{"id":1193,"date":"2006-08-11T10:27:58","date_gmt":"2006-08-11T17:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/?p=1193"},"modified":"2009-11-14T09:25:24","modified_gmt":"2009-11-14T16:25:24","slug":"the-power-of-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/the-power-of-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Goals"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Innovations, a website published by Ziff-Davis Enterprise from mid-2006 to mid-2009. Reprinted by permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

One characteristic that\u2019s almost universally shared by innovative organizations is a commitment to goals. I\u2019m not talking about fuzzy goals like \u201cimprove the customer experience,\u201d but rock-hard, quantitative, measurable and achievable goals, stuff like \u201ccut invoice processing times by 50% within 12 months.\u201d Those are the goals that get results.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a remarkable example of such goal-oriented innovation going on right now in Cambridge, Mass. There, a team led by computing visionary Nicholas Negroponte is building the $100 laptop. Their project has gotten a lot of press and a lot of skepticism. I have to admit that the first time I heard the idea 18 months ago, I thought it was crazy. Everyone knows laptops have to cost north of $500.<\/p>\n

But the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) association, a nonprofit group led by Negroponte, is on its way to achieving that impossible goals. Although early production units are expected to cost about $135 when they ship in early 2007, the $100 price tag is within reach and certainly will be achieved within a year. It is a stunning example of the power of big, hairy audacious goals (\u201cBeehags,\u201d for short).<\/p>\n

The OLPC team came up with a long list of innovations to achieve this milestone. It used open-source software (naturally, since the Windows license would put the machines over the $100 threshold out of the box) and an innovative dual-mode screen based on display technology used in portable DVD players. The screen can display color but can also be switched to black-and-white mode at three times the resolution.<\/p>\n

The units have only 128Mbytes of memory and 500Mbytes of flash ROM. That\u2019s not very much by business standards but, as Negroponte explains it, \u201cToday’s laptops have become obese. Two-thirds of their software is used to manage the other third, which mostly does the same functions nine different ways.\u201d In other words, the project will focus on doing a few basic things well rather than attempting to be all things to all people.<\/p>\n

Broadband wireless networking will be built in, as will mesh networking, a technology being advanced by the MIT Media Lab that enables nearby computers to create a peer-to-peer network that inexpensively expands the power of each computer.<\/p>\n

Finally, each unit will have a hand crank on the AC adapter that can deliver about 10 minutes of power. Designed for rural areas where power is scarce, the innovation strikes me as something that could be handy for business travelers on long plane flights with dying batteries. It\u2019s flat-out brilliant.<\/p>\n

The One Laptop per Child project is a shining example of the power of beehags. The group started with a simple, if seemingly impossible goal, and methodically knocked down barriers until it reached its objective. The toughest problem to solve was the display, but there the team looked to apply technology that was already on the market to a new use. Building on an established product is a form of innovation.<\/p>\n

Give credit to Negroponte for never wavering from the mission. At any point, he could have revised the goal to a $200 laptop, but that would have been too easy. It was up to the team to innovate the last $100 out of the cost. And now that they\u2019re nearly there, you can see $50 laptops on the horizon.<\/p>\n

Give credit, also, to OLPC for changing the rules. If it had focused on simply stripping cost out of today\u2019s low-end laptops, it would have invented an under-powered business machine. Instead, the group looked at the needs of the core audience \u2013 the roughly 80% of school children in the world who have never touched a computer \u2013 and designed a machine from the ground up just for them.<\/p>\n

If the initiative succeeds \u2013 and there\u2019s no guarantee it will \u2013 it could revolutionize the computer industry in unforeseen ways. Laptop computers were designed from the outset to duplicate the power of the desktop as closely as possible. But who says we need to compute that way? Could you be happy traveling with a machine that only did word processing, spreadsheet, e-mail and web browsing, but got eight hours of battery life and weighed about three pounds? We\u2019ve been conditioned to believe that such portability should cost hundreds of dollars more than the price of a conventional laptop. OLPC is turning that on its head, making a lightweight portable machine the cheapest<\/em> option.<\/p>\n

The project could also be a breakthrough for open-source software. U.S. business users are hooked on Windows because that\u2019s all they\u2019ve known for 15 years. The OLPC project works from the assumption that users shouldn\u2019t care about their operating system. Under those conditions, Linux works just fine.<\/p>\n

The One Laptop per Child initiative is innovation personified and a tribute to the power of simple goals. What beehags have made a difference in your life? If you were the boss, what big goals would you assign your team to meet? Let me know in the comments ection below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Innovations, a website published by Ziff-Davis Enterprise from mid-2006 to mid-2009. Reprinted by permission. One characteristic that\u2019s almost universally shared by innovative organizations is a commitment to goals. I\u2019m not talking about fuzzy goals like \u201cimprove the customer experience,\u201d … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[230,231,216],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pTy95-jf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1193"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1782,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1193\/revisions\/1782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}