5 Trends for Impact in 2014
Autodesk’s Carl Bass Works at the Frontier of Technology
When Carl Bass, president and CEO of Autodesk, spoke at our Social Innovation Summit last November, he provided a compelling perspective on key trends of our time. Carl was rare for a CEO; he did not talk directly about Autodesk or himself (the all too common company PR pitch). Rather, he brought the company’s learning and expertise as a leader in 3D design, engineering, and entertainment software to bear on the world’s needs and opportunities for change.
I think you’ll agree that Bass’s ideas provide a fresh synthesis of emerging concepts that feels directly relevant – almost like a call to action – as we evaluate the technologies available to support social innovation in 2014 and beyond. The game is changing, and the new rules of possibility have exciting implications for our work to build a more sustainable, just and prosperous world.
Three Aspects to Global Challenges
Bass shared three observations about the nature of global challenges today that set the landscape in which we operate. Global challenges are characterized by their:
Scale: The massive size and scope of global challenges make it uniquely hard to create solutions for them, and to measure the success of those solutions.
Complexity: The immense complexity of these challenges, with many interconnected and constantly changing elements, makes them hard to fully understand, let alone address.
Politics: Global challenges are inherently political, involving nations, NGOs, politicians, citizens, money, power, etc., which add additional barriers for implementation of even good ideas.
We know that working on social problems is tough. Below I’ve shared Bass’s thoughts, and elaborated on each point to highlight the way each trend might apply for social impact.
5 Trends for the New Year
Trend 1: Ownership to Access
Our relationship to stuff is changing. Bass cited how Zipcar, Netflix, and urban bicycle sharing programs have made it so that we no longer need to own a car, buy DVDs, or purchase a bicycle to enjoy the benefits of these items. Technology has eased the transactions for goods and experiences so that short-term matches make sense when enough people participate. This is a fundamental change to our patterns of consumption, in which we are prioritizing access over ownership and accumulation.
This trend brings many items and experiences into reach for populations that were previously left out. For people without a car, getting to a job interview might have entailed a complex bus ride or negotiation to borrow one. Zipcar’s pay-as-you-go model is much more flexible than a traditional lease and more affordable than renting a car. Take Airbnb as another example, allowing people to rent an extra room or open up their homes to generate income in tough times. On the renter side, Airbnb might enable someone pushed to move for work the chance to live locally while exploring longer term options. This trend can shape the way we think about building services and products for social impact.
Trend 2: Business Unusual
Bass highlighted a number of companies doing cutting-edge work with fewer than 100 employees and less than $10 million in VC funding. Former indicators of success – elegant offices, a vast international footprint, complex org charts, and huge budgets – are no longer integral to big impact. I recently learned that Twitter has a mere 2,300 employees with limited global offices. Yet Twitter’s global reach and power in shaping major world events is indisputable.
Bass’s “business unusual” leverages social networks over physical footprints, intellectual capital over physical assets, and collaborative thinking over hierarchy. This has powerful implications for social innovation. For social innovators who want to replicate, share their ideas, and disseminate their tools and methods, it is now much easier for them to think and act big, without having to be big. Technology and social media offer cost-effective ways to amplify our voices, and to get real solutions in the hands of people working to make a difference in remote locations around the world.
Trend 3: Digital Fabrication
Bass believes that today’s innovations in computerized manufacturing – such as 3D printing and robotic assembly – will lead to the next Industrial Revolution. Here’s the twist: In the 1700s we got lower prices when machines could mass produce items that were previously made by hand. Now, new technologies present an alternative to gazillions of identical things, making one-of-a-kind or limited numbers feasible at a reasonable cost.
This has powerful potential for social innovation, shifting the dynamics so that it’s easier to focus on smaller markets and niche needs and to adapt existing products for specific contexts. Think of this innovation applied to the problem of clubfoot, for example. Leg braces have been designed to treat this congenital birth defect, but the environments in which children learn to walk can differ greatly. What if braces could be tailored to geography and culture, with micro-adjustments to support walking in sand for some users, climbing mountains for others, and squatting in a rice field for others? Braces might be more widely used and better at preventing long-term disability and physical deformity. Without the pressure for mass production, solutions can be designed to meet needs that have previously been overlooked at a fraction of the cost.
Trend 4: The Rise of Information
In 20 minutes online we can find others as interested as we are in almost any topic. And in most cases, information, tips, and resources are openly shared. Bass provided the example of Instructables.com, where 20 million visitors a month come to share information about how to make all kinds of stuff, from cupcakes to robots.
This behavior – people openly sharing not only information but knowledge – has implications for making the world a better place. The alchemy of widespread information and access to cell phones helps to bridge the market failure of information asymmetry. Farmers can access information on crop prices and pest patterns and mothers can find information about health risks and health care providers. Aspiring students can access online education, and MOOCs (massive, open, online courses) are changing the game of distance learning. The doors to learning have never been more open, and as they say, knowledge is power.
Trend 5: Infinite Computing
Thirty years ago, when Bass entered the business, computing power was scarce and expensive. Today he considers it the only resource that is getting cheaper over time. We walk around with supercomputers in our pockets. We interact perpetually with the cloud – an intangible network of computing infrastructure and services — which seems to be an infinitely scalable resource. And computing can be used to solve problems in new ways, allowing us to build digital prototypes to understand how things will look, behave and change over time, rather than rely on trial and error.
Infinite computing holds promise for social innovation, too. Rapper Will.i.am and Enrique Legaspi, who runs the organization College Track in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, presented at the Summit about a mapping project that leverages infinite computing to engage youth in understanding their community. Their participants use Geographical Integration Systems to explore their neighborhood, map its needs, and engage residents in defining priorities for its future. Such examples of crowd-sourced knowledge hold promise for public participation processes, and may help to root social innovations more deeply in the needs of the communities in which we work.
A Toolkit for the Future
Our world’s problems are daunting, and there are no silver bullet solutions. But as we seek to create a better world, it’s exciting to think about how these trends can make our work more inclusive, accessible, and cost-effective. To close, I’ll circle back to the final thought from Bass’s presentation, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” Let’s be proactive in finding the ways to use these tools and trends for social impact. And with that, Happy New Year!