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January 29, 2010

Workshop Recap: Designing Solutions for Emerging Ecosystems

       
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Coming to the end of the week in Finland, the dust has now settled from our workshop on innovations for emerging markets this week at Aalto Design Factory (though the snow continues to fall) and there finally has been some time for reflection. First, a huge thanks goes out not only to my partner in this prototype, Niti Bhan, but to the generous team at the Design Factory and its leader, Kalevi Ekman as well. Without Niti's personality, her suggestion of the workshop, and her work within the Design Factory, none of it would have started. Without the DF team's generous support and interest, none of it would have actually happened. And from the workshop and the connections made, both human and cognitive, many positive things will surely emerge.

The Design Factory describes itself as a passion-based co-creation platform, which suited the day very well. Many people showed up in the dark Nordic morning to take part in this event because of their passion for combining design, innovation and social development. Because of this, collaborative creation of ideas was the key thread throughout the day. The blend of students, entrepreneurs, and people stepping out of their roles in private companies and government bodies—with both local values and global views—was exactly what was needed. We put the workshop here because, as Ekman pointed out before the event, Finland is uniquely positioned to leverage its skills, assets, energy, IP and unique social values to help solve serious problems and improve life elsewhere in the world. 

Niti and I took the first hour or so to describe the realizations from our respective roles and trajectories that brought us to this point—mine from the consumer culture side, hers from her field work experience and research in low income, challenging environments. Along the way, these trajectories met, and new patterns are now emerging, showing us possibilities of new ecosystems blending technology, social and cultural structures that are uniquely configured.

We were there just to set the table, however. The core of the day, and the best part of the workshop, was generated by the participants. Organized into teams, they were tasked with taking on a new unfamiliar roles, in new countries, cities and situations, and a unique set of external factors and barriers around which they needed to create a solution for a specific target user. It was fitting that took place within the Aalto Ventures Park facility, which itself is a converted workshop. With a variety of tools, materials and working styles, each created something uniquely suited to their task: water delivery systems that doubled as information networks, thoughtfully conceived community centers in conflict zones, a mobile platform for local jobs, and more. Each used the human networks already in place, and each contained multiple innovations worth considering alone. 

Given that our tendency today is to throw technology at problems in scattershot ways, most striking to me was how the groups constructed or leveraged existing networks and ecosystems giving only the lightest touch to technology—resulting in an appropriate simplicity and resilience in every solution. No hammers looking for nails, no new complexities created to suit potential capabilities, just carefully considered balance of tools and needs. If this was the only takeaway, it was a day well spent. Luckily, there was a lot more to leave with, not least a sense of momentum and whetted appetite—for us, for those who participated, and for the broader Aalto community as well.

 

Filed under  //   Aalto   BOP   BOPNet   co-creation   design   Design Factory   ecosystems   Finland   innovation   technology  
Posted by Scott Smith 

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January 20, 2010

Energy/Communication Parallels: Straight to Solar?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/1village/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Katie Fehrenbacher ask today on Earth2Tech whether evolution future energy infrastructure in developing markets might mirror the leapfrogging dynamic we've seen in the past decade with communications in these same markets? 

It's an apt question—even with the upfront investment needed in mobile devices and infrastructure, takeup has been increasingly robust, in part because of the perceived return on investment by customers: I pay a little more, I can do a lot more. And operators and device makers have increasingly optimized their products and services for this market. Katie cites several analysts who believe solar may indeed follow the same path, and is perhaps already doing so.

Energy is a critical layer of the emerging BoPNet—the infrastructure ecosystem that is evolving uniquely around the needs of developing markets. It will benefit from the  proof of concept this mobile evolution has provided. Over time, successful growth in these cost-sensitive markets should provide innovations in design, service and business model that can be ported back to developed markets, and, like other BoP innovations, can provide needed changes in resilient communications, transport, energy, health care and other critical sectors for the rest of the world. 

These are all topics we will be discussing next week at our upcoming workshop. We'll report here on the new ideas and insights that emerge. 

Filed under  //   BOPNet   energy   leapfrogging   mobile   solar  
Posted by Scott Smith 

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December 17, 2009

The Next Big Thing is Small


In the spirit of gathering year-end predictions, last week the venerable Financial Times did a whip around of a few technology and innovation analysts (including Rob Gear of the UK's PA Consulting, whom I've had the pleasure of eating curry and bowling with in Brick Lane—another story for another time). The goal was to gauge the group's opinion on the Next Big Thing, that ephemeral creature which futurists, forecasters and trendspotters of all stripes are often ask to point out to journalists who wait with baited breath as they prepare the killer trend article. 

Unsurprisingly, the group had diverse and nuanced opinions of what comes next, what we should all be on the outlook for. And being good pattern collectors, most painted a picture not of one NBT, but of its, or their, probable behaviors. The NBT may be changing behaviors, or expectations, maybe a group of disruptions instead of a monolithic gamechanger, or, as Kishore Swaminathan of Accenture puts it, the NBT is scale, by which he means exponential, probably rapid growth. 

I blog this because I agree about scale, but not the same "end" of the scale. One of the core premises of our focus on the emergence of the BoPNet is that it is about utility and often about incremental change—about making small but useful things happen. And if the BoPNet is where the next important wave of change is happening, then the NBT is Small. Small functions, enabled. Small transactions, facilitated. Many, many small points of data collected and used in a meaningful way. Small actions that add up to big ones. Because of its scale and development within constraints, small is what HAS to happen, though by happening many, many times over in many parts of the developing world, small, a billion times, is in fact big. But big isn't the essence, it's small.

Filed under  //   BOPNet   Forecasts   futurists   scale  
Posted by Scott Smith 

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December 9, 2009

Comparing Information Appetites Between the DevNet and BoPNet

A new study from the Global Information Industry Center at UC San Diego estimates that the average American consumers takes in roughly 34 GB of information per day, spread over about a 12 hour "feeding period" per day. If one assumes that the US consumer lives at the pinnacle of what we call the DevNet, with for all intents and purposes access to the greatest array of information sources and information delivery devices, this figure roughly measures the information diet at the top of the global info pyramid.

Skimming the report, my first question was how the BoPNet compares, given the assumed sources and modes of delivery measured for the US market. According to the research, television makes up the majority of bits consumed, roughly 60% on a daily basis. Other sources include telephones (fixed and mobile), the Internet, DVDs and other recorded media, radio, movies, printed media and video games, to name the big ones. While it would take an equivalent study and team of researches to calculate the exact figure for a country in the BoPNet, we could make the following assumptions about the information consumption conditions for BoPNet consumer:

  • The consumption "day" of the BoPNet consumer is shorter. Due to longer average work hours (long commute times in cities), time out of home dedicated to daily lifestyle upkeep (shopping in multiple markets, mainly on foot or public transport, care for family outside home), and time in home dedicated to domestic tasks, less time is available for total active information consumption, though the level of passive consumption may be significant (listening to TV, radio while doing other activities for example.) In some cases, access to steady power sources and high costs of power may limit use time as well.
  • Traditional media are dominant. This favors TV, radio and print. At the higher end of the BoPNet, DVD consumption would displace a portion of sources such as video games and Internet access. Lack of high definition TV, which has helped drive recent growth in density of information consumed in the US, would keep the total figure down and likewise slow its growth.
  • Telephony costs are higher. Again, while telephone use may be significant, this use is constrained by higher costs. 
  • Radio, recoded music and print and more important. These sources may be passively as well as actively received throughout a longer day, and during transition times between locations.
  • Internet and other digital media are metered heavily out of home as well as in. Greater use of kiosks and Internet cafes, or mobile data on the move is balanced by higher costs again. 
  • The Internet will deliver less dense media. As it grows, the Internet will be relied on to add more traditional media (games, video) to the mix, but this may not be dense as it will rely on less powerful delivery platforms (cheaper PCs) due to lower bandwidth availability and lower processor and storage specs on average. 
So, it could be assumed that overall "exposure" time to information may be somewhat but not radically lower. Less information consumed in home is partly offset by density of information exposure out of home and in public places. BoPNet consumers may have just as much exposure to "interstitial" information in transitional moments, which has evolved in response to the constraints of "owned" in-home media in these markets over the years. Consider the average soccer/football broadcast watched in Thaliand versus an NFL game in the US. The Thai consumer will see hundreds of ad and information impressions on screen during the match due to the advertising models of a continuous sport (shirt sponsorships, ad boards in stands and 10-second TV commercials or other overlays in game), whereas the US consumer will get longer, but slower exposures to 30-second beer ad that is mostly visual.

This is all a qualitative thought experiment, but it is interesting to think out, and to consider where the two information cultures are headed. The DevNet has to expand in density, whereas the BoPNet is expanding largely in number of sources and "packets" due to the cost and technology structures. The US, and much of the DevNet, will grow in density through innovation such as DVRs (packing more information into the home), HD TV, Web 2.0, media-capable smartphones, and of course more broadband to carry more information to the consumer.  

The BoPNet will grow in information "snacking" from mobiles, and other out of home media and information sources. Video games and DVDs will grow in use, but this isn't going to grow in density as much. Radio and print may decline in individual consumption terms over time, though these will continue to grow collectively as more eyeballs enter the market through both population growth and middle class expansion. 

Implications? We can surmise that the DevNet consumer is possibly reaching (slowly) a consumption "peak," where, like a diet, density reaches a point of overload. The number of sources may continue to expand in the US home, for example, but at a point the amount of overlap in information becomes white noise and therefore doesn't get consumed. For the BoPNet, these consumers already live in information rich environments, but a fair amount of this is utility versus entertainment. Since utility correlates to economic value in a more pronounced fashion in the BoPNet, the type of information may lean to the factual, and bite-sized (think of Nokia LifeTools instead of Pandora). So, like nutritional diets, the differences may be in the amount of calories of information delivered and consumed effectively and efficiently. The BoPNet consumer's information diet may sit around half to two-thirds that of the DevNet consumer, constrained by greater need for ROI from this consumption and the shape of the delivery vehicles. 

Your thoughts?

Filed under  //   BOPNet   data   DevNet   information   media   mobile   news   print   radio   TV   video games  
Posted by Scott Smith 

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December 3, 2009

The Bottleneck of Value Flow at the Border: a No Man's Land or an Opportunity Space?

Scott talks about the DevNet and the BOPNet - the existing developed Internet and the emerging social networking services on the mobile platform meant for the BoP. Ultimately, the whole Internet is nothing more than a huge social network on the global scale, allowing us to connect with, share with, communite with and, perhaps, do business with, anyone else out there in the world.

And while the DevNet is accessible by anyone with a browser and a data connection, regardless of device, the same is not yet true for the bopnet. Its still under construction, with bits and bobs and pilot programs, spread around the developing pockets of the world. It works on mobile phones and its simplest components use only voice and/or sms as a means of communications. Basic social networks provide the semblance of the "read write" aspect as chat forums, games and news proliferate. Underlying the chatter is the increasing advance of the financial transactions layer.

Creator of the blog Mobile Banking, CEO of Fundamo, Hannes van Rensburg, has been posting of late on the eventual need for all these mobile payment systems to start becoming interoperable (a word under debate on his blog). This is inevitable if a true transaction layer is to emerge underlying the mobile net particularly for the BoP.

Lets take these thoughts a step further, and contemplate the Border Zone between the BOPNet and the DevNet, the bridge that we're slowly building across the global digital divide.

Will it continue to be the no-mans land that currently exists between the formal economy and the informal, unorganized sector? Or will it be able to provide a way for the cash based economy of scarcity from the base of the social and economic pyramid, the teeming billions of unbanked, to interact with and permit the two way flow of resources, connecting with the far wealthier formal economy?

At this point, it would be interesting to begin observing those spaces where these two economies already begin to merge or connect. In the real world, how and where does is exchange take place, which touchpoints provide value for both sides and how does value get created, infusing new wealth into the hyperlocal BoP economies, inside urban slums and between the rural and urban markets?

How does this translate into lessons for the future development of the technological roadmap? What opportunity spaces for innovation emerge?

Filed under  //   BOPNet   DevNet   Internet   money   social networks  
Posted by Niti Bhan 

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November 29, 2009

Street View Coming to Africa

http://www.flickr.com/photos/byrion/ / CC BY 2.0

The Guardian today reports that Google plans to bring its Street View technology to South Africa in order to provide street-level views of locations to accompany its ubiquitous Maps. While some may be pleased that Africa is now able to share in a service and technology available in developed countries, local authorities are not as pleased, saying the availability of the images will make it easier for criminal interests to plan robberies without having to leave their hideouts.

Crime and technology and intertwined, and have been as long as their has been a crowbar available to pry open a door, or wheels to make a getaway. This dynamic is not African but global. It will be a shame if concerns about potential misuse of the data that could occur anywhere stands in the way of its deployment.

The positive benefits, on the other hand, far outweigh the negatives. First in South Africa, then potentially across the continent, Google's images will help boost the utility of the BOPNet in this area (see upcoming posts for more on this). Plans reportedly call for using more rugged vehicles to capture hard to reach areas. Mobile and Web users with access to Google Maps will be able to leverage important location and wayfinding data that may save them a much higher cost of having bad information. who knows? It may even encourage development in areas that can be scouted from a distance. This situation will bear watching. 

Filed under  //   Africa   BOPNet   crime   Google   location   South Africa   Street View  
Posted by Scott Smith 

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