Method.com

About 11 months ago, I joined Method, a brand experience firm with a strong focus on design and technology that has built an excellent reputation over the last 10 years of delivering sometimes beautiful, sometimes innovative print, web, and other interactive projects for a wide-ranging client base. As I mentioned a few posts back, Method has launched our new website:

www.method.com

Check it out, and tell us what you think!

Not Enough? Doerr on Green Tech

KPCB is a remarkable organization. They have been incredibly effective at identifying, investing in, and cultivating truly revolutionary ideas over the past 30 years. I have worked within the KPCB family, at a low enough level not to be noticed conspicuously, but at a high enough level to have some visibility into how Kleiner does things. Fundamentally, the ability of KPCB to marshal talent to create markets and solve problems through innovation in technologies and services has been impressive. And in the past few years, Kleiner's increasing attention on "green tech" and questions of long term environmental sustainability has been a positive development - even if a $200M net investment is, to steal John Doerr's reprise, "not enough." Not that I'm really knocking the investment and, heck yes, I'd love to be involved in another Kleiner company tackling green tech problems..

So I was very curious to hear what Mr. Doerr, the talisman of Kleiner's success in the last fifteen years, had to say about green technology and our looming environmental problems. Mostly, I'd suggest that you watch the video, as I think it speaks for itself - and the message is clear: while many actors, from Wal-mart in reducing its energy footprint to Brazil shifting to biofuels, have been able to successfully innovate to mitigate their environmental impact, the scale of change is simply not big enough yet. And I whole-heartedly agree with that basic analysis.

Beyond that, I do have some comments:

- Doerr identifies four agents of change ("four lessons") that can be influenced by entrepreneurs: Companies, Individuals (i.e., Consumers), Policies, and Radical Innovation. While I agree with his implicit commentary, that the efforts of any given influential individual (i.e., TED audience member) might be best targeted at a company, a government policy, or invested in innovation, and not targeted at changing consumer behavior, I think that Doerr, and most of the policy makers, innovators, technocrats, and academics give short shrift for the need to change the behaviors of individuals, and the need to address individuals directly through politics and cultural dialogue. I'll come back to this;

- Doerr frames the market opportunity of addressing the world's energy crisis as a $6 trillion dollar market. I agree. This market is huge. I also firmly believe that market forces, and disruptive innovation to meet market needs can radically change both the supply side economics of meeting a market need and the demand side behaviors in creating that need. What I do find curious, however, is framing the energy market as the market that needs to be satisfied to address the world's sustainability crisis (or put another way, isn't sustainability a much bigger question than a looming energy crisis)? Isn't energy always an input to other goods and services? Like transportation, primary industrial processes, commercial and residential electricity, etc. Don't we need to start thinking about how to fundamentally change the dynamics of those markets, not just focus on how to more efficiently solve the energy supply question?

- Selling a vision is a key part of what any entrepreneur must do, particularly entrepreneurs trying to market disruptive technologies. Do we have a coherent vision of what a sustainable future might look like? What kind of house will I live in? What kind of car will I drive? What will the place that I live in look like? I think some of the symbolic examples that are drawn forth in the current conversation on green tech are useful in selling this vision: electric vehicles, biofuels, carbon markets. But do we have a coherent vision of what a sustainable future might look like? And are we effectively communicating that vision?

- At the end of his speech, Doerr urges his audience with a few calls to actions, exhorting them to "really think outside the box." His suggestions are all good: make going green "your gig," get carbon neutral (and buy carbon credits), join other leaders in lobbying for cap-and-trade systems for greenhouse gases, use your personal power or rolodex to "go green."

But what about the potentially most seismic change: consume less?

Why is this meme never engaged by the business, political, and academic leaders who claim to be serious thinkers about the environment?

Personally, I don't think it is either a naive conversation to engage, nor one that necessarily a compromise in quality of life or achievement. There are abundant reasons to believe that a less materially-driven life and culture will not only improve our ability to change market dynamics and address the salvo of "not enough," but will actually improve our quality of life, as well. But if our business and political leaders refuse to engage in this conversation, then the core dynamic driving the demand side of our market equations, and the A in our good old IPAT formulation, that dynamic will never change.

The New, New Thing by Michael Lewis

I am a fan of Michael Lewis the writer, from Liar's Poker and Moneyball and the occasional essay. I am a fan because stylistically, he is a simple, direct writer, observant and funny. But I am more a fan because thematically, Lewis engages topics like work, business culture, and sports, the substance of both life and dreams for so many people, myself included, and renders them with clarity, honesty, intelligence, and humor. Writing about work and business culture, Lewis treats it not just as a diminishing, soul-crushing exercise foisted upon us, but as occupation, something we do, and some of us, some times, with tenacity, zeal, and inspiration. He conveys jobs and entire industries truly as livelihoods, pulsing, consuming, informed by both biography and history. But with perspective throughout, chronicling his subject's mania with an offset balance of dry humor and an eye for the absurd.

That said, The New New Thing was an entertaining read, brisk, but not particularly insightful. Ostensibly chronicling the culture of entrepreneurship that drove the growth of Silicon Valley from the late 1970s through to the end of the 1990s, The New New Thing is basically a character study of Jim Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics and Netscape adorned with some half-drawn conclusions about character of entrepreneurship that was the spirit of the times. Jim Clark, as portrayed by Lewis, is an immensely interesting personality, and as much as business in the Valley is driven by cults of personality, I suppose it makes sense to latch on to that as anything else. It is disappointing, however that Lewis is not able to draw much by way of insight into what makes Silicon valley tick as a hot-bed of innovation, beyond a few obvious sentiments like technology is a young man's game, timing is everything, and California is a place where you can re-invent yourself.

I will transcribe one passage that I find modestly interesting:

[B]ack in 1921 [Thorstein] Veblen had predicted that engineers would one day rule in the U.S. economy. He argued that since the economy was premised on technology and the engineers were the only ones who actually understood how the technology worked, they would inevitably use their superior knowledge to seize power from the financiers and captains of industry who wound up on top at the end of the first round of the Industrial Revolution. After all, the engineers only needed to refuse to fix anything, and modern industry would grind to a halt. Veblen rejoiced at this prospect. He didn’t much care for financiers and captains. He thought they were parasites.
When I told Clark about Veblen, he did a good imitation of a man who was bored out of his skull. When he didn’t ant to seem too interested, he pretended he wasn’t paying attention. Now, his head splitting, he was particularly keen on the idea of the engineer grabbing power from the financier. “That’s happening right now,” he said. “Right here. In the Valley. The power is shifting to the engineers, who create the companies.”
That, Clark thought, was only as it should be.

Certainly a nice sentiment. Truer than before. yes. True, absolutely? Not yet. Thoughts?

Green Ambition

On my jaunt out to San Diego last week, I picked up a copy of Seed Magazine, which takes stylistic cues from Wired and other culture magazines, and applies them to the world of science, producing a sort of hipster-Scientific American, I guess. I've read the magazine a few times, and have generally found it to be decent. In the June 2007 issue, I was specifically drawn to the cover story, "The China Experiment," promising a detailed look into technology initiatives native to China focused on improving the environment. While the article contained a couple of interesting facts (15 of the top 20 cities on the World Bank's assessment of "most polluted cities" are in China), a number of quoted platitudes ("It's historic," says Kishan Khoday, head of the UNDP's energy and environment program in China. "It's going to take efforts on all angles of the issue to get it done"), by and far the most interesting parts were the anecdotes of specific initiatives that have been undertaken to green China, sometimes in unique ways. For example:

"For the Olympics, a designated weather modifciation office will reduce air and ground pollution before the Games by shooting rockets filled with silver iodide into the sky to make rain. Beijing's Science and Technology Department has been experimenting with hormone therapy and cross-breeding to produce flowers that can withstand a Beiging August. "I'm sure that during those three weeks it will be crystal-clear in Beijing," energy analyst [Jim] Brock says. "They're playing with all sorts of things."

A weather machine? It's the sheer audacity of the project that is both terrifying and encouraging. Perhaps when they focus their energy on climate change or clean energy production. On a less sinister note, the article also mentions the growth of market for locally-implemented solar power solutions - where in villages and small cities with inconsistent grids, local entrepreneurs have seized a market opportunity to create stores like the "Solar Supermarket" dealing in solar generators, heaters, and cookers that provide cleaner energy to poorer populations.

On a separate note, CNN.com carried a story today about Google.org announcing an initiative to develop plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that would far out-pace current standards for mgp. While it seems doubtful that even $10 million is sufficient to make a dent in the problem, Google's commitment to innovation in new problem spaces continues to impress. More over, the dual focus on technology innovation and thinking about new ways of addressing the market are also very encouraging:

Google said Tuesday it is getting in on the development of electric vehicles, awarding $1 million in grants and inviting applicants to bid for another $10 million in funding to develop plug-in hybrid electric vehicles capable of getting 70 to 100 miles per gallon.

The project, called the RechargeIT initiative and run from Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org, aims to further the development of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles - cars or trucks that have both a gasoline engine and advanced batteries that recharge by plugging into the nation's electric grid.

"Since most Americans drive less than 35 miles per day, you easily could drive mostly on electricity with the gas tank as a safety net," Dan Reicher, director of Climate and Energy Initiatives for Google.org, wrote on the organization's Web site. "In preliminary results from our test fleet, on average the plug-in hybrid gas mileage was 30-plus mpg higher than that of the regular hybrids."

The project also aims to develop vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology, allowing cars to sell their stored power back to the nation's electricity grid during times of peak demand.

Wanting Less, Needing More

I spent the weekend in Santa Clara, attending TIECon 2007. TIECon is the annual conference of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE), a global networking association primarily for technology entrepreneurs from the South Asian diaspora. Due largely to the success that Indian entrepreneurs (I'll use Indian as politically insensitive shorthand for South Asian) have had, and particularly in Silicon Valley, the conference was able to host panels and keynotes comprised of a who's who of Silicon Valley tech all-stars, including Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com, Vinod Khosla of KPCB and Khosla Ventures, Matt Cohler of Facebook.com, Meg Whitman of eBay, etc., etc.

While I wasn't able to attend the conference wire-to-wire, I did sit in on a number of keynotes and panels, mostly choosing to focus on mobile and alternative energy. Lots of interesting stuff I'll deep-dive into further in future posts.

Among the notable trends was the excitement and focus that the conference paid to opportunities in alternative technologies, including a keynote by Vinod Khosla touting biofuels and solar thermal arrays (see slides here) and a panel moderated by Ajit Nazre of KPCB in which a number of exciting green technologies were discussed, including representatives from NanoSolar, Amyris Biotechnologies, and Tesla Motors.

The panel was of particular interest to me, as it brought together five very prominent entrepreneurs who are actively trying to build successful companies in the alternative energy space. I was pleased to hear a well-moderated and very candid and thoughtful exchange which highlighted the difficulties of innovating in the clean tech space (due to long cycles of innovation vis-a-vis information technologies, up-front sunken investments in excess of $20-30M to get a business of the ground, and uncertainties in both technology innovation and the structure of the marketplace), the interplay between technology and entrepreneurial drivers of innovation and the important role of policy in helping to internalize external costs and create the transparent prices and costs in the market, and the passion and moral perspective that many of the entrepreneurs brought to their ventures, above and beyond their belief that an open market opportunity existed, on which they could capitalize.

All of this was very exciting to hear, but one consistent and vexing problem always remains unaddressed when business people discuss potential solutions to environmental concerns. The problem arises because innovation, either in core technologies or in business processes, when driven by entrepreneurs, requires a market in which demand, and strong demand, exists. Demand for their products, be they energy, new housing materials, alternative vehicles, or whatever, is necessary in order to create and sustain a market-driven engine for innovation.

And while this is not inherently bad, and in general, most likely an accurate reflection of a consumerist society, it fails to leave much of an opportunity for the idea that consuming may be a key factor in addressing environmental problems. Consuming less is not, in general, an outcome that is well-supported by markets, by capitalist systems, or by entrepreneurial societies. Consuming less then becomes an ethical question, relegated to academia and the fuzzy world of non-profits. The question that I am left with, then, is how to inject this thought into the entrepreneurial debate. Can it be a part of the conversation? And if so, at whom should the question of Should we consume less? be aimed?

Would be interested if any other folks had thoughts on this, and I will try to uncover some better examples of how the ethic of consuming modestly has been injected into commercial discussions successfully. Until then, the best I can leave you with is Bill McDonough's excellent Cradle to Cradle, which should be read by all business students, in my opinion.