I was just out on the deck, getting a minute of morning sun. It used to be such a glorious way to start the day. This year it feels like mud.

I’m surprised to feel that way. Maybe it’s the work – we’re raging busy in Saskatchewan. Maybe it’s the kids – still nearly no sleep. Maybe it’s my glasses…

I got transition lenses this Spring. They go dark in the sun. I thought it was a nifty idea. No more awkward glasses case. No trading suns for shades. A great idea but, it turns out, it costs you your summers.

I’ve spent the last two months wandering around in a photosynthetic cloud. The world’s been a shade darker the entire time. And I’ve only consciously recognized its impact just now. Crazy right?

But, is it that crazy? Do you think of things from that direction? How much of what you choose and do is shaded by filters? How often to you take your day neat – nothing added, nothing taken off the top? How do you know what it costs to receive reality through the channels you use daily?

I’ve missed a whole summer and had no idea why. Silly me.

>>>

I was 16. I’d just got my motorcycle licence. I was giddy.

Giddy in that sweet, breathless, heart-bounding way. Color is saturated. Everything grand.

Out on my own bike, own path; I could go wherever I chose. I went straight to the Army Surplus store – needed a few things for the bike.

Still awkward, I lugged around the bulgy helmet, too obsessed to leave it with the bike.

But, holding the helmet meant having no basket. No basket meant the helmet carried the goods.

Still excited. Still giddy. I didn’t know I was being watched.

Got to the counter: old black military boots, boot polish, nifty swiss-army-like knife. Bought them all. But the bike straps … they were black, like the helmet. They lay hidden, forgotten in the make-shift basket

I was outside, on my way to the bike, when I heard her voice. A super-sized service assistant stood beside her. She’d been watching.

Up in her office she told me she’d already called the police. I was charged with shop-lifting. She asked why I didn’t look worried.

That’s easy. I don’t shop-lift.

My parents had told me integrity mattered. Being able to smile at that leathery security lady taught me why.

20 years ago I learned that lesson. In the last five years I’ve come to be grateful. My business exists on integrity.

>>>

“If you have integrity, nothing else matters.  If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.” ~ Alan Simpson

My father-in-law asked if I ever get nervous advising billion-dollar companies or guiding multi-million-dollar government investments. He asked if I ever worry about being wrong. Do you, he wondered, ever have soft-spots to hide?

That’s easy. I don’t leave soft-spots.

I don’t lie. I don’t cheat. I don’t take work I can’t do.

Don’t include pieces that shouldn’t be there. Don’t leave out pieces that should be in.

If I owe, I pay. If I say I’ll do it, it is done. If I say I won’t, I never do.

I can smile at any leathery anybody. That’s easy.

We get hired to create clarity. That’s usually a fairly sensitive thing to need. Most are reluctant to ask.

Not one client would come if there was even a suggestion that our integrity was jeopardized. You don’t bring your most difficult problems to people you can’t trust.

>>>

“Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.” ~ Mark Twain

But I’ll say this: Integrity is expensive. I keep track and sometimes total-up the business I’ve declined to protect integrity. In the last three years, that number is just about $750,000. And inside those three years are patches where saying no to a contract meant there was absolutely nothing in the pipe.

“Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors.  Try to be better than yourself.” ~ William Faulkner

There are days when I wonder about this conviction.

What of this drive to peerless?

Is it just arrogance? Maybe I’m naive?

Probably.

I’ll probably look back at these years and smile. Shake my head at that young man – so earnest, so strident.

But, right now, it feels right. That’s about all I have to go with.

I know that if I’m to do all the things I dream of doing – I’ve got to be better. I’ve got to be higher. I have to be huge.

I have to stand in front of the world’s most influential decision-makers and grin: That’s easy.

>>>

“The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour.” ~ Japanese Proverb

“I forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the house-tops.” ~ Oscar Wilde

What a niggly little thing integrity is. So fragile. So critical.

Comprised of a billion small acts. Obliterated by just one.

It’s no panacea either. It doesn’t absolve responsibility. It isn’t an excuse. I can’t say, wrapped in a shawl of integrity, that I’ve no need of experience, persistence or grace.

Integrity finds its best use in the hands of the active. In the hands of those ready to invest, learn, climb, gather, and accomplish. It’s in the act that integrity is rare.

For the stagnant, low, and unaccomplished, integrity is part of most options. Of a hundred alternative paths, probably half would hold true to integrity. It’s among the high, few, world-class actions that integrity is so hard to find. Among a handful of alternatives, integrity might be part of just one or, more often, none at all.

>>>

My problem today is that integrity matters too much. It’s still a conscious and often aggressive choice. I’d rather it was inert – like crystal.

Will it grow to be translucent? Will it become a hardened vessel, ready to carry all the liquid parts of a richly lived life? Will it always be this organic, pulsing, winding tendril?

We’re hunting those few areas where the province is perfectly positioned through unique capacities, natural resources, and industrial ecosystem to capture significant market opportunities.

We spoke with more than 50 executives in 40 of Saskatchewan’s most important companies. Uranium miners, potash producers, crop geneticists, power generators, mill owners, and university researchers – all agree on one thing: Saskatchewan needs a crisis.

It needs a crisis? An odd thing to wish for.

Interview after interview, CEOs and VPs are asking: Where are the burning ships? What will force us forward when indifference leaves us stagnant?

Why are they looking for crisis? What are they looking at that suggests crisis will force Saskatchewan to leverage its strength and embrace its weakness?

Turns out, Finland is one of the places they’re looking. Once rich in natural resources including forests, minerals, and agriculture, the country has transitioned to high-tech machinery and robust information technologies. Saskatchewan wants to go too.

>>>

“The weak shows off his strength, hides his defects. The magnificent exhibits defects, like ornaments.” Nassim N Taleb

Around 1860 Finland embraced industrialization but, even by 1910, farm production still used up 70 percent of labor.

During the First World War its metalworking and shipbuilding industries expanded rapidly – supplying the war machine in Russia. But machines don’t create food and in the year immediately following the War, Finland was forced to lean on United States aid to avoid both physical and economic starvation.

By 1922 Finland had recovered. Leveraging strong trade relationships with Western Europe, particularly Germany, Finland replaced its languishing relationship with the Soviets. Lumber, pulp and paper (85 percent of exports) were traded for much needed food and investment goods.

Agricultural reform moved agriculture and forest land back into the hands small producers. The government also nationalized a big part of the mining and wood-processing industry.

Nationalization drove investment. Public money poured into mines, foundries, wood and paper mills, and shipyards – adding value to previously raw resources. By the late 1920’s modernization was well under way.
In the 1930s Britain replaced Germany as Finland’s largest trading partner. Its trade agreements and growing market demand drove Finnish paper production. Its industries expanded, the depression years. Growth continued until 1939.

The Winter War of 1939 was the start of a five-year slide. By 1944, bitter wars with the Soviet Union and Germany, had Finland on its knees. Heavy reparations to the Soviet Union cost the country dearly and included 12 percent of its territory (valuable farmland and industrial facilities).

In the following years, Finland’s reparations were largely supplied by its metalworking industries (comprising three-fourths of the goods delivered to the Soviet Union). This, in effect, forced investment in metalworking that would later become a key strength for the country. By 1952 reparations payments were complete but the metalworking industry continued to grow. The Finns faced no competition in the Soviet Union and borrowed from Sweden and the United States to finance infrastructure and growth.

From 1950 to 1974, Finland’s gross national product grew at around five percent — well above the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of four and a half. But growth was driven by volatile commodity prices, particularly lumber, and fluctuations averaged eight percent of gross domestic product.

Volatility forced Finland to restructure. They moved quickly and, often, brutally. Manufacturing output was increased significantly but at the cost of displacing farmers who found no other employment.
Through the 50’s to the 80’s Finland pursued aggressive economic policies. Strict control internally and liberal foreign trade in industrial goods drove the foundation for future growth. Welfare programs and income settlements slowed inflation and increased productivity.

The oil crisis, from 1973 to 1979, hit the Finns hard. Finland imported over 80 percent of its energy and its trading partners, particularly Western markets, were impacted too. The rapid growth of previous years was now unsustainable – importing enough raw materials, capital and labor was impossible.

During the 1980s, industry was restructured, eliminating many inefficient producers and consolidating healthy enterprises. Private services, especially banking and insurance, expanded rapidly.
By 1986 Finland was one of the most prosperous countries in the world. Agriculture, forestry, and fishing had fallen to just eight percent of GDP (from 25 percent in 1950). Mining, manufacturing, construction and utilities were at 35 percent (40 percent in 1950). Services had grown from 34 percent in 1950 to almost 58 percent – transportation, communications, engineering, finance and commerce were increasingly important as the economy developed and diversified.

>>>

Finland was forced by crisis to change: war, reparations, and starvation are great motivators. But beyond these acute and painful pressures, Finland also embraced its weaknesses:

- Reparations locked Finland to the Soviet Union, the Soviets became its largest market.
- The country was resource dependant, it grew services on the resources.
- Finland depended on other countries for financial assistance, these countries became trading partners.
- Volatility among commodities destabilized the economy, Finland drove to add-value.
- Inability to sustain rapid growth was embraced as good reason for more services in communications, engineering, finance and commerce.

Finland’s weaknesses are worn as ornaments. They are its reasons to be one of the most prosperous economies on the planet.

>>>

I’ve often argued that we should ignore our weaknesses. Focus on strengths. This was mostly a response to the vicious habit we have, at least in North America, of spending all our time investing into our gaps. I still think it’s terrible.

But, it’s worth adding a nuance: Choose brilliance and embrace your weakness. Do as Taleb suggests, wear it as an ornament.

Coming from Canada, it was fun to see how food retail is run. I was fascinated to see how clearly average refrigerator size defines food shopping practice. At home we run massive refrigerators and freezers. I have friends with two of each. We buy in bulk and go for weeks at a time without another trip to the supermarket. In England, for most, it’s a daily affair.

The most interesting spot was our stop at Bigham’s kitchen. Charlie Bigham used to be a management consultant. In 1995, he turned 28, quit consulting, bought a camper and took off. By 2005, when I met him, he was running a 35,000 square foot kitchen with room for 300 employees. Annual revenues hovered £6m. In ten years he worked up from a camper van to one of the premier ready-made meal brands in England. How?

There are, of course, myriad reasons. My favorite is his investment in systems. Charlie told us of the several ways he invested in outside expertise. One of the key investments was in technology to monitor ingredient use.

Fresh ingredients are key to the Bigham’s brand. Charlie said he can order fresh ingredients, delivered daily, so precisely that they order within the gram (or whichever alternative unit is appropriate: pounds, ounces, etc.). They produce a single extra serving of each of the lines they produce each day. It’s an astoundingly sophisticated capacity for a relatively small company. But, think of all that capacity enables:

- It enables cost control at the most minute level.
- It enables extremely high-efficiency in storage. Nothing is carried overnight.
- It enables maximum versatility. Each night the table is cleared. Every morning is a new opportunity to implement a new line.
- It enables maximum responsiveness. Nuances and small changes are easily incorporated in the next day’s run.
- And, of course, it enables incredibly fresh production. It’s made in the morning and on the shelf in the afternoon.

When I asked where Charlie would attribute his success, he waved at the chefs, stood with his back to a magnificent kitchen, and shoved his hands in very consultant-like trouser pockets — the system, he said. The capacity to create order in the heart of his business.

I’ve got nothing like the system that Charlie built. But I’ve never forgotten his lesson. I invest, every week, about thirty percent of my time in the systems of my work. When I meet with new clients, systems are the first thing I go looking for.

In this down economy it gets easy to dog-paddle around, waiting for things to pick up. I’m convinced though, the first few momentum generating opportunities will go to those that used this time to build the systems they need to be successful.

In the curious eyes of a child …

Only children get to stare. I’ll look into the eyes of a child for hours. I can hardly stand to look into an adult’s for six seconds.

Children make miracles of hands, new snow and mud puddles. I spent a week at NASA and still managed to get bored.

There is something compelling and endearing in curiosity. A beginner’s mind is a marvel. Why are we so ready to abandon that advantage? Why do we strive to be experts? Why do we fight to have all the answers?

Knowing: enemy of curiosity

Sophistication gets in the way of simple worth. Polish pushes past practicality.

I was delighted when we finished our Jurisdictional Advantage assessment tool. I thought I’d finally created the tool to tempt new clients. It is rigorous, analytical, relevant and enormously powerful.

But as I invested more time in discussing it’s merits and even when I revealed its value in response to new, related opportunities — it pushed instead of pulled. The rigour and depth made some worry about overblown budgets. The sophistication suggested simplicity might get ignored. The practical-minded saw threats lurking in its long-range capacity.

More than that, I became (have become) closed to newness. Instead of greeting each new colour with the wonder of a child, I find some way to find its pre-fab place inside the tool.

The words used to describe the tool were, at first, simple. But in supporting its pre-fabricated relevance, things get ever-more complex. Language starts to hide meaning instead of reveal it.

There is a real tension here. On one hand, people want to see some evidence of capacity. What better way than to flash a well-used, refined set of tools and portfolio of happy clients? But, on the other hand, everyone wants to be unique. They want bespoke.

It’s a tenuous balance. Proof of universal satisfaction and evidence of exclusive service. Show that everyone is happy and ensure that no one has anything similar.

It’s made me wonder about the path to haute couture: the creation of exclusive custom-fitted clothing — made to order for a specific customer, made from high-quality, expensive fabric, sewn with extreme attention to detail and finish, often using time-consuming, hand-executed techniques.

Of all that haute couture involves, what is universal? What principles live at its heart? What is unchanged, in spite of creativity? And how is this harnessed?

10 Web trends to watch in 2010 — Use of real-time data, geo-spatial data applications, augmented reality, content curation, cloud computing, social gaming, and privacy scarcity.

Related to the post above: 16 top augmented reality business models — One of the roadblocks to innovation based on real-time data is business models. Interesting ideas on how to play this game.

Bacteria offer insights into human decision-making — Bacteria collectively weigh and initiate different strategies. Suggests new insight on how humans make decisions that impact health, wealth and fate of others.

Analysis catalysis — IDEO and Roger Martin see link between “design thinking” and solutions to wicked problems.

Why introverts can make the best leaders — Introverts tend to think first (talk later), focus on depth, and exude calm.

What will change everything? — The Edge posts the question, 151 thinkers give answers. Interesting responses from Chris Anderson, Yochai Benkler, Stewart Brand, M. Csikszentmilhalyi, Richard Dawkins, Aubrey de Grey, Brian Eno, Juan Enriquez, Neil Gershenfeld, Stuart Kauffman, Kevin Kelly, Paul Saffo, Peter Schwartz, Robert Shapiro, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Craig Venter.

Intelligence and analytics to of mind for 83% of CIOs + Background information on IBM’s acquisition of SPSS Inc. to provide predictive analytics — Analytics of internet-enabled data is exploding in opportunities and potential to enable decisions in spite of increasing complexity.

The first day of Singularity’s executive program almost feels normal. Sit in classes, listen to lectures, hustle back and forth between meals. My little brain was buzzing along, content in its regular patterns.

By about 10 AM the second morning, I knew I had a fire hose in my mouth. The pressure of new information, new paradigms, and a rapidly shifting set of future potentials was too much. Either I had to let go or I find some other release.

I released reality. Let every new idea tear through and decided to pick up the pieces later.

What is Singularity University?

Singularity University is led by Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis. Ray is famous for his book on singularity, exponential growth curves, and vitamins. Peter runs X-Prize, takes people to zero-gravity, and strives to escape Earth’s orbit.

The university introduces exponential growth technologies. It takes leaders through transformational technologies that change the future. The list includes: synthetic biology, customized medicine, bioinformatics, nanotechnology, alternative energy, artificial intelligence, robotics, and cloud computing networks.

Sort of creeps up on you

The power of Singularity creeps up on you. Its impact peaks after the program is done.

While in the program, everything is amazing. But because it’s all incredible — it sort of starts to feel normal. Like jumping out of a plane: The first few minutes are insane. After a while though, you’re just falling (really, really fast). After its done though, things start to settle in.

The first big burst is the people. They are amazing. Kurzweil, Diamandis, Dan Barry (three-time NASA astronaut and robotics expert), and Ralph Merkle (inventor of hash trees, cryptographic cracks, and nanotechnology expert) are just a few of the boggling roster. Jonathan Zittrain visited us and we visited Luke Nosek at Halcyon.

Luke’s company is an example of the second mind-popping element: There are actually companies doing all this crazy stuff. Halcyon Molecular is literally, honestly creating the world’s fastest human-genome sequencing technology in their garage — I saw it. We raced a Tesla roadster (here’s me in the passenger seat), talked with robots, and watched a guy print 3D prosthetic legs (including tattoos) in one shot.

The last big shift came while old paradigms reluctantly evaporated. Some really big problems look like they aren’t problems at all. What does genetically-tailored medicine do to world-wide disease? If energy scarcity disappears, beaten down by carbon-neutral alternatives, what changes? When salt-water oceans become fresh-water substitutes: what of water wars? As abundance rises, what changes?

Singularity struggling

I left Singularity buzzing with the potential but bothered by something I struggled (still struggle) to define. It’s related to the last question above: As abundance rises, what falls?

Throughout the program I kept thinking of those iconic disaster scenes. The hero races along some bridge, safety beckoning from the far side. Behind the hero, the bridge is crumbling and blood-thirsty threats hunt for his life. There’s no time to turn around. No time to fight. No time to save anything. Just race, head-long, for the other side.

As we race for the giant up of exponential technologies, is it at the cost of a giant down behind us? As the exponential curve arcs up does it also arc down? Does this really start at zero, like all curves mysteriously seem to do — or did it start from a massive and incomprehensible negative well beyond our knowing?

Haven’t we seen this before? Wasn’t whale oil a “limitless” resource? Crude oil reserves used to be oceans, right? What of bison and cod? Good grief — we still use “oceans” to mean “limitless”, so recent is our recognition that they are alarmingly finite.

Are apparently limitless alternatives really even evidence of abundance? Abundance only seems to get important when you’re running really short on something else. Abundance needs absence to get headlines.

So abundance carries the real threat of its inverse: scarcity. Today’s abundance is just a new version of an old paradigm — limitless reserves, made more efficient by technology, to be squandered violently by oblivious generations?

How much of the devastation wrought by Alberta’s oil sands is the consequence of exponential growth technologies? Of all the species we’ve destroyed, how many are gone because we believed they were limitless? Ask almost any of the once powerful empires — how good is abundance?

Just a question

I am a huge fan of Singularity University. An abundant fan. Nothing of the above should suggest skipping that opportunity.

I just want to ask a question that no one there wanted to answer: What does the Singularity invite us to ignore?

Related links

TECHCRUNCH: Singularity University Executive Program — Ray Kurzweil’s Opening Address
BUSINESS WEEK: Singularity University Gives Execs a View of the Future
CNET: Singularity University seasons executives for the future
WIRED: Singularity University

There’s a story of a Maine fisherman who, while unloading a catch of lobster, got a visit from a curious neighbour. There were two boxes of lobster on the dock: one with a lid and another without. The visitor wanted to know: why only one with a lid?

The old fisherman grinned up at his neighbour. The one with the lid held Maine lobster — the box bumped and jostled with lobster clamouring to get out. The other held Canadian lobster.

Canadian lobster were happy in their box. They needed no lid. The rest would pull back in any one lobster that tried to get out.

“Let’s be happy here” is one of Canada’s best national sentiments. But it’s got an insidious shadow in “let’s spread success around”.

Here’s the thing: don’t share success. Don’t spread brilliance until it’s average. Invest deeply, deliberately, and precisely in ways that create pinnacles — not plains.

Don’t borrow my brilliance, hitch-hike on my reputation, or copy my path — bring your own. I’ve just barely reached the middle. Bring your brilliance. Maybe together we can reach the top.

Success gleams; a moment from now. We caress it, briefly, and pass it on–to our children, to the future. The product of years of striving, mountains of promises, and great swaths of black, unseen time.

It will be a gift. A sacrifice. Our atonement.

We are desperate, and vain, to create next. We give everything to it. All we are is poured, deliberately and completely, into some time ahead of us. What of now?

What if I stop? What if I trade the future for now? Instead of letting “next” be my banker; why not this moment (with no middleman)?

What would change if my children never knew of the future I’d influence, impact and change? What if all they ever knew was a love of moments, the pursuit of presence, and a steward of now?

How different would their lives be? How differently would they see the world? What would they learn to influence, impact and change? Even more, what would they learn to cherish, consider and celebrate?

Wicked good is complexity before it is complicated. It’s slippery, difficult to define and tough to embrace. It is:

1. Never understood.
2. Best accompanied by action.
3. Better (more complex) over time. Movement starts a virtuous cascade. Complexity grows as resources are added.
4. A problem if ignored.

Wicked good precedes wicked bad. It’s an early warning system–like a crabby child–of something brilliant on the verge of malevolent.

I collect wicked problems–the malignant, vicious, tricky (like a leprechaun) problems of planning. I love the forgotten, the escapees, the reverted. I follow feral.

But, I’ve also come to cherish the subtle, sophisticated, finespun art of building before bad. I want to collect it too. It is example and metaphor. It is an anchor–evidence of where we can, should and will, be.

I want the tangle and the labyrinth.

Fiftieth Street and 50th Avenue quarter the town. Each quarter respect the cordons, except the semi-industrialists. Like a wildfire, they leapt 50th Avenue, moving down to consume parts of the south-east.

Heavy-industry barricades the south. A bulwark against newfangled economies, these are lumber-mills and power-plants. The town hums. The air is scented by sawn trees.

Drayton Valley is west of the Rocky Mountains–forests cover the 200 kilometres to the peaks. Go east, across the North Saskatchewan River, to find Canada’s breadbasket. North is crude oil, natural gas, and Alberta’s oil-sands.

Agriculture, forestry and energy are the economic engines in Alberta and Drayton Valley is a lot like other towns in the province–dependent on capricious commodity prices. It followed their path up, through the 50’s oil-boom and down again into the 2000’s.

Today it’s late in 2009 and for Drayton Valley it’s been a year of convergence.

Viewed from one direction, things look sketchy. Drayton Valley’s energy companies crumble under falling prices. Pinched by Pine Beetle and close to worthless lumber, timber companies are tired. Agriculture just crawled through another season of drought. It’s been a blunderbuss of bad.

But, during this same time, the world suddenly turned. Green is great. Clean technology gets more VC investment than any other sector in North America. And feeding into every, single, clean opportunity is at least one of four things: agriculture, forestry, energy or water. Bad became good.

Bad allowed Drayton Valley to find a door, out of pure primary production. It has enough revenue to make the transition–if it moves deliberately. It has the right skill-sets available–if it moves quickly. It has a tailored set of opportunities–if it moves proactively.

Drayton Valley is a town on the edge of a wicked bad problem–the threshold almost palpable. But, for now, it lives in a labyrinth of wicked good.

(Disclosure: Sift builds with Drayton Valley)

Remember your first Halloween? The moment you discovered a mountain of candy behind every door? That one night, in a year of dark nights, to dress up, trot through town, stay up late, plus get candy!

Remember your first Halloween? The moment you discovered a mountain of candy, wantonly devoured, in the space of seconds, is bitterly bad.

Wicked good flipped. It became wicked bad.

How many wicked problems were once wicked goods?

Are poverty and pollution the product of something good? Is global warming and economic cooling a consequence of good that became bad? Did epidemics, exhausted resources, extinct species, and environmental degradation have their start in greatness?

- Poverty is principally caused by disproportionate good. Some get the most good. Some get none.

- Pollution is caused by too much good of one kind. It’s the concentration that makes it bad.

- Epidemics are enabled when good has gone on too long. We weren’t tested. We’re weak.

- Exhausted resources, especially naturally renewable resources, are chiefly caused by taking too much good too fast.

For a while, good was great. Then, one day, good became bad

Where is that moment when wicked good flips. Why does it flip? How long was it good before it became bad?

Why wait while working with good? Why wait for good to become bad? Why not think now about sticking with good and skipping the bad?

What wicked good have you found? What do you do to keep it from becoming wicked bad?

These are questions in the vein of “how do you do that which only you can do?” Some of the lovely, nettlesome, nymph-like questions that glitter in, especially on sunny days and sometimes rainy ones.

In asking these questions, I assume you agree: you are built for greatness. And that you realize: greatness is tailor-made.

The working thesis goes like this:
a) Your best is your cannon.
b) This cannon is tailor-made for sinking just a few, specific things – those few things are your battleships.
c) Life is rotund with things that distract us from our best. These things are easy to chase around without ever realizing we’re wasting time. These are seagulls.
It’s rare to figure out “your” cannon. It’s more rare to discover your battleships. And it’s rarer still to have deliberately built the capacity to fire that gun at those ships more often, with more precision, and greater purpose.

Just look at the bell curve. Running from left to right:
- There’s a massively negative few, way out on the left. Maniacs.
- Trending toward middle is the majority of humanity. The average.
- Trailing off, on the right-side of middle are the increasingly exceptional. Stand-outs.
- And on the polar right, the few that consistently create change. Saints.

Saints hit hard, often, with precision. They are the peerless few that invest in systems and networks that feed them battleships – a conveyor belt of targets tailored to the narrow expression of their best.

Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Da Vinci. Their work wasn’t willy-nilly. It was focused.

In what ways will you do which things that change what course to what end?
1) In what ways?
2) Will you do which things?
3) That change what course?
4) To what end?

Be brilliant.

I’ve come back from SoCap09 with an air castle. It’s a plan to anchor communities on brilliance, open innovation and stack potential while bridging across funding platforms to create sustainable impact. How’s that for a mouth-full of clouds?

Here’s the foundation:

Spot Brilliance:

We just built an analytical tool for spotting brilliance. Advantage Assessment creates a rigorous, evidence-based view of real, tangible, regional strengths. It will point to the few things a place can do really well. We’re talking with Central to decide if they’re interested in using their process for invoking action around those strengths.

Find Hubs:

We’re working with (and looking for) “hubs” – communities, companies, or networks set within diverse issues, interests and resources. For example, we’re working with the community of Drayton Valley to identify its few opportunities to be truly brilliant and leverage its agriculture, forestry and energy resources into bioindustrial opportunities. It ties in the community, current corporations, new companies and technologies, research organizations and academic institutions and all levels of government. My mantra going in: Honor complexity, pillage complication.

Create Anchors:

We’ll leverage “hubs” to anchor co-opetition, collaboration and open innovation. Pick your favourite trendy word – the idea is that when real opportunity is at stake, authentic collaboration is most likely. When a hand-picked group of complimentary players are brought to a common game, the incentives are right (for a while) to drive success together. We’re doing the math to set up that context.

Blend Mandates:

I realized at SoCap09 that investors live on a gradient. It runs from impact to return. Government investors and NFPs seek impact. Industrial investors and VC’s go for return. But (and here’s the kicker) they all need to be there for the game to work. The point isn’t an individual $5 million investment, it’s the entire $150 million pool. The gap isn’t a shortage of capital. It’s a failure to blend mandates (in a sophisticated, credible, and invest-able way).

So, this is the foundation of the air castle: Pick a few right things and anchor them on real and tangible opportunity for impact and return.

Get good at the story. Get amazing on the structure. Be brilliant in the pool.

What else? Name the missing bricks:

What else does the castle need?

You’ve worked at impact for ever, see some smoke?

I’m restarting preview conversations of new blog posts. Want in? Subscribe to email notification from the blog.

Keywords: Stacking, Brilliance, Open-Innovation, Blending-Mandate
Tags: Brilliance, Character-of-Place, Innovation, Investment, Planning, Strategy

The madness is made of three priorities:

- Get a grip on what’s going on in impact investment
- Figure out who to meet at the conference
- Decide which arcs to ride in the conversations

Gripping Impact

Social investment/social capital/impact investment are three names for the same space. That there are three (and many others) illustrates the current state of affairs – striving for clarity, rigor, and discipline.

In spite of some superficial ambiguity, there’s rich texture underneath. That refined capacity was aptly showcased in recent conversations with Stephen Huddart, VP of J.W. McConnell Family Foundation and Thomas K. Reis, Director at W.K. Kellogg Foundation. These are sophisticated investors.

My earlier “manifesto” wasn’t near as respectful as it could have been. There’s a thin line between provocation and maverick ignorance. I think I dodged the later, but not by much.

Precision is indeed necessary but, perhaps, not precisely where I placed it. Decisions, at least initial choices, are carefully made. Lots of rigorous tools help identify targets and investment process: logic models, developmental evaluation, causal loops, and network maps.

Just a few of the key resources in this area include the following videos (both from SoCap08) and articles:

Katherine Fulton, President of Monitor Institute – video.

Panel moderated by Kevin Doyle Jones and carried by Jed Emerson of Blended Value, Matthew Bishop of “The Economist”, and David Chen of Equilibrium Capital – video.

Investing for Social and Environmental Impact by Monitor Institute – PDF.

Who To Meet?

There’s almost 800 people attending the conference. It’s tough to pick where to focus the conversation. So far we’ve got meetings with:

Jed Emerson – Blended Value
Pål Dale – Voxtra Foundation
Greg Berry – Nuance Intelligence
Luis Calderon – University of Michigan Social Venture Fund
Andrew Miller – Foresta Capital
Kelly Clark – maramanie
Sean Stannard-Stockton – Tactical Philanthropy
Glen Mehn – Boot Partners
IDEO
Damien Newman – Future of Fish
VanCity Capital
Jonathan Jenkins – UnLtd
Sara Olsen – SVT Group

Story Arcs

So far it looks like there’s an interesting story around portfolio management. We’ve already done work to create an analytical portfolio management framework. An ability to:

1) Understand done deals and their evolution and emerging needs/opportunities
2) Reconcile early investments with investments currently on the table
3) Leverage early and current investments to call for future opportunities

Achieving this capacity requires:

1) Sensitivity tools to monitor and capture organic information and market dynamics related to current investment positions and their ecosystems
2) Create room within the due diligence on current deals to handle volatile information coming from previous deals so that new investments stack on, compliment, and fortify past positions
3) Run analytical foresight, scenario planning, and scanning to anticipate potential future opportunities and use current deals to take options on probable futures

I think the story to ride is this:

Making decisions is only part of investment success. Monitoring and leveraging the systemic layers influencing portfolio performance builds up value, mitigates risk, tailors future interests. The tools of impact management aren’t sensitive to these dynamics. They lag.

There’s an opportunity for a simple, bold process that links lagging metrics with real-time systemic evolution and future options. We’ve got key elements in hand. We’re looking for more.