I attended the Bureau of Innovation’s interactive lecture titled “The World of Innovation,” at the Chamber of Commerce auditorium this week, and listened to Marlon Kock, an IT Specialist who shared the most recent and relevant worldwide innovations, speculating how they could affect business in Aruba.
He talked about the opportunities and challenges these new disruptive strategies bring.
He started nice and slow with robots that will take over many of our jobs, and talked about 3D printing, as applied to the housing and car industries. Yes, printing a house, or a car. The program isn’t easy to write, but it’s doable, with a huge concrete printer layering walls, back and forth, we can build the future’s homes.
He said we could soon make all our old appliances smart, with the help of a small gadget, plugged into a socket, governing the old fashioned washer and dryer, air-conditioning and coffee-maker via WIFI.
But he devoted much time to Bit Coin, an application designed to simplify money and to shrink the banks’ role in commerce. Apparently with the help of digital money systems and new clever applications, the banking industry, a commission sucking dinosaur, will go by the sideways. And while banks resist innovations, they will have no choice but get out of the way when Bit Coin, Block Chain and many other financial alternatives take over the world.
Of course, leaving out the central bank, the government and the tax man out, for now.
Marlon’s advice to us as entrepreneurs was: Think of ways to put yourself out of business. Uber and AirBnB should have never existed, the founders did not come from transportation or hospitality but they came up with a solution to a problem they encountered, and changed the way the world behaves.
IF YOU DON’T THINK OF WAY TO TAKE YOUR SELF OUT OF BUSINESS, HE WARNED, OTHERS WILL DO IT FOR YOU.
He cited the case of Samsung, the South Korean multinational conglomerate, which maintain a state of perpetual crisis to keep the electronics and appliances company on edge, sharp and competitive, fostering a unique paranoid culture and that’s the way the boss like it!
So, instead of just trying to survive in business, hang on with all your might, try to take half a day off each week to think about innovations, which are not new inventions. Innovations teak and refit existing products, and procedures. So take a half day off each week to think about business improvements, read complaint letters for inspiration, because that is where the game-changers lie.
Don’t get comfortable, get nervous, use your imagination to conjure up threats and challenges, then find ways to overcome both.
The Bureau of Innovation is affiliated to The Ministry of General Affairs, Innovation, Sustainable Development and Science. It develops supports and strategically advises on the areas of technological, social and economical innovation for the benefit of a sustainable society. Bianca Peters is the director of the bureau.
(As a footnote: I don’t think we have to take half a day off to come up with ways to take ourselves out of business, the government is already doing that!)
