By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Dec 16, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET  How close to happiness?
Today I am just 23 pounds, $300,000, one more college degree, a new room created upstairs from the unused space in the attic, one deluxe car wash, one spring cleaning of my closet (this fall), two car payments, a new cream for my adult eczema, one tuition payment, one mini-marathon, a year of Yoga classes, 3 years of missed time with my daughter and son and wife, a full physical check up, a new dentist, 35 emails, 12 voice mail messages, 3 weekend couple invitations for dinner, 4 meetings for coffee, one meeting for lunch, one really good night’s sleep, a contribution to my IRA, de-duplicating software tool for my contacts on Outlook, one new iPad Air, 4 conference calls, 3 new clients, getting alterations done on the new blue blazer I bought 8 months ago, one gas tank fill-up, some new stationary with my name on it for thank you notes, and one cup of coffee away from true happiness.
So close….
Almost as close as this time last year….
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Dec 16, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET We need to try more stuff. Innovation is never about silver bullets. It’s about experimentation and doing whatever it takes, even if it means trying 1000 things, to deliver value.
Making progress on the real issues of our time including health care, education, and energy will require a lot more experimentation than we are comfortable with today. These are all systems challenges that will require systems solutions. Tweaking the current systems will not work. Technology as a sustaining innovation may improve the efficiency of current systems but will not result in the transformation that we all know is needed. We need to learn how to leverage technology for disruptive innovation and to experiment at the systems level.
My mantra is Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast. The imperative for all innovators is R&D for business models and systems. We know how to do R&D for new products and technologies. We need to also do R&D for new business models and systems. It is not technology that is getting in the way, it is humans and the intransigent organizations we live in that are both stubbornly resistant to change. We have plenty of technology available to us. We need to learn how to leverage it to open up transformative ways to deliver value. Designing and experimenting with new system approaches, particularly those that cut across sectors and silos, is the path to the transformation that we need. We must design around the end user and learn how to harness the potential of social media platforms and storytelling to enable purposeful networks.
 I recently watched a 60 Minutes segment highlighting the success of the Harlem Children’s Zone in NYC. Listening to Geoffrey Canada, the program’s founder, was inspiring and reminded me of the importance of systems level change. Everyone wants to know the one thing that makes a program like HCZ successful. What is the silver bullet that will allow the program to be replicated with ease across the country? We are always looking for an easy answer. There is no silver bullet and it is not easy to transform systems. At HCZ it is doing 1000 things with passion to help those children succeed. It is about focusing on the customer, in this case, the children within 100 city blocks in Harlem and doing what ever it takes to help them secure a bright future. There is no one thing. There are a lot of things that were tried, many that didn’t work or add value, and a strong appetite for trying new approaches to achieve the goal.
Systems transformation is all about experimentation. It is about combining and recombining capabilities from across silos until something clicks and value is delivered in a new way. It is never just one thing. It starts with a big idea that gets the juices flowing and attracts others with similar passion to the purposeful network. The big idea has to be translated from the white board on to a real world test bed to demonstrate that the idea is feasible. Starting small and demonstrating progress is key to building credibility and expanding a network of interested stakeholders. An ongoing portfolio of small-scale experiments to fail fast on those without merit and to prioritize those with the potential to scale is critical. Those experiments that demonstrate the feasibility of a new model or approach become candidates for expansion. Scaling fast becomes more likely with the ability to leverage the proof point of a successful real world experiment and the opportunity to leverage a network of passionate supporters.
Systems level innovation is about enabling purposeful networks with the capacity to Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast.
By RP Staff, on Fri Dec 13, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET Terrific piece from Beth Reinhard in the National Journal about political class warfare in rural America. Here’s an excerpt that features our own RP:
Kentucky’s governor, Steve Beshear, is the only one in the South to have embraced Medicaid expansion and set up a state-based health insurance exchange. And for that, he’s being hailed as a Democratic leader who is paving populist inroads for his party among blue-collar whites. If enough of those so-called Reagan Democrats benefit from Obamacare, the thinking goes, they may start to view the Democratic Party as a friend to working people instead of as an enabler of welfare cheats.
“Kentucky is the 47 percent,” said the state’s former treasurer, Jonathan Miller, a Democrat who served in Beshear’s administration after unsuccessfully running against him for governor in 2007. “It’s been a very hypocritical electorate that wants those entitlement programs to protect their families but at the same time doesn’t want big government or elites in Washington interfering in their lives. But I think Beshear’s passion for this issue might start turning the tide.”
It’s a tough sell, however, to those who feel government has never done anything but screw them over. Rupe was disgusted when a follow-up letter about his Medicaid application included a voter-registration form. “I guess that’s the really important thing on their mind,” he grumbled.
In fact, the politics of Obamacare are so volatile that Lundergan Grimes refuses to say explicitly whether she supports Medicaid expansion in Kentucky. As a Democrat trying to navigate this Obama-wary red state, she has cautiously cast herself as more critic than cheerleader for the health care law. “As Alison has said for months, there are parts of the Affordable Care Act that need to be fixed, and the law is far from perfect,” Norton said. When addressing the struggles of low-income Kentuckians, Lundergan Grimes prefers to focus on the more popular cause of raising the minimum wage.
Indeed, the coming debate in Congress over the minimum wage will give Democrats another chance to try to win over the blue-collar whites who have long viewed them as sops for a welfare state beholden to minorities. If Lundergan Grimes, for example, can peel some of those voters away from McConnell, she has a chance to oust one of the most powerful Republicans in the country.
Republicans don’t have to trash the safety net to win elections. Congressional candidate Vance McAllister threw his support behind Medicaid expansion and trounced an Obamacare-bashing fellow Republican in a special election last month in Louisiana. Even Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu hailed McAllister’s victory, saying it proves that opposition to expanding Medicaid is a “political loser.”
“It’s unfair to say Republicans don’t care about poverty, but they should be held accountable for coming up with proposals,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economic adviser to 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain and the president of the American Action Forum, a center-right think tank. “I expect they will have to if they want to be seen as solution-oriented problem solvers who win elections instead of just opposing Obama’s agenda.”
If Louisiana hadn’t rejected the additional Medicaid money available under Obamacare, about 400,000 poor people would be eligible for government-funded health insurance. Across the country, an estimated 5.4 million people would have qualified for Medicaid coverage, but they live in Republican-run states that closed the door to them.
Because Kentucky did take the cash, 308,000 poor people are now eligible for health insurance in the Bluegrass State. Over the 11 months leading up to the election, McConnell and other Republicans opposing Medicaid expansion will be hard-pressed to explain why they want to take health insurance away from needy constituents who belong to their own party.
Click here for the full piece.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Dec 12, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Last night before going to bed I saw a pile of bills my wife had neatly organized for me–totaling $8,100. Maybe that was the impetus for my dream last night.
As I was coming out of the men’s room in a corporation I don’t work for but was just part of my dream, someone tossed me a brick of $100 dollar bills. I couldn’t tell if they were robbing the office or were drug dealers. But after the first brick I somehow got 5 or 6 more as the robbers or drug dealers (remember, it’s a dream and not logical) left the premises.
I couldn’t believe my good fortune. I counted the money and it was about $1,190,000. I counted it several times. And several more times after that.
I found a friend—interestingly one who is not the most upright but a friend I felt I could trust— and asked what I should do. He thought I should definitely keep it. And give some to him to help me keep it under wraps.
I thought about it and prayed about it (very short prayers, I might add) and decided to keep the money for a second day to think and pray about some more. I just couldn’t be myself and was all jammed up feeling guilty and secretive and decided after about 48 hours to turn in the money –all of it—to the authorities.
This was tricky because so much time (48 hours) had lapsed. I was going to pretend like the money was dropped off in my office at the corporation I don’t really work at but did in this dream and that I just didn’t notice the money for 2 days. But that didn’t seem plausible.So I just pretended like I had missed work one day –the day the million dollars was dropped off in my office—but did notice the over $1M left in my office the next day when I returned to work. That seemed somewhat plausible. Unlike the coworkers in my dream I notice things lime 6 bricks of $100 bills left lying around. Mostly, I just wanted to turn in the darned money and be done with it so I could feel better about myself again.
And maybe I’d get a reward like television. Who knows, maybe 10% or even $10,000. Even if it were the latter it would cover all my bills waiting for me in the hallway.
I turned in the money and felt like the weight of the world (or at least as much as $1,190,000 weighs in $100 bills) had been lifted from me. I was relieved and myself again. And got no reward whatsoever. That only happens on TV not in dreams.
And then the alarm went off. And I got up and sauntered into the kitchen to get a bowl of cereal and saw the pile of $8,100 in bills my wife had neatly organized for me the night before. And I was grateful I didn’t have the money to pay them just yet but I did have a clear conscience and would eventually get them paid.
And that feeling was easily worth a million bucks. Actually more than $1,190,000 to be precise.
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Dec 9, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET On New Year’s Eve I received one of those blast-from-the past emails, made possible by Google, from a long forgotten friend from high school days. I hadn’t thought about the crew from an after school job 35 years ago at McDonalds forever. (Yes, you heard right, I flipped burgers at McDonalds) The email moved me and provided a wonderful end-of-the-year gift because this friend had taken the time after all of these years to reach out and thank me for the positive influence I had on her life. I had no idea that I had said these things and that my passion for mentoring extended all the way back to high school.
Here is an excerpt from the email. Tell me you wouldn’t have been moved if this popped in to your in-basket on New Year’s Eve.
“Over the holidays I was with a bunch of friends and we were all talking about gratitude, and the fact that we are much more aware of all of the people who have touched our lives in positive ways along the way.
I mentioned that I have always wished I had run into you sometime as an adult so that I could tell you that you changed the entire course of my life when I was 18 and pretty directionless. You told me that I was smart, too smart not to go to college.
So I went. To college, that is.
And then I went to law school.
I have honestly thought about how different my life might have been if you had not done what no guidance counselor or parent or frankly any adult in my life had thought to do….you encouraged me to be more. So, thank you!”
Wow. What a nice way to end the year. I have been thinking about my McDonalds after school job and the crew I hung out with since receiving this uplifting note. I had forgotten how much I learned from my first job serving up greasy fries and how some of the things I took away from that time have stayed with me over the years. I must have barked out to my kids, “Clean as you go” hundreds of times while they were growing up. I know it drove them crazy but you won’t find any of them with cluttered countertops, desktops, TIVOs, or lives. They have no idea that I learned that annoying habit and phrase while working at McDonalds. Clean as you go is important in the kitchen and in life.
I also remembered something this week that I don’t think I have ever shared publicly. I was fired from that job at McDonalds. My best friend at the time decided to steal one of those frozen birthday cakes from the walk-in freezer out in the parking lot. The store manager caught my friend in the act. He confronted me because he knew we were friends and assumed it was a conspiracy (It wasn’t, I swear!). I must have had a big shit-eating grin while denying it (the same one that anyone who knows me has seen many times) because he fired me on the spot. I was devastated at the time because I needed that job to save for college. Looking back at it I can trace the resolve to control my own career, not letting any company or institution think they can control it for me, to that frozen birthday cake and being fired from my first job at McDonalds. I have stuck to that resolve throughout my career.
It is I who should thank my friend (not the one who stole the birthday cake) for having the courage to send me that email on New Year’s Eve. Thank you for bringing back such wonderful memories and for teaching me something important. Because of you I have amended my “clean as you go” philosophy. While it might be necessary to get rid of the clutter in your life perhaps it is more important to hold on to the old friendships and memories that impact your life.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Dec 6, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
Warning: If you try to go to Walmart to pick up a half gallon of milk, you will soon realize your errand is not about the 2% milk.
Instead your journey is about the exploration of a wild, weird and wonderfully kitschy world where you will see things that will bend your conventional mind and make you whisper to yourself, “Gee, I could use that.” Followed by “and that too.” Or maybe, “Who thinks up these products?” Followed finally by “These prices can’t be beat.”
And you will soon realize that even though you walked into a Walmart that you have really entered the Hotel California.
That’s right. “You can check out any time you want (through self-service check out), but you can never leave.”
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Tue Dec 3, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET After spending nearly three years on the road, we look back on all that we put up with to save a dollar. Were all the long bus rides and sleeping at airports worth it to keep the expenses in check?
HE SAID…
You’ll never hear me claim that there is a better way to travel than budget travel. Getting as close to the locals’ spending as possible is the best way to understand how their life is…and isn’t that why to travel? Not only the experiences, but also the differences between experiences in different places are enlightening. Exposing yourself to where the locals eat, stay and play will teach you more about a place than a tour ever would.
If I wanted something easy and comfortable I’d try to have that at home, not in some distant land. Why would I put my money towards temporary comfort instead of investing in permanent comfort? At home I want the most comfortable things possible, but on the road I want the most locally authentic experiences possible.
This does create some problems though. It’s caused us to end up in some places where I was deathly allergic to things. It’s led us to some pretty dirty places. It’s made us terribly sick. The romantic idea of living like a local is much better than it is in reality.
Here is one great example. We thought we had scored a great deal on a place to stay in Seoul, in a student building, on AirBnB. The listing made it clear that it could sleep two, evenings were quiet times, and there was free rice. They had me at the price, but I fell in love with the idea of free rice. See the photo above? That’s how we slept for three nights. On the fourth day I ran into the building manager, the same person who had checked us in, and he asked how we were sleeping. I responded that we were doing fine. Then he asked the key question, “would you like another mattress?” Why yes we would! How had he failed to mention this earlier, such as when the two of us checked in?
Read the rest of…
Erica & Matt Chua: Budget Travel Gripes
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Dec 2, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET One of my biggest pet peeves is setting strategy one tactic at a time. It drives me crazy to be surrounded by people and organizations that think if they just work hard enough and do more things that a strategic direction and destination will emerge. It seems that most of the world works this way. It is terribly inefficient. How many people and organizations do you know that pedal the bicycle like crazy but never seem to arrive anywhere. They just keep pedaling harder hoping that something will eventually stick. It is exhausting watching them. Why not determine a destination and work hard on those things that help you get there. It seems so simple. Setting a strategic direction provides a way to know which tactics are aligned and contribute to reaching the destination. The destination may change along the way requiring different tactics, and that is OK, but not having a destination at all is a ticket to nowhere.
When John F. Kennedy said, “We choose to go to the moon” in 1961, Americans rallied around the destination. We believed it was possible and the goal of setting foot on the moon rallied a country to advance its global science and technology leadership. It was cool to study math and science and clear that innovation was the economic engine that would drive American prosperity. When Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon eight years later and said, “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind”, we celebrated his achievement as if it was our own and knew at that moment that anything was possible. We have been trying to get that feeling back ever since. Today, we have no clear destination, in space or on earth.
I am still trying to process President Obama’s plan to cancel NASA’s Constellation program for manned space flight back to the moon. OK, I thought, maybe he has a bolder more imaginative space destination in mind or a better way to get back to the moon. It turns out that the announced strategy identifies no new destination at all and has been called a “flexible path” focusing on enabling technologies. The destination will be determined later. Please say it isn’t so. It is impossible to be inspired with out a destination and it is terribly inefficient to develop enabling technologies with out an end in mind.
My second thought upon hearing the new NASA strategy was that maybe President Obama wants to turn our attention and resources toward earth and create an inspiring space mission like focus on fixing health care, education, or climate change. We have no clear destination for any of these huge system challenges. We continue to play around the margins hoping that incremental changes will launch us toward systemic solutions. It isn’t working. We need to transform each of these systems and it will take “moon landing” like clarity and commitment to make it happen. So maybe the president plans to shift attention and resources away from space exploration toward transformation here on earth. No such luck.
It isn’t as if the NASA budget was cut freeing up resources for other priorities. The proposed budget actually increases NASA’s budget by 2% allocating $6B over 5 years to create a commercial taxi to the space station. The budget comes nowhere close to the $3B a year that the recent expert advisory panel suggested was needed to create a robust manned space program. So we appear to be lost in space and on earth. We will continue to invest in space technologies without a clear destination and we will continue to work around the margins of the important system challenges we face here on earth.
It is enough to make you scream. All I can think of is Ralph Kramden in the Honeymooners getting angry and red in the face, proclaiming, “To the moon, Alice”!
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Nov 25, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET How many capabilities are locked away, underleveraged in organizational or industry silos? Who hasn’t suffered a severe case of innovator’s envy, coveting access to information and capabilities that seem so tantalizingly close?
Most innovation doesn’t require inventing anything new. It is often just a matter of combining and recombining capabilities across disciplines, organizations, and sectors. The problem is that those capabilities are often impossible to access. The biggest opportunities in health care, education, security, and energy lie in the gray areas between silos. We need to think and act more horizontally.
In doing so, we’ll connect unusual suspects in purposeful ways. Take spies and environmentalists. Recent news of the CIA reviving its MEDEA (Measurements of Earth Data for Environmental Analysis) program and providing access to data from national intelligence assets for environmental research really got my attention. What a great example of the power and politics of collaborative innovation.
 More Data Sharing
With no security risk, disruption of agency activities, or incremental cost, the CIA has opened up a treasure trove of valuable data to scientists from academia, government, and industry for environmental research. To replicate the capture of this information would be silly and cost-prohibitive, and I was encouraged that the data were being shared to make progress on an important social issue. But then naysayers and politics entered the conversation. Instead of garnering praise for the program, as I would have expected, the CIA was criticized for mission creep.
Admittedly, news of the collaborative program came right on the heels of the U.S. terror threat on Dec. 25. Talking heads across cable news accused the CIA of negligence, arguing that sharing data with environmental scientists was a distraction from its core mission of minding the American public. But the pundits have it wrong. The CIA and all Homeland Security organizations should be doing more, not less, cross-agency collaboration and data sharing. The protection of data, capabilities, and turf has gotten us into the current mess. Perhaps if the focus had been on networking capabilities and sharing data across silos, America would be a safer country today.
In 1986, the Federal Technology Transfer Act created the CRADA (Cooperative Research & Development Agreement) process to enable public-private partnerships around promising government technologies. CRADA may just as well stand for “Can’t Really Access Developed Assets.” Government rhetoric claims to support technology transfer, but the painful bureaucratic process in place makes it nearly impossible to leverage existing government capabilities. I get a headache just thinking about how hard it is to access all the valuable information and data that have been created by government agencies and paid for by taxpayer dollars. Many of these assets could be leveraged to unleash new value and to help make progress on our big social challenges.
Combining Capabilities
Private-sector organizations are similar. We are so busy pedaling the bicycle of today’s business models that there is no capacity to explore new ones. The secret sauce of business model innovation is the ability to explore new ways to deliver customer value by combining and recombining capabilities, in and out of the organization, across silos.
One story that sticks with me is from my friend Alexander Tsiaris, founder ofAnatomical Travelogue, who has built a successful company creating human anatomy visualization tools to help us better understand health care. When Alexander was starting his digital media business he needed access to hospital MRI equipment. He was willing to pay for access to the equipment during down times to capture the scanned images he transforms into a beautiful art form and health-care education tool. The initial hospitals he asked all said the same thing: We are not in this business and can’t provide access. Alexander is persistent and ultimately found willing partners in New York City, but it wasn’t easy.
This pattern repeats itself over and over. It is not the technology that gets in the way of innovation. It is humans and the organizations we live in that are both stubbornly resistant to experimentation and change. If we want to make progress on the big issues of our time, we have to look up from our silos and become more comfortable recombining capabilities in new ways in order to connect with the unusual suspects.
By RP Nation, on Fri Nov 22, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET Dear XXXXXXXXX,
I didn’t feel it was appropriate to text you this late, but there are a few things that need to be addressed. I just walked in my bathroom and my rug was soaking wet. I looked underneath the sink to assess the situation and I found everything soaked – including my entire storage of toilet paper. This has happened once before, but I figured it was just due to perpetual maintenance and I didn’t want to make a stir.
I have tried to be very patient with the process, considering it is extremely confusing, involves many people, crosses International waters being that the homeowner lives in Europe, and I get no communication from you other than text message as you do not answer the phone. I sent you an email a while back expressing my frustration with a few situations. You replied asking me to fix the screen door and gave no response or feedback regarding my questions that begged resolution.
I have asked, for more than a year, for the electric to be looked at and repaired. I said nothing when a storm came through. Although connected to a surge protector and powered off, my three-month old TV was destroyed. I said nothing because regardless of every protective measure, “acts of God” happen which absolve you from having to lift your pretty little finger. Had I not bought 3 brand new heaters that – without spiritual forces – also met their maker while plugged into the death traps that are my outlets, I would have likely deduced those “acts” and the destruction of my TV were solely caused by God. I don’t believe God would smite me by killing my heat and my access to Netflix. I’m sure He has better things to do. However, it begs question and further evaluation, as it is a well-known and proven theory that twice is a coincidence and three times is a conspiracy. Four times? Leave Him out of it. Fix the electric.
I took my own initiative to replace the TV without complaint or raising issue, as I have been guilty in the past of causing aggravation myself. There have been many “acts of God” that have forced me to reevaluate my scenarios and look internally for resolution…and I have learned to live very comfortably without Netflix and am humbled, daily, by how fortunate I am. Yet I would be remiss if during this reflection, I didn’t worry about you. It must have been extremely taxing to have someone besides yourself call me to ask that I take my trash to the dumpster and train my dog not to poo in someone else’s yard. And fix a screen door so people in your industry don’t cringe when they are attempting to making a profit by selling the unit beside me. How awful that eye sore must be, and how difficult that must have been to deal with. Again – my apologies.
Nevertheless, I have mentioned and asked repeatedly from the commencement of my lease (when I used the microwave while preheating my oven and the power went off in 3 rooms), and again repeatedly after I renewed for a second year, for the electric to not just be looked at, but be fixed. Instead, we have gone in circles and I have been told, repeatedly, that “someone will be sent to handle it and they will contact you for your schedule”. You must not cook. I’m sure that is another a task you find difficult, and compensate with passive aggressive work-arounds like boxing up a five-star meal and paying for it with the money you got from your divorce. I’m sure he didn’t marry you for your epicurean skills. Odds are towards the end, the oven wasn’t the only thing lacking heat. I’ll put my money on that winning hand for sure.
I have asked repeatedly for the shower door to be removed. Maybe you are starting to sense a pattern here. This is only after the situation escalated and it was installed without proper judgement – only because there was little to no communication on the subject of the flooring due to your assumed anthropophobia…look it up if it doesn’t automatically register. If that is the case, you are obviously in the wrong line of work. Predicated only by these assumptions and an utter lack of patience at this point, forgive me in advance for my candidness, but again – text messaging does not satisfy the ability to conduct a true assessment of the needs and priorities of the homeowner and myself – nor is it an excuse to regurgitate when I have asked to speak to you over the phone and you are showing a house.
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