Here’s Where We Screwed Up With Gas
A few months ago I wrote about The Long Tail. The main idea behind this principle is that there is a class of commodities that eventually become so cheap they can be ‘wasted’ in order to exploit bigger, more valuable opportunities. Yahoo gives offers unlimited storage to its email customers to entice them to spend on other things - because storage has become cheap enough to give away. Netflix offers unlimited movie downloads for a flat monthly fee, implying an incredibly cheap per-movie viewing cost for heavy users.
Sphere: Related ContentHow To Transform A Culture With Innovation
Have you ever witnessed an innovation that transforms everything in a culture?
It doesn’t happen often. Most of the time innovation improves rather than transforms. Well over 90 percent of the time, in fact.
There’s a good reason for that. Change is hard. In Myers-Briggs terms, most people in our culture (75 percent) prefer ’sensing,’ and one of the aspects of sensing is resistance to change. Incremental change, if useful, might be OK. Transformational change is painful.
Sphere: Related ContentHigh-Priced Gas Is GOOD For America!
How could this possibly be? We rely on gas for just about everything in this country - how could high priced gas actually be GOOD for us?
Because without high-priced gas, we’d have no incentive to innovate.
In my article on ‘Who Killed The Electric Car?’ last year, I emphasized the fact that no one wanted an expensive, inconvenient-to-operate electric car while gas was cheap. The economics would never work out, even if electricity was marginally cheaper than gas, because batteries were way too expensive. But it’s safe to say that many foretold the coming of high-priced gas back then. Peak Oil is a concept dating back to the 50s, and those who adhere to its principles saw a drop in petroleum production on the horizon.
So why didn’t we do anything about it? Same reason we don’t do anything about Social Security, widely predicted to collapse in a couple of decades - it’s not a current crisis. We respond to current crises pretty well in this country - we plan for future crises poorly (just ask those living in New Orleans).
Sphere: Related ContentMaking Money By Giving Stuff Away For Free
Have you ever considered what you can get for practically free today that you used to pay a lot of money for?
- Computer Performance
- Long Distance Telephone Calls
- Computer Storage
- Bandwidth
- Music
- Web Server Space
- Domain Names
What’s been the impact of the value of these commodities becoming almost “too cheap to meter?” It’s opened up opportunities in other areas, to sell new services and innovate new business models. And it’s taken innovation out of the hands of invisible ‘gatekeepers’ and into the hands of the people.
Sphere: Related ContentA Car That Gets 300 Miles Per Gallon
While A123Systems, Altairnano, and EESTOR are developing next generation high-performance batteries, car manufacturers are working hard to develop the perfect electric cars to exploit them. A company called Aptera now claims their latest prototype gets a whopping 300 miles per gallon fuel efficiency. But at what cost?
Sphere: Related ContentHas Solar Energy Finally Turned The Corner?
The key to making a disruptive solar energy product is to overcome the high cost of the initial installation. Popular Science has awarded its Innovation of the Year award to a company who may well do that starting next year - Nanosolar. Let’s see if they can truly be disruptive.
Sphere: Related ContentGet Your First Electric Car From…Sam’s Club???
Who is the first to the American mass market with an electric car? Would you believe…Sam’s Club?
Sphere: Related ContentEEStor, A123, Altairnano…AND THE WINNER IS…
You Can Call Me “Maverick” Now
A big thanks to Mavericks At Work, which has declared yours truly as one of their ‘50 Maverick Minds’ (see the lower left hand column). It’s an honor to be recognized by such distinguished author/speakers as Mr. Taylor and Ms. LaBarre. If you’d like to learn what Mavericks is all about, download their Manifesto for Mavericks and buy the book.
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An Electric Car Breakthrough? Building On A Good Idea
I just stumbled across a brilliant idea that, if implemented properly, could provide the revolutionary spark that electric cars need. Using it as a baseline, we can flesh out a broader solution that makes the confusion surrounding the practicality of owning an electric car a lot more clear.
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