One of the Biggest Opportunities in History - Part 2
Listening to: Walk A Mile (Featuring Robert Owens) - Coldcut
Actions Speak Louder Than Words
The amazing thing is that when you hunker down and think about the issue of the environment and how things are changing you can see this massive opportunity. We have a chance to create significant social and business change. But the opportunity will only come to fruition if we do something about it.
Individual action is all well and good but it’s not going to take us as far as we need as fast as we need. We need to apply the rules of leverage and that takes a different sort of action. The action I am talking about is harnessing the very forces that got us into the crap in the first place – the market and capitalism key aspects of the biggest lever in humanity. It is the process of taking a risk to create change - start up. The economics of the energy market are shifting and it seems to me that we are potentially on the cusp of a tide of innovation like no other. That tide of innovation has the potential to drive one of the biggest shifts of wealth that the modern world has ever seen.
Almost every single thing and service in the western world sits on this flawed energy economy… it doesn’t take a seriously imaginative person to see the potential of replacing even small parts of the existing system with flaw-free components.
There are a bunch of established industries and groups who derive their power from the positions that they hold in the current energy economy. People holding those positions of power are naturally keen to defend their ground. While they appear unassailable they are actually in positions of power that are brittle. The positions are brittle because the fundamentals are flawed. A brittle position of power is horribly exposed to disruption. The fundamentals are starting to move in the energy industry. The application of imagination will allow the right people to harness that disruption.
As a software developer my life is dominated by this concept of disruption. The core of disruption is that established structures are susceptible to being undermined by left-field ideas. Not only are they susceptible, they are structured in such a way that they often ignore or discount these threats because of their vested interests or inertia. When I started working Microsoft and Intel were on the verge of ruling the world. Soon after I started work the fundamentals shifted. Ten years later the change in the landscape is stark – there is a verdant and vital ecosystem of players at all levels. The value of the positions that Microsoft and Intel now hold is completely different from the ones that they held 10 years ago.
For me the understanding that even the largest opposition has weaknesses and that absolutely nothing in a human system is set in stone simply fuels the realization that this change is a good thing. What is absolutely vital is that for it to be of long term benefit is that the right people need to engage in that change. The right people need to come to the fore with their ideas – they need to shape the interactions between supplier and customers. For the suburban greens to justify their self righteousness they need to step up and be the “right people”.
My experience makes the potential for disruption in the current energy environment blinding obvious. At this point in time I have no idea what form that disruption will take – it will happen and if the volatility of the oil price is any indicator it will happen soon.
The Current System Works Just Fine
The immediate reaction for many suburban greenies is that they don’t want to get into business. You hear things like “business got us to where we are today.” “The system is flawed.” “We need a new form of engagement.” My reaction is “big deal” – solve one problem at a time – we’re on a sinking ship and you’re worried about having to go to the kids dance in the grand ball room because you think boys have got cooties.
One of the most powerful drivers for change in human society is the market; the interaction of buyers and sellers. The thing that makes it so powerful is that it is not static – it has the built-in characteristic of evolution. Going back to the dance analogy – the dance changes as new dancers join in. The upshot of this is that the only way of changing the system is by interacting with it. The corollary is that by seeing climate change and the change in the energy economy as an economic opportunity the suburban greenies will get both a better planet and, if they engage correctly, a different economic system. Neither of these things happens with the current Eco-Organo-mart arrangement.
The current system works just fine. The market is a hugely powerful tool for change. Dismissing the whole thing because of the dubious ethics of some of the more prominent players really is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. What’s more the current system has already cottoned on to the change. If a party wanted to implement change – now is the best time.
Dude! Check that Left Hand Break!
Money is starting to emerge and it is looking for ideas around sustainability. The people behind this money know one thing for certain. They know that where there is opportunity there is even more money to be made. This money is looking for the environmental version of Ford, Google, Nike or Microsoft. These people are betting that by paddling into this sea of potential innovation with the right people they are going to catch themselves a righteous break all the way to the beach – they are going to hang ten all the way and the drink beers on the beach for the of the rest of their lives.
The key is to be the right person with the right idea.
