Project 10 to the 100

Hippo Morph by Aizxana on Deviant Art

Google wants us to change the world and is willing to pay $10million for the best ideas.  A great example of a very simple idea that appears on the Youtube video on the competition web page and which neatly fits in with the animal theme that seems to be appearing on this blog, is the 'Hippo Roller' a rolling cannister that allows villagers (mainly in Africa) to more easily transport fresh water.

Coincidently this week we have been given a number of interesting lectures by Dr. Eyþór Ívar Jónsson of the Copenhagen Business School on techniques for idea generation and opportunity recognition.  Two particularly interesting techniques were mind mapping (FreeMind is free software for doing this, see also Imindi a social network based upon mind maps - currently in Beta) and Blue Ocean strategy.  Over the next few days I will be uploading the mind maps I have created to see if I can find an area in which there is an opportunity to change the world and then attempt to use a Blue Ocean Strategy to map the current state of affairs within that field and how they might be changed to create a new idea - hopefully to change the world...

Gorgeous Birds in Sweden

Beautiful, exotic, rarely seen outside her natural habitat are all words you might reasonably hear someone say when describing a beautiful bird from Sweden but how about Short, dark hair, kind of chubby, round face with a red beak...maybe not but thanks to a new site Birdpost.com, which was launched today at the TechCrunch50 Conference, not only can I go out and find an elusive Swedish bird but I can let everyone know where I had the encounter and add it to my life list of 'conquests'.

The presentation these guys gave absolutely blew me away, they along with a soon to be loyal following of 'birders' or 'twitchers' (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birdwatching  for an explanation of terms) are creating an encyclopedia of bird sightings (using satellite mapping) and a social network for birdwatchers to brag about the birds they've had encounters with.

Having spent numerous hours during my undergraduate degree working on research projects on birds (I wrote a groundbreaking report on 'the evolutionary history of handedness of Australian parrots and 'sexual dimorphism in Sooty Oystercatchers' I love these birds checkout Birdpost to see where you can see them for yourself) with Professors who are avid 'twitchers' and came to realise just how addictive and rewarding it can be.

Birdpost.com combines entrepreneurship and principles of wikinomics to reach a niche market which is apparently worth $US32billion.  But more importantly, the potential of this site as an educational tool for universities, and as a means of researching and promoting conservation is enormous and the platform could be expanded to map mammals, reptiles and plants.  I have been inspired by this site and my mind is racing with ideas (if anyone from Birdpost is reading this please get in touch with me).

I have already signed up and will keep you all updated (with pictures) on my encounters with rare, exotic and beautiful Swedish birds :-)

The Evolution of the Heffalump...

My Heffalump - created using Spore

Next year will mark the 150^th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's seminal work The Origin of Species which details the theory of evolution by natural selection and which continues to be heralded as one of the most powerful ideas in history so what better way to kick off a blog that will following the thoughts and ideas that will hopefully evolve into a successful business than to consider evolutionary theory and its application to the generation of business ideas.

In our first lecture Hans Landström compared defining entrepreneurship to trying to define the Heffalump from Winnie the Pooh 

"...a rather large and important animal. He has been hunted by many individuals using various trapping devices, but no one so far has succeeded in capturing him. All who claim to have caught sight of him report that he is enormous, but disagree on his particulars."

To me the Heffalump represents the entrepreneurs idea, an organism which in the entrepreneurs mind is 'a rather large and important animal' but in reality is more like a tiny fish at the bottom of the food chain, whose species is on the brink of extinction.  The survival of this Heffalump and the fulfiment of its evolutionary potential to become the 'large and important' animal it should be depends not on the survival of any one single trait that the Heffalump possesses but on the survival of the Heffalum as a species, the entrepreneur must be able to recognise mutations of the Heffalump that give it a competive advantage in the market place and avoid those that make it susceptible to predators. Sexual selection will also play a vital role, the Heffalump should preferentially mate with other Heffalumps that have desirable traits - mates with money, power, skills and influence will all play an important role along the evolutionary timeline...

Interestingly (if you are kind of a biology/tech nerd and let's face it, if you are still reading this post you must be....) a new game called Spore in which you create an organism and guide it along a treacherous evolutionary path in order to reach its greatest potential is being released by Electronic Arts  this week.  The game's has been tested and praised by evolutionary biologists at Yale University although with the proviso that it greatly simplifies the evolutionary process (see the New York Times Article).  Whether the game accurately represents evolution or not, it certainly represents an entrepreneurial use of Darwin's work, most probably one that will sell many more copies than Darwin's original book!

The creature creation software, which allows anyone to create their Heffalump  with limitless variations is available as a free download from the Electronic Arts website, a move which was praised on the excellent Wikinomics Blog here.  The blog will follow the creation of my own Heffalump; will it be successful?  Stay tuned....