coverage. Rethinking wi-fi based on much smaller and frequent transmitters in urban areas is one option, popular in dense cities like Seoul and Tokyo. Meanwhile Chamtech have developed a more radical solution – spray-on wi-fi – a liquid containing millions of nano-capacitors, that can be sprayed onto any surface, like clothes and cars, creating local, satellite-enabled, hotspots wherever people are.
Air travel is expected to double in the next decade, according to IATA, driven by the demand of emerging middle classes. Significantly more efficient planes will be needed, to reduce time, costs and emissions. Slovenian aircraft maker Pipistrel has developed an electric aircraft that also benefits from smarter navigation systems that allow it to find shorter routes, sensing thermal flows and negotiating complex paths. Meanwhile NASA has developed a twin-cylinder engine that can be mounted at the back of the plane, thereby requiring 50 % less fuel and significantly reducing noise too.
Gadget-mad people are always looking for power sockets. And the biggest component in the devices is usually the battery. Miniaturized capture of solar power will transform gadgets. They will use micro-batteries mimicking photosynthesis, using metal oxides heated by the sun, to split sea water into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen, clean and abundant, could then power a whole array of micro-machines, from the next generation phones to nano-tech medical implants.
The sun really is our best source of energy. It's obvious really, but we haven't yet been able to harness the obvious. Desert wastelands soak up more energy in six hours than the world uses in a year. Desertec seeks to harness that potential with hundreds of square miles of wind and solar plants feeding the world's electric grids with clean cheap and reliable solar power provided it can get nations working together: 90 % of the world lives within 1800 miles of a desert, and 1300 square miles of Saharan desert, for example, could power 20 % of Europe. It could transform the fortunes of Africa as well as solve the world's fossil fuel crisis.
PLAYING A DIFFERENT GAME
In the 1968 Mexico Olympics, Dick Fosbury stood alongside his competitors, no taller or fitter than all the other fine athletes. But he had a significant advantage. He thought differently. Whilst every other competitor followed the conventions established over the years, that a high jump involved straddling the bar feet first, Fosbury tried a different approach, leaping backwards over the bar. The biomechanical explanations would come later, all that Fosbury knew or cared about was that he had out-thought his competitors, and won gold.
20 years later Nicolas Hayek, a Lebanese-born Swiss actuary, was asked by a group of bankers to oversee the liquidation of two traditional watch-making firms who were in turmoil due to competition from Japanese manufacturers like Seiko. Instead he reorganized the businesses and acquired a young start-up brand called Swatch, who made cheap, plastic watches from minimal parts. He rapidly scaled the business, focusing on the potential of plastic for colour and design. The Swatch brand did not seek to emulate other watch-makers, but instead to be in the fashion business. ‘Why buy one watch, when you can have three or four, a different colour for each outfit?'
Ten years later, Jeff Bezos, a Cuban American, left behind his job as vice president of a Wall Street investment bank and headed for the West Coast, with little more than his car he drove, with his wife alongside him. He could see how the internet was starting to change industries and consumers' lives. A year later he launched Amazon from a garage in Bellevue, just outside Seattle. Within two months he was selling $20,000 of books a week. He dubbed it the world's first online bookstore, choosing the name Amazon because it started with an A and sounded a little exotic and different. Innovation for Bezos is about ‘1000 small ideas coming together to change the world'. Over the last two decades he has achieved that, building the world's largest retailer.
The opportunities for change are all around us, what it takes is people. People who are prepared to do things differently, to put their hands up and say they believe there is a better way, and to start making it happen.
HOW WILL YOU CHANGE THE GAME?
Entrepreneurs are natural gamechangers. They have chosen to play their own game, driven by ambition and uninhibited by function or hierarchy. Large businesses have advantages too, assets to apply in new ways, existing brands and customer bases on which to build. Gamechangers can be anyone, business leaders or strategists, innovators or marketers, somebody on a shop floor or in a call centre. They can change the game because they think differently.
Gamechangers typically innovate in one or more of the following dimensions – the why, who, what and how – of the whole business, or any part of it. They might apply this thinking to the business strategy, but it could also apply to a brand or service experience, leadership style or organization process.
• Change the ‘why' (the purpose, application or benefit) – for example, from maximizing profits to enhancing people's lives, from being the biggest to being the best, from enabling communication to providing entertainment. When Coca-Cola changed its purpose from the more functional ‘refreshment' to more emotional ‘happiness' it was able to engage people much more deeply.
• Change the ‘who' (the geography, customer or context) – for example, from ‘home' markets to selected markets worldwide, targeting older people rather than everyone, or women, or a different decision maker in a company. When Fiat 500 changed its target audience from low-cost owners to funky young things, it stepped out of its old peer group, and became affordable, urban fashion.
• Change the ‘what' (the category, product or experience) – for example, combining products to solve problems, personalizing products on demand, offering 24/7 service, making the experience fun, or extending to support people in their application. When Rapha realized it was not its clothing but togetherness that mattered to cyclists, it opened cafés and became the cult place to hang out.
Change Compass
• Change the ‘how' (the business model, service style or participation) – for example, from transactional pricing to membership fees, prices that change by time of day, reduced price in return for new ideas, or sold through new types of partners. When Zipcars wanted to be different, it didn't charge per week like other car rental companies, but created a membership club and then charged a much smaller fee per minute and mile.
The four dimensions are a simple compass by which to stretch your thinking. Some of the best innovations change in more than one dimension, or even all of them. Gamechangers then need to think about how they turn their disruptive ideas into a practical strategy for business success – what it means in terms of market and brand, innovation and marketing, business model and customer experience, resources and metrics. But all of this comes later, and often flows easier, once you have found a big, inspiring idea.
BE A REALITY DISTORTION FIELD
Steve Jobs provokes and inspires in equal measure. From his early days as a ‘silicon kid', the geek in the garage that loved Bob Dylan, making games for Atari and a gadget to make illegal phone calls, to a visit to Xerox PARC where he was inspired by their graphical interface, set up his Mac team of pirates, and soon got fired.
But entrepreneurs don't give up. From the super computers of NeXT, he was soon in dreamland at Pixar and $1 billion richer. From Toy Story emerged his jelly bean iMacs, iPods and iPhones with the help of iTunes and AppStore, Leerjets and Coldplay, and $400 billion.
Love him, or hate him, he changed the world.. visionary and obsessive, pedantic and
