What do aquariums have to do with Web 2.0?

A few weeks ago while reading definitely not Web 2.0 related literature, I found a good metaphor for my ideas about Web 2.0. Günther Sterba was a German ichthyologist, a fish researcher, his aquarium books from the 50s were cult books of many young people that were still dealing with analog things, just like me. When I read them again, I found astonishing statements.

He wrote in 1955 (my words) that all the aquarium hobbyists would be essential for professional research. Because one cannot simply examine e.g. the reproductive behavior of a particular type of fish in centralized research once, and then know the facts. It depends on so many factors, well-known factors like water temperature, but also things you do not have on your radar. Therefore in many cases, breeding will not work, even if people have actually kept everything the way that experts have so thoroughly investigated. Because they are just in a different location, in a different situation with other factors prevailing. And small differences have large effects.

So therefore the solution that hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic hobby aquarists try that out themselves at home and talk to each other. Thus automatically incorporate the diversity of local conditions with myriad factors, test it out, communicate, learn. A research endeavor, that could not be paid by individual institutions, there would not be enough staff and it could not be performed under so many spontaneous conditions. The unusual, highly distributed, localized mix is the right thing. And at the time of Sterba, this exchange worked with . . . Shriek. . . Letters!

In this example everything is included, what drives my ideas about Web 2.0: integrate many enthusiastic individuals who experiment in heterogeneous ways for their respective situations and – through intensive networking – multiply the knowledge and skills for all. And like this, we should set up projects for Enterprise 2.0, innovation and the future. Many points of view, diversity, individuality, heterogeneity, bottom-up instead of a knowing elite. Therefore, prefer a scenario project with many “normal” people to a Delphi panel with a few experts, use rather Prediction Markets than operational planning. And if we think with this metaphor in mind about things like health care or management?

The heart of creative structures

We often want to know what exactly makes exceptionally creative structures tick, where the magic is hidden. And then,  to imitate that.

The Attractor-Incubator-Approach (ATICA) has as objective to dive into the core of creative structures, like creative businesses, cities or regions, hotspots, of magical places.

Its assumption is that any deeply creative structure is an intimate connection of an incubator and an attractor, a combination which finds really new solutions in contrast to the ordinary everyday way and, based on that, ensures rapid explosive spread. Together they stand for real change instead of incremental improvements or “messing around with the symptom.”

Because an idea without application and spreading is as if it was not thought at all, as well as rapid spread without a radical new idea that promises real solutions is a fad or a big show, but nothing more. True creativity goes to the core. It solves open issues and pressing problems in an unprecedented way.

The incubator is the place where diversity clashes, where the big questions of humanity are given to a team of individuals ready for intense debate. With its own “mission”, completely closed to the currently fashionable catalog of solutions, the participants develop the “next big thing” in the incubator.

The attractor communicates solutions to the outside, motivates people to use them, to work with them, being a part of them. It attracts talent into the orbit of these new approaches, combines feedback and plays back the improved solutions.

The performance of a creative structure like a company or a region is at its highest when it designs the interaction of an incubator or incubators with an attractor in a permanent cycle of self-re-inventing.

You’ll find an overview of ATICA in this introduction article:

http://www.vreedom.com/material/TAF_2012-01-10_ATICA-Artikel_eng.pdf

Three levers

In my work in the future-field, I see three powerful fields of influence that represent mighty levers for us. They develop rapidly and enhance each other significantly in their effect: Artificial Intelligence, Networking and Hyper-Humanism.

Let us start with artificial intelligence. When the moment has come when artificial exceeds human intelligence much will be different, as Ray Kurzweil has repeatedly described it very impressively. How will you compete in many fields with a machine that only costs 1000 € and simulates your brain down to the last details as an easy background work? Not at all, and therefore we should better use the systems instead of competing with them. We do not have to be futuristic here, because even the current recommendation systems in shopping portals are the fruits of artificial intelligence. The enormous amounts of data can only be crunched with intelligence on a new level.

To my mind, hardly something is so underestimated as artificial intelligence. OK, wonders were promised for decades and yet we still laugh today about the attempts of computers to pretend being intelligent. However, researchers in the future-field know the typical effect when looking at S-curves. Innovations require longer than you think, until they come to fruition (“long nose”). Nevertheless, if they take off in the end, they go on much faster than you could have imagined. Therefore, if the promises of artificial intelligence are fulfilled, it will happen faster and more comprehensively than we think. And the impact goes from truly intelligent artificial friends up to a possible post-Scarcity Society.

The second lever is networking. We already see the effects of many people networked together via the Internet. The “Internet of things”, in which devices and artificial intelligences directly “speak” to each other, is in building-phase. Wisdom-of-Crowd applications such as prediction markets show how communication- and decision-making processes could run, if we flip old structures through digital networking and link individual diversity.

Behind networking lie fundamental principles, such as Metcalfe’s Law, which states that a network is ever more useful, if more participants are involved in the network. Moreover, if this network is humanity, how much can we grow to be useful for each other? The other aspect is that creativity research shows that ideas arise from the clash of diversity. For this to occur there have to be occasions. And networking creates exactly that. The odds are good that we increase our rate of innovation, just by connecting more people. And a completely new quality of society is created by linking.

The third lever is hyper-humanism. This is the idea to find out what lies at the core of the human being, the things that characterize us as human and to develop and reinforce that. At first this begins with something that makes most people more afraid, to find out the things where man is not unique, e.g. where a machine could replace us easily. It takes courage and self-awareness to recognize the things profoundly human, and not to search for excuses, by just postulating, “that a machine could never do this or that”, or not to explore or research certain things just to stay away from unpleasant insights. However, if we face the knowledge, we can zero in on our “core competency”. We then focus on the things special in people and manage the rest in a new way, with new means.

Exciting now what the three levers have to do with each other. Thus digital networking leads to artificial intelligence getting more data (see Recommendation systems). The development of artificial intelligence provides insights into what distinguishes human beings and is therefore a prerequisite for the hyper-humanism. In addition, hyper-humanism is the frame for using the chances in networking and artificial intelligence more intensive and fruitfully. Especially effective is to use all three ways with devotion.

A good basis for future workshops then, is to consider the next few years under these three aspects. Practical application from my field of work: Many companies in the moment say rather stubbornly, that in the field of sales “no one can replace the people in customer contact”. And then go on organizing and managing sales as before. On the other side, we see the steady growth of very successful Internet portals, which integrate consulting of customers and sales. And if we think about further developments in AI and networking, you could quickly get the idea that humans are completely replaceable in sales.

But what does a company that thinks in terms of the three levers will do? It uses all levers! It utilizes enthusiastically the possibilities of web portals, powered by artificial intelligence and with automation to the level possible. At the same time, it looks exactly at the essence of what makes humans necessary in sales and brings its own sales staff to the highest excellence in these areas.

A new start for Adventure Future

In a way, I am a rebel in the field of forecasting and future studies. I very rarely believe in trends and I am deeply skeptical about forecasting. As other authors in the field like Nassim Taleb or Jim Dator have written, the interesting things are the ones not predictable. Therefore, I am a fan of the old Alan Kay adage that you should not predict the future but invent it.

Nevertheless, why can’t we forecast? There are so many methods, trend-analyzers, statistics!   Basically because we think too linear and underestimate the role of permanent fundamental change. For thousands of years the rules of the game change and are changed all the time. Moreover, in everyday life we imagine to be in the same game all the time. We underestimate that we reinvent our companies, our society, and ourselves every day. Therefore, the belief in creativity and innovation is at the core of my approach when dealing with the future.

If you cannot forecast your future, then two aspects get into focus:

• To imagine wild, unusual Futures, select the futures we like and take action to make them more probable than the others.
• To create robust strategies, this means strategies that work in many different types of future. This is much easier if you integrate lots of variety and different views in your discussion, something that is made possible in scenario workshops. In addition, it helps to get people from different fields, countries, and thought schools connected.

What leads us to the digital world. One of the main drivers for me is digitalization, with its potential to combine variety and accelerate communication, learning and change.  My own work as a result lies at the crossroad of innovation, digital media and the future.

So this is what my podcast shows are about. Not the trends for sure, but the new ideas, the pattern interrupts, weak signals, new continents. Feeling free to think unusual thoughts, being attracted by the unknown eager to experiment with new possibilities.  Shows were about the future of food, materialism, work and sex, presented methods from futures studies like Delphi, S-Curves or Kondratieff-cycles. Unconventional approaches for work, about doping, aging or happiness were promoted and new terms coined like patchworklive and cyberdropout. All based on the idea that we invent our future and that everyone can use the appropriate tools from future studies for his or her personal life.

Adventure Future started 2006 as a German language podcast about future topics following these ideas. Soon it was the leading future podcast in Germany leading to lots of speaker engagements for me. As one of the pioneers in podcasting, I then was able to introduce the methods and technology of social media, enterprise 2.0 and Pod-/Videocasting to lots of companies. With partners, I implemented communities, Mobile-Learning-Platforms, E-Learning-Universities or new approaches to search and distribute knowledge about best practices. This is still my major working tool to open paths to the future.

The other part is in speaker assignments and future workshops, when the goal is for people to think in a different way, to shake up the people a little bit for good, to find new ways or get excited about the possibilities of the future. Either in business, in politics, in administration or in personal life.

Now, after five years of producing shows about the future in German language, Adventure Future starts again, in English (on iTunes). This blog is the home-base for it, delivering background material and discussions.