Collaborative Business Model Engineering [CBME]

I think at this point it's appropriate to insert something I wrote a little while ago, which I believe to be one part of the solution:

"you only have to look to the success of open-source initiatives, such as redhat linux and mozilla firefox, to see that trends in many business models are turning towards open-source collaboration, with many individuals combining their skills, knowledge and experience to achieve one goal, and to provide the next substantial level of growth.

it seems only sensible to believe that bringing together creative ideas from many different sources could well generate the next substantial breakthrough in empowering communities, particularly in poverty-rife third world countries, to provide for themselves and better their own standard of living. to do so will require creative input from many talented people, and the critical debate and analysis to really extract and refine all suitable solutions. this collaboration of talented and creative individuals could generate business models which can realistically be implemented and which are suitably sustainable.

lets say we call it ‘collaborative business model engineering’ [cbme].

would this really work, though?

why not? just take a look at how entrepreneurs have seized opportunities provided by open-source development, such as Mark Shuttleworth with Ubuntu Linux. certainly, their are many benefits to such an idea-generating environment.

for example: in today's information age, ideas (or "intellectual capital", if you prefer) are considered to be incredibly valuable. however, it is this status that has lead to many excellent ideas being effectively wasted, as the "owners" thereof either cannot or will not action them, for a variety of reasons. these reasons include a lack of financing, a lack of skills, or simply a lack of belief in the idea. cbme could provide adequate exposure to a wide variety of skills and experience, thereby identifying and resolving problems with the idea/business model. cbme could possibly provide a forum for connecting willing entrepreneurs with willing financiers. and the discussion and analysis generated by cbme would also ensure that worthy ideas are not merely discarded before being given a fair chance.

in fact, this could be the biggest hurdle to overcome in effectively implementing cbme - namely, instilling the belief in contributors that a sharing of ideas will not result in the world coming to an abrupt end.

however, with a bit of collaboration, innovation and creativity, cbme (and possibly on an open-source basis, just to be a little more insane) could well provide substantial benefits to all participants. ideally, this could also take place in a community environment, providing a feasible method of community upliftment as well.

the question is, do you believe cbme could work?"

The times, they are a-changing

Let's face facts - this is a [fast] changing world.

When I was in school, the road ahead was easy: study hard; go to varsity; get a good degree and a professional qualification; work hard for a while, and the rest was supposed to be easy. Tick, tick, tick, tick, um... boom? (with apologies to Will Smith).

If there's one thing that really drives me up the wall, it's corporate bureaucracy! Having been exposed to large corporates for much of six years I spent in the professional environment, I swear most of corporate South Africa is busy steering the Titanic - it takes about three months and seven levels of management just to turn the ship, but hitting the iceberg is inevitable. Now before you go getting mad at me for saying this, give me one good reason to believe this isn't true. Just one. Any takers?

There are some incredibly intelligent people out there who have seen this coming for a while, and have tried to sound the warning. Tom Peters for one - his book "Re-imagine" is, by miles, the best business book I have ever picked up (and I'm not even halfway through it yet). This is an incredibly challenging read, where every paragraph brings with it serious questioning of the way things are done. Awesome stuff, and I would encourage anyone who has even the faintest interest in business to give it a glance.

What we need to understand going forward is that the rules have changed! And are constantly changing! And we need to be preparing accordingly. We are in a state of flux, but there's no point in preparing the future generation to make the same mistakes as past and current ones. We need to be teaching entrepreneurs how to build flexible, creative, even virtual businesses. And we need to be supporting this as far as possible. Instead, we have enough legislation and red-tape to bury a small country in - literally.

This is my cry - to government, professionals, decision-makers - lets free it up before its too late. We have to take our eyes of our feet, trying to place every foot step perfectly while heading off in who knows what direction. Instead, lets lift our eyes to the horizon, see where we're going and make sure we get there even if we do occasionally make mistakes. After all, its only when we make mistakes that we really learn.

Mahala education - what is it worth?

Okay, so CIDA is not exactly mahala (free). But its certainly is excellent and has established itself as a forerunner in the hunt for a new education model that works.

If you look around a bit more, you can see other signs of the revolution coming, and speeding up as it prepares to hit. Case in point: Open educational resources (OERs). An example of this is MIT OpenCourseWare - with a vast array of educational literature online, you just need to log on, pick your subject and off you go - now that's mahala education.

But with only about 5 million of our 40+ million citizens having internet access, we know its not that simple. Most people don't even have sufficient food, clothing and shelter, let alone access to the internet.


Now don't get me wrong - I'm a firm believer in the internet as a facilitator for the coming revolution in education, but its not going to be the spark that ignites the flame. For that we need more, and like many others out there, I'm wondering what it will be, and what we can do about it.

Consider this - a lady who works for us shared the story of her son's school, where she was with him to register for the new school year (he's about six years old). While standing there, she overheard two of the school's teachers saying that they would never send their own children to that school. And yet, mainly due to geographical distance and finances, she has no other option. Would you, as a concerned parent, feel good sending your child off to school each day?

If the statistics are to be believed (and I'm not saying they're not), we're in pretty good shape with over 96% (as at 2005) of children aged 7 - 17 attending an "educational facility". A few points on this, though:

1. With 35 children for every 1 teacher, as one of this kids in the class, you will get about 3% of the teachers time on average. Most people probably give their pets more time than this.
2. This makes no reference to quality of education, which is a key concern.
3. Education is a long-term project, for which there is no quick fix. It is now 13 years since SA's memorable democratic change-over in 1994 - a full school life. This means we should start seeing the fruit now, but are we?
4. Even if educational shortcomings can be resolved, we need positions to place these school-leavers into. With an official unemployment rate of about 25% (unofficially 40%), is this realistic? At these rates, you statistically have more chance of being jobless after school than you do of attracting your teachers attention in a class of 35.

No, this is not negativity. This is just being realistic. However, as I said before - the revolution is on its way, and I trust that the positive results over the next few years will make the points above seem much less significant. Its about changing lives, and even one life changed makes it worthwhile. And I must admit, I do see lives that have been changed, don't you?

Education vs innovation?

A good place to start is one very close to my heart, as I believe it underlies many of the other critical aspects to making lasting changes - education!

As a nation, this is one of our largest challenges. We have an abundance of creative, energetic young individuals who have amazing ideas that could change the world... if only they knew how.

CIDA has managed to bridge this gap by revolutionising the tertiary education model for developing countries.

I was very fortunate to attend a meeting at CIDA City Campus in 2001, where I was part of a group that saw the inner-workings and met one of the early drivers of the process - Taddy Blecher. Work commitments kept me from making the contribution I wanted to, and I ended up missing out on something incredible - who would've known how it would impact society.

Lesson learned - incredible opportunities come along all the time - don't let them pass you by!

However, education remains one of the greatest opportunities in South Africa. But how do you provide a solid foundation from an early age to children in disadvantaged communities? Well, this is a challenge in any community... but having found a nursery school which provides meaningful input, I'm interested to see if there is a way to roll this out inexpensively, while providing suitable rewards for the teachers and educators involved. There must be a way, and I'll keep you posted on my findings.

Think!

Well, its about that time of the year when winter starts setting in (for those of us here in the Southern hemisphere, anyway), and when curling up under the covers with a good book appeals more to the senses than any other time of year. And I must admit, there are some amazing books out there that I would love to really get stuck into.

I love reading, especially as it will often ignite a creative flint where you least thought one existed. And that's why I'm writing this - I would like to create a place for good ideas to be planted, get watered, grow a bit and eventually bear fruit.

In South Africa, I truly believe this is critical to the successful regeneration of our country - and our continent, for that matter. Don't get me wrong, there are a number of brilliant catalysts out there at the moment (which I will explore in later posts), but we, as a nation, have to catch this! In such a creative nation, where entrepreneurs, artists and inventors abound, lets make this the best environment it can be for these characteristics to flourish! And as I continue to write, I hope that you will join me in exploring and debating how we can make this work, and also share some fresh ideas for growth.

Give it some thought... lets see where it leads to.