“Our society has reached a point where its progress and event its survival depend on our ability to organize the complex and to do the unusual.” James Webb, former NASA Administrator

Last week, Nike hosted the LAUNCH 2020 Summit in “sunny” Portland  – and sunny it was, both in weather and collaborative engagement. The purpose for the Summit was two-fold: 1) introduce the new seven-year systems focus on materials, makers, and access; and 2) debut the LAUNCH 2013 Systems Challenge. Our last four challenges featured water, health, energy, and waste solutions. This year’s challenge is focused on materials – which are crucial for supporting life outside the protection Earth’s atmosphere – as well as for gravity-bound Earthlings.

LAUNCH partner Alan Hurd of State Department announces the 2013 Challenge

One of the Summit’s highlights: Hannah Jones, Nike’s VP for Sustainable Business and Innovation, led a discussion about how creative humans can rise above the limits with certified limit-busters, Astronaut Ron Garan and Gold Medalist Joan Benoit Samuelson.

Ron Garan + Joan Benoit Samuelson + Nike’s Hannah Jones discussing triumph over limits.

LAUNCH 2020 Summit video screen for Astronaut Ron Garan

LAUNCH 2020 Summit video screen for Gold Medalist Joan Benoit Samuelson

Nike also featured an innovation showcase that included past LAUNCH innovations, Gram Power, Bioneedle, DTI-r, and “Born at LAUNCH” Carbon for Water  – among other innovations such as NASA’s Solar Sail and the Nike Flyknit.

Former LAUNCH Innovation: GramPower

Former LAUNCH Innovation: Bioneedle

“Born at LAUNCH” Innovation: Carbon for Water

The AWESOME-sauce Nike team created an immersive process called the Systems Innovation Experiment (SIX) to engage our Summit participants in a decision-making atmosphere that reflects fictional, yet realistic system choices. Team investment decisions were ranked in relation to profit, environmental impact, and social capital – with collaboration as the key to system change. The moral to the story: investments we make today greatly impact our future tomorrows.

Nike’s Dave Cobban takes the stage to discuss process.

I was given the opportunity to share the “Why NASA” story on stage during the first day of the Summit. I was “set free” from a scripted speech (due to a glitch in the teleprompter), so I have no idea what I actually said.  But, here are the notes of what I planned to say. Hopefully, I hit some of these points from stage….

For NASA, we look at LAUNCH as a Collaborative Innovation Incubator. In addition to serving as an alternate means to uncover early stage technologies, LAUNCH has become a testbed for new and unexpected ways of doing business in the government. We’re incubating new methods and processes to:

1. collaborate and partner with new communities outside our normal orbit of influence,
2. innovate new solutions to a more sustainable existence off-planet, and
3. broker ideas across diverse innovation clusters of creative thinkers.

Our mission is to enable off-planet citizens to live and work in the extremely hostile environment of space. Materials are key.

Think about it:  We take the materials for human existence with us when we leave our home planet for destinations beyond Earth – whether for orbiting outposts, planetary bodies, or asteroids. These materials must be reused, recycled, and recreated into anything and everything we need to fuel a self-sustaining biosphere – which could be a spacesuit, spacecraft or space colony. As you can imagine, resupply becomes less of an option the farther we travel away from home.

In essence: we need a fully sustainable, closed-loop system to support humans (on and OFF the planet).

At NASA, our issues mirror the struggles facing earthlings – scarce, dwindling, constrained natural resources – but our problem is magnified. We have no natural resources for our journey – except what we harvest along the way.

We’ve learned [during our occupation of Earth] that our ability to thrive as humans shouldn’t harm the planet that hosts us. Sadly, we have a parasitic relationship with Earth. What we want is a symbiotic partnership where Earth thrives because we live here!

 We see LAUNCH as the rocket fuel to reach this new reality.

Process: Nike’s Santiago Gowland + NASA’s Diane Powell + USAID’s Will Schmitt + Hannah Jones

With our LAUNCH 2013 Systems Challenge, I’m most excited about our potential to discover cool, futuristic multi-purpose synthetic or bio-synthetic, smart and/or self-healing materials, and technical fabrics with novel attributes that will enable makers (humans) to have access to the materials and data needed to make better choices for better lives.

Highest praise to Nike’s Santiago Gowland and his team for providing leadership for our LAUNCH shift toward systems thinking. Nike provided systems experience and research as the foundation for our new approach. The map below is just one glimpse of the work they’ve been doing with MIT to create a better understanding of the materials value chain.

LAUNCH 2020 Systems Map

As for the LAUNCH 2020 Summit, I have one word: WOW! The Nike team envisioned, produced, and magnificently hosted a gathering of system thought leaders to engage in the materials system, share expertise, and collaborate to bring about inspired solutions to intractable problems. I’m absolutely awed by Nike’s storytelling genius and professional muscle – crucial ingredients for the Summit’s success. They’re quite brilliant at leveraging the power of spoken word and compelling visuals. They created fabulous assets the LAUNCH team can use to help tell our story going forward, and inspired us to keep pushing through the pain – collaboration is quite messy, but WELL worth it! I’m honored to be part of the LAUNCH team and have the opportunity to take part in this process.

Nike “Word Power” Tower!

Nike, you guys ROCKet!! You’ve propelled us from a high school-level sports team to Olympic contenders – EXTREME performers of the magnificent kind!

Planetary CALL to ACTION: Earthlings, we need YOUR help. One of you has a mind-blowing solution to this challenge – one that we could never have imagined without you.  Please apply! If, by chance, you’re not the one, but you know who is, please share the LAUNCH Systems Challenge with your innovation networks. We can’t succeed without you.

Sir Paul McCartney

Remember, we’re in this journey together. Help us create a planet-friendly future.

LAUNCH: Collective Genius for a Better World

Carol K. Reese.

Born: November 9, 1955.

Died: April 5, 1973.

It was such a long time ago, and yet just a moment’s distance in my memory. We were just 17. That was the day the music died.

Carol: Definition

1. an old round dance with singing,
2. a song of joy or mirth <the carol of a bird — Lord Byron>
3. a popular song or ballad of religious joy

Origin of Carol:

Middle English carole, from Anglo-French, modification of Late Latin choraula choral song, from Latin, choral accompanist, from Greek choraulēs, from choros chorus +aulein to play a reed instrument, from aulos, a reed instrument.

First Known Use: 14th century

The irrepressible Carol: upside down.

Travel back to 1973 with me to Sunday, the last day of Spring Break our Junior year in high school. Carol had gone camping with my family at Canyon Dam, not far from San Marcos, Texas, where we lived. We came home from camping and hopped on our bikes to “cruise” out to Sonic, our high school hangout. Riding back up the steep hill to her house, she told me she felt tired. Carol was never tired. Never. She had boundless energy. The next day, she stayed home from school. A first for Carol, who had never missed a day of school in her whole life. I left campus and drove to her house during lunch break. (Cell phones, texting, and email didn’t exist in our world.)

In less than two weeks, she was gone. The doctors thought she had mono, then hepatitis. They simply didn’t know what happened.

Carol: 1973 SMHS concert

The night she died, I was at school rehearsing for our Spring Choir concert. She should have been been with me on the rickety risers rather than in a hospital bed. I stood on the back row, singing, when images of my life without Carol flooded before my eyes. I pictured the Spring concert with an empty place where she should have been standing. I flashed forward to Senior night on the football field. She didn’t get roses from the players because she wasn’t there. She was missing from Senior prom, and Senior Day at the river park. And more. And more. I couldn’t hold back the tears, so I dashed out of the auditorium to find refuge in the entryway bathroom. I sobbed and sobbed. I didn’t understand what I was seeing. I thought perhaps she might be too weak to come back to school. We had so many plans for our Senior year. I couldn’t imagine not having her by my side for the highs and lows of life. I told myself I was being silly, pulled it together, and returned to rehearsal. The moment I opened my mouth to sing, I choked on fresh tears. More images flashed before my eyes. Carol wasn’t in any of them.

I bolted from rehearsal, raced to my car, and headed home — with gut-wrenching sobs that made driving difficult. I searched for Daddy, who was rehearsing one of his youth choirs across the street from our house. He stopped rehearsal to console me. Daddy always made everything better. I was emotionally exhausted. I went home and collapsed on my bed. After Daddy got home a bit later, I heard the phone rang. He called me into the living room and sat me on his lap. Mother stood ashen by his side. Carol’s family had just called to say she died. She left this world at that very moment during rehearsal when the “my-life-without-Carol” slideshow started playing in my head.

That day, I changed. I may have looked the same from the outside, but I was no longer a carefree teenager full of plans for the future. I got sucked inside the sink hole of my heart. I didn’t want talk about Carol to well-meaning outsiders. I hated being told how I should feel or how I should move forward. I really didn’t care what anyone said. I refused to give her up. I put my jagged heart in a treasure box that only I could access. She was my secret pain. No one could take her from me and I would never forget her. That was my vow.

Fast forward to now. I can only write this blogpost because I’m cracking open my treasure box and setting Carol free. I’ve held her prisoner for far too long. I thank DC Metro Church for getting me to this place of freedom.

In November last year, I was in a Thrive prayer service and David Stine, our pastor, said that someone in the group had a broken heart that needed healing. I was sitting up in the back row on the risers. I felt as if I’d been hit with a sledge hammer. The experience really shook me. I sat there processing. I didn’t think I had a broken heart. I walked through a list of adversaries at work, loved ones who died, divorce. Nothing clicked. I simply didn’t get it…until a small voice inside whispered the word, “Carol.” Gut punch. A groundswell of tears gushed out, as if a pipeline burst. I was thankful to be in the back of the sanctuary. What a revelation that I’ve been a “walking-wounded” for nearly four decades. I never saw myself that way. I imagined myself quite resilient. How wrong I’ve been.

To top it off, I realized it was Carol’s birthday weekend. She would have turned 57.

God always surprises me with His perfect timing and creative order. I’m really thankful He knows the very “heart” of me, and loves me despite my brokenness. He lets me think I’m moving toward one thing, when He’s actually getting me in position for what He really wants. The DC Metro Thrive  prayer night was all having a “heart” for giving. I interpreted it literally as financial giving.  But what God wanted from me was my buried treasure.  [Note: God has an amazing poetic sense of symmetry as well. He revealed Carol's death to me on the risers in the school auditorium. He revealed my broken heart to me on the risers in the DC Metro Church sanctuary.]

God, the Great Healer, revealed my broken heart when He knew I was strong enough to face it. I’d been praying to be fully the person God wanted, and He showed me He had to heal my heart first.  He needed to get me to a place where I could freely give Him my most prized possession — Carol. She was the Thrive offering He wanted me to bring to the alter.

So here’s the thing about broken hearts: sometimes we don’t know we have them, yet the jagged edges poke and prick and gash new holes as we bend and shift and stretch our hearts. We bleed internally, yet think we’re ok. We may feel pain, but we ignore it and distract ourselves with shiny objects. I’d stuffed my broken heart into a treasure box that I wouldn’t let anyone see. It was my way of keeping Carol alive — and not letting go.

How many of you hold on to broken hearts, broken promises, broken dreams?

Today may be your day to “let go and let God.”

1973 San Marcos High School Choir portrait. Carol @ Left in Pink. Beth @ Right in Blue.

Carol, 2nd from Right. 1973 SMHS Royal Guard

Carol wrote this:

Even though we travel in different directions, our paths may cross and we will meet –

I will look at you.

You will look at me.

We will take ourselves and share them with each other. We will discover together there are things that are more important than ourselves. We begin trying to please each other because we care, but sometimes we try too hard and it becomes time to stop and remember ourselves again –

I can only be me.

You can only be you.

In life, we each have our own path to follow –

You have yours, and

I have mine.

We are all different so each of our paths are different – 

You travel one direction.

I travel the other.

On our paths, we meet certain problems that will have to be solved, obstacles that will have to be righted, goals that will have to be reached –

You must deal with yours.

I must deal with mine.

We cannot change for each other.

I must step aside and let you continue down your path.

You must do the same for me.

I do not know what I will encounter next, but I leave with a greater understanding of myself and others because of you.

I know that even though our paths have crossed, we will never be able the walk the same one – 

but, instead, just meet at the crossings.

Thank you, Carol, for crossing my path. I’m different because of you. I miss you.

My LAUNCH buddy James Parr of Imaginals recommended Roger L. Martin’s book, “The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win through Integrative Thinking” for my PhD research on Social Intrapreneurship. Martin explores what he calls integrative thinking — a pattern of thinking (cognitive discipline) that relies on cultivating the opposable mind.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.”  – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Martin walks through a process of mapping the mind by identifying

1. stance: who you are and what you’re after,
2. tools: knocking the world into shape, and
3. experiences: where stance and tools meet the world (i.e. sensitivities and skills).

Personal knowledge is comprised of these three elements of Martin’s mind map. Breaking down the elements, an integrative thinker’s stance will recognize the gap between reality and possibilities, refusing to accept that the best options are on the table. An integrative thinker imagines a reality that doesn’t exist, and creates the models to bring it into being.

“Integrative thinkers reason about what MIGHT be — about models that don’t yet exist — to generate a creative resolution. — Martin”

I’m intrigued by his discussion of generative reasoning, which he describes in three forms of logic. The first two are best known. The third, less discussed:

1. deductive logic — the logic of what should be,
2. inductive logic –the logic of assumption that certain observations can be generally applied, and
3. abductive logic – leapfrog logic that requires creative thinking.

Charles Sanders Peirce, the founder of American Pragmatism, coined the term adductive logic, which seeks the best explanation for misfit data that doesn’t fall nicely under the current models. To take this a bit further, enough misfit data and we’re are often forced into a Thomas Kuhn paradigm shift in thinking. Martin argues that integrative thinkers (entrepreneurs/intrapreneurs) rely on generative reasoning as the only tool that can bring about creative solutions to intractable problems.

The raw material for integrative thinking — via generative reasoning — is “what does not YET exist.”

I’m extremely fortunate to work with an amazing group of integrative thinkers with the LAUNCH team, LAUNCH Council, and LAUNCH Innovators. We wrestle with how best to dislodge intractable sustainability issues that face the 7 billion+ of us who share this planet, as well as the six human living onboard the International Space Station. Stay tuned for our upcoming LAUNCH sustainability challenge focused on the materials system. We’ll convene a conversation with abductive thought leaders from industry, government, and non-profits to create new solutions and new models to bring about global paradigm shifts in the way we make and use the scarce resources — or create new options no one has yet considered.

All you leapfroggers, UNITE! Together, we can create a new reality if we use our opposable minds and abductive brainwaves.

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Legendary Jesco von Puttkamer passed on Friday. As I was getting ready for work this morning, I remembered writing a blogpost about him back in 2010. We had shared the stage together on the “Future Directions” panel at the International Space University’s “Public Face of Space” Symposium in Strasbourg, France. After his talk, I saw Jesco in a new light. To honor his passing, I want to share what I wrote about him. I wish I could capture the twinkle in his eyes as he talked about his dream for Mars.

Exerpt:

I like to think of Jesco as the Forest Gump of space — always right on the fringes of every historical space moment. I’d never caught his passion before. Jesco’s presentation took us back to his years at the Marshall Space Flight Center, the very center of the space universe, the birthplace of all things space — until, that is, we learned the Soviet Union had their own space Capitol where they worked as feverishly as the Von Braun team to be #1 in space. The point of his talk: we can’t go forward without understanding where we’re coming from. 

Read more: Rocket Man Dreams of Mars

You can also read the NASA web feature on Jesco from last Friday.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/people/features/von_puttkamer_obit.html

I hope you’re soaring in the stars now, Jesco. We’ll miss your iconic presence at NASA.

Meet the spacebots. Each is unique and has a story to tell.

Radiacto’s radiation gauge looks off the chart. Best to wear lead.

Retro Attack dares invaders to touch down on our Blue Planet. She’s on guard 24-7.

Cyclops is a Universal Guardian keeping an eye on humanity.

I-Spin 3000′s Mood Meter monitors human happiness. Smiling makes her meter spin.

Tock-A-Tron is a time traveler. He rolls between the space-time continuum

Don’t Panic is an Earth monitor. She’s here to keep humanity safe.

Jackpot thinks our Blue Planet in right on the money!

Raid Invader was once a galactic warrior, but after a short vacation on Earth, he quit his job. He opted for a Blue Planet retirement.

Galaxy Ranger travels planet to planet. Earth is his fav stopover.

Heartbreaker has a heart for Earthlings. She’s a planetary caretaker.

Tank-Tronic keeps the planet safe from enemy invaders.

Drill Bit is a Planetary Archeologist. Don’t forget the drilling permits!

Spacebots are hanging out in my library, trying to learn about humans.

Spacebots enjoyed their first Blue Planet Christmas.

Zanele Mbeki, Founder of Women’s Development Businesses (and former First Lady of South Africa). Credit: “Velvet Gloves Iron Fists”

For the final paper in my International Development class this semester for the Virginia Tech Planning, Governance and Globalization PhD program, I took on the topic of microfinance in developing countries. I explored the case of South Africa’s Women’s Development Businesses (WDB) Group to determine whether microcredit empowers or exploits the poorest of the poor. I was awed and humbled by the pioneering work of WDB founder Zanele Mbeki and her colleagues, who refused to stand by and watch their young nation leave behind a significant segment of the population — specifically the impoverished women in rural Mpumalanga, South Africa.

I want to pass on a tidbit of what I learned in writing this paper as my gift of hope, encouragement, and inspiration during this Christmas season.

Much may be wrong in this world, but this is a story of what women can do to help one another.

The financial landscape for women in South Africa, an emerging economy in development terms, mirrors much of what female entrepreneurs face around the world. Studies sponsored by the International Finance Corporation point to unequal access to finance, defined by race and gender.

• Black African women remain on the edge of economic activities.
• Women comprise 52% of the South African population, of which 91% of white women are banked, as opposed to 38% of black women.
• 42% of black women have no access to financial assets, with the remaining 20% resorting to informal financial products, including savings clubs, retail credit, insurance, or burial societies.
• Despite the fact that women traditionally repay loans at a higher rate than men, women entrepreneurs face prejudice and barriers to access to abundant private and public sector financial resources.
• Black women comprise the largest self-employed segment of the population, with the majority of their businesses in the informal sector.
• Only one of every four banks considered engaging in more women-owned enterprise programs, and only two microenterprise lenders exist to serve 56,000 primarily female microentrepreneurs.
• Rural areas remain disadvantaged and neglected.

South Africa’s Women’s Development Businesses fills the gap in microcredit and financial services for impoverished women in rural areas, and promotes social and economic empowerment.

Following the fall of apartheid and encouraged by the Grameen Bank microcredit strategies, Zanele Mbeki started WDB in 1991 to alleviate poverty and empower the marginalized rural poor. Starting with R20,000, which is the equivalent of little more than $2000, Mbeki gathered together female colleagues with business, financial, and banking skills set out to change the world, starting with a pilot program to meet the needs of 50 unschooled rural women in Acornhoek, Mpumalanga. The first WDB clients received R300 or $34 for their initial loans – a huge sum for women who had rarely had access to more than R10 ($1.10). After three months, the woman repaid 100% of their loans, launching WDB into its current operation with three divisions: WDB Microfinance, WDB Trust, and WDB Investment Holdings. Since its inception, WDB disbursed R36 million (over $4 million) to 35,000 women, meaning 150,000 benefitted – assuming an average five-member household.

The initial 50  women formed lending groups that were accountable for the collective repayment of the loans. No additional loans would be disbursed until all the initial loans in the group have been repaid. The women worked together to reach success. WDB taught them basic literacy, book-keeping skills and computer training. The women improved their lives as a collective unit rather than as individuals. The Mpumalanga women weren’t content with just one or two loans to get by, they took out larger loans, diversified, pooled their resources, and built business together – recruiting their children, husbands, and neighbors.

WDB gave these women access to microcredit, training, and education, and broke the cycle of poverty. Women who participated in their microcredit programs gained self-esteem, respect and improved status in the family, better access to nutrition and education for their children, improved home life and lower morbidity rates.

Their story speaks of faith, perseverance, and fierce determination NOT to accept the status quo.

Bravo to the women of WDB and their clients who proved microcredit can unlock entrepreneurship, as well as new avenues for confidence, self-worth, and hope for a bright future.

This is the season of giving. If you’re looking for last minute gifts, consider microloan gift cards from Kiva. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. As each loan is paid off, you can lend again and again.

Merry Christmas. Peace on Earth to all mankind.

May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us — yes, establish the work of our hands. Psalm 90:17

Full text posted on my Virginia Tech blog: “Women Microentrepreneurs: Fuel for Neoliberal Growth Engine.”

Sources:

International Finance Corporation. 2011. “Woman and Business: Drivers of Development.” Telling Our Story, Vol. 5 (2).

Kiva. 2012. “Womens Development Businesses (WDB) Partner profile.” Fundraising information page. http://www.kiva.org/partners/178

Naidoo, Sharda, Anne Hilton and Illana Melzer. 2006. “Access to Finance for Women Entrepreneurs in South Africa: Challenges and Opportunities.” Study by Gender Entrepreneurship Markets (GEM) program on behalf of South Africa’s Gender and Women’s Economic Empowerment Unit of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and FinMark Trust.

United Nations. 2011. “Microfinance in Africa: Overview and Suggestions for Action by Stakeholders.” Report by the United Nations Office of Special Advisor on Africa.

Westoll, Hendrina. 2010. Velvet Gloves and Iron Fists. South Africa: Business Century Publishing.

Women’s Development Bank Group of South Africa website. 2012. http://www.wdb.co.za/index.html

World Bank. 2012. “World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development.” Report for World Bank. http://www.worldbank.org/wdr2012

A huge thanks to Jerri Chou, Feast organizer, for throwing such an amazing event. I met so many crazy brilliant people who have such passion to change the world. I love talking to others who care so deeply about creating social good. Two days of non-stop intellectual and emotional engagement is both exhausting and rejuvenating. I’m filled with so many new and intriguing perspectives on how to approach solution-creation.

Here are a few tweets to reflect our experience.

On Feast Day Two, we broke into groups to tackle a series of Design Challenges covering Data, Health, Poverty, Eco, and Open Design. I worked on the Open Design challenge team — “to empower a new group of people to make something that improves their physical environment.” We chose to interpret the challenge as a way to help kids know that “things” they interact with are actually made. They live in a world of products that magically appear on shelves in stores. We want them to engage in the “making of things” and be curious about how things are made. We created the concept of the “Breaker Box” where students are given a box with things inside that they can deconstruct and make something out of. We chose to create a Swiss Army Music Box with tools that could be made into musical instruments. What a fun team to work with.

The only downside to the Feast: wifi overload. With the live stream and the hacking challenge community going on at the same time, I couldn’t tweet fab tidbits of wisdom in most of Day Two and the latter half of Day One. But, that’s a good problem to have. Great demonstration of demand swamping supply.

All in all, my favorite speaker was the self-titled Evil Genius @Whurley, co-founder of Chaotic Moon Studios. He totally speaks my language. On his card: “We may not have been invited to a lot of parties in high school, but trust us — You don’t want the Prom King in charge of your mobile strategy.” Too funny.  His success formula: Instigation + Collaboration + Innovation. He defined instigation as the heart of innovation. I totally agree. He challenged us to go against the grain. If our ideas are easily accepted, they can’t be all that innovative. Collaboration comes at a cost — a balance of control vs. influence. Controlling an idea can stiffle progress. He recommended we work toward influencing an outcome vs controlling it. Well said! Here is one of my favorite quotes:

Thanks Feast! I feel recharged and ready to rush out and change the world.

And, BTW, all you feasters, submit your challenge projects to Fragile Oasis. I’m looking forward to seeing you there.

There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone. —Rod Serling

Star Trek: Borg Cube

In physics, the fifth dimension exists outside the space-time continuum, which is the three-dimensional space (up-down, backward-forward, right-left) plus the fourth dimension of time. I’ll stick with Rod Serling’s version of the fifth dimension as the space where imagination lives.

Looking at the fifth dimension from a math point of view, five-dimensional geometry features a 5-cube, part of the hypercube family (which makes me think of the Star Trek Borg connection.) Look at the series of geometric figures below, each generated from a 5-cube. What do you see? I see a visual representation of the 5th Dimension Imagination Space — a constellation of ideas and solutions that can be generated from 5 points of reference.

Idea generation (or…31 uniform polytera generated from 5-cube)

So how can we harness the 5th Dimension Imagination Space?

That question drives my PhD dissertation research on the topic of Social Intrapreneurship — individuals from the 5th Dimension who leverage the mission and capabilities of their organizations to provide social good. I’m looking at the characteristics  and skills of change-makers, their idea generation/implementation process, and the organizations capacity to allow entrepreneurial activities to exist and flourish. I’m specifically interested in the disruptive thinking process that can shift the status quo and bring about social change.

Here are a few tidbits of wisdom from three books I’ve read recently.

1. “Change By Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation,” by Tim Brown.

Tim Brown, CEO and President of IDEO offers three dimensions to define the creation space:

1. inspiration space, where insights are harvested;
2. ideation space, where insights become ideas; and
3. implementation space, where action plans are created from the best ideas (p. 64).

He divides the creation process into “four mental states” — divergent and convergent thinking, followed by analysis and synthesis (p. 66-70). Divergent thinking is all about creating choices, where convergent thinking leads to making choices (p. 82). The process of brainstorming is a “structured way of breaking out of structure (p. 78).”

 ”Every design process cycles through foggy periods of seemingly unstructured experimentation and bursts of intense clarity, periods of grappling with the Big Idea and long stretches during which all attention focuses on the details.” — Tim Brown

My favorite part of the book was his story about working on a kid’s product for NIKE (our LAUNCH.org partner). They asked a group of kids, aged eight to ten, to come up with a product ideas — then divided the girls from the boys. The girls came up with over 200 ideas by leap-frogging each other’s ideas. The boys compiled 50 ideas. Hmmm. Why, you may ask. The author explains that the boys were so busy trying to sell their own ideas that they paid little attention to anyone else’s ideas (p. 79).

2. “How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas,” by David Bornstein

Bornstein explores what makes a social entrepreneur and looks for ways to identify them before they become well known. “Social entrepreneurs rarely announce themselves when they walk in the door.” He points out Ashoka’s criteria — vision, determination, and ethics (p. 120-201). He points to the difference between having an idea and being able to implement it (p. 123).

“What fascinates me most about the social entrepreneurs, at a personal level, is the way they hold to an internal vision no matter how many disruptive forces surround them. Somehow they find ways to construct meanings for themselves and hold to those meanings. On a daily basis, they manage to align their interests, abilities, beliefs, while acting to produce changes that accord with their deepest convictions (p. 288).” — David Bornstein

Bornstein identifies six qualities to look for in social entrepreneurs:

1. willingness to self-correct,
2. willingness to share credit,
3. willingness to break free of established structures,
4. willingness to cross disciplinary boundaries,
5. willingness to work quietly, and
6. strong ethical impetus (p. 238-46).

3. “The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets that Change the World” by John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan

“Being unreasonable is not just a state of mind. It is also a process by which older, outdated forms of reasoning are jettisoned and new ones conceived and evolved (p. 1).” — Elkington and Hartigan

The authors investigated the roots of unreason in successful social entrepreneurs to determine how their bring about change. From the outside, these individuals seek “outlandish goals” by attacking intractable problems. They force others to “look beyond the edge of what is possible.” The authors wanted to understand how they approach value creation, as well as common models of leadership and business.

Social entrepreneurs are in demand from global corporations who are looking for “market intelligence” since entrepreneurs serve as “sensitive barometers for detecting market risk and opportunities (p. 2).” What sets social entrepreneurs apart from their business entrepreneur counterparts is their sense of the long-term solutions to problem, rather than short term gain from selling the idea.

How do we populate the 5th Dimension Imagination Space with divergent, disruptive thinkers, who have the freedom to create the maximum number of choices for optimum implementation?

I’ll let you know when I finish my dissertation. And, I hope I don’t find myself somewhere out in the Twilight Zone.

Rod Serling: Twilight Zone

“Resistance is futile!” The Borg, Star Trek Next Generation

We are the LAUNCH Borg, the Collective Genius for a Better World. For all you Trekkies out there, you know what I’m talking about. For those of you non-Trekkies, the Borg is a fictional collective of multiple species connected together by a “hive mind.”

Star Trek Captain Jean-Luc Picard as Borg

In Star Trek Next Generation, the Borg assimilated populations by force, absorbing their collective intelligence. At LAUNCH, we have no need for force. Folks come to us by choice to participate as innovators, LAUNCH Council, and non-traditional partners. We assimilate ideas and expertise through associations within our extended network — the collective genius (think hive mind) — in order to support transformative innovations and propel them into the world to solve intractable problems.

Astronaut Ron Garan sharing orbital perspective at LAUNCH: Beyond Waste forum

We concluded the LAUNCH: Beyond Waste forum last weekend at the Jet Propulsion Lab in California. I’m still processing all the conversations (as well as pictures) from the event. I came away energized and renewed. LAUNCH is a brain feast for me — an opportunity to talk about what if, and why not, and let’s do it. New ideas bubble up and collaborations are born. The atmosphere of generosity by all the participants is, quite frankly, humbling. One of our new LAUNCH team members from NIKE told me LAUNCH filled him with hope for the future. And that’s what it’s all about.

Together, we can make a difference!

Impact rotations at LAUNCH: Beyond Waste forum

We asked our LAUNCH Council and Innovators to provide feedback on their experience at the conclusion of  the LAUNCH: Beyond Waste forum. Here are a few quotes:

• “LAUNCH plays an important role in society”
• “best investment of time to connect with future collaborators, best example of true collaboration, inspiring to be a part of selfless, genuine desire to help launch these ideas and change the world”
• “this is the most work fun I’ve had in YEARS!”
• “intense and rejuvenating”
• “inspiring, creative, bold with the potential for real impact”
• “energizing, optimism, game changing things for the world”
• “amazing brain food” 
• “the most transformative and impactful weekend”
•  ”phenomenal, soul food, humbling”
•  ”youthful enthusiasm matched with high intellect and professionalism–usually one gets two out of these three”
•  ”the conference for a new millennium”
• “one of the highlights of my life and career so far”

I’m so thrilled to be a part of LAUNCH. Not only can we promote innovative solutions for the problems facing humanity, we can offer our NASA problem-solving expertise and potentially pick up unexpected solutions to long-duration human space challenges. We have an opportunity to demonstrate the relevance between the extreme environment of space and constrained resources on Earth, while creating new ways of conducting public-private partnerships that other government agencies can follow.

Cool story: One of our LAUNCH partners told me that when asked by the airport customs official why he was coming to the US from Indonesia, he told him all about LAUNCH and how NASA’s challenges in the extreme environment of space mirror our struggle with extreme resource constraints on Earth. Score! He’s telling our relevance story for us. Such a fab validation for non-traditional outreach approaches, like LAUNCH. His circle of influence is outside any we could touch through our normal space network.

LAUNCH Panorama of Beyond Waste forum

The quote below from Nader Khalili really put LAUNCH in perspective for me.

“My quests became more meaningful when my goals met with others’ needs and goals. And I became more important, in my own heart, only when I reached the others, as a drop of water becomes important only when it reaches the sea.” Nader Khalili, Racing Alone

The nine innovators associated with LAUNCH: Beyond Waste are but a drop of water. But, when connected to the sea of resources through the LAUNCH collective genius, the innovations collectively expand their potential impact toward solving the problems of humans living sustainably within constrained and finite resources available on (and off) this planet.

LAUNCH: Collective Genius for a Better World — or — LAUNCH: Better than Borg!

A guest pastor at DC Metro church last weekend made this statement above. As I listen to the LAUNCH: Beyond Waste innovators share their passion for making the world a better place, I keep thinking the heart is what draws us together for the common goal of solving the intransigent problems facing humanity — like water, health, energy, and now waste.

After our first day of prep session with the innovators, I’m renewed with hope for what we can do collectively, if we join together with single purpose. Each of us on the LAUNCH team speaks the same passion language for a sustainable existence (both on and OFF this planet).

The LAUNCH forum is our Innovation Super Bowl.

We work for months to source and gather the right mix of expertise, experience, and influence for the LAUNCH Council and a balanced set of innovations to tackle complex issues. Once we get to this point in the process, we recharge off the collective genius of the minds gathered together for the forum.

Here are a few snapshots from Pasadena so far.

LAUNCH: Collective Genius for Better World!