The New Polymath: Profiles in Compound–Technology Innovations

A Polymath—the Greek word for Renaissance Man—is a person who excels in many disciplines. The New Polymath is an enterprise that excels in multiple technologies – one that is using infotech, cleantech, healthtech, biotech and nanotech to create innovative new products and solutions. Eight case studies – BP CTO, Cognizant, GE, Kleiner Perkins, National Hurricane Center, Plantronics, salesforce.com, and W.R. Hambrecht – show how enterprises are leveraging a wide range of technologies to solve not just their own day to day issues, but also the "Grand Challenges" the world faces. The book also categorizes 11 "building blocks" these Polymaths leverage – next–generation analytics, cloud computing, sustainability, disruptive economics and others—and showcases "mini–case studies" of over another 100+ innovators, their products and their projects.The book shows innovation happening across a wide spectrum from the farms of Ireland to the football fields in the US to the Qinghai–Tibet railway, the highest in the world.In our ever more connected and technological world, every organization must become its own New Polymath; this book will show you how to unleash the expertise in yours.

Spis treści:
Foreword.
Preface.
Invoking the Spirit of the Renaissance.
The Flow of the Book
What Got Left Out?
Acknowledgements.
Part I: Sprezzatura.
The Art of Making the Complex Look Easy.
Chapter 1: The New Polymath.
In An Age of “Wicked Problems” and Technology Abundance.
Our “Grand Challenges”.
An Extinct Species in Our Complex World?
The New Polymath.
Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and, and…
“Spray Painters” in the New Renaissance.
Less Visible Signs of Our New Renaissance.
Recap.
Chapter 2: Modern Day Dark Ages So Much Stagnation.
The “Empty Calories” in Infotech.
The Lack of A greement Around Cleantech.
The Inconsistent Coverage in Healthtech.
Turning the Tide.
Recap.
Chapter 3: Polymath Profile # 1: General Electric.
GE Global Research.
Corporate IT.
R&D at a Business Unit.
Business Unit IT.
Recap.
Part II: The R–E–N–A–I–S–S–A–N–C–E framework Building Blocks for the New Polymath.
Chapter 4: Residence Better Technologically Equipped Than the Office.
Apple and Consumerization.
The Rise of the Tech–Savvy Consumer.
Consumerization Impact – Not Just on the High–tech Industry.
Wait Until You See the Next–Generation Consumer.
Technology, Finally, Can Be About Revenue Generation.
Technology as a Competitive Advantage or Disadvantage?
Consumer–Sourcing.
Consumer Technology Economics Are Not Just for Consumers.
If You Embed Technology into Your Products, Think Like a Technology Company.
Your Employees Are Tech–Savvy Consumers at Home.
Tech–Savvy Consumer = Smartass Consumer?
Recap.
Chapter 5: Exotics Innovation from Left Field.
Ladies in Technology.
Turn Your Internal Technology into an Asset.
Innovation from Back Office Processes Like HR.
Innovation from “Game Scores”.
Innovation from “Un–consolidating” Vendor Bases
The Silicon Valley Model: Move West, Young Man.
“Trickle–Up” Innovation.
Don′t Forget Your Backyard.
Beyond BRICK.
Recap.
Chapter 6: Polymath Profile # 2: Cognizant.
The Early Years.
The Structure for Growth.
The Future “Future of Work”.
Recap.
Chapter 7: Networks Bluetooth to Broadband.
Alexander Bell Is Looking Down In Awe.
Bell Is Also Looking down in Consternation.
Reinventing the Traditional Telco.
But Who Is Willing to Wait for the Telcos to Morph Themselves?
The Global Telecom Race.
Innovating the Telecom Supply Chain.
Recap.
Chapter 8: Polymath Profile # 3: Plantronics.
Plantronics and Five Decades of Telecommunications.
The Consumerization Effect.
Pushing Form/Function Boundaries.
Recap.
Chapter 9: Arsonists (and Other Disruptors).
The Myth Of Moore′s Law.
Learning from the Automobile Service Model.
MAXroam: Disrupting the International Mobile Roaming Market.
Zoho: Disrupting the Microsoft Office Market.
Cartridge World: Disrupting the Printer Ink Market.
Rimini Street: Disrupting Enterprise Software Maintenance Markets.
ZDNet Blogs: Disrupting the Technology “Influencer” Market.
Agresso: Easing Disruptions at Their Customers.
HP And Cisco: Disrupting Each Other’s Markets.
When Disruptors Get Disrupted: The Pharmaceuticals Example.
SAP: Trying to Disrupt the Database Market.
Verizon: Targeting Cable and Other Telcos.
Recap.
Chapter 10: Polymath Profile # 4: W. R. Hambrecht.
The United Football League (UFL).
The Hambrecht OpenIPO Process.
Recap.
Chapter 11: Interfaces For All Our Senses.
The BMW iDrive.
Microsoft Surface Computer.
The Sonos Controller.
The Tablet PC.
Adobe Flash.
Scanners and Barcodes.
Digitized Information at Source.
Wearable Computers.
The CNN “Magic Wall”.
“The Sixth Sense”.
Voice Recognition.
Digital Smelling and Tasting.
The Brain–Machine Interface.
UNICODE and Exotic Scripts.
Recap.
Chapter 12: Sustainability Delivering To Both the Green and Gold Agendas.
Sustainability and Innovation in Public Policy.
Sustainability and Energy Frugality.
Sustainability and Innovation in Supply Chains.
Sustainability and Innovation in Keeping Score
Sustainability and Innovation in Education.
Recap.
Chapter 13: Polymath Profile # 5: Kleiner Perkins Cleantech.
The Cleantech Market Opportunit y.
Portfolio Company: Luca Technologies.
Portfolio Company: Silver Spring Networks.
The Shifting Sands.
Recap.
Chapter 14: Singularity The Man–Machine Convergence.
The State of Medical Technology.
The Internet of Men and Things.
Medical Cities and High–Tech Villages.
Heart–Warming Robots and Heart–Breaking Autism.
Personalized Medicine and Personalized Doses.
The Tiny and the Giant – Nanotech and Sensory Databases.
Recap.
Chapter 15: Analytics Spreadsheets, Search, and Semantics.
The Black Swan Is Not That Rare.
It’s the Age of “Big Data”.
De–Emphasize Slice and Dice, Re–Emphasize Decisions.
We Still Have Plenty of Small Data.
Don’t Ignore Unstructured Data.
And Then There Is Web and Social Data.
All This Data = Better Visualization Tools.
All This Data = Massive Storage Requirements.
All This Data = Predictive Powers.
Recap.
Chapter 16: Polymath Profile # 6: National Hurricane Center.
The Data Sources and Models.
The Data Products.
Continuous Improvement.
Recap.
Chapter 17: Networks Again Communities, Crowds, Contracts, and Collaboration.
Aren′t Communities a Relic from Communism?
Enter Social CRM.
“Ding–Dong, It′s the Avon Lady”.
Starbucks Pledge5.
First Generation of “True Customer Interaction” Applications.
You Call This a Light Application?
And Nobody Ever Accused SAP of Being a “Light” Application.
The “Genomes” of Communities and Crowds.
We Are Supposed to Rely on Love and Glory in Our Talent?
Then There Are Contracted Crowds, Better Known as Outsourcing.
It′s a Plane, It′s a Bird…It′s an Outsourcer?
What’s Accenture Doing with Lego?
Employees Still Are a Major Talent Source.
So How Do All These Talent Pools Collaborate?
But… Col laboration Is Mostly Unstructured!
Recap.
Chapter 18: Clouds Technology–as–a–Service.
Microsoft′s Cloud Infrastructure.
DeVry in the Cloud.
NetSuite′s Macro View from the Clouds.
Bessemer′s investments in the Cloud.
Appirio: Clouds for Clients and for Itself.
PaaS, as in Leapfrog.
Schumacher Group and the Network Effect.
Private versus Public Clouds.
Altimeter Group: Born in the Cloud.
Recap.
Chapter 19: Polymath Profile # 7: Salesforce.Com.
The Democracy in Action.
Transparency as Market Advantage.
The Religious Wars.
Recap.
Chapter 20: Ethics In An Age Of Cyberwar And Cloning.
Discussion 1: Florida and Biofuels.
Prof. Herman Tavani: Ethical Computing.
Discussion 2: GPS and Routing of Traffic through Family Neighborhoods.
Gregory Call: The Law and Technology Spawned Ethical Issues.
Discussion 3: Neelie Kroes, Former EU Commissioner for Competition.
Governments and Our “Wicked Problems”.
Discussion 4: Google′s Ethics.
Professor Batya Friedman: “Value–Sensitive Design”.
Discussion 5: Environmental Tradeoffs.
Erik Keller: Technology Can Learn from Horticulture.
Discussion 6: Isaac Asimov and Rules for Robots.
Troy Angrignon: Learning from Hari Seldon.
Discussion 7: Genetic Markers and Prophylactic Treatments.
Technology and Work/Life Balance.
Discussion 8: The “Patently Absurd” Patent System.
Brian Sommer: Where Are the Ten Commandments Around Technology?
Recap.
Part III: Grooming Your Own New Polymath.
Chapter 21: Polymath Profile # 8: BP CTO.
The CTO “Toolkit”.
The CTO Philosophy.
The CTO Team.
The “Ecosystem”.
Recap.
Chapter 22: Moon Shots for Budding Polymaths.
Stretch the Stretch Goals.
Live by Ethos of “And” Not “Or”.
Think Big, but Act Small.
Explore Exotic.
Understand the Power of N.
Hone Your Serendipity “Sensors”.
Benchmark Often and Wide.
Leapfrog – Build on Baselines.
Stay Humble.
Embed Ethics in Innovation Plans.
And All the Side Conversations.
Chapter 23: End Game A “Beginner′s Mind”.
Five Scenarios.
My Reactions.
Notes.
About The Author.
Index.