If you were to graph the inflation-adjusted per-unit cost over time of the commodities in question - transistors, storage, bandwidth, etc. - you’d see a high initial price in the first years, and a sharp downward slope essentially dropping to zero in the present day.  We produce millions and millions of transistors per day for every man, woman and child on the planet.  Can the cost of an individual transistor even be calculated now?  How about an individual integrated circuit?  We measure their costs at the ’system of systems’ level, in memory chips, microprocessors, etc. 

And with regard to these products, our behavior as consumers changes over time as well.  Cell phones, computers etc. become disposable entities, and we ‘waste’ hard drive space with files downloaded (and sometimes purchased) on impulse.  But we don’t view our behavior as wasteful - we get more enjoyment out of these products BECAUSE we can exploit their low cost.

Keeping that in mind, this graph tells us a great deal (click for larger version).

From 1918-1999, gas was on a consistent downward unit cost trend, with the exception of the 70s oil crisis.  From 1981-1999 the cost of gas plummetted, not quite reaching zero, but coming close enough to waste in order to get other things. 

What did it get us over the past 20 years or so?  Not just the usual automotive suspects - bigger engines, more passenger space, better performance.   It allowed us to move further from where we work, extending suburbia further and further from the cities.   It opened up air travel to casual use.  It made it easier to afford vacation homes.  It kept shipping costs stable, resulting in lower consumer products costs.  And all this helped hold down inflation, keeping interest rates low and fueling a sustained housing boom.  We were willing to ‘waste’ gas because it helped us get lots of other benefits, just as if it was entering the Long Tail.

Problem it, it wasn’t, as evidenced by the graph from 1999-present.  And as predicted by King Hubbert decades ago.  Imagine, if, all of the sudden, a shortage of silicon or fabrication capacity or whatever led to the cost of individual transistors raising to, say, $.00001each.  What would be the impact on our culture?  We rely on cheap transistors for just about everything - over 600 million of them in a microprocessor.  Could we afford $6,000 microprocessors?  How would that impact thousands of other activities?

And that is exactly what we are experiencing with $4+ gas.  Suburban home prices plummet, demand for large vehicles nearly vanishes, shipping costs increase, inflation kicks in, interest rates will be raised to control it.  Economies in resort areas will be the next to suffer as high gas prices curtail vacation travel.

And yet, as I posted before, at the end of the day, this is a good thing.  We now have a crisis to solve, and this will spur innovation.  Many have recognized that the only form of energy with potential to become a Long Tail commodity is solar.  It is free, it is abundant, and it is perpetually sustainable.  It will become a Long Tail commodity when the cost of the products used to exploit it become ‘too cheap to meter,’ or more likely become integrated into the other things we buy (roofs, homes, commercial buildings, etc.) for only a marginal cost increase.   When we’re using solar energy to recharge our electric vehicles “for free,” only then can we consider that energy has entered the Long Tail.

By now, you probably know that every episode of American Chopper features a heated, no-holds-barred argument between Senior and Junior. The argument is about the same thing every week - whether it’s more important to make a good product, or stay on schedule. We witness a classic clash of personality types that might look like something you’ve experienced in the workplace yourself.

Junior manages each new project. He typically spends a lot of time upfront on the creative end of the process. Senior, on the other hand, oversees the entire process and is stimulated by one thing and one thing only - getting the bikes built on schedule. This is the basis for the friction in their relationship, as vividly illustrated in this video.

In Myers-Briggs terms, Junior appears to prefer ESTP or ENTP, while Senior appears to prefer ESTJ. The big difference in their personality types appears in their Orientation attitudes - what they show to the outer world. With his focus on the creative process, Junior exhibits a preference for Perception. He likes to discuss new ideas and approaches. He hates schedules, constantly changes his original plans, and is motivated by the approaching deadline. In contrast, Senior, with his focus on the schedule and getting things done on time, clearly prefers Judgment. He doesn’t want to talk about ideas and approaches - he wants to make sure the project is finished on time, and would prefer everyone get started early and stay ahead of schedule. When it appears the schedule is slipping, he steps in and starts an argument.

Senior thinks Junior needs to choose a direction quickly, get busy, and minimize last-minute changes. Junior thinks Senior needs to lay off, trust the team to get things done on time, and appreciate that the creative end of the process is what’s most important. Since they repeat the same argument every week, clearly they aren’t making progress.

Have you ever experienced this stressful situation at work? I have. I used to work for a person very much like Senior - except for the yelling - who got extremely stressed if you didn’t show regular progress towards meeting his deadlines. I, on the other hand, as an ESTP, approach projects very much like Junior. The creative process is most important, and the deadline is what it is. Working for this guy was a weekly struggle, because he didn’t place a value on employees who didn’t think as he did.

There can be a lot of stress even if the roles are reversed. If the boss prefers Perception and the employee prefers Judgment, the employee may chafe at a perceived lack of direction and closure, while the boss will expect more attention be given to the front end of every task.

Ideally, both parties can learn about their personality differences and do a better job of giving each other what they expect and need. Realistically, this doesn’t happen very often, and it’s the boss who gets his way (American Chopper to the contrary).

In my situation, when I learned about Myers-Briggs I quickly came to a startling realization - my boss wasn’t going to change, so in order to relieve the stress of our relationship I needed to move on. So I did. But now I approach situations like this differently. Myers-Briggs gives us an opportunity to learn about our personality preferences as a team, take advantage of our collective strengths and overcome our weaknesses.

To help your team function like a high-performance engine:

• Use Myers-Briggs and learn about Type and Teams.
• Use KAI and learn about creative styles.
• Learn how to optimize team involvement at various points in the process for creativity, problem solving, and innovation.
• Learn how to use the Platinum Rule - ‘Do Unto Others As They Would Like You To Do Unto Them.”
• Take the team for a motorcycle ride (optional)

]]> Today we take a look at the popular Discovery Channel series American Chopper, featuring the misadventures of the Teutul family (Senior, Junior and Mikey) and their company, custom bike manufacturer Orange County Choppers. The relationship between Junior and Senior illustrates two opposing Myers-Briggs type preferences extremely well.

By now, you probably know that every episode of American Chopper features a heated, no-holds-barred argument between Senior and Junior. The argument is about the same thing every week - whether it’s more important to make a good product, or stay on schedule. We witness a classic clash of personality types that might look like something you’ve experienced in the workplace yourself.

Junior manages each new project. He typically spends a lot of time upfront on the creative end of the process. Senior, on the other hand, oversees the entire process and is stimulated by one thing and one thing only - getting the bikes built on schedule. This is the basis for the friction in their relationship, as vividly illustrated in this video.

In Myers-Briggs terms, Junior appears to prefer ESTP or ENTP, while Senior appears to prefer ESTJ. The big difference in their personality types appears in their Orientation attitudes - what they show to the outer world. With his focus on the creative process, Junior exhibits a preference for Perception. He likes to discuss new ideas and approaches. He hates schedules, constantly changes his original plans, and is motivated by the approaching deadline. In contrast, Senior, with his focus on the schedule and getting things done on time, clearly prefers Judgment. He doesn’t want to talk about ideas and approaches - he wants to make sure the project is finished on time, and would prefer everyone get started early and stay ahead of schedule. When it appears the schedule is slipping, he steps in and starts an argument.

Senior thinks Junior needs to choose a direction quickly, get busy, and minimize last-minute changes. Junior thinks Senior needs to lay off, trust the team to get things done on time, and appreciate that the creative end of the process is what’s most important. Since they repeat the same argument every week, clearly they aren’t making progress.

Have you ever experienced this stressful situation at work? I have. I used to work for a person very much like Senior - except for the yelling - who got extremely stressed if you didn’t show regular progress towards meeting his deadlines. I, on the other hand, as an ESTP, approach projects very much like Junior. The creative process is most important, and the deadline is what it is. Working for this guy was a weekly struggle, because he didn’t place a value on employees who didn’t think as he did.

There can be a lot of stress even if the roles are reversed. If the boss prefers Perception and the employee prefers Judgment, the employee may chafe at a perceived lack of direction and closure, while the boss will expect more attention be given to the front end of every task.

Ideally, both parties can learn about their personality differences and do a better job of giving each other what they expect and need. Realistically, this doesn’t happen very often, and it’s the boss who gets his way (American Chopper to the contrary).

In my situation, when I learned about Myers-Briggs I quickly came to a startling realization - my boss wasn’t going to change, so in order to relieve the stress of our relationship I needed to move on. So I did. But now I approach situations like this differently. Myers-Briggs gives us an opportunity to learn about our personality preferences as a team, take advantage of our collective strengths and overcome our weaknesses.

To help your team function like a high-performance engine:

• Use Myers-Briggs and learn about Type and Teams.
• Use KAI and learn about creative styles.
• Learn how to optimize team involvement at various points in the process for creativity, problem solving, and innovation.
• Learn how to use the Platinum Rule - ‘Do Unto Others As They Would Like You To Do Unto Them.”
• Take the team for a motorcycle ride (optional)

]]> http://open-source-innovation.com/american-chopper-how-personalities-clash-at-work/feed/ http://open-source-innovation.com/how-to-leverage-collaborative-innovation/ http://open-source-innovation.com/how-to-leverage-collaborative-innovation/#comments Mon, 09 Jun 2008 03:38:57 +0000 lead-dog http://open-source-innovation.com/?p=186 Every now and then I read an article like this one in Forbes that touts the virtues of looking outside the walls of your company for innovation. There is a whole section in Mavericks at Work devoted to this, and the concept was, in fact, a partial inspiration for the name of this blog. I’m an outwardly focused individual, and naturally seek opportunities to collaborate and increase my knowledge. Similarly, organizations can seek the same opportunities for all kinds of situations - new products, new business solutions, new technologies, new perspectives on old problems.

Collaborating externally for innovation can take several forms:

• By focusing internally on your core competencies, and conducting a Pareto Principle analysis, you can determine what can be directly farmed out to others. If you decide, for instance, that your well-established brand is your core focus, you can farm out things like manufacturing and distribution which may lay outside your core.
• By establishing a network of collaborative partners you can become ‘more than the sum of your parts.’ As we’ve discussed before, networking is one of the areas of innovation that is hard-wired for effectiveness.
• By utilizing some of the principles championed by Proctor and Gamble and others, you can host totally open sourced projects. Tell the world what you want and let the creativity of others compete for the best solutions.

A simple example of the latter can be found at 99Designs, an innovative concept that connects website owners with graphics designers. You simply tell the world what you want, set the amount you’re willing to pay, and select the winning design from the contributions of designers all around the world.

Proctor and Gamble has been running its Connect + Develop website for several years and now outsources innovation efforts for nearly 50 percent of their products. They tell the world what they’re looking for and let the world submit ideas.

There are even companies that serves as an ‘innovation broker’ for innovative partnering opportunities - like NineSigma, who connects their clients with a vast network of experts in all fields of science, technology and business.

External Opportunities, Internal Challenges

If all these collaborative opportunities promising rapid problem solving and nearly friction-free innovation exist, why doesn’t every company take advantage of them? Two main reasons:

• “Not Invented Here” syndrome - if the idea doesn’t come from within, it’s not trusted. This reasoning is nearly omnipresent in older, well-established institutions.
• “Outsourcing” perception - a simple misrepresentation of collaborative networking: “we’re outsourcing innovation because we’re not creative enough to come up with good ideas ourselves.”

Organizational character plays a major role here. Companies most open to collaborating with “outsiders” have an external focus - or, in OCI/Myers-Briggs terms, tend to be extraverted. Extraverted organizations have open boundaries, accept collaborative opportunities readily, turn outside for guidance, and seek assistance with problems. Introverted organizations, on the other hand, trust internal guidance and tend to ‘circle the wagons’ when there’s a problem. For them, the answers can always be found within.

Even amongst externally focused organizations there is a wide range of what might be considered ‘acceptable’ ideas. Those organizations that prefer sensing will look for concrete, incremental solutions backed by lots of data, or proven processes that improve the ’structure.’ Intuitive organizations, on the other hand, look for big-picture, transformational change opportunities, and will accept theoretical over proven solutions.

To become a collaborative organization, look outward. Look for opportunities to network, look for collaborative partners that can enhance your products or services. If you have a problem to solve and want a fresh perspective, consider using a company like NineSigma to broker solutions. Better yet, set up a collaborative website like Connect + Develop and start making connections with the external world.

1. Carl Jung developed the sixteen personality types.

No, Myers and Briggs developed the sixteen types building on Jung’s research. Jung developed his type theory by the identifying eight cognitive processes, or functions, that everyone uses to perceive information and make decisions. Myers and Briggs developed the MBTI® to serve as a key for putting those functions in order of preference. Their contribution was to develop the ‘orientation’ attitude, which indicates which function a person shows to the world (i.e. what he extraverts). By adding this attitude, they moved from eight Jungian functions to sixteen Myers-Briggs types.

2. The MBTI® produces your personality type preference.

Not exactly - the MBTI® produces a hypothesis of your personality type preference. YOU determine your OWN type preference after a self-verification session. You compare your own self-picked preference with the results of your MBTI® and decide on a final preference. In doing so, you increase your understanding of what separates the MBTI® dichotomies, and ultimately your understanding of yourself. To aid this process, we augment the MBTI® with Exploring You™, a robust web-based self-verification tool that lets you experience your type preferences in action.

3. Your type preference changes over time.

Some people take the MBTI® multiple times and get different results. They interpret this as an indication that they have ‘changed.’ But this isn’t the case. Type is innate. Your type preferences don’t change. But your cognitive functions develop over time. Your functions develop in their order of preference as you get older. You become more comfortable using all of the Jungian functions. You might feel that this means your type is changing - but it isn’t.

So what does it mean when you get different results from repeated MBTI®s? It could mean you once took it under duress. Also, when you take it at work, you tend to answer in a work ‘frame of mind.’ Your responses may be different when taken at home, or at a library, or at any lower-stress environment.

4. Determining your four-letter preference is the end goal of Myers-Briggs.

The primary purpose of Myers-Briggs is self development. As such, learning your preference is merely a starting point. From there, type dynamics explains how you use each of the eight Jungian functions, and how to develop them. There are a myriad publications on how to use type preferences in team building, sales, and conflict resolution. And my specialty is applying Myers-Briggs in problem solving, change, and innovation.

5. “Extraverts are loud, Introverts are shy, Perceivers procrastinate,” etc.

It’s easy to draw stereotypes from the individual Myers-Briggs dichotomies, and from the sixteen type preferences themselves. Don’t get sucked into this. Some who prefer Extraversion may be loud or talkative, but they also use Introversion as well. We use ALL of the Jungian functions at one time or another - we just prefer to use some more than others. A person who prefers Feeling tends to make decisions based on values and people - but can also use facts and logic when necessary. A person who prefers Perception may want to keep their schedules open, but can also plan activities and meet deadlines if the situation requires.

6. The MBTI® measures “strength of personality preference.”

Of all the misconceptions, this one is the most common, due to the nice visual aid in the MBTI® report:

A person looks at this image and assumes that the blue bars represent strength, or intensity, of a preference relative to the center. But this is not the case. The MBTI® is not a strength of preference indicator - it’s a sorter. Each question forces you to choose between two psychological opposites. The blue bars indicate how consistent you were at selecting between one or the other.

In this example, the person selected all the Perception answers for iNtuition, indicating a very clear preference. But he selected slightly more Judgment answers for Thinking than he did for Feeling. This doesn’t indicate he’s a ‘weak Thinker.’ It means, for whatever reason, the MBTI didn’t do as good a job indicating a clear preference for one over the other, certainly not as well as it did for Perception. That’s one of the reasons we self-verify.

7. To find your ‘opposite,’ just switch the letters of your preference.

This one sounds logical on its face. If you prefer ISTJ, then naturally your opposite (i.e., the type you’ll have the hardest time relating to or working for) is ENFP, right? Au contraire - it’s ESTP, or INFJ, depending on how you think of ‘opposite.’ Why? I don’t have enough room in this post to explain. It’s an aspect of type dynamics, which you’ll learn after you take the assessment.

BONUS! BONUS! BONUS!

7a. Organizations tend to take on the personality traits of their senior leadership.

Large organizations tend to take on a personality of their own, independent of revolving senior leadership, due to the organization’s character. This is more than just the predominant Myers-Briggs preference of the organization - it’s in the way organizations fashion their internal and external processes, decision making, data collection, and customer interface. It’s explored more completely with the Organizational Character Index.

1. What To Do When You’re Starting a Blog on Wordpress.com

Let’s say you’ve decided to start a blog called ‘All About Slugs‘ and choose Wordpress.com as your blog host. The key to making this work is to anticipate that, someday, you’ll want to migrate to your own server. Knowing that, there are a few things you should do from Day One. a. Buy Domain Mapping - When you create the blog, Wordpress.com will assign the domain as allaboutslugs.wordpress.com by default. You have no choice in the matter. However, Wordpress.com offers domain mapping as a paid upgrade. For $10 a year they will map any domain you own to your Wordpress blog. So if you owned allaboutslugs.com, you could map it to your Wordpress domain. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU CAN DO TO MAKE FUTURE MIGRATION EASY. As soon as you decide on a domain name, purchase domain mapping and have Wordpress map your preferred domain name to your Wordpress.com blog. Immediately, if not sooner. Benefits: Google will generate search results with the format allaboutslugs.com/[permalink] instead of allaboutslugs.wordpress.com/[permalink]. A huge benefit as you will see. b. Check Out Your Permalinks - again, you have no choice in the way Wordpress.com assigns permalinks (i.e. the link Wordpress creates for individual posts). The default permalink structure is blogname.wordpress.com/year/month/day/postname. For the time being, this isn’t an issue, but it may become one after you migrate to your own server, when you have the ability to create your own permalink format. We’ll deal with that later. However, right now you should get in the habit of using the permalink structure for your internally directed links without the full domain name. For example, let’s say you were writing a post in which you wanted to make a link back to an article titled ‘Slugbait’ you posted on February 10, 2008. Rather than enter the link target as http://allaboutslugs.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/slugbait/, just use /2008/02/10/slugbait. Benefits: Will save you a major headache when you migrate. You won’t have to go through and change your internally directed links.

2. What To Do When You’ve Decided To Migrate To Your Own Server

Let’s assume you’ve done the smart thing - pick a host that’s Wordpress-friendly and offers an automatic install/upgrade function to make life easy. Set up Wordpress on your new server as per the host’s instructions. Follow the directions on Wordpress.com to create an export of your entire blog. Upload that to your new server and import it. You now have your old blog running on a new server. This is the easy part. a. Cancel Domain Mapping and Assign Your Old Domain To Your New Host. You now want allaboutslugs.com to point to your new blog location, so cancel domain mapping with Wordpress.com and assign it to your new host’s IP address. Your host should help you out with that. b. Decide On A Permalink Structure. In the Wordpress dashboard of your new blog, select Settings -> Permalinks. If you want to keep your old permalink structure, select “Day and Name.” If you do this, you are essentially done. After a few days, make sure that the Google search links to your posts are being rerouted to your new server. At that point you can delete your old Wordpress.com blog if you want. c. If You Want A Different Permalink Structure. If (like me) you want to switch to a new permalink structure, you will need to install a plugin called Permalink Redirect. This will let you map your old permalink structure to your new permalink structure, so Google searches won’t result in broken links or 401 messages. I did this, and changed my permalink structure to http://blogname.com/postname. Using Permalink Redirect, I was saved the headache of individually editing all of my old permalinks to the new structure. This will also fix your internally directed links. As I said earlier, I had to learn this the hard way. I didn’t buy domain mapping, and I didn’t use the preferred format for internally directed links. So when I moved to my own server, I had to keep the old Wordpress.com blog and manually redirect each old post to its new permalink on my new server. And I had to find someone who understood MySQL to program a batch file to change the structure of my old internally directed links. Do what I recommend now, and avoid major headaches down the road.

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.

It’s painful because it makes us change our behavior to accommodate the change, rather than vice versa. If we are going to subject ourselves to such change, there has to be a really good reason. Like, say, swapping horses for cars. Or TVs for radios. Or DVDs for VCRs.

This has been the primary problem with the electric car. Swapping gas cars for electric cars is painful, because it implies compromise. You can’t drive an electric car very far, so it has to be recharged frequently. And the batteries are expensive. And it takes a long time to recharge. It’s never been practical enough to be adopted by the marketplace because of how we’d have to change our behavior.

But the benefits of the electric car are huge. So it would take a serious transformational innovation effort to figure ways around all the problems associated with widespread adoption.

What we’re going to see today is how someone with a vision can apply innovation and literally transform a country. And in doing so, we’re going to examine exactly how Project Better Place redefined nature of the problem by looking at it from new perspectives, using a lot of the creativity tools we’ve posted in the Arsenal.

First, watch this video (about 20 minutes) to see just how Project Better Place is going to make Israel gasoline-free by 2020.

Direktlink zum Video auf Youtube

Shai Agassi explains how their collaborative approach tackled and solved the five major problem areas:

• Political - create a tax incentive to buy electric cars instead of gas
• Automotive - mass produce practical, high-performance, affordable cars people will want to buy
• Technology - separate the car from the battery to innovate the business model
• Support - build the network infrastructure needed to make the cars practical - recharging stations at common places for short-range driving, and battery swap stations for long-distance driving
• Capital - secure adequate venture capital funding

The resounding message I got from the video is one of urgency - Israel is desperate to divest itself of the need for oil. Their problem is real, it’s messy, and it’s pervasive. It’s in rethinking the problem that opportunities for innovation emerge. Chief amongst these is restating the core problems as social, rather than technical, problems.

And if you’ll recall, we’ve discussed how battery swapping could provide the spark needed to make electric cars practical. Ideas like this are integrated into a life-cycle solution.

So how do we use this as a how-to primer?

• When faced with a messy problem, restate it in several ways to focus on what really matters. “How do we eliminate the need for oil” becomes a series of more concrete problems, like “How do we provide a practical, affordable electric car” and “How do we build the needed support infrastructure.”
• Split the problem and solve each component separately. By splitting driving into local and long-distance, they found that the local driving problem was far easier to solve, and provided the majority of the benefits.
• Challenge assumptions. Batteries have been a problem for electric cars because everyone insists on making them analogous to gasoline cars - we fill a tank with gas at the gas station, so we assume we’ll have to recharge a battery at a recharging station. But if you challenge the assumption that the battery has to be a permanent part of the car, opportunities for innovation emerge - and in this case, eliminate the need for battery recharging altogether.
• Copy successful ideas from parallel worlds and adapt them to yours. Their new business model is liberally copied from the cell phone industry.
• Partner with those who can help make it happen. Without Project Better Place’s network infrastructure, the car and battery manufacturers wouldn’t succeed. Without political and venture capital support, the plan wouldn’t come to fruition.

In closing, I’d be remiss if I didn’t make an observation about Mr. Agassi - I’d have to guess his Myers-Briggs preference is ENTJ. The ENTJ profile - strategic thinkers, seek to transform the world, driven to create strategic plans of action - fits him to a T.

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).

America has an interesting national character. In Myers-Briggs terms, nearly three-fourths of us prefer ‘Sensing.’ That means, amongst other things, that we can take change in small, incremental doses, but get highly stressed when transformational change is forced upon us. The change needed to adopt electric cars is dramatic - recharging overnight only gets you a few dozen miles in range, whereas we’re used to fueling up for a 400-mile trip in minutes. Just think of how we’d have to change our daily routines. And to top it off, the cars will be much more expensive up front, offset by lower fuel costs - but the perceptual change is significant.

And there’s another character dimension at work at the same time. Nearly half of us prefer ‘Perceiving,’ and a salient characteristic of that preference is the tendency to get motivated by crisis, or by a deadline. In other words, we know we’ve got to eventually do something about the problem in front of us, but we’re not gonna get really interested in it until it’s REALLY a problem. And the other half who prefer ‘Judging’ tackle the problem head-on, getting things done in a systematic fashion. But if the problem requires drastic change - see previous paragraph.

Are we entering a crisis? We constantly read articles about how even $3.50 gas is cheap relative to Europe and elsewhere. Do you care? Our spending habits, communities, and travel industries are based on the assumption of cheap petroleum products. Would you have bought a home 50 miles away from work if gas was this expensive? Would you have bought an SUV? And what happens when gas climbs to five, six, eight dollars a gallon?

Crises like these spur innovation. Innovation doesn’t occur unless there’s a problem to solve - the messier the problem the more novel the innovation. The higher gas climbs, the more pressure is placed on development of biofuels, solar tech, and high-performance batteries. Development that started when gas started skyrocketing a few years back is bearing fruit. Companies like Nanosolar, Firefly, EESTOR and A123 are making products that will spur a wave of transformational change in the energy and automotive businesses. And this is just the bleeding edge - energy technologies are about to explode across the country. A possible result - forcing electricity into the Long Tail, making it practically free for everyone.

High gas prices create short-term suffering but spur the innovation needed to make the suffering go away.

I’m now able to offer the Myers-Briggs Typing Indicator® (MBTI®) through the blog. To commemorate this momentous occasion - the first five people who email me get the MBTI® Step II, Form Q - normally priced at $115 - for half price: $57.50. Here’s a sample of the Form Q Interpretive Report - all 18 pages of it.

Simply email me via the handy email form on my About… page, subject ‘Half Price Form Q.’ If you’re one of the first five you get the most comprehensive Myers-Briggs assessment, including 18 pages of highly detailed information, custom-taylored to your individual personality type, for a bargain price.

Each of the films features the latest in makeup, special effects, and animation. Each features famous comedic actors. And yet…

Each of the films stretches out the original source material into full-length features, but don’t match the quality of their respective half-hour TV versions. And yet…

NONE of them are as good as this 10-minute Looney Tunes animation of “Horton Hatches The Egg,” circa 1942. In 65 years Dr. Seuss features have REGRESSED.

What makes it better? Two things - the classic animation is top-notch, and the screenplay STICKS TO THE ORIGINAL SOURCE MATERIAL. Special effects and makeup can’t make up for a lame screenplay.

Remember: Sometimes innovation doesn’t pay dividends unless it’s applied in the right places.

In late November, Verizon Wireless said it would allow any device or software to run on its wireless network. It’s a reversal for the No. 2 U.S. wireless carrier, which had been known as the most protective in the industry.

Why the turnaround? And what does this say about the organizational character of Verizon?

Some say this is a response to Google:

After the November announcement, many saw the move as a reaction to Google Inc.’s (GOOG) Android operating system - an open source platform designed to run on any phone.

Perhaps it is. But are they after the same market? As I wrote last year, Google wants open access to let people with bad/no wireline internet to access Google. It’s their primary strategic goal - “Make all the world’s information accessible to everyone.”

Verizon, on the other hand, is opening access to their information network as a way of innovating their business network - how they partner with others to the benefit of all. This is a huge about-face for Verizon.

In 1996, Verizon (then Bell Atlantic) was, along with all the other local exchange carriers (LECs), forced by law to allow competitors access to their wireline networks. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 granted competitors (CLECs) like Covad the ability to co-locate equipment in the LECs’ central offices, and lease telephone lines. Using this, CLECs also provided DSL service. Verizon’s ultimate response was to force the FCC to ‘back off’ on enforcement of the Telecom Act - or else they’d never upgrade their wireline network to fiber optics. The FCC capitulated, and now Verizon is rolling out their ‘FIOS’ fiber optics service, free from the need to grant competitors access.

So if they won’t do it with their wireline network, why are they doing it with their wireless network? Won’t this mean that others will profit at their expense? Won’t they sell less phones in their local stores?

BusinessWeek has an idea why:

Last November, Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon Communications (VZ) and Vodafone (VOD), decided a radical shift was needed to generate new sources of revenue as the U.S. wireless market reaches saturation. About 80% of the U.S. population, or more than 250 million people, now use a cell phone. With the supply of first-time customers dwindling, Verizon chose a course it hopes will generate novel new phones and applications that can lure users from rivals or inspire existing subscribers to spend more money each month.

Whatever the reasons, Verizon faces a large internal challenge. It must alter its organizational character from one of introversion (tightly controlling access, disallowing outsiders) to extraversion (opening access to partners, allowing them to be creative outside of Verizon’s control). You could call this a ‘cultural shift’ as well.  Verizon is an old, established corporation - and the older and more established you get, the more introverted you become.  Their appeal to the FCC to rethink enforcement of the Telecom Act is classic introverted behavior - ‘protect the status quo at all costs.’  It takes a disruptive action - like a threatening competitor or the promise of a new venture - to energize introverted organizations to focus outward.

It’s also an acknowledgement that, just maybe, coming up with innovative new services isn’t Verizon’s forte. Perhaps their core competency is providing a robust network. Perhaps they will discover that others will create opportunities for new revenue streams they never dreamed of.

Still, skepticism abounds:

Among the biggest concerns: Verizon did not divulge any details of the pricing plans customers would be offered to use such devices. Nor did it publish any specifications to help software developers create applications for the network. In fact, the company distributed materials to attendees online, stressing that the company “will not approve, test, or service third-party applications that customers load onto their Open Development Devices.”

And despite numerous claims by Verizon executives that testing and certification for new devices could take as little as four weeks, many attendees are skeptical the process will be that easy. “I was most impressed with how they thought through the process,” says Bill Alberth, Motorola’s (MOT) chief technology officer for mobile devices based on CDMA, which is the wireless technology used on Verizon’s network. “But I want to see more details on testing.”

Google, already an extraverted company, would have no problem networking with partners in such a venture. Nor would their be such a level of skepticism from potential partners. Perhaps Verizon is doing this because they know Google could do it better, just by deciding to do so.