May 2008 Archives

Single-Era Conjecture

By Aaron Hurst on May 19, 2008 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Randall Stross made the conjecture yesterday in the New York Times that there is an "invisible law that makes it impossible for a company in the computer business to enjoy prominence that spans two technological eras."  He points out that the crown changed hands every 10-20 years going from IBM to Lotus to Microsoft to Google.  The latest was a transition from the personal computing era to the online era.  Most firms are built on a single insight and are not able to also be the source of a second insight of the same magnitude that would enable them to maintain the crown.

Just as some suggest that your taste in fashion freezes once you have kids, perhaps the ability for an organization to innovate freezes once it has birthed its "killer application."  Or, perhaps it is just up to each generation to have their breakthrough, and each organization is forever linked to the generation of its founders.

As I read Stross' article, I wondered if this "single-era conjecture" applies only to technology companies or if it can be applied to other sectors that are driven by innovation.  The social sector, for example, is largely driven by innovation.  As I look at the field of volunteerism, I see a similar trend.

It started with the creation of Volunteer Centers that had the historic insight that volunteering needs to be coordinated at a regional level so that would-be volunteers and nonprofits had a destination to connect. This was coordinated at a national level by Bush's Points of Light Foundation.

Then emerged the Hands on Network (AKA Cares Network) which had the insight that with Generation X there was a need for not only a connection point, but structured volunteer activities based on the lifestyle of a busy and demanding generation.

The online era brought Volunteer Match, an organization with the insight that the Volunteer Center value proposition could be made much more cost effective and scalable by moving it online.

As is often the case with early innovators who are no longer defining the innovation curve, the former two organizations have merged to become more cost effective and relevant in a quickly evolving market place much as Lotus and IBM did many years back.  They will continue to struggle to generate innovation given the operational legacy they must manage and their founding on core insights that are no longer at the cutting edge of market place demand.  As with most post-innovation organizations, they are now market-driven and not insight driven.  This is an important role in the marketplace and will likely keep them in an important role for years to come.

There is no clear next prominent player to take the crown.  Volunteer Match, the most recent innovator, is searching for its second insight and starting to become more market driven than innovation driven.

Most of the exciting new innovation I see is niche-focused and based on insights about a specific demographic:
- One Brick had the insight that singles want a way to volunteer that explicitly incorporates a social aspect so they can meet new people;
- Civic Ventures had the insight that Boomers need custom programs to meet their needs going into retirement;
- The Taproot Foundation had the insight that we need to add volunteer skills into the mix to harness a lot of the potential value.

It is unlikely that any of these insights will generate a new crown, and the programs of each are already nearly 10 years old.  These are niche insights that are profound, but perhaps not large enough to be the next "Google" of volunteerism.

The Google in the field of volunteerism will be the organization that can determine on a national scale how to harness volunteerism towards a specific and measurable end that changes the nature of core social issues like education and the environment.  It will likely do this based on a new insight that is based on the learning from previous innovators, but it will make an assumption that predecessors have not yet imagined that will make the impossible possible.

There is now talk of this goal across the country, but I have not seen the key insight that will make it work yet.  It is the billion dollar question in the field.

Nation Divided

By Aaron Hurst on May 12, 2008 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I recently finished Richard Florida's new book - "Who's Your City?". He describes demographic trends that are concentrating the majority of creative class and knowledge workers in a very small number of mega regions that are all on the coasts (Boston - DC corridor, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles and Seattle).  He predicts that these mega regions are magnets for talent and the rest of country will continue to drain talent to these areas.  This has paradigm shifting implications for philanthropy and pro bono service.

We are now accustomed to having economic diversification within regions.  Cities have wealthy, middle class and poor neighborhoods.  There can be a self-contained philanthropic ecosystem (money, knowledge workers and need).

This will always be the case to some degree as there is a need for a local service labor force.  That said, if his predictions are accurate the ecosystem will be turned on its head.  Wealth and knowledge will be concentrated in these regions with much smaller local community need.  Other parts of the country will find a large concentration of need and little wealth or knowledge worker base to meet it.  For those in the mega regions, quality of life will continue to rise and for the rest it will continue fall.

Based on what I read and have experienced, this prediction seems likely. 

The most likely reason this tide would reverse would be that the mega regions become so wealthy that artists and other key parts of the desired culture of a creative class mega region are turned off by the homogeneity and cost of living. They start to resettle in Alabama, Oklahoma and Arizona where it is more "authentic" and affordable.  The challenge, as Florida points out, is that these other regions have distinct personalities that are not based on open mindedness but rather status quo and authority.  It would take a large infusion of pioneering creative class professionals to turn the culture in these regions to make them hospitable.  It is hard to change the personality of a place as it requires changing the personality of a lot of people.

If we accept that this shift will continue and America will become divided, we then need to determine how to build the infrastructure to support this bi-furcated nation.  This will likely be much like the current effort to lobby wealthy Americans to direct some of their philanthropy overseas.  To many in New York and San Francisco, a nonprofit in Alabama may be as foreign as one in India. Many of the most successful international fundraising efforts are centered on philanthropic tourism and education via the media (e.g. Room to Read).  This may be the same in our new divided American reality.  We will need to convince a graphic designer to do a new logo for a nonprofit in North Dakota.  This is no easy task.

Strategic Corporate Philanthropy

By Jamie Hartman on May 9, 2008 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is an inspiring message from Bill Gates - it is in perfect alignment with the goals of the Pro Bono Action Tank.

'Strategic Corporate Philanthropy'
By BILL GATES
FROM TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL ASIA
May 8, 2008

How important is access to information technology? A World Bank report released earlier this year found a very high correlation between the rate of technology progress and income growth. It said: "Technological progress [distinguishes] fast-growing developing economies and slow growing ones. It also distinguishes economies that have made great strides in reducing poverty and those that have been less successful."

At Microsoft, we share the belief that information technology can have a dramatic positive effect on people's lives. We also believe that one of the best ways to accelerate the speed of technology adoption is through close partnerships between the public sector and the private sector.

Public-private partnerships make it possible to multiply the impact that a single organization or company could hope to achieve working alone. They combine public sector organizations' knowledge of local communities with private companies' technical expertise and implementation experience. As a result, these partnerships can develop and deploy effective information technology solutions that solve specific challenges with much greater speed.

The notion that businesses have a responsibility to promote the public good by supporting the work of nonprofit and governmental organizations is not new, of course. The late 1940s and early 1950s saw companies such as Ford, Western Electric and Philip Morris form foundations to manage corporate giving.

But much of this activity centered exclusively on financial support. Today, the value of corporate involvement lies as much in expertise as it does in monetary support. This shift is due in part to efforts by a number of United Nations agencies in the late 1990s to look for new ways to work with corporations to help address major global health issues.

The rise of this so-called "strategic corporate philanthropy" is an important step forward. When a company like Microsoft is in a position to provide not just money, but also the expertise and experience to help an organization use technology to achieve its goals more quickly and more effectively, it can speed the pace and scale of progress.

Take the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's program to create a set of global technology competency standards for teachers. The goal is to ensure that teachers have the training and materials to provide students with the technology skills they will need to participate in the global knowledge economy. Three major corporations -- Microsoft, Intel and Cisco -- helped shape the program, thanks to a shared belief that a technically literate workforce is an essential ingredient for sustainable economic growth.

Across Asia, public-private partnerships are playing an important role in creating new economic opportunities. In South Korea, the Ministry of Information and Communication has worked in close partnership with the private sector for nearly 15 years to build a national technology industry. Today, South Korea is a global leader in information and communications technologies.

The ultimate goal is to support the development of local economies that have the infrastructure and skilled work force needed to create sustainable growth. My hope is that this will help increase the number of people who have the tools and knowledge to participate in the digital revolution from one billion to two billion and beyond. As this happens and more people join the global knowledge economy, they will spur further innovations that address difficult issues faced by so many people around the world.

This, more than anything, will be the key to creating a world where everyone can expect to lead long, healthy, productive and fulfilling lives.

Mr. Gates is chairman of Microsoft Corporation.