Day: October 28, 2007

I am a self-professed news junkie. I am one of those people that psychologists worry about – the ones who remain glued to their seats watching hour after hour of CNN or MSNBC, unable to tear themselves away from the screen depicting all of the misery and violence happening around the world. Some people may think this obsession, like most obsessions is unhealthy. I like to think of myself as abnormally aware of what’s happening in the world.

60 Minutes and CBS Sunday Morning are two of my favorite shows. It’s my dream to be one of the people that hunts around for obscure oddities in the world, reporting back to the rest of the world on how these seemingly unimportant events really have impact on our lives. For now, I’m just on the sidelines of my couch, feeding my inner nerd.

Tonight was no exception. Having my date cancel at the last minute, disappointing though sadly not surprising given his career choice that forces him to work insane hours, I was happily in my home watching 60 minutes over a bowl of comfort food.

Do you ever wonder exactly where your food comes from and all of the steps that went into getting it to your plate? Bees. That’s the answer in almost every case. 60 Minutes is reporting about the decimation of the honey bee population in America, and now I am as worried about that as I am about melting polar ice caps and the little penguins in South Africa who have had their population cut to 1/8 its size in 10 years. (This penguin story was reported early on the evening news with Lester Holt.)

Part of being an environmentalist is that you are a nervous wreck over the state of our planet. If you think about it too much, you truly could become paralyzed by the enormity of the problem. It turns out that there is a step-child industry of bee keepers who rent out their beehives all across the country. 40,000 bees to a hive. And they are the sole reason we even have fruits and vegetable in this country. It takes 30 trips by bees to a single flower per season to make a pumpkin grow. 30 per pumpkin! The unemployment rate of bees is a negative number. Probably a negative triple digit number.

60 Minutes interviewed a honey bee farmer who’s family has been in this business for 50 years. He’s been visiting his hives around the country and many of them have deserted their hives. Gone. Destroyed. There’s honey inside the hives, and even other bees not associated with the hive won’t come anywhere near it. The eggs and larve have been abandoned, a practice very atypical of honey bees. And there are no dead bees anywhere in sight. A scientist who studies honey bees says that the environment is contaminating the hives, driving the bees out. Normally honey bees can find their way back to their uniquely-scented hive within a two mile radius. They aren’t getting lost – they are running away.

This poor honey bee farmer has lost 80% of his bee population, and has spent $100’s of $1000’s of dollars replacing the bees. And he is not alone – honey bee farmers all over the country are experiencing the same problem. No one knows what’s going on and no one knows what to do.

So while we may be celebrating the mild weather we’ve had all fall, I am very worried. Our planet is going through an unnaturally frightening time. In a very real sense, if these bees go, our produce will be sky-high in cost, if not non-existent. So while we may think that the smallest creatures are unimportant when compared to us all-important humans, we need to be more thoughtful about our inter-dependency. In reality, we need the bees much more than they need us.

There is a tendency in life, though particularly in business, to covet ideas, research, and innovations. R&D of any kind, personal or professional, is often kept under lock and key for fear someone may steal our brilliance. It’s hard to make a counter argument, or at least it has been in the past. We are a people obsessed with patents and lawsuits.

However, there is a movement afoot, and there has been for a number of years, to make it passe to covet intellectual property. This movement takes the mantra that “information wants to be free.” And the mantra is spreading. Put the New York Times on-line for everyone to see all of the content free, make wireless available for all, everywhere. And if you are working on an innovative concept, share it and you will be amazed by how much your concept will improve as a result of outside input. And your concept, will inspire the creativity of others.

My boss is bolted into the innovation and design worlds, having spent most of his life fiddling around with ideas, concepts, and cool “stuff”. He has attended and spoken at innovation conferences with some of the greatest minds of our times, some you know and some you’ve never heard of. Their insights are too good to keep to myself and sadly aren’t covered well by mainstream media. So I’m doing my part to spread the world.

Have a look at the following sites and the podcasts of speakers, and you’ll have a tough time not be innovative, regardless of your field:

The trend curve gives us a way to measure how life’s going, and its greatest value is in giving us questions to ask ourselves to evaluate the current state of what we’re trying to chart. I’ve been looking for a tool like this to think about the state of this very abstract idea of progress in life. It grounds the conversation for us, helps us make the choices more palpable, and gives us a historical context for consideration.

The piece it’s missing in the reinvention arrow, the one that connects “post-peak” with “incoming”. The curve makes it look as if there everything we are trying to chart will ultimately fade away into oblivion. This is not true so long as what we’re charting can be remade, refreshed, or repurposed. Arguably, everything we are trying to chart has taken the roller-coaster ride of the trend curve many times before. Everything we have has already been.

I was waiting for my friend, Monika, so we could take a walk in the Central Park today (the weather has finally turned to autumn in NYC) and stopped into the Starbucks on the corner to grab a hot apply cider. Upon entering I saw a sign that intrigued me: “Embrace insomnia.” This is what I’ve been saying all along to my fellow insomniacs! And to help you out, Starbucks has created a safe haven for us by being open 24 hours. Incredible. Genius.

In their recruiting efforts, Starbucks has placed posters of real baristas in windows who describe why they love working for Starbucks so much. If you’ve got a captive audience waiting in line, why not try to convince them to lend their expertise on the other side of the counter? Logical, yet innovative.

Starbucks has become known for their groovy tunes, and in partnership with itunes, they now help promote music in their shops by having baristas pick a song of the day, and making it possible to always know who’s singing the song that’s currently playing, and download it direct from itunes with the click of a button. Oh, and in cooperation with T-mobile, wireless Internet is free. Brilliant integration and partnership.

I’m waiting in line to get my cider, and the book The Kite Runner catches my eye. Attractively displayed, Starbucks is promoting the book and the movie. This is alongside their terrific gift assortment as well as the exclusive new release of Joni Mitchell’s album.

Now that I’ve just spent close to $3 for a cup of heated up apply cider, I head over to what I’ll call the accouterments bar to put some extra cinnamon in it and I have an array of well-designed literature in front of me: social responsibility pamphlet, t Mobile hotspot, Starbucks retail careers, and comment cards (mail it in without even having to put a stamp on it). Now I not only enjoy my beverage, I feel fantastic, even self-righteous, about having purchased it.

Why would you ever leave – hot drinks, food, books, music, a comfortable seat, a job, and a celebration of an illness that has kept me awake for most of my adult life. This is exactly the point….the longer you’re here, the more you’ll spend. Starbucks has laid waste to the idea that your core business is your only business. Arguably, they’ve switched the paradigm of retail. I’m not visiting for the product – I’m there for the atmosphere that only they can create for me. Talk about competitive advantage! I wonder how they’d feel about me setting up a cot in the corner.