I have been doing a bit of reading on the current state of renewable energy or clean tech as the buzzword goes. One of the interesting areas of research within clean tech is the generation of electricity through an understanding of one of nature’s most potent phenomena - Photosynthesis.
There is of course the traditional area of photovoltaics which deals with the science and engineering of artificial devices such as solar cells. However, solar cells can still utilize only about 10-15% of the light energy as compared to the 98% utilization that nature has perfected over billions of years.
What about generating electricity directly from nature - say from a tree? I had this surreal hour long conversation with my good friend Babloo on this subject and then decided to do a bit of digging on the state of this particular question - is it possible to generate industrial grade electricity directly from within nature instead of through solar cell like devices?
Turns out it is! MagCap Engineering in Massachusetts recently revealed that they have developed circuitry that converts the natural energy from say, a tree, into useable DC power capable of sustaining a continuous current to charge and maintain a battery at full charge.
Some researchers are trying out different tricks including the oldest one - mimicking nature by creating artificial leaf-like systems from bio materials instead of silicon. Others such as Barry Bruce of the University of Tennessee are of the opinion that you can grow electricity within a natural setting - what he calls akin to growing a power plant in a green field.
I also stumbled upon the New Energy India group, a non-profit organization dedicated to the field of renewable energy in India - I hope to get in touch with them and find out more about interesting developments in this field in Bangalore, and India.
Via Outlook Business - a somewhat critical view of whether the Barcamp unconference phenomenon in India needs to revisit its entrepreneurial roots to avoid imploding upon itself.
A related article notes notes that events such as proto.in and headstart.in seem to be making more headway because they are more self-selective in nature:
My experience in organizing Dcamp Bangalore last year was that it is indeed difficult to get the balance between top down structuring (which you need a bit of to get the event off the ground) and bottom up collaboration (which is sort of the whole point).
That being said, I remain a firm believer that unconferences (even if somewhat directed) have the potential to start radical conversations, are a very democratic form of dialogue and are evolutionary and emergent in nature - which makes them much more interesting than top down events. Unless of course its something as interesting as the World Debating Championships : - )
Business Today recently released a BT-Monitor group study on India’s most ‘innovative’ companies. This is a timely study and it brings out some of the key areas in which Indian companies are innovating – unique distribution channels, customizations for first time consumers, lower cost product development, and in some cases, technology interventions.
However, I believe this study is incomplete and skewed because it fails to take into account two dimensions that are highly critical to innovation: Consumer Experience and Product/service differentiation through Design.
Consider similar lists released recently by Fortune and Business Week documenting the world’s most innovative companies.
Scanning across the names of the world’s top innovators what are the common threads you find? Is it simply low cost product development? (No- they all contract manufacture in China). Is it lower prices (No – companies like Whole Foods and Apple have significant markup)
No – what is truly common (or uncommon) to Apple, Whole Foods, Amazon, Starbucks and even once-stodgy technology giants like Cisco is their relentless pursuit to creating a compelling, integrated and delightful user experience for their end consumers. Not only how to streamline costs and operations but how to make their offerings resonate with customers’ deepest needs and desires.
Here’s how BW put it “Not so long ago, no conversation about innovation would be complete without the story of 3M inventor Art Fry’s eureka moment that led to the Post-it Note. Today, that tale, which verges on cliche, has been almost universally replaced by the story of the iPod, Apple’s omnipresent icon of design. It should come as little surprise, then, that Apple tops the BusinessWeek-Boston Consulting Group’s list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for the third year in a row. That sort of staying power speaks volumes about the sort of innovation that matters today. Unlike the Post-it Note, which proves the value of lone inventors, the iPod epitomizes today’s innovation sensibilities. These include the ascendance of design, the focus on the user’s experience, and the power of ecosystems….”
My conclusion – some if not many of the Indian firms that are being touted as ‘innovative’ as currently innovative simply because of a temporary cost benefit, a monopolistic market position, or deep pockets. These firms will struggle in years to come as Indian consumers and indeed global consumers become more and more demanding in the ‘experiences’ from these companies and their products and services.
Here is my pick of two sectors that may lose their ‘innovation’ edge unless they get their customer experience defined right, and soon.
1.Airlines – In this sector, consumer experience can range from frustrating to terrifying. Read some of the first hand accounts below on the rudeness, unprofessionalism and callousness of the service staff of some Indian airlines.
2.Banking – Untrained and unprofessional customer service reps, non-working ATMs over holiday weekends, long queues at bank centers, lousy ‘relationship managers’, spam calls – there is a litany of complaints against most Indian banks and the way they treat their customers.
To end things on a more positive note, I would say that the Telecom, FMCG and Automotive sectors have comparatively been showing much more initiative and maturity in defining good consumer experiences by optimizing the various touchpoints of the experience (pre-sales, sales, service, repeat sales). They also seem to have taken notice of the need for differentiating themselves based on design innovations (Think Swift and Scorpio, Airtel HelloTunes and mCheck payments, think Kurkure and Bingo)
Via Tom Stewart on the upcoming ISO 13407, a good article on the need to include the language of ‘user experience’ within existing usability standards. Mr. Stewart’s expansion to the ISO standard will define User Experience as ‘all aspects of the user’s experience when interacting with the product, service, environment or facility….a consequence of the presentation, functionality, system performance, interactive behaviour, and assistive capabilities of the interactive system….all aspects of usability and desirability of a product, system or service from the user’s perspective’.
I particularly liked the reference to the Apple Store in the article. I’ve used the Apple store as an example of stellar Customer Experience (not just individual user experience) in several of my presentations. Apple did so many things right - they followed the golden role of rapid, iterative prototyping (under the vision of Mickey Drexler and the smarts of Steve Jobs), they hired passionate Apple enthusiasts instead of the sorts of run of the mill floor staff you find at Best Buy or Walmart and they kept ‘live’ (Wifi/music/video enabled) products you could play with (which Nokia’s concept stores do a pretty tacky job of as far as I’m concerned) for as long as you want. The Apple store is a brilliant component of the Apple experience ecosystem.
All in all, the broadening of the ISO usability standard to ‘User Experience’ is a step in the right direction - Apple illustrates how user experience driven products and services can lead to significant market innovation. I hope more companies can learn from them without blindly imitating them.
