Message To The Fitness Industry - Real Innovation Requires Changing Your Thinking

One of my favorite quotes is that of Daniel Boorstin who observed, "The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." Boorstin, a renowned historian and former Librarian of Congress who wrote numerous books including, The Genius of American Politics, Democracy and Its Discontents, and The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson, was right. Overcoming challenges is largely a function of letting go of assumptions. As he put it, "If we think we know something, then we face an obstacle to innovation." In his 1983 bestseller The Discoverers , the author chronicled the achievements of Galileo, Columbus, Darwin, Gutenberg and Freud, among others, who emerged as drivers of creativity and courage, and committed ingenious acts of revolt against ingrained habit. Great discoverers dispel illusions and reveal something new about the world as is further evidenced by Boorstin's interpretation of Thomas Jefferson's contributions and philosophies, when he said,

"Jefferson, in my opinion, was the apostle of experience. In other words, he was the person who believed that everything had to change. He thought that every generation should have the opportunity to have its own revolution, to write its own laws, and that was his vision of the past and the future"

Given the crisis of obesity "Globesity as Phillip and Jackie Mills call it" should we not evaluate how the growing fitness industry has not really impacted the problem ? Reliance upon Boorstin's realizations and the lessons of history are more relevant than ever, as is the need for leaders to emerge, dispel illusion and move us forward via our own revolution in the fitness and wellness industry. Obviously what we have been doing has not been working.

Could institutional thinking in fitness and wellness be the very "illusion of knowledge" Boorstin identified? Classic institutions are by nature closed, selective and controlling. Persons participating in institutional thinking have to be "careful" of what they absorb, guarded with whom they interact and controlling of everything. Essentially, risk aversion and maintenance of the status quo is the dna of most institutions and thus the reasons most institutions are failing in an increasingly network oriented world. Are our institutions then at the heart of the problem ?

No matter the debate; be it health care, education, or your organization's effectiveness, adopting network strategies and dispelling institutional dogma is at the core of true innovation. Watch the video by Thomas Power who describes institutional thinking, its limits and the opportunity that the new paradigm provides.

What do you think ? Does the fitness and wellness industry need to change its mindset in order to become more effective at impacting the health crisis we face today ? Please contact me Bryan O'Rourke, and share your views.

A Doctrine for Change - To Lessig Again

I was again reading and reviewing Lawrence Lessig's work tonight. The man is so very articulate and his observations so compelling. If you haven't become a student of his work, please take my advice and give it a try here.

At the 2002 Open Source Convention Lessig challenged the audience to get involved in the political process. A tireless advocate for open source, Lessig shared some basic concepts that are a solution to most of the barriers preventing our soceity from overcoming the major challenges of the time. A complete transcript of Lawrence's keynote presentation made on July 24, 2002 is available here. In summation his logical findings were as follows.

Creativity and innovation always builds on the past.  

The past always tries to control the creativity that builds upon it.

Free societies enable the future by limiting this power of the past.

Ours is less and less a free society.

Watch the video from Big Thinkers wherein Lessig explains his views on freedom our culture and creativity.

Why Wellness Takes a Back Seat in the Reform Debate

Despite all the talk of reform, there is NO significant aspect of pending legislation to change health care that harnesses the benefits of prevention. As Bill George mentioned during his recent Businessweek article, final health-care legislation is severely compromised by a myriad of lobbyists and special interests who advocate protecting their turf but rarely contribute to sound policy. Numerous side deals have been cut with industry groups that make a noncompetitive market even less competitive. As Bill correctly pointed out, "the bills under consideration will only make a broken system worse, resulting in unintended consequences."

So why the lack of policy reform that really takes into account positives that wellness could provide to the problem of too many people being ill from poor lifestyle choices ? Enter my friend Lawrence Lessig. You see our system of government and policy is unduly influenced by money. That is the reason common sense solutions don't receive the attention they deserve. There are truly NO influencers equivalent to the special interests and money of the medical, insurance, and pharmaceutical extant health care system players . As a result there is no proverbial dog in the fight for wellness. Watch Lessig above explain how special interest blocked health policy on the consumption of sugar as a case in point and join the change congress movement if you really want to get our nation healthy.

Cloud Computing & Political Correctness

I woke this morning to read David Linthicum's article "How to kill the cloud: Claim it's about job loss," originally published at InfoWorld.com.

Here is my initial thought: are you kidding me ? David's theory is that the adoption of Cloud Computing would be far more "acceptable" (aka politically correct) if we didn't have executives like Unisys's Richard Marcello saying: "We were able to eliminate a whole bunch of actually U.S.-based jobs and kind of replace them with two folks out of India to serve a 1,200-person engineering organization."

To be fair, I think David is a really brite guy and he correctly observes that technology innovation often sets forth unrealistic expectations when it comes to realizing cost reductions and other benefits. But to read this: "The message here is that the cloud computing industry needs to think a bit about what it's saying in the promotion of cloud computing. Some of the "cloud computing experts" are sending wrong and inaccurate messages. In other words, they're not helping." What are they not helping ? Don't you believe that enhancing the quality of systems and reducing the expense of deploying them for the benefit of customers isn't at the core of innovation ? Isn't that what its all about ? For those who don't think so I suggest a view of Danny Devito's Larry the liquidator speech from the movie Other People's Money below. Amen, you just heard a prayer - the prayer for the "dead".

Bottom line is significant segments of IT, along with players in a variety of industries, are in peril because their value paradigms are erroding, no longer as relevant to the market. Its only a matter of time until a combination of forces including globalism, technology advancements and mega cultural shifts turn over their proverbial apple carts. David do you honestly believe that the "press" people get around the "truth" (being that reengineering significant aspects of business models via cloud computing will eliminate vast segments of the job market and redeploy them abroad) will stop this revolution ? That's analogous to what GM thought ten years ago about its industry. You get the idea. Perhaps it would help advance our industry to be more transparent about obsolesence, change, and continuing to get an increasing share of a shrinking market. Think about the buggy whip example Larry cites in his speech.

Why A Neutral Internet Is Crucial

In the most high-profile case on net neutrality, last year the FCC ruled Comcast illegally placed limits on broadband customers using peer-to-peer services. Comcast is appealing the ruling, but this is exactly what open Internet advocates and the FCC want to prevent. Why ? Because it would adversely impact innovation and impede the potential an open and neutral internet can create.

To illustrate the importance of net neutrality consider this: if you had a choice between a large, established Internet company with deep pockets to pay for faster access; you'd be more likely to use their service over a small start-up that might have a more innovative services but lacked the money to pay for similar speeds. What the major players want is to eliminate competition and use their present advantages to snuff out future competitive threats. Remember when you had to buy your telephone from one supplier - AT&T ? Recall how AT&T fought the FCC over the deregulation of the telecommunicaiton industry ? Well we're here again, but the stakes are higher now.

In 2005, the FCC adopted four principles for net neutrality. These principles say that network operators cannot block users from accessing Internet content that is legal and they can't prevent consumers from attaching devices, like a TiVO or online gaming console, to the Internet. Basically the pipeline cannot govern content and companies with deep pockets cannot use their resources to block innovative competitors.

This week FCC head Genachowski added two new principles. Network providers can't discriminate against certain types of Internet traffic and they have to be transparent in how they manage their networks. Critical pieces to maintain the net as an open platform and despite fortunes being spent on Congressional lobbyist and contributions to candidates.

Even more profound was the decision to extend these rules to wireless networks. With mobile computing and smartphones emerging as one of the most profound innovations of our time, it's essential that these networks be kept open so that this market can continue to flourish and evolve.

The policy announcement was not a surprise given Obama's support for the cause during the campaign. If you believe in the great potential of technology and the Internet and you live in the U.S., contact your congressional representatives and let them know - we need a neutral net.