It's So Easy, Fleeing Green

I was extremely surprised and pleased to find out this morning that an article I had submitted to NASA Tech Briefs was accepted and published today through one of their online channels, Green Design & Manufacturing.

My article, "Generating Energy Innovation: Disrupting the Alternatives" explores the current state of several mainstays of alternative energy (solar and wind), and how recent advances hold promise to not only challenge the convention energy complex of fossil fuels, but also disrupt the green movement itself.

All too often in the industries and technologies in which I work, I see that the pursuit of technical innovation is sometimes blurred with agendas that are adjacent to the goal, and often pose something of a distraction.

In the case of alternative energy, many in my generation were introduced to the coming energy crises (more as a function of population growth rather and increasing energy utilization) by educational films such as Frank Capra's "Our Mr. Sun", part of the classic Bell Science series. Over the years, converting to alternative energy sources became a brand identity with the green movement. It was the responsible thing to do, because it meant we would be using less oil. However, using less oil was never the original goal. Solar energy was looked to as a supplement that could delivery far more of our growing energy needs, if it could be harnessed more effectively.

Some of the latest developments in solar and wind technologies are figuring out just that. In this article, I've written about several companies that are on a rapid track to compete with and displace conventional energy sources, not because they want to save the planet, but on the basis of yield and profitability. For these and other companies like them, saving the planet is a (great) fringe benefit - and one we'll be able to celebrate for generations.

It's a reminder that in the pursuit of any technical innovation, that knowing when and how to (re)prioritize design opportunities and constraints can mean the difference between myopically satisfying an agenda, or having the clear vision to fill a much greater need.

Park To The Future

Note: This is the third and final article in a special daily series being published this week on the topic of automotive innovation.

In my previous two articles (How Your Car Might Re-Invent More Than Just The Auto Industry, A Car of Tomorrow, Driven Through TRIZ), I outlined conditions under which systemic change occurs. Evolutionary constraints define opportunities for radical innovation that leads to shifts in industry - in some cases creating new industries. The automotive industry finds itself awash in evolutionary constraints, not just with its products, but with its customers and the environments in which their products exist. I presented some thoughts using influences of an innovation methodology known as TRIZ, and left you with a parting thought, which on the surface, probably sounded insane:

"An auto industry of tomorrow will need to build new cars that people will want to buy, not because they will have to drive their cars, but because they will want to park them."

In my final article in this special series, I want to expand on some innovations for this most unusual car of tomorrow I’ve proposed, and give away some ideas to any entrepreneur who has the vision, tolerance for risk, and business savvy to take these ideas and run with (or from) them.

Unlike the Norman Bel Geddes vision of the world of tomorrow, any utilitarianism suggested here is goaled to benefit the individual (who hopefully has just a hint of an entrepreneurial spirit). Done right, the potential for societal benefits are significant.

One assumption that I will make, looking out into the future of the next 1-5 years is this: People (at least in the United States) will still work at jobs that are primarily located away from their homes, and a majority of them will require vehicular transportation to get to their jobs or to public commuting options.

This means that for large pockets of the population, there will be predictable occurrences of large numbers of cars (existing and new) that park at work, park at shopping centers, and part at their homes. So why not develop innovations for the cars of today and tomorrow that leverage this predictable occurrence? Setting aside for the moment the entrepreneurial risk required to productize such innovations, I challenge automakers and anyone else who needs to innovate for a living to imagine just a few possible benefits of intentionally parked cars:

• Many parking lots will be in range of commercial and metropolitan high-speed wireless networks. Create and enable car-friendly mobile computing platforms (similar to a BlackBerry or iPhone) that can be accessed by an owner with nothing more a web browser on their desktop for any one of a number of purposes (selling computing cycles to computing clusters, downloading movies, music, news or other digital content for later use, to name just a few examples). By creating a mobile platform that can exist outside of the workplace, not only can more digital products and services be delivered, and on a timelier basis, but countless hours of covertly wasted productivity in commercial IT networks and desktop platforms can be saved.
  
  
• In several, large parts of the United States, cars are parked in parking lots that are subjected to extreme periods of heat, cold, and sunlight. In the case of long-exposure to sunlight, innovate high-efficiency solar charging systems that are integrated into sky-facing panels of a car with standardized, easy access ports in the car’s interior for recharging low-duty power systems such as simple batteries or common electronics.
  
  
• In the case of long-exposure to sub-freezing cold, create compact materials that can act as efficient and useful thermal masses (heat sinks). Imagine bringing a small supply of cold-packs that will be frozen by the end of the work day (or overnight if you don’t park your car in a garage). Even in the coldest of cities, people use electricity to operate refrigerators and freezers. I challenge automakers to collaborate with the kitchen appliance industry to create new cold pack technology (new materials and efficient form factors) that are designed explicitly to lessen electrical loading by optimizing refrigeration duty cycles. (A person comes home from work, sticks their cold-cells in the refrigerator, and a few days later, takes the cold-cells back to work be “recharged” in the parking lot.) What would the savings to a person’s electrical bill be? Perhaps $5 or $10 a month? What would that mean across 1,000,000 refrigerators in daily operation? What impact would that have on the environment?
  
  
• Parking lots full of car trunks represent hundreds or thousands of mobile lockers per lot. Create services that can leverage this resource to the benefit of individuals, commerce, and the environment. Innovate a securable, shared locking mechanism and trust model that enables a car’s owner to grant one-time access to a service provider at a pre-determined point in time. Imagine driving to work with a bag of newspapers or a bin of cans to recycle one morning. A recycle service, with a map of all cars that have brought materials for recycling that day to the parking lot can show up, remove just the recyclable materials from all cars that have registered their pickup request, and as appropriate, charge or credit the owner, depending on the business model. Think of a similar service scenario, but in reverse, for delivery of safe goods along a driver’s home commute. A driver registers with a major shipping service that their trunk is available for hire to take and drop off a secured, safe-package to a house along their home-bound commute. The shipper has a map that matches all deliveries on a given day, with all the secure trunks that match driver and route availability. Then the shipper makes one trip with many packages to the one parking lot. Packages are distributed to the appropriate cars, and the packages are delivered the same day by individuals who are already making the same trip home that they would have been making regardless of the extra stop. Imagine how much gasoline, ethanol, hydrogen, and entropy can be saved by leveraging simple efficiencies in large, predictable populations. I believe there are many business models that could recover startup costs and profitably leverage a predictable parking lot.

These are but a handful of ideas, I can think of dozens more. My point in doing so, and giving them away, is to set a small example. Sure, I’d love to know that any of these ideas was the spark that was used by a young (or older) risk-taker who went forth and transformed how we view and use the modern automobile. (Author’s note: In case of future windfalls or transformational profits derived from anything you’ve read in my articles, it’s ok to send me a small, landscape-profiled thank-you note which starts with the words “Payable To”.) However, it is far more important that you realize that innovation, at anytime, is a worthy investment, and in a recessionary or even a depressed economy, is essential.

Whether or not you’re an auto executive from Detroit, take the ideas I’ve given you, and do something, with or because of them. Think beyond your current business model, and your industry. Move beyond how things used to be, because the only guarantee I can give you about tomorrow, is that the world will change. Learn how to recognize the need for systemic change, and learn the tools, methods, and skills to be the agents of change. Don’t become the victims of resisting it.

If you succeed, and if my articles of the last few days play any part in your success, then my reward will be beyond measure. For you see, whatever systemic benefits you bring to the world as a result, my goddaughter and her generation will inherit them.

A Car Of Tomorrow, Driven Through TRIZ

Note: This is the second in a special series of daily articles being published this week on the topic of automotive innovation.

Regular readers of my articles will know that among the many innovation methodologies one can choose to spark creative problem solving, Genrich Altschuller's Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (aka TRIZ, which is the more recognized name and Russian acronym) is one of my favorites.

In yesterday's article, I outlined the basic elements of systemic change. Evolution, whether organic or artificial in origin, creates constraints that can shape and drive radical innovation. TRIZ is a particularly effective innovation methodology when facing serious systemic constraints. In applying TRIZ methodology and principles to the current problems facing the automobile industry, I am quickly drawn to several design considerations:

• It is ill-advised to redesign a car as a system, without considering the larger super-system in which the car operates.
  
• It is ill-advised to redesign a car as a system, without considering that the car itself is comprised of sub-systems that may perform multiple functions, independent of the primary goals of the car itself (which is, of course, transportation).
  
• When designing around constraints, often the most powerful design breakthroughs come from finding advantage in disadvantage.

Ok, admittedly what I’ve said so far is really the stuff of fortune-cookies. Wonderful and sugary visions wrapped in vanilla abstracts, but where is the application? What do super-systems and design constraints have to do with the 2009 model year?

Let’s look at today’s car in a little more detail.

A car’s primary job is to transport one or more people. An important secondary job is to transport a bit of cargo at the same time. Cars do their work in cycles. They move, and they stop. They get parked for periods of time, sometimes predictably, especially where work commutes are involved. Cities, roads, garages, and parking lots are but some of the supersystems in which cars operate.

Cars are also compilations of multiple sub-systems. Some sub-systems are obvious (fuel, electrical, transmission) while others are more subtle (roof, doors, locks, etc). There is as much if not more detail paid to the design and functionality of automobile sub-systems as there is to the automobile as a single system.

Why is all this important? In considering the many constraints impacting the automotive industry and its customers, economic constraints certainly are near or at the top of the list. When using TRIZ to predict possible evolutions of the car, the driver, and the super-systems in which they will exist, I can look to one of the seventy-six 'standard solutions' that Altschuller claimed were reflected in natural and technical system evolution. One standard in particular suggests the periodic distribution of actions to eliminate conflicts.

Thinking about what a car needs to do for a driver, and what a driver's needs might be outside of a car, I am led to one conclusion. The car of tomorrow needs to be a platform that has value when it is used for driving, but has more value when it is parked.

The corresponding business model is then very simple to describe, but it is also one that if uttered by Rick Wagoner tomorrow, would most certainly cost him his job unless he has a very innovation-savvy board of directors.

"An auto industry of tomorrow will need to build new cars that people will want to buy, not because they will have to drive their cars, but because they will want to park them."

Tomorrow's article: Park To The Future

A Republican Localvore, A Mini Ice Age and An Angry God

I've been away through most of August, on vacation and catching up on a number of local tasks while the weather has been cooperative. With September upon us, the change of seasons is impossible to ignore. The leaves are begin to turn as the air begins to chill, and the harvest is well underway. In recent years, several of my friends have transformed into localvores, sharing their experiences with me along the way. In the face of uncertain economic and societal times, producing a small fraction of the food (and fuel) I consume is not a bad set of skills to master.

This spring I added a garden basket to the three I cultivated last year. I'm still growing primarily tomatoes, with a mix of herbs. This year, I tried an experiment and varied the types of tomatoes I planted in each garden basket. Returning from vacation, I expected to find most of my baskets in the peak of production. Instead, I found in place of three of my four tomato baskets, baskets full of extremely fat and happy Tomato Hornworms. These critters are easily over four inches in length, and eat four times their weight each day. Its worth noting that my fourth tomato basket is actual free of Mothra's stunt doubles. I've actually seen them leave this basket, without stripping the leaves or fruit, and head to the other three for dinner and a movie. What's different about the lone basket which spares it from the green death? Its the only one in which I planted Roma (Plum) tomatoes. I'm not sure yet if there's an actual correlation between the plant variety and the infestation, simply based on observational evidence.

Speaking of the value of conclusions based solely on observational evidence, this year marks a special turn of the seasons as we (in the United States) will be selecting a new president in just over sixty days. To make sure every vote (at least the ones that matter) is harvested early and often, we, the electorate, are under siege by every conceivable media outlet with facts and figures to help us make our decision a more informed one. In recent days, the ratio of scientific, economic and political conclusions to seconds of critical thought per conclusion has grown exponentially. One is a lapse in judgment echoed by several highly visible politicos including Don Fowler, former head of the Democratic National Committee. In brief, the disruption of the opposing party's national convention by a potentially devastating hurricane was clearly a favor from God. (I was reminded by one of my localvore friends that this is not the first time such a controversial conclusion has been drawn, and in the past, has at least been backed up by multiple observations.)

Drawing specific conclusions about the effects (or causes) of large-scale chaotic systems is tricky business at best. One needs only to look at some of the arguments both for and against human-powered climate change to see that both camps are riddled with controversy and and ill-fitted curves. Just recently I read an article that adds yet another puzzle to the pieces. The sun has gone an entire month without producing a single sunspot - something it hasn't done (or not done as it were) in 100 years. The potential implication of this and related data concludes that we may be on the verge of rapid global cooling, or even a mini ice-age. This type of event has happened several times in the last 1,000 years, independent of human population. Our Mr. Sun, it seems, has a history of not wanting to be forgotten.


So what am I to conclude from recent events? Are my decimated tomatoes and my impending deep freeze the expressions of an angry God who is punishing me for my right of center leanings heading into November? Probably not. (Although if God is angry with me, it would seem that I've pissed Her off twice).

Regardless, I think I may need to be flexible as to this year's menu of local produce.

It's Not Easy Meaning Green

I'm preparing for an online seminar on Green Innovation practices that I'll be giving next month. In my research and presentation development, I've been doing a lot of reading, and talking to a lot of my clients. Some of the big unknowns I'm finding in the nascent green industrial complex are common metrics used to define what being 'green' actually means. There are, of course, frequently discussed issues of carbon emissions and toxification of shared natural resources, but how does this translate to measurable actions that individuals and business can take in their day-to-day operations and long-term strategic plans?

Of the growing number of green business and green innovation books on the market, many fall short on the subject of metrics, instead choosing to focus on matters of policy and society. When I ask my clients, "What does 'Green' Innovation mean to you? How do you measure the success of your 'Green' initiatives?", I get the same two responses no matter what the industry, or role of the person I'm asking. They laugh somewhat nervously for thirty seconds, then, quietly, with a twitchy yet steely-eyed glare tell me,

"It depends on who you ask. What do you think?".

I'm rapidly coming to the realization that being sufficiently green is this century's equivalent of the Y2K problem, but without a definitive goal or end date. During the last 7 years of the second millenium, the realization that many of our computers would have serious difficulties measuring time after the year 19100 created sufficient cause to study the problem, understand it, and take measured actions prior to the clearly defined event.

We have far less clarity in the current green realization. For example, while there is data to suggest that global warming is occuring, the understanding of contributions from man-made and natural mechanisms are at best, controversial. Unlike the rigid cutoff Y2K date that was impossible to ignore, one generation may not know that a tipping point was irrevocably crossed until the next generation looks back at empirical data. There is a fundamental conflict between short-term and long-term goals, and the generations who control what actions are taken.

So how can any green action speak to short or long-term success when we can't agree on what to work towards?

In principle, being mindful and considerate of other people and natural resources is never a bad idea. While the metrics of day to day living may not seem directly connected to such consideration, several green metrics I've repeatedly come across are close. From what I've observed at a number of clients and through my own reading, the following is a short list of metrics that align with green goals:

• energy efficiency
  
• kilowatt hours
  
• water conservation
  
• water quality / chemistry
  
• air quality / chemistry
  
• liquid and solid waste generation
  
• recycled material usage
  
• chemical volatility / organic compound content
  
• direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions (carbon)
  

The first three metrics in the list are often considered the starting point for any green strategy. Energy and water usage can be locally controlled and easily measured and budgeted through direct observation (usually in the form of utility bills). Similarly, localized application of technologies and disciplines can have directly measurable usage impacts. Energy and water saving applications which fail can easily be replaced. Through research, trial and error, anyone can become more green in these two aspects.

Environmental quality is a bit trickier to manage. Local efforts to improve resource quality may come at the expense of an increased energy expenditure or degradation of other green metrics somewhere outside of the controllable supply chain. The same can be said for localized recycling, material substitutions and controlling greenhouse gas emissions. While local efforts to improve any of these metrics can make for a good green story, the consequential (and often negative) impacts are seldom easy to assess without considering distant energy and resource dependencies.

There is one 'green' not in my list that will factor into any and all actions taken by the most isolated of individuals to the largest conglomerates - cash flow. Changes take resources, time, and an economy that can sustain changes of necessity and opportunity. Executive actions may drive green headlines, but low-cost greening will drive the balance sheet.

When considering any green initiative, take into consideration how the metrics you plan to use in measuring your green success align in both local and distant impacts.