Food, Inc.

A couple of weeks ago, I went and saw Food, Inc., a documentary that describes how the food we eat is produced and the impact that production has on rural farmers, worker safety, and our personal health. For those of you who have read Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, the topics covered in this movie are not new. And in fact, Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan—the respective authors of those two books—were heavily involved in the development of the movie.

Having seen Food, Inc., I am reminded that food companies—notably CPG firms and chain restaurants—have been slow to leverage the Michael Pollan phenomenon as an opportunity for breakthrough innovation. While the idea of eating more sustainably was once the domain of a few aging hippies and foodie-oriented yuppies, more and more people—especially in younger demographics—view organic and local as table stakes for high quality, good tasting food.

And although a lot of people still love hamburgers and ice cream, most people aren’t looking at trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, artificial preservatives, and excessive antibiotics…and saying to themselves, “Yummy.”

Now granted, many CPG firms have acquired “healthy eating” brands over the years; Odwalla is owned by Coca-Cola, and Kashi was acquired by Kellogg’s. But these acquisitions feel like opportunistic responses to a niche segment, as opposed to longer-term, organic growth strategies (pun intended) that take advantage of an industry-transforming trend. Indeed, the lack of a stronger strategic response by food companies is akin to the Big 3 automakers’ lethargic response to Japanese car makers selling smaller, higher quality, fuel efficient vehicles in the 1980’s…and we know how that story ended.

What we see at work here is a common challenge to innovation breakthroughs: over-focus on current customers and their needs.

In this example, food companies today have to maintain share with their current customer base in order to make their quarterly numbers, typically through investments in incremental innovations. At the same time, these companies must also dramatically increase their strategic focus on creating (and reformulating) foods that are appetizing to the Gen Y demographic and fast growing niches that will be the source of their future growth. The problem: most of any companies' strategic assets, product platforms, and investment criteria are geared toward supporting the needs of current customers, not enabling transformative opportunities with new customers.

Going forward, the ability to manage the balancing act of serving current and future customer needs more effectively—with an increased focus on future customers—will decide the fate of most food companies in the coming decade. For the food companies' health and ours, I hope they will manage the balancing act well.

Crowdsourcing for Design

Much has been written about crowdsourcing innovation through Web 2.0 technologies, but what are the implications of such tools for design?

I recently learned about a website called Crowdspring, a crowdsourcing approach for design services. The incredibly simple process goes something like this:

1. You post a project (e.g. new logo or website design), set a deadline, and name your price.
2. Designers from around the world respond with various design ideas.
3. You choose the best one. If less than 25 people respond, you don’t pay!
   

For those of you who are electronic music fans, the Pet Shop Boys—a band that has been nominated for 6 Grammy awards and has sold over 50 million records worldwide—are using Crowdspring to design the concert poster for their North American tour this summer. The total compensation for this very important, once-in-a-lifetime, likely-to-be-a-collector’s-item project that will help the Pet Shop Boys make millions of dollars: a mere $300!

Here’s the big idea: Fortune 500 companies, including all consumer packaged goods firms, work with high profile creative agencies every year to get the right brand identity, develop the right package design, or create the right advertising campaign. Instead of paying millions for a top-flight agency, could these companies get similar—or even better results—from a crowdsourced solution that costs about $1000?

Don’t know…but I’d pay $1000 to find out.

Self-Quantifiers

I recently attended a meeting of “Self-Quantifiers”—people who are tracking random data about their lives in excruciating detail. Think of it as datamining yourself without any explicit goal of discovering something useful.

A few examples:

1) Communications designer who decides to track what colors of food she eats everyday (by Pantone color) and then portrays it in a unique color swatch infographic.

2) Computer hacker who has hacked his Toyota Prius in the hopes of creating the equivalent of Guitar Hero for the Toyota Prius (or “Prius Hero”). People would be connected to a device-enabled network, and there would be a leaderboard for different routes in NYC based on how many miles per gallon people got on the routes!

3) Young woman who has itemized all of her clothing (over 500 pieces!) in the hopes of creating the perfect wardrobe. Using Excel, she has created a scoring rubric based on how often an item can be worn on different occasions (e.g. casual, social, formal), as well as how well one item can be matched with all of the other items.

Can we take this emerging phenomenon of self-quantifiers and apply it meaningfully to alt-energy in the near future? Can we emulate the Guitar Hero model and engage consumers in a self-quantifying, energy efficiency experience that appeals to their heads, hearts, and...love of mildly competitive, somewhat geeky games?

The answer is clearly yes if we can build a Smart Grid that effectively leverages distributed generation, where generation happens closer to the home. In the May 28th edition of the Economist, an article titled “A Green Revolution” describes a Stanford professor who has installed solar panels on his home. During the day, he sells power to the grid for 29 cents a kWh and buys power at night for 9 cents. The professor can lower his energy bill to zero and wants to go further.

The challenge, of course, is to create the right business model—with a differentiated experience—to encourage all consumer segments, including less environmentally-conscious ones—to strive for eco-efficiency. It may take a couple of years, but I look forward to the day when my utility will allow me to track my progress and compete against my neighbors in a game of Smart Grid Hero!

Welcome to my blog!

For my first entry, I am posting a video introduction to me, my perspectives, and my goals for this blog. Enjoy!