From ATCG to bioeconomy 2.0

THE INSANITY OF OUR HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

2011-06-03T06:50:00.001-07:00

Genetically engineering our quasi-eternal memory

2011-02-15T08:09:00.000-08:00

(Notes from the first meeting…)

Order of the Dung Beetle

Juan Enriquez, Rodrigo Martinez, Nikhil Bhojwani, David Webster*

Location: Candle-lit wine dungeon in New England

What follows is pure speculation,

post several bottles of wine…

Should we genetically hack quasi Eternal Memory?

Humans are at a moment of inflexion.

Rapid discovery and exponential development of technology over the past couple of centuries has disrupted all fundamentals.

We have fundamentally altered our environment and our evolution.

(Ecosystem, economics, demographics, reproduction, data

generation and storage…)

We can engage the future on new terms.

We take direct and deliberate control of our own evolution.

And that of other species.

In grand scheme of things, at the epochal level of resolution, it’s all

good.

But for those of us on the ground right now, it’s kind of freaking us out.

We want to do something

meaningful, positive and constructive while we are still around.

A couple of things spring to mind...

Can we send a message to the future? Why? What? How?

We are thinking that things might be pretty turbulent in the immediate term, over say the next few hundred years.

Arrogant as our species is, perhaps some of the knowledge, culture, understanding of today may be useful, or at least interesting, to descendant species?

If so, how might we encode it?

Insure against loss across eons?

It is natural, normal, and common for humans to code.

We have come a long way in our story telling.

Oral traditions…

Petroglyphs…

Hieroglyphs…

Pyramids…

Printing…

Palaces…

Murals…

Computers…

Each format tells a story in paper, rock, paint and bits.

How survivable is this information?

How much is lost?

Most physical forms of storage (including electronic) have to be discounted across time.

Most data simply won’t survive.

Stonehenge did, but feels pretty low-res.

How could you code long term, high res, reproducible data sets?

Maybe waves of some form, sent out in a giant gravitational loop to return to earth at some predetermined point in the far future?

Perhaps…

But more likely the next epoch of data generation, transmission and storage will be defined by biology, specifically gene data.

Could we use the genomes as data libraries?

The data would exist long as the life form life exists.

If this worked, if it was feasible…

What would we choose to encrypt?

Jay Z?

Picasso?

Einstein?

Voyager type data?

Genome of Zinfandel?

And if this is now feasible…

And we could control mutations across time.

Could we someday decode messages from the past in DNA or RNA?

Are we looking?

(If we think about saving our information in genomes for future civilizations, then isn't it reasonable, or at least possible, that prior intelligent civilizations thought the same?)

After all memes can be slowly transmitted through print, more efficiently through digits, perhaps far longer through life.

The Ancient Indians, Egyptians, Mayans, Aztecs and Greeks all believed in the concept of reincarnation.

(Or in red neck terms Reintarnation)

Perhaps, as posited by Battlestar Galactica,

“All of this has happened before,

and it will all happen again.”

Might there be a lot of history in junk DNA?

What about in mutations?

Which species should we search in?

(How about those that survived multiple extinction cycles?)

“Course, with Understanding Day, the whales were suddenly big money for anyone who could talk to them. You know they’ve told us almost as much about the Martians as four centuries of archaeologues on Mars itself. Christ, they remember them coming here. Race memory, that is.” - Ortega, character in Altered Carbon, by Richard Morgan.

Mushroom spores can survive in space, could some forms of virus, or life, be a kind of interstellar DVD waiting for a player:

“I couldn’t figure out whether the mushroom is the alien or the mushroom is some kind of technological artifact allowing me to hear the alien when the alien is actually light-years aways, using some kind of Bell nonlocality principle to communicate. The mushroom states its own position very clearly. It says, “I require the nervous system of a mammal. Do you have one handy?” - Terence McKenna

Maybe there is a dynamic relationship between living, evolving ideas and evolving organisms.

And maybe it will take a woman to discover it?

Written language may have reinforced linear thought, which is male and dichotomous.

This may have tipped the balance away from tolerating ambiguity and parallel possibilities (and revering goddesses).

A hyperlinked world brings back a new era of a dominant media more traditionally aligned with female modes.

"Misogyny and patriarchy rise and fall with the fortunes of the alphabetic written word." - Leonard Shlain, The Alphabet Versus the Goddess.

Of course this could lead to some very different outcomes…

“What if equality isn’t the end point? What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women?” Hanna Rosin, The End of Men. The Atlantic Jul 2010.

But what if it goes beyond matriarchy?

Eventually as robots, computers, genomics, cell programming, and life begin to merge and complement…

And as the tempo of generations accelerates to minutes…

The distinction between the born

and the made becomes obsolete.

*Juan Enriquez is Managing Director at Excel Venture Management, Rodrigo Martinez is Life Sciences Chief Strategist at IDEO, Nikhil Bhojwani is Managing Partner at Reconstrategy, David Webster is a Partner at IDEO. Comments welcome: rodrigo at ideo . com

A $1.2BN QUICK WIN; ACELA DELAYED AND THE US ECONOMY

2010-12-09T07:32:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning, my colleague Greg and I were waiting at Penn Station to board our train to go do an interview in New Haven, CT for our current project. At 7:50am, the announcement board read: DELAYED, for the Acela 'express' going to Boston, approximately 120 people sigh in unison "ARGGHHHH."

Feelings of despair, stress levels up, calls to reschedule and cancel meetings? YES, all of the above. Of course it is well know that the United States probably has the worst public transportation of any "First" World country, and yes, this is appalling, ridiculous, unacceptable, yada yada yada.

But put all this aside for a minute, as Greg and I did, and ask yourself: what might the impact of this for the US economy?

$1.2Bn!!!! - here is my napkin calculation (120people * 1,000 places in the US where this happens every day * hourly GDP/capita of this segment [assuming $100K GDP, 250 working days/yr, working 10hrs/day])

Of course this figure is not exact, it all depends on your assumptions, as anything with Economics; but it is directionally correct. The US economy wastes annually somewhere in the order of $1.2 billion dollars due to the inability of our public transportation officials to provide train service on time.

Oh, 'Rodrigo is too picky' you might think. Well, let me give you just a few examples of how bad the public transportation and infrastructure is in Boston - by the way, I love Boston, but that has nothing to do with this:

Buses
- almost always late
- dirty with broken seats
- not enough benches to wait for the bus

Subway ("T" as we call it)
- first one in America, still pretty much looks like 80 years old - ever taken the green line???
- stations have water leaks, not well preserved
- T is often dirty
- delays are a daily occurrence

Roads
- ever heard of the "Big Dig", don't get me started
- the Pike, argggggh, don't even want to go there

Airport
- now really don't get me started

So, President Obama, please ask your Secretary of Transportation, Mr. Ray LaHood, to sit down with your economic advisor Summers next time they want to find a quick win for the US economy. Can you just offer commuter train service on time - you know, like any other First World Country.

...gotta go make up for the hour I lost yesterday (oh, did I mention the cab Greg and I took from the New Haven train station broke down and we had to walk the last 0.5 mile to our meeting, no, I am not kidding, we had to drag our suitcases in 32F weather!!!)

Crowd sourcing innovation, ATT, EA, Cisco; 'bottom up' wins

2010-09-20T17:46:00.000-07:00

Rachael King's 'Company's that Innovate Collectively' piece in Business Week, describes the efforts of large companies such as Cisco, EA, ATT and others in using software for crowd sourcing innovation (CSI) - basically to gather ideas from their globally distributed employees. While an interesting piece, it is also eye opening in three dimensions:

1.- Slow beasts. This illustrate how slow some of the largest, tech-driven companies are sometimes in adopting technology tools to improve their innovation capabilities. Platforms such as InnoCentive have been around for a decade. 'Crowdsourcing' was first discussed in 2006 in Wired mag. How much did some of these beasts leave on the table by insisting on siloed R&D/innovation teams?

2.- Top-down kills crowd sourcing innovation. In several companies reviewed in the article, ATT for example, 'senior management' reviews, validates and selects the best ideas suggested by their employees! This is totally contradictory to the principle and power of crowd sourcing innovation. Senior Mgmt should stay out of the way and let employees validate and select the best ideas!

3.- Are they serious. Have any of these companies decided to cut some of their traditional R&D departments/funds and to further invest (and rely) on crowd sourcing innovation? Until they do this, they are really aren't serious about CSI.

As many of you know IDEO recently launched openIDEO, if you haven't seen it, check it out; who knows you might even be able to convince your boss that top-down innovation should remain in the XXth Century.

"I innovate, ... therefore I 'bottom-up' not 'top-down'"

War, food packets design, and stereotypes

2010-09-07T05:51:00.000-07:00

We Mexicans have never really been very politically correct (e.g., making fun of dead - dia de muertos, making fun of skinny or chubby kids in school, creativity for new nick-names in 4th grade); but in our defense, humor is really engrained in our genes, it is a way to cope with with our own evolutionary pressures, I guess. And ALLWAYS, we start by making fun of ourselves; therefore, stereotyping comes easy to us.

Ashley's Gilbertson's piece in the NYT yesterday, immediately awoke my 'Mexican un-PC' genes, so here I go.

Ashley describes and shows the content of several food packets that soldiers from different nations are eating day in-day out in Afghanistan. When comparing the contents of the packets from France, Ukraine, Italy, Britain, US, Denmark, you can't miss:

- only the Italians have toothbrush in the packet...hmmm, ohhh Italians, either they are really concerned with their dental health or anticipate meeting a beautiful woman in the hills and want to make sure they have a clean and fresh-smelling mouth

- the Brits are the only that have Tabasco sauce (sorry for all of those Rodriguez, Perez, Santos, Martinez in the US army, no Tabasco for you), and gum...., hmmm, Brits really don't need to be eating gum, especially without a toothbrush in their packet

- The US packet does include Tortillas, although flour, not corn ARRGGHHHHH, do you really think a pork rib taco tastes the same with a flour tortilla? No, it doesn't.

- now, the Danes have tuna pate, THAT is a good snack to have while hiking the hills in Afghanistan

- Ukrainians have "European" herrings in oil. Basically, either not even Ukrainians like Ukrainian herring or the Euro is so weak that it turns out it is cheaper to buy it in Germany.

- ooohhh le french: zey haf venison pate, cassoulet, fruit nougat, vanilla rice pudding, ah mon cherie...

And the design of the packages:

- the French package evokes Zola, reads like a novel, it goes on and on and on, font #2

- ZE DEUTSH, "Einmannpackung" Typ II, NATO APPROVED....hmmmm, sounds so yummy

- oh the Spanish, they had to have both the colors of the flag and their royal shield on the front of the package, their economy is doing so well that why not print in color? HOMBRE, NO PASA NADA

- you gotta love the duck tape around the Brit box, I mean c'mon

- oh and the Canadians, let me think what is a typical Canadian dish....oh they don't really have one; which is why their soldiers are eating "Swiss steak," and "Spanish sauce"!!!

To my understanding, there are no Mexicans fighting in Afghanistan, but if they were, let me adventure here on what their package would include:

- First of all, there would be a guy running around with shots of tequila, to get things going

- then, for sure there would be a Oaxacan woman making fresh tortillas, hmmmm, white and blue corn

- fresh guacamole and salsa for sure

- probably mole or enchiladas, mhhhhh

- and cold CORONA for everyone

Even radical Afghanis would put their weapons down to enjoy the Mexican feast. Maybe this should be Mexico's contribution to end the war over there; I think I'll send a letter to the Obama Administration.

Design thinking, human centered design and post-its

2010-08-06T10:53:00.000-07:00

I joined IDEO one month ago. I am ecstatic, in awe, tired, still nervous, even more energized, hopeful, scattered and yet focused. These two images sum it up.

With only one month in my back, this is how I understand:

DESIGN THINKING:

Allow yourself to breath, feel, then think 'what if'
Let yourself be inspired by everyone in the team and every idea that runs around, THEN, only THEN push yourself to synthesize and get practical
Listen, again...[wait for it] then speak
Trust your gut
Encourage others to build on your ideas, don't hesitate to build onto others' ideas
Ask yourself early, what might it look like? (prototype)....again and again...
Don't rush to get to the final deliverable....it will 'announce itself'...PATIENCE

HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN

EMPATHY....you really need to put yourselves in the shoes, clothes, ...basically in the whole context of the person who will use the gadget/service...
Bottom up is so much more powerful than top-down...
Focus on the desires and needs, then the capabilities to create solutions, then THEN, figure out to ensure it is a viable and sustainable solution...reiterate...reiterate

...gotta go...to the gym...;-)

Leaving BCG and joining IDEO...

2010-07-05T19:57:00.000-07:00

Today is a great day! Change is good, it is necessary; evolution only comes with change. For the last six years I had the opportunity and privilege to be part of The Boston Consulting Group, one of the best management consulting firms. I learned tools and approaches to think about and solve business problems; worked with a dozen different clients across four continents; met very committed and smart individuals; worked with consultants with similar and different interests and values than mine; flew more miles than ever thought I would and stayed at one too many hotels where upon entering I heard “welcome back Mr. Martinez.”

I am delighted to join the design and innovation consulting firm IDEO. I believe that over the next decades the most interesting challenges and opportunities in life sciences, including health and wellness, will require truly innovative, creative, multi-disciplinary approaches and solutions. But these solutions, in most cases, need to be designed, developed, tested and implemented bottom-up, not top-down; the user/consumer/patient needs to be the core player in the system. I can’t think of a firm that better designs bottom-up solutions for difficult and important challenges than IDEO.

Am I nervous? Of course! Is change difficult? Absolutely! Will I need help? No question about it!

With all my energy, enthusiasm and tool-box, I take on this next adventure.

WELLNESS is the new GREEN. What will you do?

2010-01-28T08:34:00.001-08:00

Over the next 5-7 years, I believe that 'wellness' will go through a similar process to the process that 'green' went through over the past 10-12 years.

Green basically evolved from

'fad' of a few - to - 'right thing to do' for some - to- legal hassle for others - to - potential business opportunity in selected industries - to - there is something in it for all - to - its not green it is sustainability and it is 'one of the most important' things we can do - to - a lever of competitive advantage

Today some of the most advanced, and/or innovative, and/or smart, and/or exploiting companies, partly differentiate themselves based on their approach to sustainability, e.g., GE, Walmart, car companies, construction companies, BP, Shell, .....and on an on and on...

Wellness will go through a similar evolutionary process, but much shorter/faster and more impactful; the process over the next 5-7 years will look at something like this

'fad' of a few - to - 'cool' to keep wellness in mind - to - 'it's an HR issue/benefit' - to - 'give them gyms and help them stop smoking' - to - this might have significant implications for my employees - to - it is the most important thing for my employees, but it costs me - to - this is a business opportunity - to - a lever for competitive advantage

Therefore key questions to ask:

In which of these stages is your company? How do you, your team mates, your executives think about this? What are you doing about it?

How will your business (i.e., products, services, dynamics) change as wellness evolves into being a lever for competitive advantage?

What specifically can you for your clients to help them 'ride' the wellness wave? How? How do you build a credible business case for investing in wellness? (this will help with re workplace wellness, the Wellness App)

What business opportunities did you miss in the evolution from 'green' to 'sustainability'? What do you need to do to not go through that again?

OH! ...it is about to get very fun out there...;-)

--------------

By the way, I have had three very interesting and intellectually stimulating conversations over the past week with top thinkers in their field, technology, media and design, and guess what was at the core of each of those conversations?......WELLNESS

Chronic illness costs. Investing in wellness pays. The Wellness App.

2010-01-26T12:20:00.001-08:00

Over the last six months I lead a team to develop the Wellness App, it is the most comprehensive tool to build a solid business case for wellness. The Wellness App is build on an epidemiological simulation model based on the most updated scientific data, as well the most comprehensive case studies in wellness. We partnered with Healthways on the simulation model and worked with BeehiveMedia to develop the actual html app. Great job, Bill, Alana and team!

Rather than reading more about it, try it for your self here.

My team at BCG also wrote a paper describing in more detail the management implications of wellness and why, download it here.

Wellness costs. Investing in wellness pays.

As I said in a previous post, WELLNESS IS THE NEW GREEN, and this has implications for products, business strategies, companies, industries, .... more on this later.

(I am very careful to not discuss my work at BCG or the clients I work with, but I can share this news given that this was made public this morning. See the World Economic Forum's Wellness page here).

REDUX: The Decade in Management Ideas

2010-01-12T19:39:00.000-08:00

Julia Kirby's excellent blog at HBR, got me to think what is likely to happen over the next decade in the same topics that she originally defined in her post. Here my first draft, published as a comment in her blog last Jan1st. BTW, interesting to follow the comments that have been gathered over the last 12 days.

Verbatim:

Great food for thought to start the new year, thank you. Immediately after reading your piece you made me think, what is likely to change on these topics during the next decade. Here are my first crack at the Changes to Management Ideas over the Next Decade . (I have kept your original numbering and titles).

1. Shareholder Value as a Strategy

Shareholder value will incorporate a measure of ecological footprint. During this decade some of the most front-edge tech companies like Apple, or GE, will somehow incorporate in their shareholder value calculation their ecological footprint.

2. IT as a Utility.

Over the this decade, no self-respecting company (big or small) will kepp IT departments reporting to Finance. IT as concept will die, and we will see the emergence of a new concept that encompasses all digital data creation, storage, access. Also, ‘clouding’ will be become ubiquitous.

3. The Costumer Chorus.
We won’t think of costumers any more without also thinking of them as producers, designers, do-ers. Prostumer?

4. Enterprise Risk Management.
Individuals (employees, consumers, passangers,…) become to key unit to understand, measure, report risk. Enterprise Risk Management transfers from a corporate assessment activity to an individual enabler role.

5. The Creative Organization.
A few science/tech-based companies will steer away from functional silos (R&D, Finance, HR,…) and will re-organize themselves in nodes of innovation.

6. Open Source.
Concepts that represent new applications of open source will emerge or go mainstream: ‘open source innovation,’ ‘genetic open source,’ …

7. Going Private.
Pendullum will swing back towards the middle (public - private)

8. Behavioral Economics.
Emotional Behavior Drivers. Designing, manufacturing, advertising products and services will increasingly respond to emotional decision drivers.

9. High Potentials.
This trend will continue accelerating to the point that ‘everyone’ in a ‘successful’ organization is a ‘hi-po’ then the term will morph to something like ‘pro-no’ (productive-node), or something like that.

10. Competing on Analytics
Most critical change to how investment and resource allocation will be done in large companies will be ‘prototyping.’ 80/20 gives way to 20/80 – prototype twenty times and you will get a solution that will give you at least 80% of the value, or something like that. Many smaller and faster iterations. The formal consulting industry will be especially transformed due to prototyping.

11. Reverse Innovation
R&D become T&C-D, testing and co-development. This is the result of the combination of points 3, 4 and 10.

12. Sustainability
Wellness is the new Green. A new type of influential consumer segment will emerge, the eco-healthy citizen; he/she cares for their ecological footprint as well as for the impact of their health level (wellness) on their community, society, economy.

....end of comment.

'Consumerization' of healthcare and wellness

2010-01-12T13:22:00.001-08:00

The most important trend changing the healthcare industry and the emerging wellness industry is the accelerating shift of decision-making to the consumer.

While the discussion in Washington is definitely relevant for the shape and dynamics of the healthcare industry, including biopharmas, payors, providers, research institutions and non-profits, the most critical driver for a high-quality, affordable, accessible care is YOU and ME and EVERY individual.

Let me develop this argument:

1. We are all patients and experts. More and more patients are relying on information they find online and often have read the latest articles on Alzheimer's or HCV before their doctor. Some think 80% or even 90%+ of doctors are asked by their patient about an article they found online.

2. It is increasingly complex, expensive and impractical to go to the expert. For many routine exams, it makes no sense to have to 'physically' go to the doctor. See this great example in the NYT of a patient taking his own medical readings and sending them to his doctor. Makes so much sense, plus decreases the chance of the patient getting a superbug in the hospital.

This is one of the key areas where the healthcare industry is still in the Paleozoic era. Imagine going to every car dealership to find out what they have and asking them what the price of the car is, rather than going online and emailing the dealer! Why can't we all email our doctors and specialists when we DON'T need to be in their office in person? (yes, legal frameworks will also have to adjust)

Increasingly interactions with providers will be online. Although still many oppose emailing with patients or medical online groups; imagine AETNA paying for the 3.5minutes that it took the doctor to answer an email? ...oh the inefficiencies of the payor system, this is topic for another post.

3. Modifying individual behaviors is THE silver bullet. A key reason why healthcare sucks-up 16% of the US GDP, is mostly due to the fact that individuals make simply put, bad choices. 75% of the medical spend in the US goes to treating patients with chronic diseases, and a significant portion of these are avoidable.

Eating relatively well, doing some type of exercise, taking your meds when they are prescribed, can go a looooong way.

This is still an fairly untapped opportunity. Behavioral sciences, behavioral economics, user-interface, social networks, are just beginning to transform the healthcare industry as well as the emerging wellness space.

4. Wellness is the new green. Companies are increasingly shifting their mindset on wellness from an "HR issue" to business strategic lever. Even if we leave the healthcare costs aside, there is strong evidence that chronic conditions such as obesity, diabetes, cardio-respiratory conditions, depression, back pain, among other, affect the productivity of employees significantly. Actually when monetizing this impact, the loss in productivity is typically 2-4x the medical costs.

Large corporations across all industries, IBM, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Pfizer, Unilever, Nestle and many others have fairly sophisticated wellness programs in place. Many more companies will stop thinking of wellness as a 'must do' and will start thinking about it as a potential lever of competitive advantage; just like it happened with green and sustainability. (This is the key driver of the eco-healthy citizen trend-see previous post).

Social networks, including online communities are increasingly weighing in the decision of patients on how to treat their conditions and think of their overall health. From Patients like me to Times Wellness, virtual communities will literally rip apart some incumbent players in healthcare.

The 'customerization of healthcare and wellness as' will increasingly transform products and services, legal frameworks, market segments, distribution channels; but most importantly it opens fantastic opportunities for those companies that are good at designing and implementing systems, processes, products from the patient/user outward.

...that is it for now, more later.

BTW, jut got back from Biotech Tuesday, a monthly networking get-together for people in Boston interested in any aspect of the biotech industry. Always refreshing and reassuring to meet colleagues seeking parallel dreams to yours and dealing with orthogonal challenges to yours...;-)

Emergence of the eco-healthy citizen. Wellness is the new green.

2010-01-02T10:09:00.000-08:00

This decade will see the emergence of a new type of influential consumer

Eco-footprint. In this decade consumers – individuals as well as companies (mostly in developed markets) increasingly took interest in their ecological footprint – impact of a certain activity on an ecosystem. This in part due to the evolution of the ‘green’ movement to ‘sustainability.’ Either for commercial reasons or for actual sustainability interest, eco-footprint as a measure/tool is spreading among corporations and groups of individuals. Examples: Starbucks, GE, IBM, online calculators, non-profits, entrepreneurial efforts, community groups.

Emergence of the eco-healthy citizen. I believe that during this decade, we will see the emergence of an influential group of consumers that will be not only interested in their ecological footprint, but also on the impact of their level of health on society and the economy. Wellness is the new green.

The eco-healthy citizen will eat healthy and exercise and do yoga or meditate, not only because it maintains and nourishes the body, but also because it helps the local, national and global economy and ecology. Obesity (and related chronic conditions) is the most important driver of costs for the US health care system – over $300B by the second half of this decade. For any company, the main driver of productivity loss among all medical conditions is….you got it! …Obesity. More on this on a following post.

Companies and services will cater to the eco-healthy citizens – think of a running apparel company that also provides its manufacturing eco-footprint, on a per-product basis. Think of the ‘carbon-neutral’ gym or food store.

New virtual communities will emerge – think sub-group within Facebook that measures how many pounds they lost and how much CO2 they didn't create, combined. Think of wristband (a la Live Strong - yellow wristband) that identifies you as someone who cares about your eco footprint as well as the financial and social impact of your level of health.

New apps will be developed – online tools and models will measure quite effectively how much a company could save by having 5% of their employees be eco-healthy citizens. My iPhone will keep track of how many steps I take everyday, my caloric intake,....and will estimate how much more productive I will be in my job, and therefore how much I am likely to contribute to my company or community.

…you can quickly see the ramifications from marketing and advertising to packaging and supply chains, corporate campaigns, the first eco-healthy CEO on the cover of BusinessWeek,…and on and on and on.

As with any movement that has the potential to impact systems (business, social, economic or ecological), some will incur the cost of the first mover advantage, others will wait and watch from the sidelines. Some companies and business people will only think of the eco-healthy movement as a fad, others as a nuisance, but a few will think of it as an opportunity – an opportunity to create and be part of a new market segment, and also an opportunity to improve our ecology, society, and economy.

the interesting, challenging, exciting happens at the borders

2009-12-02T19:31:00.000-08:00

I was thinking today over lunch about the BCG matrix, while this matrix (and for that matter any matrix) provides a useful way of segmenting 'stuff,' it is not the quadrants where the most interesting and challenging data hangs, but the dynamics between the quadrants; e.g., knowing which company is a cash-cow or a dog can be useful, but thinking how the company turned into a cash-cow or what forces moved an organization to be a dog is much more interesting.

Walking back to my desk I realized that this phenomenon applies to many more things around us, here a few examples:

- industry borders: what happens in the biotechnology space is interesting, but the application of different biotechnologies to new industrial sectors is really cool! (e.g., shirt made with synthetic organism that can change color or texture depending on the temperature)

- management functional borders: operation models, procurement organization frameworks, strategy, all very interesting (if you are into this type of thing), but mixing strategy with operation models is much more interesting and challenging! (e.g., 'adaptive strategy' vis a vis typical boring annual strat plan) - see post below for 'adaptive strategy'

- geopolitical: knowing the key players and forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan is challenging and interesting, how they come to play in the border between the two countries is much more challenging and interesting

- food (this is more of a personal preference, but paradigm still holds): having a fantastic guacamole can be exciting and ecstatic; but moving from the taste of the guacamole to the margarita and few minutes later back to the guac is a totally different ball game!

-.....

Companies across different industries are increasingly dealing with challenges 'between borders' (be it markets, industry sectors, management functions), and increasingly require solutions that can only be developed by having a 'border' mindset. This is one of the reasons I am so passionate about the evolution of the bioeconomy.

'Adaptability'' the new 'Competitive Advantage'

2009-09-14T07:42:00.000-07:00

Quick overview of Adaptability or Adaptive capacity, or Adaptive Advantage:

Strategy frameworks continue to evolve...

1960s - It was about price competition, what you could to reduce costs and therefore price...and increase market share...tools / approaches that emerged include: price curves, scale curves, ...

1970s - It was about portfolio and positioning, where does my line of products or brands stand in relation to the competition, how can I optimize my product mix...tools / frameworks that emerged include: 5 forces, 7 Ss, ...

1980s and 1990s - It was about capabilities, what could you leverage internally that others couldn't, what abilities could you use to reduce your time to market, or improve quality of your products...tools / frameworks that emerged include: innovator's dilemma,...

2000s - onward - Who the hell knows? Some believe that people are at the center of the news structure that determines advantages of some vis a vis others, a structure based on 'networks' and 'deconstruction'...

...if such is the case, those that can adapt more quickly to leverage networks and deconstructed value chains and modify their thinking and doing (i.e., their strategy and processes), and can do this constantly, have an ADAPTIVE ABILITY or ADVANTAGE over others, this is the new emerging competitive advantage. BTW, some very interesting work being done at the Strategy Institute within BCG on this.

Less "R&D" and more "T&C-D" is an indication of adaptive advantage (see post below)...

Spies and survival genes, Le Carre and Whales

2009-09-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago flying back from Nashville to Boston I finished reading John Le Carre's A Most Wanted Man, one of his best books - if not the best!
- elegant
- precise
- intellectually interesting,
- yet not overdone

Now I am finishing Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea - The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
- very well written
- history and adventure
- true horror
- inevitable to think, what would I do? Would I eat human flesh to survive? What if it where the flesh of a friend or relative? How long would I wait until giving up on my life?

The perception of our daily activities is so limited, by nature we tend to disregard the contrast of 'alternative' realities we could live in; but then again, they are all alternative, even this one, the one you are living.

T&C-D is the new R&D...adaptive advantage

2009-08-28T05:46:00.000-07:00

In a 'deconstructed' world, (basics on formal deconstruction here, more on business and economic lense of deconstruction later) companies further compete in their ability to take advantage of networks; all types of networks. Networks for innovation, research, design, sourcing, development, manufacturing, sales and marketing, distribution. Those that better understand how these different networks evolve and can also adapt as these networks evolve, have a competitive advantage; this is adaptive advantage.

Developing an adaptive advantage requires to shift mindset from traditional business strategy logic R&D (do your research - identify a need, then develop the product, gather feedback and modify your product) to T&C-D - testing & co-develping (protytype, test, test, test, test, and co-develop together with the end user).

Co-designing your own t-shirts or jeans or sports shoes (threadless, jeans , sports shoes) are simple examples of testing & co-develping. Other examples you are familiar with are facebook and iphone/ipod apps. In a web 2.0 world designing and testing are one of the same, just like user and developer are one and the same. Increasingly this phenomenon is evolving traditional industries like finance or processes like business strategy, but more on this in another post.

By the way, I started "Women want more" today while I rode the T (that's metro for those of you that have never been to Boston), very interesting...

And yes, Inglourious Basterds is a must-see.

District 9, biological co-operation and adaptive innovation

2009-08-17T06:05:00.000-07:00

Fantaaaastic! District 9 is one of the best movies I have seen in the last couple of years.
The movie sets you in the slums of Johannesburg, but not like 'Bangkok Dangerous' gives you a Hollywood-esk view of Bangkok, D9 really sets you in J'burg. The social struggle, violence, creativity and, like bacteria in a petri dish, survival becomes the ultimate goal; in a sense, the biological struggle at the core of a very complex ecosystem.

Balancing detail and room for imagination, the script leads you to a not uncommon (although controversial) dynamic between species - and observed across all taxa, that are forced to share their struggle, co-operation. From Dawkin's Selfish Gene to reviews on the topic like Sachs' 'Cooperation within and among species,' co-operation is a complex construct. Unexpected outcomes, creative solutions, "third-way" out, ... can emerge from the balance between struggle and co-operation. Society and business systems and processes are no exceptions. Innovation, real innovation often comes from the forces that pull and push the pendulum between struggle and cooperation; tension from sharing goals, interests, resources and skills, while at the same time struggling to capture scarce resources or gain a relative advantage; often, as in biological settings, diversity, not size is what matters; See Steve Lohr today in the NYTimes.

...more on adpative innovation and implications for the bioeconomy later on in the week.

With political, social, biological realism; enough sci-fi to consider 'what if,' but adjacent to the closest 'realities' we each make in our minds, new faces that don't distract us from embedding ourselves in the plot; District 9 is a well-structured, creative and thought-provoking film.

p.s. apologies for having abandoned this blog for months, I am back!

life sciences revolution...two articles

2008-06-16T10:43:00.000-07:00

Cleaning up my files I found two articles written five years ago (or so), both still as relevant then as they are today.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.06/dna_spc.html

http://www.paho.org/English/DPI/Number14_article4_5.htm

Long story short, those regions, countries, companies, individuals, who understand:

- which code of knowledge will disrupt the current economic system
- what are the implications (positive and negative) of the emerging code
- what are the levers that enable the code to actually transfrom economic, and industrial processes,

will become the economic dynamos this century.

Shortest history of economic codes that have shaped the world

1. ca. 15,000 years ago - understanding of agricultural basics
2. early-mid XVIII century - industrial revolution
3. 1950s - ... - digital revolution (1s and 0s)
4. 2001- ... - bioeconomy revolution (A, T, C, G)

Virtually all industrial processes, ergo all industries are starting to be transformed by our understanding of how life operates; how the code of life operates. This is the most important "transition" of this century, not the rise of "intelligent machines" described in today's NYT Tierney Lab.

...more to come.

Practical Tips from Consulting...Logan, the Burj Al Arab, optimizing reading and dining

2008-01-24T20:13:00.000-08:00

After an “aptitude” test in high-school I was asked what I really wanted to be when I grew up. I quickly answered: “I want an intellectually stimulating job, that allows me to travel to many interesting places and interact with different people and understand what problems they face.” …be careful what you wish four…;-)

After 3 ½ years at BCG (and 3 additional years of “informal” consulting work in academia (HBS Life Sciences Project) and in a startup environment (BIO-Economic Research Associates) I am ready to share my top ten consultant practical tips:

In no particular order:

1. It is key to have a good relationship (i.e., know their name and tip well) with the barperson or server at your regular restaurant/bar at airports that you travel to/from regularly. Why? So you can call your order in when you are in line waiting to go through security,….that’s right…eat, drink, pay and board in 15 mins. or less. Classical examples include Summer Shack at Boston Logan’s Terminal A, or Wing’s at Monterey’s airport in Mexico.

2. Put your things in the conveyor belt at security in the reverse order that you will put them on. In my case the shoes go first (even though I take them off last), then my bag (my laptop briefcase attached to the roll-on), then laptop, then toiletries, then jacket. And honestly, if more people would do this, we could all have 20mins extra every month! I could learn Chinese with 20 additional minutes every month!!!

3. Travel belts and a watch that don’t beep at any airport security system go without saying.

4. No shoelaces when flying, for yours and everyone else’s benefit. I have 5 pairs (two brown, one brown suede, two black) of Johnston-Murphy bought on sale (~$69-80, reg. $129-169). Key to be able to use your shoes with a suit or business casual, or even with jeans. Often the airport stores have the same sales as online adds, so worth asking. As a matter of fact I bought today a pair of Venetian moccasins for which I waited 3 months until they went on sale. Yes, getting stuff for the right price is as valuable an experience as actually wearing the garment!

5. Knowing the names of people at the front desk or the concierge desk and a good tip can go a looooong way, especially when you spend more time during the week in hotels than at home. Yes, I know, “..but is this sustainable?” that is an important, but separate discussion. I would have never been able to complete all my “to do’s” which my fiancée then diligently asked me to finish every week in preparation of our wedding back in 2005 if it weren’t for asking different bell-men and staff at the concierge desk to help me!!! Por favor!!!...;-)

6. Whenever appropriate, ask; the worst thing they can say is “No, sorry”. I have often been upgraded to first class in long haul flights internationally, upgraded to suites at 5 star hotels, gotten tours of “off-limits” properties, reserved tables at top restaurants, all and more of this….in Paris, Dubai, Singapore, Bangkok,…”blah blah blah ginger”

7. Whenever possible, convince your boss that no matter the price – within reason, it pays to stay at the hotel that is closest to the client…..negotiating a corporate rate can get you extra brownie points with your boss too…..this is how I stayed for three months in Dubai at the Emirates Towers

8. The most expensive hotels can sometimes have the best (and relatively cheapest deals). I stayed for one week, yes ONE WEEK at the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai and I only payed $500/night. (the cheapest alternative option was a suite at the Fairmont for $550, so I actually saved $350 by staying at the Burj! Nice!!! Yes, your mid-afternoon H’ors d’oeuvre delivered by your personal buttler is actually quite enjoyable when you are cranking through PowerPoint slides!!! (my adventures in Dubai will have to wait for another note on this blog)

9. Optimize use of “lost” time….such as waiting in line to board, while waiting to take off, ride in a taxi. I have a separate material to read for each of these waiting times; two work related, two of personal interest. By the way, read Rigged by Mezrich today flying back from Atlanta – quite good, one perspective, I would love to share with Ben my experience and perspective on Dubai. Actually, the script I am writing is partly based in Dubai. Ben, I will look you up and we will share Dubai stories over a good Margarita!!!

10. …hmmm the previous nine came straight up, this one will have to wait.

BTW, my evolutionary biology teacher taught me something very important this week. Learning progress is a step function, and whenever you least expect it, it jumps! I tried for two weeks to teach Sophia (who just turned 9 months) to clap with no success. This week, as soon as I leave to see my client in Atlanta, my wife calls me so I can hear Sophia clap over the phone!!! Tricky bean…;-)

Jim Gray, Gates, Venter...Chess of the Minds

2007-08-04T02:00:00.000-07:00

Flying back from Atlanta this week I read Steve Silverman's article in WIRED about the mysterious disappearing of Jim Gray - Mr. Database. Fascinating, sad, interesting, unique story....for different reasons:

a) I met Jim Gray in 2002 (or 2003) in a room with six other people, Craig Venter, Juan Enriquez, Bill Gates, Alayne Reesberg, one other person and myself - I know...crazy!, but more on this meeting below

b) With all the nano and macro technology of the world, with millions of dollars, some of the smartest minds on the planet, organized blogosphere, .... still don't where Jim is and what happened to him

c) The loss of a human life is (part of life), but very sad. But this sadness takes a very different spin when it is someone you know/met - even for 1 1/2 hours...this is part of our genetic construct, we feel the loss of one of our species, but also fear loss close to us, "what if" this was a friend or family member or closed loved one?

d) The most interesting, complex, and bizarre meeting I have ever attended. In October 2002 (I think, could have been'03, not sure), 7 people sat in a room at Microsoft's HQs in Redmond. "Hi, Bill Gates, nice to meet you" as he extended his hand and looked at me in the eye....obvious response..."Rodrigo Martinez, pleasure to meet you" duh!

Over the next hour and a half I observed a real life game of chess, where two minds, Bill's and Craig's basically shared thoughts about IT and biotech (I won't share details on the content given that it would be unethical to do so), but the dynamics around the table is what created an almost mystical atmosphere where Bill and Craig played every piece of a chess board....sometimes playing different pieces simultaneously.

Fascinating to see the power of Bill sitting back and listening while holding his hands together...the energy and passion of Craig explaining the future of how we manage life at its core and what this demands of IT...two minds back and forth, listening, asking, testings, probing...I was in awe!

The rest of us, including Jim Gray, mere spectators of this game chess that evolved with no resolve. I was impressed by Bill's ability to grasp complex biology complexes and subtle powerful maneuver's that don't come from being the richest man in the planet, but from his personal evolution and his accomplishments. Craig, as always, intense and maverick. Jim's interventions added a sense of reality and scale, of actual practicality within the fantasy.

I had just witnessed a chess lesson like no other. We all shook hands, and I remember Jim's humble and intense eyes.

Athens and clothing in the year 2050...true bioeconomy 2.0

2007-07-07T19:33:00.000-07:00

Usually conferences organize one or two "unique" experiences that relate to the local history, geography or time of the year. Two weeks ago at 6:30 in the morning, 12 of us went running through the ruins surrounding the Acropolis. It was a great run, except for the 29Celsius!!! (~85F for those of you on this side of the river). That day, Athenian suburbs reached a historical 47Celsius (117F).

So, regardless if some rather not believe in global warming or not, what evolutionary changes will we go through as we adapt to warmer and warmer Summers? Will biology or technology enable the adaptive process? For example: Will our bodies increase the amount of sweat perspired to maintain external temperature cooler? ....or, will we create smarter clothes with microorganisms much more efficient in managing changes in temperature than we are? Let's for one minute assume that it will be the latter...

More than fashion names such as Versace and others using fabrics made of bamboo or companies like Ingeo using Polylactic Acid (from corn) to produce all types of apparel - don't get me wrong, I think it is really cool, what might the Future (capital F) of smart clothing look like in the bioeconomy 2.0?

Here are a few hypotheses:

- we will wear materials made primarily of synthetically built microorganisms

- one piece from neck to wrists and feet, it will expand and contract along the extremities on demand

- these materials will change texture, color, thickness, insulating capacity, permeability, smell, pattern, by pushing a button on the sleeve that releases a bug or chemical that starts a chain reaction throughout the fabric

- we will design and synthesize the organism in our houses, and will have a subscription to a supplier - maybe a joint venture owned by Bayer+Hitachi+Nestle+Synthetic Genomics (disclaimer: although I know Juan, Craig quite well, this is not an ad....just hypothesizing)

- we will buy "designs" from hackers that change the genetic code of the microorganisms, sort of like buying clothes for your avatar in Second Life

Hopefully the dress code of the bioeconomy 2.0 (see my second post) will not require: ties (what a useless and uncomfortable invention), those horrible Versace colors and patterns (worse than tacky art), shoelaces and those tiny buttons that you can't button-up when you are late for a conf call at 7:30, which if you are in management consulting will know is more often than necessary.

Off to get some hours of sleep before I feed Sophia her 4am (hopefully!) bottle. BTW, what does a 3month old dream about? BTW2, saw yesterday Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain, great concept, very creative, fantastic script timeline, but somehow missed to engage the viewer, not really sure what happened. BTW3, I found two interesting blogs as I was writing this: nano, bio stuff, and biosingularity.

Diving and meaningfull conversations...

2007-06-22T20:43:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago, Juan (Enriquez, for those of you that haven't had a chance to read other posts in this blog, see video to the left) and I went for a day and a half to Tioman island in Malaysia.....fantastic. The first time you do a night dive you makes you feel connected with nature in a way that you never forget; life, colors, species, morenas, turtles, fugus,....and the moon over you head as you emerge.

....anyway, changing topics. The previous year, sitting on a rock in Newburyport with Craig Venter, he told me something that stuck as a mole stain: "you know Rodrigo, we are getting close to discovering and creating creatures that can kill 3/5 of all human beings, and this scares me. We better create the control mechanisms to prevent this. But you know what, even more exciting is to think that we are also getting closer to discovering treatments for diseases that today affect also 3/5 of all human beings, so we better be ready to use that know-how." Dichotomy of advancement of science and technology...

...today at work someone said that she was looking forward to getting the new Blackberry 8800 to be able "to be more efficient," since today she doesn't have a b'berry or Palm or PDA...which got me thinking....mmmhhhh....I am often most productive when my Blackjack (which by the way is OK, but not great, more on that later) goes to sleep, for example at 3 am after giving Sophia her bottle, or on a Friday night (like now)....dichotomy of our use of technology...

Cuernavaca to Harvard...the beginning...

2007-06-12T15:26:00.000-07:00

I remember the first time (~ ca. 1996) I crossed over the Weeks Bridge into Cambridge: “I would love to row one day under this bridge,” and there started the long adventure from Cuernavaca to KSG.

…Fast forward to September 1999 when I started the MPA-ID program at the Kennedy School of Government. It was an honor and a humbling experience. Jeff Sachs' History and Theory of Economic Development was fantastic, wow!...what can I say...recently a blogger colleague pasted this video of Jeff…oh, today I found out Dani Rodrik has a great blog on international development issues, go here.

Guns, Germs, and Steel….that reminds me I need to write a list of bioeconomy must reads…tomorrow…now it is time to go feed Sophia, our 8 week old…;-)

2007-06-03T04:59:00.000-07:00

So what is Bioeconomy 2.0?

Well, maybe I should start by describing the term "bioeconomy". This term refers to all economic activity related to 1) the investments in the research of how life operates at the genetic and molecular levels, and 2) the application of the knowledge derived from this research to any industrial activity. I started an article in Wikipedia, but feel free to edit and add, go here.

Basically, "Bioeconomy 1.0" is the sum of all investments and returns associated with understanding how life operates and the use of that knowledge in any industrial/commercial way. You can read more about this in a small article I wrote with Juan Enriquez and Jonathan West published in WIREDMagazine in 2003.

Web 2.0 is to Web 1.0 like Bioeconomy 2.0 is…..

Let’s think for a minute on what Web 2.0 is and isn't. Although no one can agree on a definition, for some it is just a slogan and others have marketed the term heavily (see Web 2.0 in Wikipedia), there is common understanding of the two basic principles behind this phenomenon: loose modularity – many loosely joined pieces or components, and empowerment of individuals. Summarizing, new dynamics have emerged between individuals sharing and building upon small pieces (APIs for example) on the web. So blogs, wikis, Flickr, widgets, virtual worlds , etc…..are all part of the Web 2.0 phenomenon. Anyone with a PC, internet connection and minimal programming capabilities (i.e. me) can leverage and be part of Web 2.0. By the way, don’t miss the opportunity to hear Philip Evans – explain the complexity and richness of the business implications of Web 2.0.

Back to the bio world...following the same two principles, loose modularity and empowerment of the individuals, I define Bioeconomy 2.0 as any economic activity derived from individuals and companies widely sharing and applying units of genetic material to create applications with commercial or industrial functionalities. So are we there yet?...not really, but getting very close. We are still in a bioeconomy 1.0 world, where research institutions, labs, academics and some companies quasi-share bits and pieces of genetic material for different means, but still this is not a widespread phenomenon. But we are rapidly transitioning to the bioeconomy 2.0. The possibilities are enormous, but the risks also considerable….but more on this in another post.

A, T, C, Gs for All...Fugu Fish and Sorcerer II

2007-05-31T16:56:00.000-07:00

Interesting that within a matter of days, two of the most scientifically acclaimed, respected and criticized personalities of our time have offered to make their full genome publicly available. That’s right, while James Watson received today his full genome on a pair of DVDs – sequenced by 454 Life Sciences with a cost of less than $1M and in less than two months, Craig Venter announced last week that his full genome was also publicly available for scientific research. (See Nicholas Wade's article today in the NYT)

While this might sound “old” news or hype around to egon0mes (I mean genomes), not long ago a character known as the Fugu fish in Washington was skeptical about the ability of the private sector to accelerate the evolution of genomics. Evolution of sequencing (hmmm) technologies is invariably one of the most important technological advances humans (or something like that) have accomplished…key enabler of bioeconomy 2.0…but more on that on forthcoming post.

By the way some of the most stimulating conversations and fun parties I have ever participated in have been with Craig et al on Sorcerer II (Charlie!)…actually the photo below is Sunset right after passing the Gulf stream sailing back from Bermuda on Sorcerer II.

…ooops time to go to my evolutionary biology class…;-)

Why "From ATCG to bioeconomy 2.0"?

2007-05-30T10:25:00.000-07:00

Today I start this blog to share ideas about anything in between two parameters: 1) the discovery of the structure of DNA - sugar phosphate staircase with the four basic building blocks of life (Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine, Guanine) and 2) the evolution of any economic activity based on our understanding of how life operates (the bioeconomy).

Here you will find short but (hopefully) interesting bits of stories, discussions, ideas, dreams... I have had about:

- people I have met that are changing the world in their own way

- companies and industries trying to figure out how to adapt and grow

- travels I have made to corners of the world

- books I devoured and others I threw away

- movies I saw 3 times or more

- how Sophia (our 7 week old daughter) is the best evolutionary biology teacher

- the movie script I am writing

- the businesses I want to start

- my transition from Cuernavaca to Harvard

- wonderful April and soooo much more...;-)

....all between ATCG and the bioeconomy 2.0.

Welcome and please let me know what you think.

Rodrigo