, you can't ignore the human element in planning any activity where people are involved. Applied game theory is a fascinating topic in business, at least until everyone is thinking about it at the same time (a variant on the Prisoners' Dilemma game).


Innovation and Design

The growing majority of my readership comes from the innovation community. We all have one trait in common - we want the answer right away. So to keep the gig going as any good consultant would, I've saved a few books on innovation for the last part of this article.

"The Design Of Future Things", by Donald A. Norman. In this long awaited sequel to "The Design Of Everyday Things", Norman (a former Apple executive) looks at the advances and perils of automation and integration of "smart" technologies into any and all products that affect day to day living.

"American Streamlined Design: The World Of Tomorrow", by David A. Hanks and Anne Hoy. Design and innovation are eternally at odds with each other balancing constraints of form and function. When both have emerged victorious, the results are some of the most beautiful embodiments of engineering and art. The 1930's and 1940's were unique decades in American design where anything from the simplest tool to the most complex machine was not complete unless they were designed with grace and beauty. I draw much of my own inspiration from this period.

"The Global Brain", by Satish Nambisan and Mohanbir Sawhney. One size rarely fits all, especially in innovation. What works for one company may not for another, yet elements of innovative success can often be leveraged outside the organization that created them. Identifying, shaping, and deploying a "network-centric" innovation model is the theme of this book, which offers some interesting roadmaps.


This list should get you started for a little while. Don't worry, I'll share more books on innovation and other categories in future articles throughout the year. At last count I've conservatively gone through 50 books in just the past 18 months.

Wintry Potpourri

The deepest aspect of this article is likely to be the seven inches of snow that's fallen outside my window. A typical New England storm has moved through to make room for an even larger storm later this weekend. The roads are nearly impassable, but as a familiar song of the season slurs (at least Dean's rendition of it), I've really no place to go.

A lot of topics that I'd would have liked to write about here have surfaced since I talked turkey last month. However, I find that as the end of this year approaches, I want to clear the decks to make room for what's to come in 2009. So I thought I'd take a break from writing a larger article, and instead share some brief insights on things that have caught my attention over the last few weeks.


Innovating In A Recession

It is probably safe to say that 2008 has been a recessionary year for most, and 2009 promises to be even more challenging. During the Great Depression, a few companies managed to thrive. Their secret was simple. They identified ways to create and deliver value.

Chuck Frey of InnovationTools and Renee Hopkins Callahan of Innosight recently contacted a diverse collection of innovation experts and practitioners to learn more about the strategies they recommend for maintaining innovation during these challenging times. I was surprised and honored that an excerpt from one of my recent articles here at Thirty Minutes From Andromeda was included in their report, "Innovation Strategies for the Global Recession". My colleague Jim Todhunter, over at Innovating to Win, was also included in this report.


Recent Passings

Innovation is a technical and creative form of expression, usually a longing for something better, often of a goal that seems unattainable. I have found that for some of the most inventive minds, science-fiction has been an early source of inspiration, creating dreamers that transform into doers. It personally has played a role in my own career paths. So it is with sadness that I note the passing of two important figures in 20th century science-fiction.

Majel Barrett Roddenberry passed away this week from complications of leukemia. She was well known as the "first lady of Star Trek", having been involved with every production of the most recognized franchise in genre entertainment. Recently, she just finished voicing her familiar role as the computer of the famed U.S.S. Enterprise in J.J. Abrams' blockbuster restart of the franchise, due in theaters next May.

Forrest J. Ackerman (Uncle Forry, to those of us who knew him) was one of First Fandom's beloved members. He was responsible for coining the phrase "sci-fi" as a pun on the popular "Hi-Fi" home entertainment center in the 1950's. He discovered and represented giants of the genre including Ray Bradbury. Long before the commodity of social media, Forry published magazines and books that helped connect hundreds of thousands of fans and professionals in their love of the future, the fantastic, and the unknown. He was also one of the kindest and biggest hearts that you could ever meet. I was personally very fortunate come to know him through the 1990's, and last saw him in 2006 in Los Angeles. Forry's passing represents the end of an era, but not the end of his influence.


Notable Blogs

I started this blog as an experiment. One thing I learned very quickly is that there are more bloggers in the world with more talent than I could ever hope to have (or keep up with) who have some very thought provoking things to say. Recently, I've recently discovered several blogs which appeal to my professional and ecclectic interests that are very much worth sharing. I encourage you to check them out.

• Lateral Action - Thought proking articles on creativity, productivity, problem solving and innovation.
  
• Zero Punctuation - While technically not a blog, this video website contains the most essential element of electronic game review: a misanthropic British pop-culture slave displaced to Australia with an unnaturally developed sense of abuse and sarcasm, and command of the $#%&ing English language.
  
• The Market Ticker - I follow a fair number of economic and financial blogs as best I can (certainly not enough as I should). Karl Denninger pulls no punches and doesn't waffle around when it comes to looking at the macro-economic catastrophe we are in, and all of its consequences.

I'll be returning to writing more focused articles shortly, including: the conclusion of my "Why Johnny Can't Innovate" series; a recommended reading list for 2009; and some new insights into the innovation initiatives of the Obama administration.

Subject: Experts Matter

Note: This is the 5th article in the “Why Johnny Can’t Innovate” series.

As tends to happen at my local bookstore (where I write most of my articles), a new book found its way into my ‘to read’ pile. Mark Bauerlein’s “The Dumbest Generation” caught my eye, if at first for no other reason as to its wise-ass potential. I soon realized that the book’s cover belied a more serious message within its pages.

The premise of Bauerlein’s thesis is that a growing number of young people in the United States are losing the ability to read and comprehend literature, engage in scientific and political debate, and are generally becoming knowledge deficient. The cause is an over-abundance of social technologies which distract young minds from intellectual pursuits and cater to the banality and peer adulation needs of “anyone under 30”.

While I can’t say that I entirely disagree with him, I do have a different perspective on the changing face of human-enabled knowledge management.

I get to work with people who have made careers out of knowing and innovating slices of key industries, science and technologies better than most if not all of their peers. I get to see the best of the best do what they do, and they all do it as well or better than anyone else in their fields. They are, what we call in innovation practice, subject matter experts (SMEs).

SMEs drive cutting-edge advances in all fields such including physics, chemistry, biology, materials, engineering, and of course - business. Frequently I get to know these experts on a personal level, and see the paths they’ve taken to get where they are in their careers. While their industries may differ, their stories are similar. SMEs have journeyed along highly challenging and collaborative academic or entrepreneurial paths, becoming recognized by their peers, and ultimately have sought to bring their talents to the corporate world.

Soon after securing a position in a prestigious firm or a bold startup, a shroud of isolation quickly surrounds many experts as the needs of competitive secrecy and corporate culture arrest open exchange and communication. The subject matter expert becomes an individual contributor, and soon, becomes focused on his or her individual contributions within a department or a project. Does this impact their abilities to drive innovations in their fields of expertise? No. But it often impairs their innate skills of documenting their expertise, or becoming an expert in anything else, in favor of their companies’ operational efficiencies.

Experts are not simply critical innovation resources for the knowledge they’ve passionately collected, developed and apply. Experts are critical drivers of innovation because of how and why they became experts in the first place. They were once passionate about their interests and developed effective documentation, investigation and collaboration skills to rise to the top of their fields. SMEs are incredibly good at writing narratives about their discoveries, research, and opinions. Organizations with an innovation mandate should not overlook these skills, and the SMEs who possess them.

Of the many reasons innovation initiatives fail, lack of available or accessible subject matter expertise is a common factor. In my experience, too often it is discovered that the expert knowledge that could have meant success for the initiative was present all along, but the body-corporate never realized that it had the critical resources sitting within their own walls.

Fostering a collaborative environment across experts in multiple departments, business units and operating companies does not mean risking competitive controls or changing the corporate culture to a completely academic environment. To unleash the potential of SMEs in an innovation culture, a proactive knowledge management strategy that is both central to the organization and distributed throughout all of its operations is critical.

Promoting strong narrative forms of collaborative communication can raise the collective knowledge of an organization, and stem the costly onset of institutional memory loss. This aspect of communication is a critical element of many contemporary social networking applications.

Unlike the exchanges among the younger population which give Bauerlein concern about a growing knowledge deficiency, enabling SMEs to tell and leverage their stories across organizations and industries leads to knowledge-enabled innovation.

Rudolph's Sticky Idea

Its that time of year again when the signs of the season descend upon us. The weather gets colder. The regular holiday street players dust themselves off. Human resources sends out open enrollment notices.

I was reminded of this by an advertisement I saw on CNBC from a company whose memorable tag line is, "Ask about it at work".


I will never be able to watch the Rankin-Bass classic again without hearing "Aflac!" screaming softly in the back of my mind.

Ideas have many intangible properties. Stickiness is one of them. If Aflac's advertising campaigns over the years had employed a used-car sales approach to supplemental insurance, I doubt they'd still be in business. (I'm not sure that supplemental insurance is a blood-pumping topic of discussion, though I welcome to be proven wrong if anyone at Aflac is reading this). The invocation of pop-culture icons as a foundation in which Aflac's story is re-told, makes their idea one that is both sticky, and pervasive.

The stickiness of ideas is the subject of a book published earlier this year. In "Made to Stick", authors Chip and Dan Heath look at six essential qualities of ideas that make them effective in influencing thought, and changing behaviour.

One example is the concreteness of an idea. Chip and Dan remind us that while the language of communicating ideas is often abstract (a favorite of theirs is "idiopathic cardiomyopathy"), life is not abstract. Abstraction makes it very difficult to understand and remember ideas. I can certainly agree with this.

Ultimately, what winning ideas need is gift-wrapping from their own personal Aesop.

The Art of (Spinning) War

I'm on vacation for a few days, and this evening I was at my local Borders Bookstore, browsing the bookshelves and working on an upcoming article about barriers to innovation.

I'm extremely interested in early and mid-20th century graphic design, illustration, and propaganda of technology and industrial society. Long before the advent of global communications networks, blogs, and limitless viewpoints of any human event, pictures were truly the most efficient form of communication. They had to be worth a thousand words or more to get their points across. During times of conflict, posters were critical tools of governments (and their opposition) to communicate social, political, and cultural arguements using iconic imagery and visual metaphor to sway the opinions of millions.

The Imperial War Museum in London has recently opened an exhibit of war posters spanning nearly 90 years. "Weapons of Mass Communication" showcases one of the finest collections of coercive art in the world. (The exhibition runs through March of 2008.) While browsing the art history section at Borders, I spotted the book of the exhibition which features over 300 of the posters and many of their back stories. I have been unable to put this book down.

James Aulich, of the Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design, has assembled in this book, an incredible collection of war poster art. His research and commentary detail the battles waged for the hearts and minds of World War I, Interwar Europe, World War II, the Cold War and contemporary generations upto and including the current Iraq conflict.

One of the images from the exhibit is particularly striking. In 1917, Henri Montassier created this image for a proclaimation that France had "discovered the machine to end the war". The imagery depicts the scale of casualties already suffered which weighed heavily on many nations of Europe. The machine imagery is not a vision of contemporary armaments, but is instead akin to the Martian war machines described in H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, published only 20 years prior.

If you have an opportunity to see the exhibit first hand, or spend an afternoon with the book, I would highly recommend it. Whether your appreciation is for vintage art styles and techniques of eras gone by, or looking through a window in time on a variety of societal levels, I think you'll find the experience rather captivating.

A Year of Thinking Dangerously

I'm frequently asked what it is that I currently do for a living. For a number of years, I've been able to do something I really enjoy.

I think.

The impact of what I do can be seen in two distinct channels. The first (and most direct) is in the sales of innovation software and consulting services for my current employer. The second is in the manifestation of ideas and strategies that I help my clients develop, week after week.

I'm fortunate to be able to work with some of the best and brightest minds from many industries who are charged with trying to solve problems of great importance to their companies and customers. The immediate value of their ideas can easily run into the tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. The risk of failure in the thinking process, is very real. Often times, a choice needs to be made as to whether or not the problem to be solved is one of incremental or radical innovation.

In the decision process that ensues to determine which innovation path is taken, constraints are applied that are usually relevant to economic, physical, or strategic parameters. One approach that opens the door to radical innovation, is the application of Value Engineering. Other thought methodologies that can lead to high-impact ideation include TRIZ and Disruptive Innovation.

As an innovation practitioner, I am often on the lookout for new discussions of ideas that challenge traditional thinking. I'm also on the lookout for reading material that fits my schedule of constantly running for planes, travelling to different cities, and can accommodate my very few hours of free time which is littered with frequent interruptions.

I've recently come across a book that satisfies both criteria.

"What Is Your Dangerous Idea?: Today's Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable" (John Brockman, Editor) is a collection of short essays collected from a question posed in 2006 from The Edge as a challenge to Third Culturists. The essence of the question was:

"What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about...that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?"

The respondents came from all walks of life. Physicists, chemists, cosmologists, philosophers, neurologists, mathematicians, editors, psychologists and television producers (to name a few) answered the call to respond to this question with thoughts of the unthinkable. In all, there are just over one-hundred short thought-pieces which cover a wide range of topics from science, religion, politics, and the humanities.

Many of the essays are thought-provoking. Some challenge the laws of the nature, others challenge the pillars our society is built upon. Of the several dozen or so entries I've read so far, some of the more notable "dangerous ideas" in this collection include:

• A Political System Based On Empathy
• Democratizing Access to the Means of Invention
• Runaway Consumerism Explains the Fermi Paradox
• Parental Licensure
  
• When Will the Internet Become Aware of Itself
  
• Everything Is Pointless
  

Personally, I'm finding it very enjoyable to read just one idea during a weekday when travel and client schedules permit, which means, at this rate, I should be finished with this particular book by the end of the year. If you're looking for a good distraction to keep your mind occupied this summer, I certainly recommend this book.

Which, I guess, begs the following question:

What is my most dangerous idea? (At least, as the question is defined by Mr. Brockman?)


It is that Innovation, and by extension, dangerous thinking, will never become a commoditized skill.