Hack

Hack: Purpose Landing on the VizPlanet© - Our Generation’s Sputnik Moment?

by Charles Prabakar - Executive Global Partner/Managing Director at ABS/Willis Consulting LLC

July 17, 2011 at 5:05pm

5 Comments

3 Ratings:

Overall 4.335
Innovative 5
Detail 3.67

Contribution Summary

Summary

With most purpose agenda driven sustainability solutions, being centered around –just changing our personal choices to reduce the carbon footprint, as opposed to changing our lifestyle first, before changing those personal choices (i.e. changing/resetting our planet’s end-to-end resource consumption patterns first) - they are stuck at the wrong side of the fork, if I may humbly borrow Prof. Clayton Christensen’s style of writing. Please don’t get me wrong – as I am not yet done with building my case, and so, bear with me for few more minutes…..

While we agree, that it is the right thing to develop those innovative sustainability solutions (e.g. energy star programs etc) to help reduce the carbon footprint at the personal/household/business levels, in our humble opinion, these solutions do not fix the root cause of the issue i.e. -

“With urbanization happening at a faster rate than ever across the globe, especially, in the last decade or so, more and more percentage of consumers (& corporations) are continuing to consume and compete for the limited set of natural resources to sustain their current life style (& profit margins) within the natural realm, (thus emitting large percentage of greenhouse gases), inspite of a compelling alternative purpose/virtual lifestyle, available for them within the virtual realm, in a fraction of cost, providing almost the same “look and feel” type of experience, emitting just a fractional percentage of the greenhouse gases.”

One might wonder why we have not been able to fix this root cause in its totality so far – the reason, in our humble opinion, being the lack of a compelling motivation (or incentive mechanism) on the part of both consumers and corporations, to embrace the alternative purpose/virtual lifestyle - and rightfully so, we propose a “lifestyle-changing” root cause fixing, systemic approach, that MOTIVATES both consumers and corporations alike, to come together under a Virtual Community Environment(VCE, henceforth pronounced as Viz), that is bounded together by a powerful “Purpose Score driven, Virtual Reality/Avatar/3D/Interactive Gaming technologies based VizPlanet© Platform”, as outlined in the picture below, (that was put together as part of our recent prototype implementation), that inherently compels all parties (specifically corporations) to stretch their value chain into the VizPlanet© realm, thus making it possible for corporations to provide value-add services with less resources. Not only that - this type of a stretched value chain, apart from increasing corporations’ economies of scale & scope benefits, also, helps us to preserve God given, limited natural resources for the benefit of the future generation. In other words – it is all about us, changing our life style and making a conscious mindset shift, where possible, to consume certain services within the virtual realm (thus reducing the carbon footprint in larger percentages), as opposed to continuing our current lifestyle within the natural realm.

To facilitate such a large scale sustainability driven purpose movement, we have developed a Resource Pool Portfolio (RPP) framework by grouping the high value resource consumption assets of our planet into 25 resource consumption buckets, and let the framework itself, to identify the top 5 high potential candidate buckets of services (as numbered in the picture below) that can be slowly moved from natural realm into the virtual realm, as promoted by our earlier purpose innovation platform concept.

Simply put, those purpose consumers (with a history of consuming/applying H&W P&S’s, consuming/reducing green energies, thus leading a purpose lifestyle, in body-soul-spirit dimensions with a higher purpose scores), who choose to consume all of their commerce and content services, using our VizPlanet Platform, not only get a better value for themselves, but also, facilitate the noble cause of reducing the natural resource consumption rate by a substantial percentage. In other words, VizPlanet© platform, over a period of time, reduces the carbon footprint by a substantial percentage (& hence operating cost as well) as captured in the three KPI’s of the RPP framework, thus increasing the profit margins of corporations as well.

Moonshot(s)

Problem

As part of framing up the problem space – we asked ourselves a fundamental question – is there a burning platform to call this revolutionary VizPlanet© idea, as our Generation’s Sputnik Moment?

Although the short answer is YES, as we started thinking about the best way to present the compelling case for this burning platform – a key insight came to our mind – i.e. an insight from an article by Jared Diamond, assessing the impact of the increased rate of consumption happening among world’s population- as summarized in the picture below.

As we further analyzed the above insight -– in our humble opinion, there existed three foundational issues, in the way most purpose reforms, in its current form, across the world, have been scoped –

First and foremost, the purpose reform problem space has not been framed up correctly. In other words, it has been framed, predominantly just about changing the personal choices of reducing the carbon footprints in small percentages, as opposed to changing the lifestyle of the society in en masse (i.e.by changing/resetting the end-to-end resource consumption pattern of our planet by moving some of the resource intensive commerce/content services from natural realm into the virtual realm), thus reducing carbon footprint in large percentages.
With the fact it has been framed incorrectly in the first place, it has also been approached with a “problem solving mindset of finding an immediate answer to fix the symptoms”, as opposed to being approached as a “systemic mindset of finding a long ranging solution, fixing its root causes”. In other words, it all comes down to “problem solving mindset of fixing the symptoms vs. solution providing mindset of fixing the root causes”.
Finally, the purpose reform has also been solved with a mindset of fixing the symptoms, with a planning mindset, as opposed to being solved with a series of experimentation based chunks of virtual solutions, fixing the root causes, constituting 5-10 year road maps with an experimentation mindset. In other words, it all comes down to “symptoms fixing mode, with a vanilla planning mindset vs. “root causes fixing mode, with an experimentation based planning mindset”.

Systemic root causes of the Purpose Reform

With that said, we would like to re frame the purpose driven sustainability reform, as an “opportunity for solution with an experimentation based chunks of solutions, fixing the root causes, leading up to the 5-10 year road map. As part of that attempt, we have first identified the top three systemic causes for the purpose challenge, before arriving at the solution part.

Lack of a compelling mechanism motivating consumers and corporations to do business within virtual realm.
Absence of an integrated content-commerce VizPlanet platform within the virtual realm, providing the same set of services provided by their brick and mortar counterpart platform.
Fear on the part of the commercial/industrial business owners of losing their brick and mortar strongholds and hesitancy on the part consumers to give up their current natural realm lifestyle that easily- all resulting in less than optimal cooperation from all parties embracing virtual services.

If we had to further summarize these three causes - it all comes down to the “lack of a compelling motivation (or incentives) for businesses and consumers” to come together and find a systemic solution, fixing the root causes. In other words, the primary root cause for the purpose reform is - the lack of a compelling motivation among consumers and businesses to form a joint alliance, so that collaboratively, they can create a win: win value proposition for all the parties involved.

Solution

With that said, the sustainable long term question that needs to be solved within the purpose reform context is – How do we change our lifestyle by resetting planet’s end-to-end resource consumption pattern, by moving some or all of the resource intensive commerce/content services from natural realm into the virtual realm – using one of the five options identified below -

Brick and mortar platform along with a purpose score enabled vanilla online channel (current model with just addition of purpose scores based content and commerce services bundles)
Brick and mortar platform with a purpose score enabled vanilla online channel along with a third option of Purpose Score based VizPlanet Platform in asynchronous mode i.e. near real time synchronization of SKU’s and content.
Brick and mortar platform with a purpose score enabled vanilla online channel along with a third option of Purpose Score based VizPlanet Platform in synchronous mode i.e. real time synchronization of SKU’s & content - and so replacement option for new brick and mortar platforms.
Brick and mortar platform with a purpose score enabled vanilla online channel along with a third option of Purpose Score based VizPlanet Platform in synchronous mode i.e. real time synchronization of SKU’s & content with lot more value-add services like personalization and so eliminating the need for old and new brick and mortar platforms.
100% “one-stop-shop” VizPlanet Platform in synchronous real time mode eliminating all commercial real estate platforms(remediate the brick and mortar real estate for other services where virtual services are not possible to provide)

Having said that, by no means, we are suggesting that any of these options, will totally replace the current solution(s) in totality – rather, we suggest that these solution options, among many of the other experimentation solution options, has a great potential to compliment the current solution options. In other words, our solution is an experimentation option – with a potential to become the stepping stone, for the long ranging solution(s) within the 5-10 year purpose reform road map.

Practical Impact

Purpose Innovation driven VizPlanet© platform, not only helps us to reduce the carbon footprint in larger percentages, but also it serves as a platform, providing win: win value proposition for all parties involved i.e. motivating corporations and consumers to embrace green brands, green energy and also thereby solving externality and other corporate social responsibility issues, given the fact, our solution is built on a purpose platform, that is bound together by a powerful purpose score based, purpose causal value chain.
With this solution being the consumer market driven free enterprise solution, complimenting some of the current brick and mortar model, consumers get a chance to select their choice of providers depending upon their purpose scores, which in turn motivates all the parties to lead a purpose driven life as well– because higher their purpose scores, better the value from variety of products and services from multiple providers.
VizPlanet also has an opportunity to help business leaders to rethink their brick and mortar real estate strategy saving huge upfront expenditure on their part – as our model over a period of time helps businesses to operate with bear minimum commercial real estates.
With more people consuming H&W/Green brands, with a motivation to increase their purpose scores, it is good for the environment.
More money gets allocated for Green research and clean energy.
Externality gets incorporated as part of P&S price.
Brings down the cost of H&W/Green brands and so eventually, bottom of the pyramid can also afford them and hence get a better premium, thus benefiting the larger society as well.

Challenges

With the fact that VizPlane© t platform extends collaboration to multiple set of corporations –it makes the virtual value chain bigger and complex – and so, we will need a well regulated governance processes to monitor its effectiveness and efficiency.
Purpose value participants must come together and agree on the policies and guidelines for creating purpose score (something similar to credit score, but based on different set of criteria)
Revenue sharing formulas across the purpose value chain participant’s needs to be worked out.

First Steps

Pitch the approach with experts, including the leading sustainability practitioners and build agreement on the larger idea.
Take baby steps and try to add smaller set of retailers and CPG manufacturers in to the VizPlanet© Platform and measure the success with well defined KPI’s.
Slowly build the momentum for boundaryless purpose causal chain based bundles across all the players within the VizPlanet© platform.
Influence Washington and see if the concept can help revolutionize national and global sustainability reforms.
Take the concept global.

Credits

All the strategists and Innovators whose earlier work that helped me to shape this idea

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Comments

Christian DE NEEF

July 19, 2011 at 2:26am

I'm not so confident that “history has repeatedly proven that “collective interests has always outweighed individual interests”” - whilst this is possibly true over the long term (but do we have a long (enough) term vision, this certainly is not valid over the short term. Our history of economics and financial systems, politics, war, and more certainly seems to prove otherwise. Whilst the vision seems grand, I have doubts about the reality/realization. A vision is not a hack... - @cdn

Charles Prabakar

July 19, 2011 at 6:55pm

Great point CDN– While I agree that collective interests, may not always have outweighed individual interests in the past, the reverse scenario of individual interests overweighing collective interests, however, have always, consistently produced dire consequences (whether it be in the business or political world), regardless of the fact, whether the context is a short term or long term – and so, the answer, I guess is taking a balanced approach -of reconciling collective interests over individual interests, within both short and long term scenarios.

With that said, I would be the first one to agree that you definitely have a point - that there are some short term challenges in achieving this grandiose vision – and that is precisely our point as well. In the final analysis, it all comes down to changing the mindset or lifestyle, which as we all know is not easy in the short term, and that’s precisely the reason, we are proposing a compelling business model idea (or hack) that is wrapped up with consumer/human MOTIVATION factor, so that there is an incentive for embracing this new lifestyle - as it will a create a win: win value proposition for all parties involved in the long run.

Having said that, I would be the first one to agree that, relatively speaking, it is more difficult for consumers from the developed world to change their lifestyle, as they have been so used to consuming brick and mortar type commerce services (e.g. mega malls etc) in a larger percentage than consumers from developing world. That is again our point as well, and so, our question for the multi nationals today being - why duplicate or export the same type of natural realm based brick and mortar type business models (e.g. mega malls and/or centralized large manufacturing plants) to the consumers of developing world, when there is an alternative, almost same look and feel/decentralized virtual mini plants, providing much better value proposition?

The added benefit is that majority of the consumers from developing world have never experienced these larger brick and mortar commercial/industrial platforms at all in the first place. In other words, why not start pushing these VizPlanet platforms (virtual mall, precision equipment/nano technology/postponement strategy enabled mini plant platforms), to the developing world consumers, so that, we do not have to develop these resource intensive brick and mortar commerce platforms (yielding lower ROIC), similar to that of developed world.

To put things in perspective, if China, India, South America and Africa – combined, start consuming natural realm based brick and mortar commercial services with the same western mindset – we will end up building over 10,000 mega malls to service all the middle class consumers of those emerging economics in the next 10 -25 years, which is definitely not sustainable at all.

As the saying goes - the most difficult challenge of learning is first unlearning the old paradigms – and that’s why, Children learn multiple languages more easily than adults, as they do not have to unlearn anything at all. Applying the same logic - we would argue that it must be relatively easy for developing world consumers, to embrace our VizPlanet platform ideas, as they have not yet got used with the mega malls with big box retailing concepts that are part of western life style. Hope you appreciate my point and I will be happy to engage in further constructive comments and/or advance this idea in the form of business plans etc - should there be an interest on your end.

To your next point whether it is a hack or vision – in a way, it perhaps is a semantics , however, I went back to Gary Hamel’s definition of hack - and I am paraphrasing here -

“A hack can be as simple as a better way to run meetings or high-stake as overhauling compensation system - as long as it turns the tables around the status quo and offers as path way to progress on one of the moon shots”

As I look at this definition further – our VizPlanet idea/vision definitely challenges the status quo from the standpoint of current consumption life style and offers a progressive solution within the context of advancing at a minimum of three moon shots. In other words, a vision, as per this definition is a subset of the hack, and so, it is fair to call our VizPlanet idea as a hack, and I hope you agree with me after reviewing the definition.

Over all, I really appreciate your constructive comment, as it has made me to review the hack much more closely - and I hope you and all the other readers, including the evaluators of the MIX platform will pay a closer attention to the scale and scope of this grand idea (as you have mentioned) and give me an opportunity to qualify in the contest, so that we can engage in a healthier conversation through few more larger platforms like this as well. Regards, Charles

ali anani

June 19, 2011 at 9:00pm

Fabulous; yet reluctant to comment on this Hack. Why? I am presently engaged in studying the motives behind the collective behavior of fish. The shared purpose of fish is survival and that the group or school survival outweighs the individual interest.
Well, Charles Prabakar takes this issue masterfully and along the three dimensions to apply it to human interests. Unless the collective interest of humans outweighs individual interests efforts might end in smoke. How to do that and avoid this pitfall is beautifully illustrated in this post. It is a serious reading for concerned readers. A big bravo to Charles.

Charles Prabakar

June 21, 2011 at 8:00am

As always, yet another insightful comment Ali– as I tried to interpret your comment within its context – I am being reminded of the “FILE-LIFE” metaphor (shuffle the alphabets within FILE, you will get LIFE). And, as you perhaps are already aware- that according to this metaphor, it is always advisable to interpret the meaning of insights, in multiple shuffled contexts, before acting on them-preferably, a minimum of three contexts -1) FILE (current situational filing context or in this case, this article promoting a disrupting idea called VizPlanet using our Purpose Innovation) or 2) LIFE (larger pragmatic life context) or 3) both!

With that said, still not sure, where your “collective behavior of shoal of fish” insight/comment falls into– as one can build a case for interpreting it in three scenarios– i.e. FILE, LIFE or both (perhaps few more as well)! Let me give it a shot!

On one hand, considering the context being just the merit of this VizPlanet idea (i.e. FILE), it perfectly makes sense for the virtual community of consumers and corporations to behave like the shoal of fish, as our collective interest (i.e. near term P&S value proposition and the long term carbon footprint reduction) definitely outweighs individual interests (near term 100% self centered enjoyment of natural realm resource experience).

On the other hand, considering the context being - one’s life in this planet, from pragmatic and self centered enjoyment standpoint - your comment, especially the sentence - “Unless the collective interest of humans outweighs individual interests, (these) efforts might end in smoke” perhaps can be wrongly interpreted as “this solution could end up being a smoking mirror ,as folks (including the larger society) may not care too much about the mother planet getting toasted 1000 years from now - as none of us are going to be in this world to witness that”. Well… while a minor percentage of folks might feel that way, let us also not get deceived of the fact that, just because a solution is associated with a smoking mirror challenge (i.e. in this case Planet being toasted), it not necessarily, becomes a smoking mirror solution– as we all know –“what we see may not necessarily be true, what we hear may not necessarily be true, rather through verification of the solution’s facts within its context is what decide the validity of the solution – or in President Nixon’s words – trust, but verify”!

In addition, there is also another issue with this argument - while it might sound like a plausible argument on the onset, the problem is that - had our forefathers had a similar mindset, we would not be having the opportunity to enjoy the quality of life today! Above all, there is always a life on the other side of our LIFE (and so, what goes around here in this planet will eventually come around and catch-up with us there, in the other side as well!). In other words, LIFE in the context of this idea is not just 80-100 years of our lifespan; rather it is indeed infinity, (if we include eternal life or other forms of reincarnated life, as believed in some faiths of this world)!

Let me also quote another data point – a recent study on assessing the impact of urbanization happening among the middle class population of the developing world – especially, the argument goes like this - if the middle class of China and India combined, start consuming the natural resources like the 1 billion middle class of western/developed world (North America, Europe, Japan, Australia etc combined), and start leading a western life style in the natural realm, it would be equivalent to ~70 billion people living in this planet, as opposed to the current total of ~7 billion! Alarming insight isn’t it?

In closing, no matter how we slice it (FILE, LIFE or both) - history has repeatedly proven that “collective interests has always outweighed individual interests” - and so, your “shoal of fish” based insight, by all standards overrides/eclipses the smoke (which perhaps, never/ever, was meant to be, or even existed in the first place)! Welcome your follow-up thoughts as well! Regards, Charles

ali anani

July 24, 2011 at 8:51am

Charles,

LIFE or File you are spot on. I have just published a presentation on slideshare "Crafting the raft" in which I showed how ants form rafts to survive floods. An individual ant will sink. The survival of an ant is part of the survival of all ants. The grand goal overweighs the individual goal. The collective survival leads to the individual survival and not vice versa. I agree with your clarification