Solar Exports from Africa

When will Africa begin exporting Solar-generated power? Are there grid integration problems with EU? What would it take to establish power transport corridors? More than an oil pipeline across Azerbaijan?

Robotics field: SIGINT

There are daily, incremental advances in the field of robotics that will rapidly tip the flywheel over for rapid monetization and utility. It is incredible how many non-linear technologies are conspiring. Hopefully, there are companies paying attention at the SIGINT level who can begin rapidly integrating and level-set robotics in mass market.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/robot-uses-supersonic-jets-of-air-to-stick-to-almost-anything?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IeeeSpectrum+%28IEEE+Spectrum%29

Smartgrid implementation challenges

Deployment of new technology is always a challenge. The real question on this implementation, particularly given the scale, is why they didn't allow for alternate field-unit technologies to ensure maximum deployment penetration?

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/the-smarter-grid/smart-grid-developments

Basis for automotive network effects geometric growth

A very exciting aspect to the growth of EV's and Hybrid Vehicles is the underlying telematics service structure that enables reliable consumer use of these vehicles. As these vehicles gain a solid distribution scatter (number of EV/Hybrid's scattered among a floating car fleet), there are some very exciting possibilities: caravan, mesh, NFC, etc.. Hopefully, this report is on target:

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110503007286/en/Strategy-Analytics-Automotive-OEMs-Electric-Hybrid-Vehicles

EV Mass Transit and Individual Transit

It is interesting to see the first mass Taxi rollout of EV's. Given the rapid changes and requirement for maximum time on-the-road, it is surprising. Although it is likely more of a marketing pronouncement, designed to mark territory and call attention to a national champion, the market is definitely moving this way. Hopefully, they are instrumenting the service and the back office to provide a basis for collaborative improvement.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110428007512/en/BYD-Announces-EV-Fleet-Results-Anniversary-Green-Taxi

Insurance Actuarial Monetization of Telematics Data

It is nice to see more insurance companies embracing telematics and related data to evaluate actuarial models and package more relevant solutions to customers.

These preliminary steps are positive, but there is a great deal of money under the cost curve that can be captured and returned to customers as well as fund innovation. Unfortunately, actuarial data is historical in nature, which poses a problem.

The more companies that put in the mathematics, the faster this will come.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110427006724/en/Hartford-Helps-Fleet-Managers-Reduce-Risky-Driving

Analytics aiding charitable effectiveness

It is interesting to see the counter-intuitive results that yield when newly reliable data is crunched under newly "cheap" analytic tools. Hopefully, this leads to more effective spending and less waste.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/25/more_than_1_billion_people_are_hungry_in_the_world

Robotics are poised for exponential growth

Robotics appears at the nexus of most/all technological innovation that is currently underway. It would be difficult to find any other market that is more exciting at this point in time. Within a handful of years, it is a safe bet that there will be a sonic boom in robotics that will be a flywheel for all component technologies. Couple this with a renaissance in American manufacturing and there will be some extraordinary opportunities in the next decade. Exciting stuff:

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/05/13/friday_photo_robots_theyre_just_like_us

Internet of Things (IOT) -- Legacy Integration Lagging Indicator

Although the market is going this way, it would be very interesting to create a metric that identifies the "friction" caused by integration with legacy infrastructure and apply that to the proposed adoption curve. Unfortunately, it will take a less than obvious business model to overcome this friction--it will happen and it will be interesting to see who finds the path through first.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/pachube_internet-enabled_environments.php

Process Excellence is Hard Work

Good overview article, identifying the key reason that Process Improvement initiatives fail most times in most companies: they require a lot of work and internalization. The out-of-box process improvement kits and consulting engagements very often miss this point.

You can't 'make' anyone do anything. You can only persuade them of an action's importance. The extent to which they are persuaded is the extent to which they will pursue the action.

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/03/avoid_the_improvement_hype_cyc_1.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29

50 Billion connected devices--economics not quite there yet.

Although the general trend seems to support the conclusions of the author in the linked article below: marketing will drive the integration of connected devices/sensors, the economics are just not there yet. That is, in developed economies that doesn't appear to be sufficient inefficiency in current consumer flow to justify a new, autonomous feedback loop with suppliers. That is, the cost of multiple sensors per person or personnel transaction would not be offset under any existing, linear calculation for push or pull value from a consumer perspective. Further, there are no counter-intuitive leveraged benefits to be realized at this point--unfortunately, those tend to lag substantially from initial adoption. The market will eventually get there, but not any time soon and probably not along the marketing path.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_50_billion_connected_devices_could_transform_brand_marketing_everyday_life.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+readwriteweb+%28ReadWriteWeb%29

Board focus on innovation--New evaluation toolkit required

Excellent article on how traditional project evaluative approaches are mis-applied to innovative projects. Author does good job on starting conversation around retooling innovation project evaluations. Agree with him that strategic and operational investment aspects should be considered:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/03/three_questions_that_will_kill.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29

Congestion Charging

Given the lack of stricter controls on vehicle lifecycle in the US, license-plate cameras are the likely way forward for widespread infrastructure changes that will allow for greater congestion charging revenues.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/02/we-know-where-youve-been-privacy-congestion-tracking-and-the-future.ars/2

Design with Science Basis

This appears to be a rich field for learning and even greater intelligence applied to the way we live. Although it appears that much design is trending toward scientific underpinnings, it could move much faster. The work Apple is doing (thus, IDEO's link) is obviously moving this way--leveraging the intrinsic efficiency of scientific models. Moving toward counter-intuitive design is only possible through scientific rigor and applied theory--how else to know it's counter-intuitive. This deconstruction of existing design dogma and dissemination of applied science to design thinking will be very interesting to watch, once it catches on. The article below provides good insights.

http://designthinking.ideo.com/?p=528&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+DesignThinking+(Design+Thinking)

Connected cars--True innovation

After filtering through all the hype and hyperbole around connected cars (I.e., Google driverless cars, state-funded toll schemes, unrealistic infotainment use-cases, etc), here is where the real innovation is happening, now, as promised.

True automated innovation is not interactive, rather it is low-level replacement of work that allows people to give attention to higher-level processing functions (context, calculus, care).

Kudos to Nissan and the companies supporting them:

http://venturebeat.com/2011/01/05/cars-connected-to-the-cloud-the-all-electric-nissan-leaf/

America Loves a Fight

Nice concise article about how competition brings out the best in America.

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662958/nussbaum-is-2011-the-dawn-of-americas-new-optimism