|
|
.Innovation
- a hybrid connection between old practices? |
|
|
Q&A with
Humberto
Schwab, Director Club
of Amsterdam, Innovation Philosopher, Moderator of the Club of Amsterdam
LABs
in Girona, Spain
LAB
on Old and New ENERGY
LAB on MEDIA and Human
Experience
|
Club
of Amsterdam: Humberto
- you are an Innovation Philosopher - most people hardly see a connection
between philosophy and daily life and even less between philosophy
and business. What is the added value? Why has philosophy something
to say?
Philosophy is the body of experimental and
theoretical knowledge collected and shared by humanity since the
invention of this specie. It is the richest fountain of wisdom about
our selves as human beings, our needs and aspirations, our world
outside and inside us and most of all about our values.
In philosophy we investigate falsehood and truth, the permanent
and the temporarily, good and bad acting, good government and bad
societies, beautiful and ugliness.
Most of all we have gathered wisdom about the quality of life. We
try to make our daily life every day an experience of quality. At
least many people try to reach this. This striving for quality is
what connects our life with philosophy. Essential in our daily life
is that we have our eyes wide open to see the right elements in
their right relation; this is where philosophical methods are. We
need to get rid of prejudice and false presumptions.
In business – more and more – the essence lies in the ability in
enhancing the quality of life, in part or as a whole. This quality
is related to issues of ethical policy and sustainable business.
Sustainable is not only a matter of the natural environment, more
and more we realize that sustainability concerns the quality of
our communities. The pursuit of the good life is more and more the
frame in which innovation in the experience economy is moving.
Last but not least, philosophy contains all the possible concepts,
approaches, notions and strategies to frame productive ways of reasoning.
Innovation is essential the rethinking of tradition, tradition as
recipes for life. Taking traditional steps over again leads to new
insights.
That is why innovation is often a hybrid connection between old
practices.
Innovation sometimes demands new paradigms; philosophy is the producer
of new paradigms.
You have been involved in large-scale educational
programs. Can you give us an example of what you did and what the
outcome was?
We managed to position philosophy in the official
juridical structure of the secondary school system in the Netherlands.
This old philosophy was recognized as one of the strongest innovation
in Holland. I designed a complete program for the schools. A big
innovation was the transformation of 100 excellent Dutch teachers
from different disciplines into real Socratic teachers. That means
wise people who put forward the right questions and not the answers.
At the moment I am involved in fundamental innovations of education
in the Netherlands and in Spain.
In our society of the future learning is a value as such. This demands
a totally different perspective on education and schooling. In an
i-society learning has a different place then in the past hierarchical
society. We need business, ngo-s, academies, citizen’s organisations
and local government to co-create a challenging learning landscape
in Europe.
In your EuroLab you use a special combination
of techniques - some have been widely used in industries. Can you
tell us why you choose them and how you adapt them to your projects?
The most used techniques are used instrumental
while I always want to work in dialogues. A dialogue involves the
total presence and commitment of the individual as reflective being.
This means maximal awareness and maximal responsibility.
We cannot oppose general techniques on humans, without losing their
individual strength. The Appreciative Inquiry method is very strong
dialogue method in business, especially when - like the present
situation - the relations between the stakeholders become totally
different. The Appreciative Inquiry (AI) bring to light all the
hidden good practices and experiences of all the individuals involved,
emerged from their personal life. The top down model of the expert
above sending his missives down kills the experience wisdom present
in the whole organization. This AI method is fruit of a bunch of
scientific insight on the effects of positive psychological approaches.
The Socratic method I have adapted to learning situations in school
and business is the strongest context I know. Fundamental in this
method is the key role of the good question. Putting forward basic
questions is the art of collaboration. It gives new air to breath
new ideas. People hardly share basic questions, let alone basic
assumptions. Yet they work in contexts as if they share assumptions,
values and concepts. The deconstructing of a basic question and
the reconstructing of a shared answer uses collective intelligence
as a rich fountain and provokes strong bounding on crucial challenges.
In the Socratic discourse, the philosophical tradition serves as
a support system, it helps to articulate good intuitions, good arguments
and good ideas of all the participants. The Socratic chair (trained
philosopher) represents the tradition and embodies it in a supportive
way for each participant.
In a Socratic discourse the group transform in a natural way into
a reflecting body that emerges a higher intelligence and a higher
responsibility. It exercises human collectively at his best. It
has strong rules that forces people to rethink other positions and
to rehearse steps in thinking taken by others, it forces people
to listen and repeat and to clarify all concepts used. The strong
authoritative way of safeguarding the rules by the Socratic chair,
gives rise to a real strong participation of all in an egalitarian
way.
The strong relation between flourishing business and democratic
cultures lies precise in the opportunity to put forward any valuable
question of the quality of human life. The dialogue starts with
the rethinking of standing practices and will virtualize new possible
worlds and actions. Good business ideas are in fact very often philosophical
brainwaves!
More and more good business and good government are critically checked
on qualitative grounds, from citizens perspectives.
From the Socratic brainstorms we have to come to a stage of productive
planning. The future scenario methods are excellent in binding people
on shared visions of the future and on shared actions to realize
desired scenarios. Good dialogues generate an emergent intelligence
that will give complete new frames and horizons. Yet scenarios without
value dialogues are blind. That is why in my EuroLABS the basic
structure is the embedding of the personas in a value dialogue context.
The revitalization of the basic existential questions generates
an energy that also creates strong creative content.
We often hear that there has been enough talking
and we should act now. Why do you put dialogue into the centre of
your labs? And how does it relate to Do-Tanks?
There has definitely been enough talking,
but then we talk about talking in the one-dimensional level we are
used to do. Besides this talking is mostly discussions without any
check of concepts, understanding of each other or reflections on
principles or presumptions. This talking is often a chat between
deaf people, they afterwards will follow their own routine in the
way of thinking they were used to do.
The Club of Amsterdam LABs lead to a change in internal dialogue;
people really need a strong dialogue with other beings to change
their internal reflections and dialogues. This will directly lead
to action, when you make shared action plans and design a sustainable
dialogue with the stakeholders. To shift from a money driven society
to a value driven society needs a new way of talking: the real human
dialogue.
Action is always for a crucial part guided thinking or unconscious
frameworks of meaning. The Socratic dialogues make sharing intelligent
action possible.
Thank you Umberto!
|
|
|
.Energy
LAB |
LAB
on Old and New ENERGY
An immersed experience of a Do-Tank
April 17 & 18, 2007
Location:
Girona,
Spain
Max. 20 Delegates
Early
Bird registration till
end February
Please
use our
Energy LAB Registration at
http://www.clubofamsterdam.com/contentevents/lab_registration_001energy.htm
Moderated by
Humberto Schwab,
Director, Club of Amsterdam, Innovation
Philosopher.
With the Thought Leaders Nathalie
Horbach, Centre for Energy, Petroleum
and Mineral Law and Policy, University of Dundee, Simon
Taylor, Director
and Co-Founder,
Global Witness,
Christof van Agt,
International Energy Agency, Paul
Holister, Nanotechnology &
Energy
www.clubofamsterdam.com
|
|
|
.News
about the future of Energy |
|
|
|
|
|
Energy
[R]evolution
The good news first. Renewable energy, combined with the smart use
of energy, can deliver half of the world's energy needs by 2050.This
new report, 'Energy [R]evolution: A sustainable World Energy Outlook',
shows that it is economically feasible to cut global CO2 emissions
by almost 50% within the next 43 years. It also concludes that a massive
uptake of renewable energy sources is technically possible. All that
is missing is the right policy support.
The bad news is that time is running out. An
overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion now agrees that climate
change is happening, is caused in large part by human activities (such
as burning fossil fuels), and if left un-checked, will have disastrous
consequences. Furthermore, there is solid scientific evidence that
we should act now.
|
|
|
ENERGY
|
|
|
Sealing
carbon dioxide (CO2) under the seabed in Japan
Injecting carbon dioxide into the ground
is a technology currently used for the subterranean storage of natural
gas and for increasing petroleum production - known as "enhanced
oil recovery," or EOR. The idea behind sub-seabed storage is
to apply this technology in the interests of environmental conservation.
It is estimated that up to 90 billion tons of carbon dioxide can be
stored in subterranean locations in Japan and sub-seabed locations
in Japanese waters. This corresponds to 70 to 80 years' worth of Japanese
carbon dioxide emissions. As Japan has a wealth of experience and
know-how in underground storage of natural gas and EOR technology,
its work in the field of carbon dioxide sequestration is thought to
be closest to practical application.
Murai Shigeo, the leader of the RITE carbon
dioxide sequestration group: "We have been able to show that
carbon dioxide injection in Japan's particular geological conditions
is possible, and computer simulations based on our monitoring activity
give a good idea of how the gas will behave over the next thousand
years."
|
|
|
|
|
.Club
of Amsterdam blog |
|
|
Club
of Amsterdam blog
http://clubofamsterdam.blogspot.com
Subscribe
in a reader
February
12:
Innovation
- a hybrid connection between old practices?
January 8:
The
Future of Consciousness
December
18:
selflead
December 14:
On
the Art of Value-Webbing
|
|
|
|
.News
about the Future |
|
|
|
|
|
Blue
Brain
The Blue Brain project is the first comprehensive attempt to reverse-engineer
the mammalian brain, in order to understand brain function and dysfunction
through detailed simulations.
A project this ambitious would have been ridiculed a few years ago.
"Today we have the computers we need," says biologist
Henry Markram, 44, the project's director. "And we know enough
to begin." Markram knows about the problems his group can look
forward to. "But if we don't build the brain," he says,
"we'll never understand how it works."
|
|
|
|
|
|
Global
Peer Award
Realeyes3D was selected from 20 MobileMonday
Global Peer Award finalists chosen from all over the world as best-of-breed
companies demonstrating exceptional innovativeness in mobility.
Realeyes3D
operates at two levels: It runs a mobile copy
service for camera phone users, www.qipit.com
and sells handwritten messaging applications to handset
vendors.
|
|
|
|
.Q&A
with Paul Holister about Nanotechnology & Energy |
|
|
Paul Holister is
a consultant specialising in, among other things, the commercial and
societal impacts of new technologies. He is currently writing "Nanotechnology
and the Future of Energy", to be published by John Wiley and
Sons.
Paul is a Thought Leader
at the
LAB
on Old and New ENERGY |
Club of Amsterdam: Paul, you are currently writing a book about
"Nanotechnology and the Future of Energy". Can you describe
how nanotechnology can have an impact on energy generation, storage,
and utilization?
Nanotechnology operates at such a fundamental level that there is
very little of a technological nature that it will not impact. Thus
its effects on energy generation, transmission, storage and consumption
are numerous and diverse. Some will be incremental and some quite
possibly revolutionary.
Rather than trying
to sketch the whole landscape, a few examples will hopefully illustrate
the variety.
At the mundane end
of the scale you have anti-fouling paints for wave or tidal power,
or materials with a higher tolerance for radiation in nuclear reactors.
I did say mundane.
In wind power, the
potentially enormous improvements in strength-to-weight ratio of
composite materials used in blades could pay back surprisingly well
because the relationship of blade length to efficiency is not linear
but follows a power law - though there is much argument about how
this pans out in the real world.
At the other extreme
of nanotech impact, you have solar energy. We are children in this
area, and the playground is built on the nanoscale. Almost any development
is going to involve nanotech - an intriguing recent exception being
the use of lenses to focus light on old-fashioned silicon photovoltaics,
thus demanding less of this expensive material. This is one of the
areas where nanotech-enabled technology could well be revolutionary.
But what makes for
a revolution in energy generation? Two things: availability and
economics. The fact that solar energy is so bountiful - enough hits
the Earth in a minute to meet our global requirements for at least
a week - makes it potentially revolutionary; it's just the cost
of capturing that energy that has been standing in the way. Reduce
that enough, or increase the cost of the alternatives, and you have
a revolution.
One other energy source
could, I believe, be equally revolutionary. Not fusion, which, despite
the dreams of my youth, I sadly have to relegate to a distant future
- not that the ongoing experiments aren't worthwhile. Geothermal
energy, boring as hot rocks and steam may sound - outside of saunas,
that is -, has revolutionary potential for the same reason as solar
- an essentially unlimited supply of energy untapped only because
of economics. The nanotech connection is not as direct here as with
solar - you have tougher materials to cut drilling costs or thermoelectric
tunneling for efficient low-grade heat conversion - but it only
takes the right conjunction of developments and geothermal power
stations will be springing up - or down - all over the place.
I've only considered
here principal power generation, but this should already give some
sense of the breadth and potential scale of impact. I'd be surprised
to find any reader of this unaware of the excitement surrounding
developments in fuel cell and battery technology. Nanotechnology
figures almost without exception in the cutting edge of both.
But I could go on for
ages answering this question - you could almost make a book out
of it ...
How do nanotechnology-based solutions apply
particularly, if at all, to environmental concerns and energy security
issues?
From an energy security point of view, nanotech
developments are invariably positive since, at the very least, they
can help save energy - aerogels for better insulation, IR-reflective
window coatings, low-grade heat conversion in cars, etc.. They also
assist to varying degrees in the development of alternatives to
the fossil fuels upon which so many of us are now so dangerously
dependant. I've already mentioned the potential of solar and geothermal
energy.
On the environmental
front the answer is not so clear. We live in a world where short-term
economics have an overwhelming influence on decision making.
The good news for those
who worry about things like global warming, is that the increasing
cost of oil - a long-term trend that will not stop, oil being a
finite resource - and the decreasing cost of alternatives such as
solar energy, give renewables an ever more favourable economic position.
When you look at the diverse spread of nanotech-related impacts
they are almost always supporting technologies with an improved
environmental profile.
Unfortunately, there
is a rather big exception to this. Nanotechnology has helped greatly
improve the effectiveness of catalysts. Fuel cells and catalytic
converters are among the welcome beneficiaries.
But catalysis is also
at the heart of gas-to-liquid and coal liquefaction technologies
that promise oil independence for those with access to previously
uneconomical gas reserves or to coal reserves. Energy security is
a big carrot and it so happens that two highly-populated countries
that rank among the fastest-growing economies in the world, and
thus the fastest-growing energy consumers, are coal-rich: China
and India. North America too is coal-rich.
If such countries can
start to economically run their cars, trucks and buses on diesel
made from coal - which ironically is low-emission compared with
normal diesel at the vehicle end but overall produces more CO2 than
oil-based diesel - then we could be looking at a greenhouse gas
nightmare scenario - there is enough coal in the world to supply
our energy needs for hundreds of years.
So, greenhouse nightmare
or an emission-free future? Nanotechnology can enable them both.
Barring a global wave of forward planning unseen in mankind's history,
economics will probably make the decision for us.
What do you expect from a dialogue between
"old and new energy"?
Taking 'old energy' to be the way we have done things since the
dawn of the industrial revolution, i.e. primarily by burning fossil
fuels, I think that the likeliest difference between old and new
energy, and the generator of greatest debate, will be systemic rather
than one particular technology or another. The question of when
and how the transition to new energy occurs is also intriguing -
as the coal liquefaction scenario above shows, we could in theory
be stuck with the old, or pretty similar, for some time to come.
We have gorged ourselves
for more than a century on the energy equivalent of a free lunch.
As we start to realise that, while there may be such a thing as
a free lunch, it isn't necessarily dinner and breakfast too, we
can size up the alternatives, the most striking thing about which
is their diversity.
Only coal and nuclear
fission are potential candidates for maintaining the uniform and
monolithic energy network we have now in the developed world. There
are good reasons to avoid both, if we can - some would argue that
we cannot.
All the alternatives
involve a mix of technologies and energy sources, with energy not
always being produced where you want and when you want, thus producing
a far more complex system than we have now. The phrase 'intelligent
grid' is often held up as an example of how this complexity will
operate, with buying, selling and saving of energy being possible
at many scales. I'd rather do away with the 'grid' word altogether
because it evokes the electricity grid that we in the developed
world generally take for granted but which exists only as a consequence
of our historical dependence on fossil fuels, and is grossly inefficient.
In a mixed-energy-source scenario, the traditional grid would be
challenged by localised generation, the form of which would vary
according to location - Saudi: sunshine; Greenland: geothermal.
The gridless or localised
grid scenario begs the question of how large amounts of energy will
be transferred from one place to another, which will no doubt continue
to be either required or an economically viable activity. The classic
answer is hydrogen, but it is unfortunately a lousy way to transport
energy, thanks largely to its volatility. In theory, the development
of cheap, high-load superconducting cables - perhaps made of carbon
nanotubes - might keep the old-fashioned grid alive but it seems
to me that an efficient means of converting whatever energy source
happens to be available to you into a fuel that is liquid, or close
to it, at room temperature - e.g. methanol -, combined with a fuel
cell technology to make good use of it, would be a hard system to
beat when it comes to storage and transmission.
As I write, there are
at least a few scientists around the world trying to figure out
ways to outdo Mother Nature in turning sunlight into a compact,
transportable energy source. All of which happens, of course, on
the nanoscale.
Thank you Paul!
|
|
.Next
Season Event |
|
|
the
future of the
Gobal Workplace
Thursday,
March 29, 2007
Registration: 18:30-19:00, Conference: 19:00-21:15
Where: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thomas R. Malthusstraat 5, 1066 JR
Amsterdam
Tickets
for € 30, € 20 [discount] or € 10 [students]
With
Mandar Apte,
Business
Strategy - Competitive Intelligence Analyst, Shell Global Solutions
International B.V.
Workplace of the future - scenarios and trends - Views of a global
citizen
Andrew Kruseman Aretz,
Partner, Human Resource Services,
PricewaterhouseCoopers Belastingadviseurs N.V.
Changing demographics of people flows around
the World
Jean-Claude Knebeler,
Director of Foreign Trade, Ministry of the Economy and Foreign Trade,
Luxembourg
Does off-shoring
hold the key to success, especially for SME's?
Moderated by Hedda Pahlson-Moller, Managing
Director, Omnisource International,
Benelux Client Executive for Evalueserve
Supporter
|
|
|
|
|
.Recommended
Book |
|
|
|
|
|
Nuclear
Energy: Principles, Practices, and Prospects
by David Bodansky
The world faces serious difficulties in obtaining the energy that
will be needed in coming decades for a growing population, especially
given the problem of climate change caused by fossil fuel use. This
book presents a view of nuclear energy as an important carbon-free
energy option. It discusses the nuclear fuel cycle, the types of reactors
used today and proposed for the future, nuclear waste disposal, reactor
accidents and reactor safety, nuclear weapon proliferation, and the
cost of electric power. To provide background for these discussions,
the book begins with chapters on the history of the development and
use of nuclear energy, the health effects of ionizing radiation, and
the basic physics principles of reactor operation.
The text has been rewritten and substantially expanded for this edition,
to reflect changes that have taken place in the eight years since
the publication of the first edition and to provide greater coverage
of key topics. These include the Yucca Mountain repository plans,
designs for next-generation reactors, weapons proliferation and terrorism
threats, the potential of alternatives to nuclear energy, and controversies
about low-level radiation.
|
|
.Cross-Media
Summit for Content Discovery |
ADVERT
|
The Strategy, Technology
and Business Case for Content Description, Visibility, Search and
Discovery
Friday 9th March 2007, Frontline Club, London, UK
Gathering creators, rights holders and technology experts
Moderated by Bob Auger, Technology Correspondent, Cue Entertainment
Free to experts
How do content owners
increase the visibility and discovery of their content? Do we need
more standards? What are the drivers for industry adoption? Can
we make the tools easier to use? What are the requirements of end-users
in the media industry?
THE UNIVERSAL CATALOGUE
- IS THERE THE WILL TO BUILD IT?
Participants
include CEO of ISAN, Head of R&D at MCPS-PRS Alliance, Principal
Engineer for Pioneer Digital Design and Microsoft's DDEX board member.
Bringing together key
cross-industry strategists and technologists from standards, search,
image, music and film, shaping the digital media marketplace. Identifying
areas for further investigation to drive adoption of metadata syndication
ecosystems. Participants will share experiences, discover synergy
and innovate.
www.kendra.org.uk
|
|
.Media
LAB |
LAB
on MEDIA and Human Experience
An immersed experience of a Do-Tank
May
29 & 30, 2007
Location:
Girona,
Spain
Max. 20 Delegates
Early
Bird registration till
March 16, 2007
Please use our
Media
LAB Registration at
http://www.clubofamsterdam.com/contentevents/lab_registration_002media.htm
Moderated by Humberto
Schwab, Director, Club of Amsterdam,
Innovation
Philosopher.
With the Thought Leaders
Laurence
Desarzens, urban
communicator, beatmap.com, Paul
F.M.J. Verschure, ICREA research
professor, Technology Department, University Pompeu Fabra,
Ricardo Baeza-Yates,
Director, Yahoo! Research, Rudy
de Waele, Founder,
M-trends.org
www.clubofamsterdam.com
|
|
|
.Agenda |
|
Tickets
for Seasons Events:
€ 30,
€
20
[discount] or
€
10
[students]
Our Season Events for 2006/2007 are on Thursdays:
|
the
future of Ambient Intelligence
February
22, 2007, 18:30 - 21:15
Fully booked!
the
future of Global Workplace
March
29, 2007, 18:30 - 21:15
the future of Success
April 26,
2007, 18:30 - 21:15
the future of Tourism
May 31,
2007, 18:30 - 21:15
Taste
of Diversity
June 28, 2007, 18:30 - 21:15
|
|
|
LABs in Girona,
Spain, moderated by Humberto
Schwab:
LAB
on Old and New ENERGY
April 17 & 18, 2007
Early
Bird registration till
end February
Please
use the
Energy LAB Registration
LAB
on MEDIA and Human Experience
May
29 & 30, 2007
Early
Bird registration till
March 16, 2007
Please
use the
Media
LAB Registration
|
|
|
|
|
.Club
of Amsterdam Open Business Club |
|
|
Club
of Amsterdam Open Business Club
Are you interested in networking, sharing visions,
ideas about your future, the future of your industry, society, discussing
issues, which are relevant for yourself as well as for the 'global'
community? The future starts now - join our
online platform
...:
http://www.openbc.com/go/invuid/Felix_Bopp2
CIWI
- Creative Minds Worldwide
CIWI
Club of Amsterdam Forum
|
|
|
|
.Contact |
Your
comments, ideas, articles are welcome!
Please write to Felix Bopp, Editor-in-Chief:
editor@clubofamsterdam.com
|
|
.Subscribe
& Unsubscribe |
Subscription
http://www.clubofamsterdam.com/subscription.htm
To unsubscribe:
http://www.ymlp.com/unsubscribe.php?ClubofAmsterdamJournal
|
|
m |
|