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This session was called, “FAILURE: Pathway to Success”
Bill Taylor, Author, “Mavericks at Work”
Bill had some intervening thoughts on the next series of storytellers. He mentioned the recent interview Charlie Rose did with Warren Buffet as being very worthwhile. He recalled Buffet’s 3 I’s: the innovators, the imitators, the idiots.
Richard Satava, Professor of Surgery, University of Washington Medical Center and Senior Science Advisor, US Army Medical Research and Material Command
Richard had interesting insights about DARPA, most importantly that it funds very far reaching ideas which it can do because it also gives projects permission to fail. He said if you really wanted to fund an innovation, you would cut out a chunk of money and leave the innovator alone for 5 years and see what they come up with. As soon as you micromanage them or make them account for things, they can’t be innovative. Most companies can’t do this, but DARPA can. Richard also talked about where most new technologies and prototypes fail: in between government funding cutoffs and before commercialization (too advanced for government funding and yet not ready for the market). VCs enter at that point to take up the slack.
To finish up, Richard talked about our “posthuman future” (also a book by Francis Fukuyama). He talked about how biotechnology is the next revolution, which is already starting and may be more transformative than the information revolution. He talked about a new definition of suspended animation through hibernation, replaceable organs, living for 200 years, and using biotechnology to produce all the things we need through agriculture. Richard also said there will be serious ethical issues involved in our innovated future.
Dave Kusek, Vice President, Berklee Media, Berklee College of Music
Dave spoke about the history and the future of the music industry. It’s been much longer than there HASN’T been a middle man between the musician and the patron. We are getting actually closer back to that model, but it’s technology that has really changed the industry. Now, the technology companies are the ones who have the power in the market. So where are we going next? We’re going towards artists building their own brands, without the record company deal. New artists might instead be broken by a brand (nike, pepsi) or a TV show. We’re also moving toward clothing and jewelry that play music. According to Dave, It’s never been a better time to be a musician, but the relationship between the artist and the listeners is what is really important. Today, smart managers for artists are more important than record labels. Artist-based management companies are what we will see in the future.
Steve Bendt & Gary Koelling, Founders of Best Buy’s Blue Shirt Nation.
Everything good that came out of Blue Shirt Nation was an accident. Best Buy now has 24,000 employees in the BSN, all voluntary. They created a place for employees to voice their concerns and created a channel to give management a feedback loop from an otherwise distributed network. You can’t run a huge company as a democracy, but what happened was a conversation. It was an “ah-ha” moment when the company realized they could also harvest additional value from the 160,000 people they employ. What’s new here is that there is a new value in trust (trust through transparency) versus the value of power. It is allowing Best Buy to build a company based on mutual respect.
