Scan Monthly No. 043September 2006 |
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Signals of Change
Successful Failures
SoC195
Companies are discovering that fast, inexpensive failures provide valuable lessons and help the companies learn to leverage risk effectively in today's fast-paced, competitive business environment. Too much success can also breed complacency and mask flaws that eventually lead to disaster.
Humans as Ecosystems
SoC196
Adult human bodies reportedly contain ten times more microbial cells than human cells, and the collective genome, or microbiome, of human intestinal microorganisms contains at least 100 times as many genes as the human genome. The more we learn about the human body, the more it looks to be part of a complex ecosystem than an insular, homogeneous organism.
The Singularity Debate
SoC197
Ray Kurzweil is predicting a technological singularity™an exponential speeding up of technological development based upon synergies among a number of technologies, including artificial intelligence, digital computation, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. His prediction is generating a constructive debate that is producing insights valuable to businesses considering the future.
Knowing Your Customers
SoC198
Despite the availability of an astonishing array of market-research techniques and productdevelopment tools, companies often still fail to develop an in-depth understanding of their customers' needs. How many cell-phone companies know that kids use cell phones for text messaging under the covers after going to bed at night?
Corporate Architectures of Participation
SoC199
In the quest to stimulate idea generation, spur innovation, aid in the research and development of new products and services, and contribute insights on new business models and customer behavior, companies frequently overlook a valuable resource: their own employees. New corporate architectures of participation are helping companies shape more creative corporate cultures.
Human Experience and Virtual Worlds
SoC200
In 1936, philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote an essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Has the appropriate time arrived for an essay, "The Human Experience in the Age of Virtual-World Reproduction"?
Insights
| The Real-World Effects of Virtual Worlds | View full summary |
| D06-2536 | Download this Insight |
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The human propensity for categorizing, labeling, and judging frequently leads people into false distinctions or, at the very least, oversimplifications. The distinction that most people draw between the real world of physical objects and virtual worlds consisting of bits and bytes of computer information is an example of a distinction that is becoming more and more difficult to pin down with time. As the capabilities of computers, networks, software, and sensors continue to advance at a rapid pace, the virtual worlds made of bits and bytes are increasingly impinging on the real world. The gradual conflation of real and virtual worlds is the result of a gradual evolution that is transforming digital computing technologies from technologies for calculation to technologies for simulation. Author: Kermit M. Patton. 12 pages. |
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| Scan™ Meeting Digest: 23 August 2006 Meeting | View full summary |
| D06-2537 | Download this Insight |
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This document is a digest of the Scan™ abstract clusters that participants in the 23 August 2006 Scan meeting identified. The digest includes a description of the Scan process for people who have never attended a Scan meeting, a list of the clusters that meeting participants identified, and a one-page description of each cluster's premise and supporting abstracts. The document has active links that allow the reader to access the supporting abstracts for each cluster in Scan's online abstract database. The document also has links to previously published Scan documents relating to the particular cluster. Clusters of abstracts for this August meeting include carbon miracle materials, the pending creativity explosion, lurching forward on global warming, weaning society from traditional energy, Moore's law kills Moore's followers, toward a virtual business lab, video truthiness, stay-at-home husbands, new energy superpowers, homo medicus, augmented micro work, augment and enhance to stay human, the body digital, and nontraditional ad targets. Compiler: Martin Schwirn. 39 pages. |
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Calendar
Scan™ Abstract Meetings
Scan abstract meetings (in which SRIC-BI [now SBI] staff participate in a free-form discussion of current Scan abstracts) are open for client observation/participation on:
- 18 October 2006 at 9:00 am
- 24 January 2007 at 9:00 am
- 21 March 2007 at 9:00 am
- 23 May 2007 at 9:00 am
- 18 July 2007 at 9:00 am
- 19 September 2007 at 9:00 am.