Entries Tagged 'Environment' ↓

En novembre 2001, j’ai eu l’occasion de sympathiser avec  Jean Jacques  Crève Cœur lors d’un séminaire de L’APM tenu à Maurice. Peu de temps après, j’avais appris qu’il était parti pour s’établir au Québec, Canada.  Il nous avait émerveillé avec son discours sur ‘le jeux de pouvoir’, sujet qu’il avait beaucoup étudié et recherché.

Qui est Jean Jacques Crève Cœur ?

Physicien, philosophe et pédagogue de formation, Jean-Jacques Crèvecoeur a mené, depuis 1982, des recherches fondamentales sur les phénomènes de pouvoir inter-personnels. Ses recherches l’ont amené à être considéré aujourd’hui comme l’un des meilleurs spécialistes du sujet. Formateur et conférencier de réputation internationale, il est l’auteur de plusieurs ouvrages de référence en la matière, dont “Relations et jeux de pouvoir”, publié aux Editions Jouvence/coll. Equinoxe 21.

Depuis 1989, il forme les cadres supérieurs et les dirigeants suivant une méthode calquée sur la préparation des professionnels de haut niveau, en alliant séminaires de formation, apprentissage par l’expérience et entraînement sur le terrain. Actuellement, il partage son temps entre la formation, l’écriture et la recherche fondamentale…

Et voila en recherchant sur la toile, je retrouve mon cher Jean Jacques Crève Cœur qui s’est trouvé un nouveau cheval de bataille. Il s’élève contre la vaccination pour la grippe A H1N1. Je vous recommande de le voir sur Youtube pour mieux comprendre sa position et si vous êtes convaincus de sa posture : passer à l’action.

Je souhaite à Jean Jacques bon courage dans sa quête.

Have you ever been taught to listen?

Many of us are of opinion that ‘Listening’ is a natural process. Hearing may well be the natural process and it is one of the five senses endowed to humans.  Active Listening could be understood as listening for meaning.

I picked up an extract from the book of Keith Ferrazzi ‘WHO’S GOT YOUR BACK’ which I cherish.

The Four R’s of Listening

Much of successful sparring is really about listening. (Most people are better talkers than they are listeners.)  Dr. Mark Goulston, a hostage negotiator and author, describes the way we listen in four different ways, which he calls the Four R’s: removed, reactive, responsible and receptive.

• Removed listening is the kind of listening you do when you’re actually engaged in something else, like using your BlackBerry.

• Reactive listening is when you’re being somewhat more attentive.

• Responsible listening takes place when you not only react to what is said but reply with a further action or elaboration.

• Receptive listening is the deepest form of listening. This is the level of listening we all want to achieve in sparring.  ~

Robin Chan – Robin Chan is the Founder and CEO of XPD Media Inc. Venture backed with offices in Beijing and Silicon Valley, XPD is building next generation entertainment platforms.

Previously, Chan was Director of Social Media at Verizon, where he was responsible for multiplatform strategy and business unit expansion. He led business development partnerships for video, social networks, gaming, and virtual worlds.

Linda Chen – Linda Chen is a partner at KPMG.

Jacob Hsu – Mr. Hsu joined Symbio in 1998 and has been instrumental in expanding the company from 40 engineers to over 1000 today. While at Symbio, Mr. Hsu has been involved in all facets of growing the company, having previously served as President, COO, CMO, and having led Symbio’s North American and Japan operations.

Mr. Hsu also guided the development of the Symbio Software Institutes in China, and was one of the founders of Symbio Digital Entertainment, today one of China’s leading game outsourcing companies. Prior to joining Symbio, he was the CEO of Trilogica Technologies, a data aggregation software company, and CEO of Epitome Software, an IT Services Company focused on financial services.

He began his career as an investment banker focused on mergers & acquisitions at Fox-Pitt, Kelton. Named by Chief Executive magazine as one of the world’s Top 12 Young Global Leaders of Tomorrow in 2008, Mr. Hsu is a graduate of Wharton School of Business.

Harry Shum – Former managing director of Microsoft Research Asia, Dr. Harry Shum, a Corporate Vice President at Microsoft now, has taken the new role of leading the Core Search Development of Microsoft.

Dr. Shum is an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Fellow and an Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Fellow. He serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Computer Vision, and is a Program Chair of the International Conference of Computer Vision (ICCV) 2007.

Dr. Shum has published more than 100 papers in computer vision, computer graphics, pattern recognition, statistical learning, and robotics. He holds more than 50 U.S. patents.

Lip-Bu Tan – Lip-Bu Tan is President and Chief Executive Officer of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. He has been a member of the Cadence Board of Directors since 2004 and serves as a member of the Finance and Technology Committees of the Board.

He also serves as chairman of Walden International, a venture capital firm he founded in 1987. Prior to founding Walden, Tan was Vice President at Chappell & Co. and held management positions at EDS Nuclear and ECHO Energy.

Karen Tucker – Karen Tucker is chief executive of The Churchill Club.

Previously, she served for more than eight years as a senior executive at the Computer History Museum.

La Fondation Chirac a décerné un prix le 6 Novembre a deux adversaires nigériennes qui pendant une décennie ont été en opposition pour une question de religion.

Le Prix pour la prévention des conflits récompense, pour sa part, l’Imam Mohammed Ashafa et le Pasteur James Wuye. Tous deux, anciens adversaires dans un antagonisme militant, ont su remettre en cause le recours à la violence pour se consacrer à la réconciliation des cœurs et des esprits, dans un Nigeria traversé par les fractures religieuses et ethniques.

Le dialogue qu’ils ont engagé depuis plusieurs années  continue de produire ses fruits et nous montre la voie.

N’est ce pas formidable ?

Imam Muhammad Ashafa and Pastor James Wuye are religious leaders who live in Kaduna, a city in northern Nigeria.  Today, they work together to teach warring religious youth militias to resolve their conflicts peacefully.  But they did not start out as peacemakers.  Ten years ago, Imam Ashafa and Pastor James were mortal enemies, intent on killing one another in the name of religion.  In 1995, Ashafa and Wuye formed the Interfaith Mediation Centre, a religious grass- roots organization that has successfully mediated between Christians and Muslims throughout Nigeria. Together, Imam Ashafa and Pastor James demonstrate extraordinary courage and dedication every day.  Through their commitment to dialogue with their adversaries, and using religion as a resource, they leave us with a compelling example of what it takes to achieve peace and coexistence.

“FLYING CAR” SOARS THROUGH FLIGHT TESTING

Transition® Roadable Aircraft Moves on to Next Stage of Development

Woburn, MA – June 3, 2009: Terrafugia, Inc. has successfully completed the flight testing program designed for its Transition® Roadable Aircraft Proof of Concept. Having been dubbed “The Flying Car”, the Transition® completed its historic first flight on March 5, 2009 with 27 additional flights completed over the next several weeks.

The successful completion of flight-testing with the Proof of Concept concludes the first stage of a four stage process to bring the Transition® into production. Work is underway on Stage 2, the Beta Prototype. First delivery is expected in 2011.

The Proof of Concept vehicle is the first and only Transition® to be built thus far. It has now achieved its goals by demonstrating driving, flying, and automated transformation between the two in one integrated aircraft. The flights conducted a plan set specifically for the Transition®: characteristics such as handling, performance, and take-off and landing, stability and stall were evaluated. B-Roll footage is available of representative flights. The flight-testing program demonstrated the safety of the vehicle in the air while identifying modifications that will be incorporated into the next Transition® model to be built, the Beta Prototype.

Test Pilot Colonel (Retired) Phil Meteer had a positive review of flying the POC: “I would like to keep flying this Proof of Concept vehicle, but it makes sense to move on to the Beta Prototype.”

Categorized as a Light Sport Aircraft, the Transition® requires a Sport Pilot certificate to fly. It is a two-seat aircraft designed to take off and land at local airports and drive on any road. Transforming from plane to car takes the pilot less than 30 seconds. The Transition® will cruise up to 450 miles at over 115 mph, will drive at highway speeds on the road, and fits in a standard household garage. The vehicle has front wheel drive on the road and a propeller for flight. Both modes are powered by unleaded automotive gasoline. By giving pilots a convenient ground transportation option, the Transition® reduces the cost, inconvenience, and weather sensitivity of personal aviation. It also increases safety by incorporating automotive crash structures and allowing pilots to drive under bad weather. Refundable airframe reservations are currently being accepted.

Terrafugia (ter-ra-FOO-gee-ah), based in Woburn, MA, is comprised of a team of award-winning engineers who have been advancing the state of personal aircraft since 2006. Founded by five pilots who are graduates of MIT and supported by a world-class network of advisors and private investors, Terrafugia’s mission is the innovative expansion of personal mobility. “Terrafugia” is Latin for “escape from land.”

Terrafugia would like to acknowledge and thank its corporate sponsors: Ansys, Nor-Tech, SolidWorks Corporation, and CableOrganizer.com. Additionally, the following business partners have contributed to a successful flight testing program by furnishing equipment and services: SpaceAge Controls, Garmin International, Dynon Avionics, CO Guardian, David Clark Company, Bose Corporation, Telex Communications, Aloft Technologies, Icom Inc., JH Audio, and Air Graphics LLC.

I am looking forward to the day we shall be able to drive -fly-drive to Reunion Island from Mauritius…

I found the article of J. Attali which appeared on L’ express in France on the 20^th October to be laudable.  We  do need a revolution and a new outlook to humanity.  It is disgusting to see the amount of Milk being thrown to the drain whilst we all know that billions of humans are starving else where.   I am specially aware by the issue as I have been reading the Papal encyclical: Caritas in Vertate.

While the number of people suffering from hunger in the world increases
(mostly in India, China, and Africa) farmers in Europe, and in particular those
in France dump their surpluses on the roads to draw attention to the
bankruptcy that awaits them.

At first it seems that their mutual interests are totally in contradiction:
farmers in wealthy countries want to continue to be funded (300 billion
euros per year) to produce and export, while those of the poor countries,
left to themselves, are unable to sell their meager productions and
constitute two thirds of the billion people who suffer from hunger today.

Only the economic crisis unites them (which is lowering the prices and
incomes of all) and the ecological crisis (which reduces everywhere crop
yields).

However, in the long term, their interests are convergent, because they will
have to answer together the great future growth of the global demand for
farm products: the world population increasing by one third by 2050 would
require agricultural production to increase at least as much. And even much
more, because economic growth will lead to the increase more than
proportionately in meat demand and therefore in the production of more
plants to feed the animals (you need 4 vegetable calories to produce 1
calorie from pig and 11 for 1 calorie of ox or sheep). And as we’ll need to
add to this the crop production for fuels agro needs, we’ll have in total,
to more than double the world agricultural production.

To achieve this, we will not be able to extrapolate on  the current methods: it
would indeed be necessary to double cultivated surfaces (1,5 billion hectares
today, that is 10% of land surface) and increase by fertilizers, the methods
of production which, in both cases, will have devastating consequences on
soil quality and people’s health.

This will require to survive, to start a reasonable revolution in which
everyone would benefit:

• First in the rich countries, eating differently, reducing calories intake
(4000 to 3000 per day), and in particularly those of animal origin (from
1000 to 500), which would also make it possible to reduce obesity, of which
the poorest are the main victims.

• Then, in the developing countries, to produce differently: better
training of farmers, strengthening their property rights, their cooperative
grouping, a credible resistance in the deforestation and in the
generalization of the usage of the most harmful fertilizers, an incentive to
develop subsistence crops rather than for export and better water management,
genetic improvement and reasonable use of biotechnology the safest ones.

• Lastly, to organize the worldwide markets differently, by giving the
means of stabilizing the prices durably, and allowing farmers to invest
without fearing ruinous evolutions of the stock market prices.

This revolution is necessary. It is within our reach, politically and
financially. If properly conducted, it can make the world a garden which,
since the dawn of time, humanity has been dreaming of.

j@attali.com

C’est avec un regret que j’ai manqué d’assister  aujourd’hui une rencontre et débat organisé par l’association de cadres chrétiens sur l’encyclique ‘Caritas in veritate’ de notre présent Pape Benoit XVI.

L’encyclique Caritas in veritate – L’amour dans la vérité – souligne fortement que le renouveau authentique de l’homme et de la société repose uniquement sur le Christ, qui nous transforme et nous rend capables d’agir dans la vérité et l’amour.  C’est la base de tout développement humain intégral et authentique ; force dynamique qui suppose, certes, la justice et, en même temps, la complète par la gratuité du don et du pardon.

L’encyclique ne propose pas des solutions techniques, mais demande que soient respectés certains principes essentiels pour construire un véritable développement humain.

Elle invite aussi  à entreprendre une réflexion approfondie sur le sens de l’économie et sur ses finalités, qui doit retrouver et faire sienne la logique du don.  Cela demande la collaboration de tous, à tous les niveaux de responsabilité individuelle, sociale et politique, et présuppose une formation des consciences qui donne force aux critères moraux dans l’élaboration des projets politiques et économiques.

Introduction

1.      L’amour dans la vérité est la force dynamique essentielle du vrai développement de chaque personne et de l’humanité tout entière

a.      L’amour pousse les personnes à s’engager dans le domaine de la justice et de la paix

b.      L’amour a son origine en Dieu, Amour éternel et Vérité absolue

c.      Dieu a un projet pour chaque personne ; dans lequel elle y trouve sa propre vérité et son bien

d.      L’élan pour aimer de manière authentique est une vocation déposée par Dieu dans le cœur et l’esprit de chaque homme

e.      Jésus Christ purifie et libère l’homme dans la recherche de l’amour et de la vérité (révélation)

En 6 chapitres de son encyclique, Le Saint Père nous remet dans la lumière d’aujourd’hui  la doctrine sociale de l’Eglise du Pape Paul VI et le développement humain qui se doit multipolaire.  ‘La richesse mondiale croît en terme absolu mais les inégalités augmentent’. Au chapitre III traitant de Fraternité, Développent économique et Société civile, le pape insiste sur la gratuité du Don. La solidarité universelle est un fait et aussi un devoir est un thème développé au chapitre IV.  La collaboration grande famille humaine et le développement des peuples et la technique  sont couverts sous les chapitres V et VI. Le Pape dans sa conclusion, insiste qu’un ‘humanisme qui exclut Dieu et un humanisme inhumain’.

Le texte complet de l’encyclique peut être lu sur le site du Diocèse de Port-Louis.

You will recall in my earlier blog, I describe the wonderful experience I had couple of years ago in Melbourne attending an Ansett Airlines training seminar. Today, I watched a similar wonderful video on TED of Itay Talgam on collaboration and leadership.

Music and leadership are two of my favorite themes.

Itay Talgam finds metaphors for organizational behavior  — and models for inspired leadership — within the workings of the symphony orchestra. Imagining music as a model for all spheres of human creativity, from the classroom to the boardroom, Talgam created the Maestro Program of seminars and workshops.

Talgam’s workshops aim to help everyday people develop a musician’s sense of collaboration, and a conductor’s sense of leadership: that inner sense of being intuitively, even subconsciously connected to your fellow players, giving what they need and getting what you need. It’s this art of listening and reacting in the moment that makes for a swinging jazz combo, a sublime string quartet, a brilliant orchestra — and great teams at work.

“An orchestra … gives the conductor an opportunity to create an organized sound with one gesture. Everything is about nuance, and Talgam showed what nuance can do.”

“A chaotic cloud of sound hangs over the stage, while the instrumentalists of the orchestra practice their different roles in anticipation of the beginning of the rehearsal. As the Maestro raises his  hand there is a moment of silence. The magic then commences – from the hundred instruments comes one clear, unified and powerful sound. Led by the silent Maestro, each individual musician plays in perfect harmony working towards the shared goal – a magnificent performance”.

The “Maestro programs” were founded on the belief that, in the orchestra as in the work place, music has the power to create community and reinforce shared values. Music embodies knowledge and innovation, individual effort and collective achievement, and offers a work-environment that is full of opportunities for excellence and self-actualization – same as any successful business.

Why is music a successful metaphor for business?
Making music, in whatever culture and context, concerns such issues as communication, listening, rhythm, technique, preparation, improvisation and interpretation, rehearsal and performance. Concerts all over the world bring before us a great variety of performing bodies: large and complex symphony orchestras, intimate chamber music ensembles and jazz groups. Examining the diversity of organizational cultures raise questions concerning collaboration in general, including the roles (or the lack of them) of conductors, composers, soloists and accompanists. Different aspects of music making can provide stimulating insights into familiar management concerns such as leadership, teamwork, creativity, mentorship and personal development.

A new vocabulary, self-exemplifying process, fun
As well as being an excellent metaphor, music also provides an exciting new vocabulary for addressing these concerns. Entertaining in itself, and conceived as remote from the concrete tensions of the participant’s work environment, it provides a ‘safe’, non-threatening atmosphere for discussion and self-reflection.

In the process of learning, the “Maestro” facilitator-conductor orchestrates the individual voices and ‘rehearses’ with the participants, maintaining constant dialog, maximum sharing of ideas and viewpoints, in a way that calls for and encourages active participation. Thus the process is self-exemplifying of its messages.

I was fascinated in reading the mind map of the book ‘The Medici effect’ by Frans Johansson last night. I guessed by the name Medici that it had to do with the intersection of culture as it happened in middle age 14^th – 16^th century in Florence Italy. I had read about Catherine de Medicis who was a Queen of France and I recalled that France had retained la ‘Villa Medicis’ in Rome as a venue for developing Creativity & Culture at ‘L’Académie de France’.

I wonder with the confluence of cultures and ethnics Mauritius could be a nexus point to further develop creativity. Already, a new fusion cuisine is finding its way. Nowhere in the world have I eaten a Mauritian fried noodle, a dhal puri or a roti Manillal. Marlin fumé could well be promoted as an innovative product. Papaye tapé & Pickled Pineapple, green mango & cucumber are gourmet dishes to be developed and promoted.

‘Metissage’ is the term I would promote as the intersection of the ingenious background of our population. Our cooks in Mauritius are using a paint stripper heat torch to darken and render the crust of their crème brulé!

I am happy to reproduce the introduction to the book.

WHAT ELEPHANTS AND EPIDEMICS

CAN TEACH US ABOUT INNOVATION

Frans Johansson

Pe t e r ’ s c a f é sits on a hillside in Horta, a port city on one of the Azores islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. By the time you reach the docks in the harbour, you can tell that this place is special. Bright, colorful paintings of sailboats and flags line the piers—hundreds and hundreds of them, drawn by visiting captains and crew members from every corner of the globe. Horta is the one place between the Americas and Europe where world-traveling sailors stop to take a break. Some are heading toward Fiji, others to Spain. Some are on their second tour around the world; others are simply resting before the last leg to Brazil. They come from different backgrounds

and cultures. And all of them converge upon the rustic-looking Peter’s Café. Here they can pick up year-old letters from other world travelers or just sit and talk over a beer or a glass of Madeira.

When I saw this place for the first time, I realized that the serene environment of the café actually concealed a chaotic universe. The café was filled with ideas and viewpoints from all corners of the world, and these ideas were intermingling and colliding with each other.

“Get this, they don’t use hooks when fishing for marlin in Cuba,”

one visitor says.

“So what do they use?” another asks.

“Rags. The lure is covered in rags. When the fish strikes the rag, it wraps around the fish bill and won’t let go because of the friction. The fish don’t get hurt and can be released, no problem.”

“That’s pretty neat. Maybe we could use something like that. . . .”

The people here participate in what seems like an almost random combination of ideas. One conversation leads into another, and it is difficult to guess what idea will come up next. Peter’s Café is a nexus point in the world, one of the most extreme I have ever seen.

There is another place just like Peter’s Café, but it is not in the Azores. It is in our minds. It is a place where different cultures, domains, and disciplines stream together toward a single point. They connect,

allowing for established concepts to clash and combine, ultimately forming a multitude of new, groundbreaking ideas. This place, where the different fields meet, is what I call the Intersection. And the explosion of remarkable innovations that you find there is what I call the Medici Effect. This book is about how to create it.

Creating the Medici Effect

The idea behind this book is simple: When you step into an intersection of fields, disciplines, or cultures, you can combine existing concepts into a large number of extraordinary new ideas. The name I have given this phenomenon, the Medici Effect, comes from a remarkable burst of creativity in fifteenth-century Italy.

The Medicis were a banking family in Florence who funded creators from a wide range of disciplines. Thanks to this family and a few others like it, sculptors, scientists, poets, philosophers, financiers, painters, and architects converged upon the city of Florence. There they found each other, learned from one another, and broke down

barriers between disciplines and cultures. Together they forged a new world based on new ideas—what became known as the Renaissance. As a result, the city became the epicenter of a creative explosion, one of the most innovative eras in history. The effects of the Medici family can be felt even to this day.

We, too, can create the Medici Effect. We can ignite this explosion of extraordinary ideas and take advantage of it as individuals, as teams, and as organizations. We can do it by bringing together different disciplines

and cultures and searching for the places where they connect. The Medici Effect will show you how to find such intersectional ideas and make them happen. This book is not about the Renaissance era, nor is it about the

Medici family. Rather, it is about those elements that made that era possible. It is about what happens when you step into an intersection of different disciplines and cultures, and bring the ideas you find there to life.

Surprising Insight

Mick Pearce, an architect with an interest in ecology, accepted an intriguing challenge from Old Mutual, an insurance and real estate conglomerate: Build an attractive, functioning office building that uses no air conditioning. Oh, and do it in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe.

This may, on the face of it, seem ridiculous. After all, it can get pretty hot in Harare. But Pearce, born in Zimbabwe, schooled in South Africa, and trained as an architect in London, was up for the challenge.

And he achieved it by basing his architectural designs on how termites cool their tower like mounds of mud and dirt. What’s the connection?

Termites must keep the internal temperature in their mounds at a constant 87 degrees in order to grow an essential fungus. Not an easy job since temperatures on the African plains can range from over 100 degrees during the day to below 40 at night. Still, the insects manage it by ingeniously directing breezes at the base of the mound into chambers with cool, wet mud and then redirecting this cooled air to the peak. By constantly building new vents and closing old ones, they can regulate the temperature very precisely.

Pearce’s interests clearly extend beyond architecture. He also has a passion for understanding natural ecosystems, and suddenly those two fields intersected. Pearce teamed up with engineer Ove Arup to bring this combination of concepts to fruition. The office complex, called Eastgate, opened in 1996 and is the largest commercial/retail complex in Zimbabwe. It maintains a steady temperature of 73 to 77 degrees and uses less than 10 percent of the energy consumed by other buildings its size. In fact, Old Mutual saved $3.5 million immediately because they

did not have to install an air-conditioning plant. Eastgate ultimately became a reference point for architects—articles and books have been written about it, and awards have been given. Mick Pearce is known as a groundbreaking innovator for launching a new field of architectural design—one that “copies the processes of nature.”

How did Pearce come up with such an innovative design? Was it luck?

Maybe; luck is part of everything we do. The more intriguing question is, what did Pearce do to affect his chances of accomplishing this breakthrough?

Did he, in effect, make his own luck? The answer is yes, and the reasons why lie at the heart of this book’s message. Pearce had stepped into the Intersection, a place where he could combine architectural designs with processes in nature. It was his willingness to explore these combinations that made it more likely for him to successfully break new ground.

The Intersection is certainly not the only place to uncover new ideas, but I’ll argue that it is the best place to generate and realize extraordinary ones.

A Place for Everyone

Mick Pearce is one example of a person who found the Intersection and made successful discoveries there. From this example one might get the impression that the Intersection is a placeonly for designers and artists. It’s easy to associate creativity with art, but creativity includes new ideas in every field, from science and business

to law and politics.

Consider, for instance, the seeming antithesis of the idealistic artist, George Soros, one of the most respected investors of our time.

He is perhaps best known as the man who broke the Bank of England in 1992. Soros made a profit of over $1 billion in one afternoon by betting that the pound sterling was overvalued. Although he has also had some stinging losses, Soros’s track record as an investor is astonishing, having generated billions for his fund.

Perhaps his most important legacy, however, will not be the money he accumulated for his limited partner but his ideas about democracy, his philosophy concerning capitalism, and his approach to philanthropy.

Soros pulled together ideas from the fields of finance and philosophy to create an innovative philanthropic strategy. That strategy, which was unprecedented in its audacity, focused on transforming nations into societies that are based on the recognition that nobody has a monopoly on the truth—what he calls “Open Societies.” Michael

Kaufman writes in Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire about the exploratory journey Soros took to understand the world this way: “In the process, he digressively took up dozens of themes, among them the limits of knowledge, the development of modern art, the flaws of classical economics, the value of fallibility, and even the prospects of fundamental reforms in the Soviet Union.”3

George Soros found the Intersection. He found a way to connect completely separate fields and he managed to do so in a meaningful way. Just like Mick Pearce.

Connections Everywhere

This may all sound somewhat improbable. Can great innovative breakthroughs, those that can create a Medici Effect, be explained by the intersection of disciplines and cultures? And if so, is it possible to understand the nature of this intersection and to harness its power? The answer is yes, on both counts. In writing The Medici Effect I have three objectives:

1.–The first is to explain what, exactly, the Intersection is and why

we can expect to see a lot more of it in the future. You will see

how three critical forces are working together to increase the

number of intersections around the world.

2.–The second is to explain why stepping into the Intersection creates

the Medici Effect. You will see why it is such a vibrant place

for creativity and how we can use intersections to generate remarkable,

surprising, and groundbreaking ideas.

3.–Finally, the third objective is to outline the unique challenges we

face when executing intersectional ideas and how we can overcome

those challenges.

You will see how execution at the Intersection is different from within established fields, and you will

learn how to prepare for those differences. In order to fulfill these three objectives, I have relied on the work of

leading researchers in creativity and innovation, such as Dean Keith Simonton, Clayton Christensen, Teresa Amabile, and Robert Sutton, and on a range of psychologists, economists, and sociologists. My most interesting

discoveries and conclusions, however, have come from numerous conversations and interviews with people who live and operate at the Intersection. The stories of how they found their way to the Intersection,

and how they created the Medici Effect, contain enough surprises and valuable insights to easily fill two or three books.

You will, for instance, meet a mathematician from Seattle who stepped into the intersection of games and collectibles to create one of the world’s fastest-spreading recreational activities. You will learn how

he did it and why those lessons hold true for anyone at the Intersection.

You will read about an entrepreneur who steps into the Intersection every time he starts a new company. His story will show you how we can find courage at the brink of uncertainty. You will encounter a physician who made the connection between violence prevention and health care. No one else understood the link at the time, and her struggle to bring her ideas to life demonstrates the challenges anyone will face at the Intersection.

During this journey you will also meet a woman who hiked through a snake-infested prisoner island off the coast of Colombia while gathering lava rocks for her research. You will read about a chef who surprised the world with his food concoctions at the age of twenty-four and learn about a team of researchers who discovered how to read

the mind of a monkey.

These individuals and their remarkable acts of innovation help us understand the power of the Intersection. They have all managed to connect fields we thought were unrelated. When they did, they generated

ideas that changed them, their organizations, and, ultimately, apart of our world. From these examples, we can learn how to do the same. Their stories answer the central questions this book poses: How do we create an explosion of extraordinary ideas, and how do we make those ideas happen? The answers may surprise you

Most people don’t normally associate mind mapping software with making money. But the fact is, it can have a real impact on your bottom line – because it enables you to think more clearly and completely, make better decisions, envision the future of your company, and more. Here’s a partial list of ways that mind mapping software can (indirectly) help you to make more money:

• Map your customers and identify the most promising ones for targeted sales campaigns
• Develop new products to sell
• Create a map to clearly and more completely understand the evolving or unmet needs of your customers.
• Analyze and improve your company’s business model
• Identify opportunities to reduce waste in your business – the savings go straight to the bottom line.
• Map your current market segments, and identify adjacent ones with similar needs into which you can expand your marketing and sales.
• Brainstorm the content of a white paper or information product (e-book) that will help you to dramatize your product’s or service’s unique selling proposition to potential customers.

In what other ways are you using mind mapping software to grow your business?

I read regularly the blog of Chuck Frey on Mind mapping and owes to him the above idea!